AS AN entirely new world unfolded before me.
The chirps of birds pierced my comprehension first. The babble of a brook. The crash of a waterfall. The exotic hum of cicadas in the trees serenading with a tropical symphony.
Unlike previous fantasies that loaded in complete detail, this one evolved from white nothingness into the most extraordinary jungle. Palm trees soared from soil. Leaf matter littered the earth. Glossy bushes, vibrant flowers, and sweeping banyan trees all swept toward the skies.
Once the trees were in place, vines dripped from their branches, delivering bromeliads and jewelled frogs and the intricate ecosystem of a humid forest.
The bird and cicada song was drowned out as monkeys chattered in the treetops, and the snuffle of wild pigs and slither of snakes whispered in the undergrowth.
Everywhere I looked, life existed.
Not just flora but fauna too.
A deer bounded off in a spiel of sunlight.
A black panther slinked up a tree trunk.
A toucan flew low with its beak glistening with colour.
And then, there was Sully.
A man with two legs and two arms but the heart of a beast who belonged wholeheartedly in a place of wilderness over any castle or city.
I swallowed a gasp as I drank him in.
His hair was slightly longer, teasing the tops of his shoulders, loose and tangled. His delicious body was bare apart from a simple loincloth made of softened, plaited reeds. His sun-browned stomach rippled with ridges and power. His arms bunched as he fisted his hands by muscular thighs. His feet planted into the soft dirt, and his head cocked like a predator just sensing which way his prey would run.
He hadn’t changed his outward appearance. He still looked like my husband in every delicious way possible. Just...untamed.
He grinned as his gaze dropped from mine and skated down my body. “Hello, darling wife. I see my choice of wardrobe suits you well.”
I followed his stare, fingering the strung shells and delicate beads on multiple cords around my neck. They hung low, dipping into my cleavage with a jingle and jangle of jewels.
My hair was loose and tickled my naked back. My breasts were bare, my ankles were decorated with strings of more beads and shells, and on my hips hung a simple flaxen skirt.
I looked as primitive as him.
As wild as him.
I grinned. “Is this what you fantasise about when I’m wearing actual clothes?”
“It’s what I jerk off to when you’re not around.”
I stepped toward him, letting a spike of jealousy taint my tone. “You pleasure yourself without waiting for me?”
He matched my step, closing the distance between us. “I have no choice. You’ve bewitched me, woman. I can’t expect you to serve me every time I have a dirty thought about you.”
“You can.” I reached out to touch the turquoise macaw feather that fluttered from the treetops and snagged in Sully’s hair. “I want you to.”
He shuddered as my fingertips grazed his cheek. “I want you now.”
“How much?”
Grabbing my wrist, he fanned my fingers and pressed them under his loincloth. “So fucking much.”
I fisted his cock.
He grunted and swayed, his eyes shooting shards of temper.
His loincloth didn’t wrap between his legs, leaving the heavy weight of his balls and the thickened steel of his erection bare.
I took full advantage.
Stroking him, I murmured, “It feels like you want me a lot.”
He bit his lip, turning him from sexy to downright fuckable. “I’m barely holding on.”
“Then let go.” I wedged my thumb against the top of his cock, pressing down and making him jolt. “I want you to let go.”
Sucking in a breath, he wrapped his hand around my nape and jerked me into him. His lips met my ear, and his hot command slipped directly into my soul. “What I want is for you to run, gorgeous Eleanor.”
A second passed.
My heart pounded.
He pulled away, and our eyes locked.
His eyebrow cocked as he looked over my shoulder to the wild forest behind me. I’d run from him when he’d been high on elixir, and that had ended with us fornicating until he almost drowned.
That part had been terrifying, but the rest? The chase, the hunt, the pounce, the mount...it’d been dangerously erotic.
Dropping his hand from my nape and removing my fingers from his cock, he breathed, “Run.”
Fire shot down my legs.
Lust exploded into every extremity.
I ran.
I spun and bolted, leaping over fallen logs and vanishing into the thicket of vines, humidity, and undergrowth. My necklaces tinkled a runaway song. My anklets tickled my legs. My flaxen skirt kissed my naked thighs. And every