it seem so easy, yet it was the hardest thing in the fucking world.
Our tongues clashed. My cock thickened. I arched my hips into her belly, blatantly showing her what sort of voodoo she cast over me. How much I wanted her, even still sore from elixir.
She gasped as I captured her bottom lip with my teeth, biting down, ceasing our kiss with a threat of pain. Her breath skated over my mouth, sweet from raspberries and kiwifruit.
Our eyes opened, so close, too close. Everything was hazy with need, and the grey smokiness of her eyes made me come face to face with the ashes of whatever I had left. Just dust and ashes and the lies I kept telling myself.
If I let go entirely, what would that mean? Where would we go from here? What the fuck sort of future would we have? I already had complete ownership over her in the form of a trafficker’s contract and hefty funds exchanged.
I didn’t need to marry her to get her to obey me.
I didn’t need to put a goddamn ring on her finger to keep her forever.
I’d skipped past those silly human rituals and used commerce to secure her instead.
While my mind ran headfirst into walls I didn’t know how to erase, she pulled her lip from my teeth. Wincing a little, she completely annihilated me by not stepping out of my hold as I expected but by wrapping her arms around my waist and snuggling her entire face into my chest.
Ah, Christ.
Her kiss was one thing.
Her hug?
It fucking demolished me. Towers, barricades, gates and all, leaving my chest an empty wasteland where my heart lay totally exposed, begging her to save it.
I shook as she pressed a kiss into my t-shirt. She murmured something I couldn’t hear. My ears throbbed to know. To have her be the first to admit that we were well and truly fucked by finding each other, but when I slid my touch under her chin and angled her face to look up, I wished I’d kept her request silent. “What did you say?”
“I asked what Calico’s, Jupiter’s, and Neptune’s real names are.”
I froze but answered her question. After all, I’d just familiarized myself with their files since this nasty catastrophe. “Calico is Sonya Teo, Jupiter is Lucy Hall, and Nep is Ally Bishop.”
“And what do you have planned for them?”
I bared my teeth. “You won’t let that go, will you?”
“No. I…need to know.”
My nostrils flared. “I plan on reminding them of their place. I’ll ensure they’ll never even look at you again. That reminder will keep you safe.”
She flinched. “I know what will keep me safe.”
Stranding them on an island with bare necessities? Selling them to a guest? Locking them in wire-bottom cages for the rest of their contract?
Eleanor sucked in a breath, searching for courage as she whispered, “Send them home. It’s homesickness that’s upset them. They’re confused and lost and seeing us…seeing what we’ve found…it’s pushed them too far.” She kissed my chest again, shivering. “They deserve to go home, Sully. Please…let them go.”
Chapter Thirteen
THE ATMOSPHERE BETWEEN US went from tentative truce to dark and ominous. My stupid request to give the girls their freedom smashed apart the strangely sweet aloneness on Lebah, ensuring Sully withdrew into himself.
He made an excuse of returning home to welcome a new guest, and the rest of our journey was strained and silent.
The only sound was the boat, slicing through the sea, so much faster than I’d rowed in my stolen kayak. The sky above had lost its cerulean glow, becoming ebony velvet instead. The moon was absent, but stars made up for its no-show with a spritz and bright scattering of silver lights.
Pika and Skittles had snagged a perch on the throttle where Sully commandeered us home, both of them drowsy with their little heads sagging and eyes drooping for rest.
I sympathised with their tiredness. I’d been gliding on a false high ever since Sully hinted how he felt about me, but that’d well and truly popped thanks to my stupid request.
He doesn’t understand, though.
I didn’t ask him to give up part of his business—even though a person’s life should never be someone’s property—I asked him to return what he’d stolen.
I also asked out of my own peace of mind and self-preservation. I doubted I’d ever be safe unless they got what they wanted. And they wanted Sully. It was either share himself around or return them to families who missed them. Send them back