Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
She didn’t wake up as I carried her.
I hadn’t drugged her to keep her under. I hadn’t used science to keep her unconscious. She’d done that. She’d drowned her system in pleasure, annihilated all her strength and reserves, and finally learned how to let go.
How to be free in sex, in herself…even in sleep.
“Sir?” Calvin appeared from the darkness, only half his face visible from the flickering tiki torch. “I can finish the process. You should…” He came closer, peering into my drawn, exhausted face. “Ah, fuck, you don’t look so good.”
Baring my teeth, I barged past him. “I’m fine.”
“You need to lie down.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” My back straightened with anger, feeding my depleted cells some much-needed indignation.
He muttered something under his breath, trailing after me. He remained behind me all the way to Eleanor’s villa. Scooting in front of me, he opened her door. I groaned as I stepped over the threshold and my gaze fell on her bed.
Christ, I’d give anything to collapse face first into that cool white linen.
My eyelids drooped, sleep coming for me, despite my attempts to stop it.
“Sinclair.” Cal snapped his fingers in my face. “You’ll drop her if you fall asleep.”
I swallowed back fatigue, tripping forward and placing Eleanor softly on the bed I very much wanted to claim for my own.
My arms felt strangely loose and unattached to my body now that her weight no longer rested in them. I swayed. My knees buckled. Cal caught me around the waist and kept me standing. “Come on, let’s get you home. You don’t want to be here when she wakes up.”
I nodded. I didn’t. I didn’t want to witness the flashing hate she’d feel toward me. Not after what I’d been through tonight.
“I’ll finish up. You crawl back to your own place.” He guided me toward the door, but I shook my head and reached deep down for my final reserves.
“Get me the container.”
“Shit, you’re a stubborn son of a bitch,” Cal muttered, marching toward the walk-in wardrobe and the small drawer tucked inside. Each villa had such a drawer. Each goddess went through the same aftercare upon return from Euphoria.
Cal came back, slamming the wooden box with black hinges on the bedspread beside Eleanor’s unconscious form. She lay on her back, her long hair spread like a halo, her naked body bruised and used but also so elegant and perfect. She looked like an innocent princess just waiting for true love’s kiss.
Gritting my teeth, I ripped open the box and pulled out the specially designed towelette. Opening the package, I ran the damp softness over every inch of Eleanor’s skin. She arched her neck as I ran it over her cleavage, still at the mercy of the final dregs of elixir.
My cock twitched in response, but the debilitation of my entire body meant a twitch was all I could manage.
Once she was free from the oil I’d spread over her at the start of the evening, I tossed the soiled towelette back in the box. That oil had allowed her to feel every touch tonight, to sense the heat of the fire, to revel in the softness of fur. Next, I pulled free the earplugs from her dainty ears that allowed a caveman to command her. Moving down her body, I removed the sensor pads on her fingertips that permitted her to feel the male who’d most likely fallen in love with her tonight.
All carefully designed tricks to turn an illusion into a reality.
“Her eyes,” Cal muttered, standing close with his arms crossed. “Want me to get them? You’re not exactly…stable right now.”
I waved him away, and as gently as I could, with quaking hands and a body that wouldn’t stop swaying to do such delicate tasks, I pried open her left and then her right eye, freeing the contact lenses that’d made her see a cave instead of my islands—allowed her to see a man she’d never met before, to fully exist in the deception of Euphoria.
The second the contact lenses fell into the box, Cal scooped it up, shut the lid with a crack, then marched toward the exit.
I trailed after him, glancing one last time at Eleanor.
She looked so vulnerable lying in the dark. So defenceless all alone. Where had she been stolen from? That boyfriend she mentioned…was he looking for her? Or had he given up already?
Goddammit.
Turning around with a groan, I stumbled back to the bed and pulled the white blanket over her nakedness. The night sky still held humidity and heat, but the instant the comforting weight fell over her, she sighed and curled onto her side. Her hair lay strewn over her pillow, inviting me to touch it.
I’d become obsessed with her hair. I didn’t know if it was the length or the colour that appealed to me, or the fact that I could control her with a single fist in the strands—either way, it was a fucking struggle to back away.