I shouldn’t take such glee in my brother’s pain, but…he fucking deserved it.
I owed him plenty more. Most of the bones in my body had been autographed by his torments in our youth. And, apart from the incident where ropes had gnawed their way down to bone while Pongo was murdered, my parents never fully took my side again.
They buried their head in the sand that they’d birthed an abomination. A boy who had a taste for mutilating his kin.
The board had also been dealt with.
Calvin had explicitly reminded them that just because they oversaw my interests, gave advice on our standing on the global market, and provided day-to-day care of my investments, it didn’t mean they were above the law.
Above me.
Five were fired.
Six heavily reprimanded.
Three served warnings.
Meanwhile, Peter Beck and his lab assistants had been given a million-dollar grant to focus on whatever leads he felt worthy of pursuing. And another million to invest in additional lab equipment.
Calvin had done well.
It still fucked me off that he’d been the one who’d laid a hand on my brother, but…if I had to choose again, I would still have chosen to run after Eleanor.
And that was the goddamn, disgraceful truth.
After our discussion, I’d snuck another look at my watch.
Three p.m.
I’d agreed for Roy Slater to enter Euphoria at four. I still had to program his fantasy. A fantasy that I frankly found disgusting based on his close relationship with his son and daughter-in-law, but the money had already been deposited into my account.
A deal was a deal.
A bargain non-negotiable.
Opening the software to begin cyphering the virtual reality world that would whisk Eleanor from my control and into Roy Slater’s, I fisted the key from my pocket and tossed it at Calvin. “I appreciate all you’ve done and, you’ll receive a bonus reflecting my thanks, but get back to work. Go and release my goddess. Take her to Euphoria.”
Calvin’s eyebrow rose. “She serving?”
I pinned him with a stare that dared him to speak out of line. “You know she is.”
He stood with the key to her padlock fisted in his palm. “You’ll prepare her…like last time? I don’t suggest you do that. Your cock was inches away from—”
“Stop.” I bared my teeth. I went to say of course I wouldn’t prepare her. That I wasn’t stupid enough to touch her again. That I had more sense than to let my lust control me. I should shake my head and lock myself deeper into this nightmare I’d found myself in.
If I went to her now, who knew what the fuck I was capable of.
But my eyes strayed to the apothecary cabinet holding the vials of elixir, and I found myself standing and burying my fists in my desk. “She is mine to do with as I please. Just as you are employed to obey me.” Sitting back down, I fixed my stare on my laptop, ready to code a fantasy. “So go do what you’ve been told, and inform her she has one hour.”
* * * * *
Three-forty p.m.
Twenty minutes before Roy was due to have the best goddamn sex of his life with the girl I couldn’t stop wanting, and I’d once again made a colossal mistake.
I entered Euphoria with the elixir vial burning a hole in my palm. I strode past Jealousy, who’d no doubt offered moral support for Jinx while she’d prepared herself, and entered the virtual reality room where Eleanor already waited.
She’d been washed, cleansed, and harnessed.
Naked and magnificent, her body glowed perfect alabaster instead of sun-pinked. The minor scratches on her chest had faded, the painful sores on her hands reduced. With her luxurious hair that begged to be fisted and her grey smoky eyes that held countless secrets, I was hard within a fucking millisecond.
A staff member appeared from the bathroom door, wheeling the trolley with all the sensory applications to turn a fantasy into reality. The girl stopped short and waited for a command.
I shouldn’t be here.
I should place the elixir on the trolley and leave.
But my hand rose, and I waved the staff away.
Eleanor’s head tipped up as the girl nodded, left the trolley, and hightailed it back into the bathroom. The same bathroom where I’d yanked Jinx from the bath, stuck my tongue down her throat, and come to the shit-scary idea that I wanted her more than just physically.
My lust hid something deeper.
Something that made me die a thousand deaths a second.
Our eyes caught as I stepped toward her. Her nipples pebbled, her skin puckered with goosebumps, and she shuddered in her binds. Her body welcomed me, but her eyes blazed silver fire, smouldering with ire.
Placing my hands into my pockets, I clutched the vial of elixir as I stopped before her. I demanded my fingers to remain inside the material and not to cup her swollen breasts. “Pleasant night?”