I grew instantly hard.
Not that I wasn’t constantly hard these days, thanks to that hexing witch.
I should’ve sent her away the moment I laid eyes on her and felt that warning kick of intrigue.
That had never happened before.
I’d heard other men boast how they’d met the one, and they just knew…instantly. But I wasn’t a romantic fool, and I didn’t believe in destiny or soul mates. I believed in logic and explanation, and it made me fucking rage not to have an answer as to why every part of me locked onto Eleanor and hummed at high attention. Why I found her more beautiful than any girl on my island. Why I suffered such fury at the thought of renting her out. Why I couldn’t stop fucking thinking about her.
Goddammit.
Lying on my back, I let the drifting current carry me toward the shore.
Tonight, I would send another email. I would request a different girl. Someone to be delivered quickly. Someone who was the exact opposite of my most recent curse. And that new acquisition wouldn’t join my stable of goddesses; she’d be my own personal toy.
I’d use her nightly.
I wouldn’t be intrigued by her.
It would be purely basic, brutal sex.
That was all I needed. Just like exercise cleared my head, a good fuck would clear my system from its inconvenient obsession with Eleanor Grace.
Letting my legs sink to the bottom, I shivered as my toes threaded into warm sand. Relief came from deciding, but my cock remained hard as a fucking palm tree. I couldn’t walk out of the sea with it sticking out the top of my shorts—not with three tipsy goddesses giggling and having far too much fun.
I wasn’t kidding when I told Eleanor that the women who’d been here long enough to know the good thing they had all wanted into my bed. They’d grown spoilt and lazy and enjoyed the hierarchy of being adored and lavished with gifts and luxuries.
They didn’t want to go home.
And I couldn’t fucking blame them.
Goddess Calico was the latest to try to seduce me. She’d picked the lock on my villa and slipped into my bed a month ago. She’d served three-and-a-half years. She was due to return to her humdrum life in six months.
She’d reached for me. I’d stopped her.
She’d tried to kiss me. I’d pushed her away.
She’d made mistake after mistake, trying to make me keep her.
That was why I had the four-year contract—signed by me and them. There was an ending, for both of us. A timeline of togetherness before going our separate ways. Because, in reality, I didn’t want to have to be responsible for them as they grew older and less likely to perform.
Just like thoroughbred horses were bred, bloodlines were favoured, and hundreds of thousands of foals were destroyed if they didn’t prove they could race, I kept my goddesses in the best possible care for as long as they were useful.
Four years was the optimum time for their sexual use.
After that…they weren’t valuable to me anymore, and why should I pay for the best upkeep, care, and nutrition if they were no longer a worthwhile investment?
How was I any different to any other consumer?
I used a product from prime to retirement and then sent it to pasture. At least I didn’t kill them when they stopped being of use. I paid them the four hundred thousand dollars that I hid in the fine-print of their contract—paying them for their time, and ensuring their servitude had been mutually beneficial.
It also provided an alibi that they’d been well compensated for their ‘employment’ if they ever went to the police. A signed and sealed contract, blatantly advertising what they willingly did. All they had to do was take the money and stay quiet, or give it back and fight to survive in a world that wasn’t paradise.
Too bad Eleanor Grace, the stubborn twenty-something with silver embers in her eyes, couldn’t be as grateful as her predecessors. If she knew how desired I was, she might understand how honoured she was to enjoy my company. How goddamn privileged she’d been that I’d dared let her ride my fingers.
She’d had more of me than any of these willing girls, yet she acted as if I was the devil.
Well, luckily, I’d reined myself in, and from now on, I wouldn’t be touching any of them.
Especially that spirited hellcat who I couldn’t leave the hell alone.
The soft current pushed me forward and back as the waves lapped noiselessly against the icing sugar sand. I debated swimming to the other side of the island to avoid the women, but in truth, I wanted to write that email. I wanted to get it over with so I could stick with my plan and not do something psychotic when it came time for Jinx to be handed over in two days.