Nothing.
Goddammit.
Tearing my phone out of my pocket, I spun around and brought up the number for Calvin. I’d get him to hop in the fastest speedboat and circle the island.
She can’t have gotten far.
Just as I was about to connect the call, a caique parrot with the energy of a cocaine-snorting flea shot through the air and into the bathroom thanks to the open-air garden. He chirped and flapped around my head. “Not now,” I growled.
He landed on my head and did his trick of hanging upside down, latching onto my hair to stare me dead in the eye, making me go cross-eyed if I wanted to look at him.
“Pika…” I bared my teeth. “If you want to be useful, find that damn goddess that’s run away.”
My hand curled around my phone. I’d expected the worst from Eleanor…but it was highly fucking inconvenient that she’d decided to bolt mere moments before having to serve Markus Grammer.
The tiny parrot did an acrobatic flip off my forehead and flapped noisily around my ears. I rolled my eyes, holding up my hand so he could perch on a finger.
He landed instantly, still cawing and cackling as if telling me all the reasons I shouldn’t be here and why I should’ve done myself a favour and kicked Jinx off my island days ago.
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Bringing my hand to my face, I nuzzled into the little bird. Letting him peck my lips and coo into my cheek. He settled, still jumpy from my rage at finding an empty bathroom but content that I still loved him, and it wasn’t him I was mad at.
A gentle slosh and a trickle of water ripped me around.
I blinked.
A wash of red-hot need fired through my veins.
She hadn’t run away…after all.
Jinx sat up in the bath, water streaming over her face and hair, flower petals sticking to her bitter chocolate strands. The scent of sandalwood, orange, and vanilla coated her skin from soaking in a specially prepared blend.
The bath held so much water that only her face was visible, but it didn’t stop my cock from thickening to a steel rod.
Her grey eyes flickered from me to Pika and back again. For the longest second, confusion blended with something akin to shock. Her tongue swiped on her lower lip, sipping the droplets left there. Her hands curled around the edge of the bath, white-knuckled as if my presence drove her to homicidal rage.
“You’re still here.” I stepped toward her, not caring that Pika flew from my finger and flapped around my face like a tiny annoying shadow.
She didn’t look at me, preferring to follow the feathered fiend and his aerial acrobatics. “You have a pet?”
I shoved my hands into my pockets. “He’s not a pet.”
“Pet. Pet. Pet!” Pika shouted, darting to the floor and then to the ceiling. He knew he had her utmost attention, and he loved being the main event. He’d continue showing off until his wings fell off or he flew into a wall.
Which he had a tendency of doing.
“He can’t be wild.” Her eyes narrowed. “He talks and clearly adores you.”
I shrugged. “He goes where he wants and hangs out with who he chooses.”
“Sounds like he has more freedom than anyone on this island.”
“He does.” I ran a hand over my mouth. “Even more than me.” For the first time in my life, I had no fucking idea what to say. The usual commands and curses would fit. I could order her from the bath, make her hurry; prove I was still in control. But…there was something different between us. Something languid and expectant…a pause in the next paragraph.
She didn’t rush to fill the silence, and I drowned beneath white lightning possessiveness. Had I really agreed to let that asshole Grammer fuck her? What had I been thinking? It ought to be me with that right. She belonged to me, goddammit. And I wanted her. So. Fucking. Bad.
Moving toward her, I couldn’t ignore the chugging of my heartbeat as lust I’d done my best to ignore smashed through my walls.
I’d thought keeping my distance would eradicate whatever curse she’d put on me.
It’d only made it stronger.
Fuck.
She huddled in the bath, sinking into the warmth until only her eyes were visible. The dark stone blurred her body, hiding her in shadows and illusion.
I fought against every fucking urge not to snatch her and take her for my own. Instead, I swallowed back starvation for sex, and grunted, “Why are you a vegetarian?”
A question that’d driven me mad. A question that kept me up at night and refused to let me masturbate in the morning. A question that could ensure her safety or her damnation.
She popped back up again, sucking in air, her eyes glowing grey with perplexity. “You want to know why I’m a…vegetarian?”
I nodded, gritting my teeth so I didn’t do all the debasing acts currently running on a highlight reel inside my mind.