How many goddesses did he have exactly?
How many guests stayed here at any one time?
“What’s wrong?” His eyes tightened, assessing me from head to toe. “Are your feet burning? Need me to carry you?” His lips twitched with a smug smirk. “I don’t mind carting you into the jungle. However, I can’t promise you won’t be fucked at some point along the way.” He ducked, nuzzling his nose into my neck and biting me gently. “It’s almost impossible to walk beside you and not press you against a palm tree to sink inside you.” Gathering me against his body, he pressed his erection against my belly. “I’m in fucking torture, Jinx. Last time I was this hard, you’d snuck elixir into my drink. This time…it’s because you’ve gifted me your heart.”
I shivered as he licked his way up my throat, tasting the salt on my skin and drinking up my tattered sigh. “Why did you tell me to stop?” he murmured, his tongue tracing my collarbone.
My core clenched. No underwear meant the wetness he conjured mingled with our already shared pleasure, making the insides of my thighs sticky. I really wanted to swim. I needed to be clean. So we could repeat everything all over again.
My mind went blank as he squeezed my breast, fingering my nipple and biting hard on the crux of my shoulder and neck.
“I…” I swallowed hard, doing my best to wrangle my sex-scattered thoughts into some sort of orderly fashion.
Sully pulled away, his eyebrows tugged low, searching my face as if the reason I’d pulled him to a halt was a bad one. That I’d woken up from whatever fugue he’d put me in and expected me to admit this was wrong. To announce that he wasn’t the man I wanted, after all.
The mix of fear and fury in his eyes punctured my heart.
Swooping up on my toes, I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. Hard. Our lips bruised and tongues instantly sought each other’s.
Mouths open, DNA exchanged, slippery and sexy with hunger.
He groaned, crushing me in his arms as our kiss deepened until I forgot about the need to swim and begged for him to pluck me from my feet and do what he’d threatened: to push me against a tree and fuck me.
“Christ, Eleanor.” He growled as I dropped my hand and fisted his straining erection. He quaked in my hold, his hips shooting forward, pressing more of his hardness into my control.
He wasn’t lying.
He felt like a piece of scorching steel.
His mouth captured mine again, faster and deeper, determined to kill me with lust.
I pumped him all while his hand skated down my belly and cupped me through my dress. My body instantly reacted. My clit swollen and needy. My inner muscles desperate to come again.
All it would take was to spread my legs and unzip him.
But…he’d already taken me on a pathway. He’d had me on my knees and on my back and screaming out for mercy. Elixir had been the primary driving force for our first violent sexscapades.
But this afternoon…I wanted more.
Dropping my hand from his cock, I gently pushed his touch away from my pussy and plastered myself against him. My arms linked tight around his waist while I pressed my cheek over his heart and listened to the rampant chugging of his pulse.
He froze.
His back stiffened and muscles locked. “What are you—”
“I’m hugging you.” I squeezed him harder. “I stopped you because I wanted to hug you.”
He remained unyielding in my hold.
It took forever.
A painful forever that spoke so much of his past that he didn’t relax straight away. His body continued to hum with power that could switch to violence at any moment, almost as if a hug always came with consequences he had no strength to face.
Finally, a heart-breaking groan slipped from his lips as his spine went lax and his arms wrapped around me, squeezing me so damn tight.
He kissed the top of my head, all while squashing me into him. A hug that ought to be soft and sensual vibrated with savage severity. He hugged me as if I’d vanish at any moment.
My bones ached as we stayed clinging to each other, hidden by foliage and ferns, feeling things so awfully intense it crippled us from the inside out.
I’d never felt this way.
Ever.
About anyone.
I’d never been borderline tears just because he was alive. Never jealous of fictitious events that would take him away from me. Never afraid of losing this priceless treasure of togetherness.
The soft flutter of feathers announced we were no longer alone.
Pika landed on Sully’s head, and Skittles took up position on my shoulder. Two winged creatures who seemed unsurprised that we’d morphed into one person.
Sully chuckled in my ear as Pika squeaked and fossicked around in Sully’s strands. Skittles had more decorum, giving us space to finish our hug in relative peace.