A swim did sound good.
A swim beneath the cloudless star-scattered sky sounded almost as enticing as ripping off her bikini and pushing her against a tree.
But...Eleanor was right.
Anticipation was the best kind of foreplay.
Fine, I could be patient.
I think.
Tucking her into my side, I looked down her cleavage and the pinpricks of hard nipples beneath black Lycra. “I can see you’re aroused, but how much?” Licking the shell of her ear, I asked, “How wet are you, Jinx?”
She shivered in my hold, but she didn’t blush. We’d shared too many deliciously deviant things together to be embarrassed. “I’m getting wetter with every step. I will admit, I didn’t think this through. A twenty-minute walk might just kill me.” She blinked in the darkness. “Feel free to select any palm tree to have your wicked way with me.”
I grinned. “Oh, you’re not getting off that easy. You’re the one who wanted to torture us. I’ll oblige.”
She moaned under her breath. “Tease.”
“Witch.” Chuckling, we fell into a familiar pace, leaving behind our home by Nirvana and stepping through the dark jungle where most nocturnal animals came awake and feasted on berries and moths. Most birds should be roosting by now but not our two parrots. The emerald flashes of their wings hinted they followed us, zipping through shadowy bushes and shooting toward the stars just because they could.
“You have a good day?” Eleanor asked.
My heart fisted. Who would’ve thought I’d be as enthralled to share my day with her as I was about having sex? Our domestication was as precious to me as entering Euphoria and having a night of freaky inhibition as cavewoman and Neanderthal.
That was one of our favourite fantasies, and we’d replayed it multiple times over the years.
I kissed her temple, unable to stop myself from squeezing her hip. “Yeah, good. Promising advances in a few areas. Peter Beck is keen to move to human trials.”
“That’s great.” She smiled. “I’m glad. Oh, did you hear the news about Rapture? We’ve been awarded the best Couple Retreat and Relationship Repair Award from Romance Tourism.”
I nodded. “I did. You should be proud.”
“Not me.” She shook her head, sending her long hair tickling my forearm wrapped around her waist. “You. Without your VR and cinta, we’d be just another place for doomed marriages to drag out their death in a therapist’s office.”
“You’re the one who started that side of our business, Eleanor. Don’t sell yourself short. The success of Rapture is all thanks to you.”
“Maybe, but only because I was too selfish to have guests stay here.” She waved her arm at our perfect solitude. At Pika and Skittles having an aerial battle above and the soft hoots of owls in the gloom. Sandstone-carved lanterns guided us with patches of stencilled light on the sand, and the only hint that we lived in a world where other humans existed was the faint laughter of a staff member enjoying his evening in the distance.
“I couldn’t share this. Even though the goddess villas are empty and could’ve easily been rented out.”
“I’m glad you suggested offsite. I’m glad Rapture is doing so well, and I’m also glad we don’t have guests upon these shores anymore.”
Rapture was the name of the three-island atoll I’d leased long term, just off the coast of Tahiti. We’d built matching villas there, designed guest areas, activities, and built a new Euphoria building.
Euphoria used to be how I made a shit ton of money renting out goddesses to men who wanted certain kicks. Now, it saved dysfunctional marriages.
Here, Euphoria had long since been transformed into an animal sanctuary, but on Rapture...a new chapter had begun. My virtual reality technology, coupled with the playrooms and aphrodisiac I’d tweaked from elixir, had been given a new purpose.
On Rapture, it helped unhappy couples duke out their problems, argue out their grievances, and then make up in spectacular fucking fashion.
Some couples, along with therapy and a weeklong stay—away from the stress of life and meddling families—were able to focus on the nucleus of why they married each other and return home with a much happier marriage. Unfortunately, some couples, despite the immersion and help we gave them, couldn’t let their guards down to even step into the virtual reality playground and divorced anyway.
And then there were the couples who enjoyed their fantasies so much, they purchased a home kit of VR sensors and a bottle of cinta to ensure sex remained fun within their relationship.
Thanks for the sales of VR and the outside use of my heavily copyrighted technology, yet another branch of our business had emerged.
The sensors that convinced a human’s mind that what they heard, saw, felt, and tasted were as real as the life around them ensured such corporations like space travel, deep-sea diving, and everything in between had purchased kits for education.