“Write it.” She turned to kiss me, standing on her cute tiptoes. “I’d like to try that one.”
“Consider it done.” I smiled, gently kissing her back before spinning her to face the ladder. “Now, get your sexy ass up there. I have a surprise for you.”Chapter Eleven
CLIMBING UP THE LADDER, I had no idea what to expect on the second level.
Another bedroom perhaps? Maybe a small sitting area?
“It’s...empty.” I turned to face Sully as he climbed up behind me, his overbearing presence and power making the space feel tight and constricted.
Giving me a half-smile, he marched to the small door at the back. “We’re not there yet.” Sweeping it open, he revealed yet another platform. This one outdoors, canopied by hanging trees, vines, and utterly at one with the jungle.
“Oh, wow.” I stepped from indoors to outdoors, marvelling at the attention to detail Sully went with the VR creation. Heavy flowers in mauves and maroons hung over the balustrade. Bamboo carved lanterns dotted all four corners of the deck and sunlight spangled through the leaves and trunks to stencil the flooring with a golden glow.
There was no furniture, no clutter. Just the backdrop of nature in all its beauty.
Sully sighed as he joined me, drinking in perfection, smiling at a flock of parrots as they darted past.
The flash of jewelled feathers made me miss Pika and Skittles.
Even though our minds were currently in the tropics of some fictional forest, our bodies were in England. If I focused on reality instead of myth, I felt the chill of English weather and the mustiness of an ancient hall.
Goddess Isles was never cold, never damp, never musty. It was forever tropical and temperate, and I found it surprising how homesick I was, considering we’d only been gone a single day.
A crash sounded in the canopy, making me spin around, my necklaces clinking on my chest. A beautifully patterned feline slinked from the branches, leaping gracefully onto the deck with its tail flicking and amber eyes narrowed with intelligence.
I froze.
Fantasy or not, I didn’t fancy pissing off a jaguar. “Eh, Sully?” I didn’t move, relying on him to resolve this uncomfortable situation.
I was naked.
Sully still wore his loincloth.
And the cat had claws sharp enough to disembowel us with one swipe.
“It won’t hurt you, Eleanor.” Sully stepped forward, a soft smile on his face. “Will you, jaguar?”
The cat sat on its haunches and yawned, revealing the longest canines I’d ever seen. Its tongue curled and stuck out in a pink lash as it snarled on the tail of its yawn.
Its pelt was velvet and pigmented with circlets of brown, tan, and cream, mottling its presence to move unseen in the foliage. The natural camouflage was a work of art, even if it was a highly equipped predator who obeyed no one but its own desires.
Goosebumps spread over me.
I wrapped arms around my nakedness and backed up a step. “You programmed everything? Even that?”
Sully looked at me before padding toward the giant jungle beast. “The codes for the animals I copied from the cypher that Drake locked you in.”
I frowned, struggling to remember if I’d seen that particular jaguar in the campsite when I’d been dressed as a native and Drake had been some raping lumberjack who thought he could take what he wasn’t allowed. “The animals only arrived later. After...” I swallowed, remembering in full detail how the fantasy had switched from daylight to darkness and wolves the sizes of cars had magically appeared. “After you entered the illusion.” I shivered, recalling how Sully had come for me. How he’d fought against all odds, ignored broken bones and rapidly fading heartbeats, and conjured a monster with scaled flesh, venomous fangs, and devil horns.
He’d saved me by putting me to sleep. He’d freed me of the fantasy, and I’d never know what he did to Drake, deep within a hallucination that was never about pleasure just revenge.
Keeping my eyes on the jaguar, I murmured, “I never asked you what happened that day, but now, I’m curious.” I braced myself, waiting until Sully made eye contact with me. His blazing blue stare shielded with secrets. “How did you break Drake’s mind?”
Sully froze, his stomach rippling with muscle. “Do you seriously want to know?” Shaking away his stillness, he closed the distance to the jaguar that sat watching us like we were fish caught in a bowl. Holding out his hand, he showed no fear as he stroked the big cat’s velvety head.
I swallowed a gasp as the cat instantly purred and bumped against Sully to be petted harder. The sight of a wild man stroking a hunter, high up in the treetops, dressed in just a loincloth, scrambled my grasp on what was real and what was his illusion.
Sully belonged here.
He belonged in an untouched utopia where he wore sunlight instead of suits and had all the gifts of survival for a raw, undomesticated existence instead of a billionaire pharmaceutical empire.