What he’d created with Euphoria could be used for the greatest pleasure and for the worst kind of nightmare. What if his program fell into the wrong hands? What if it was used for torture instead of orgasms?

The poor person trapped inside it would have their mind scrambled until it trickled out of their ears, mentally broken forever.

Sully halted my fear, placing my sensor-free fingertips on his chest.

I instantly moaned at the contact.

Not because our skin once again ignited with fire, but because I touched Sully, not a blond stable boy. I ran my hands over hair and muscle. I felt power and heat and a body I recognised over the one I’d never seen before. It was so strange to touch a smaller man yet feel a larger chest. To trust what my fingers told me, rather than my eyes.

He shuddered as I dropped my hands lower, tracing the hard ridges of his belly, teasing the soft flesh above his belt.

His voice thickened with harsher gravel as he continued, “The illusion tonight…the guest you think wore my body?” He waited until I looked up, needing me to concentrate and not ruin both of us with need. “There was no guest, Eleanor.”

I frowned, my fingers stopping their exploration. “But how—”

“It was a computer program.” He bent and kissed me, licking my lower lip once before murmuring, “Do you honestly think I’d be able to let some man touch you now, when I wasn’t even capable of that at the beginning?”

I shivered. “I don’t understand.”

“While learning how to write the cypher for fantasies, I wrote a code for myself. I copied my attributes and uploaded an avatar into the system. I’ve never used it…until now. It can be run without a host. I just type dialogue…and allow the program to interact with you.”

“So…it was you. Just…”

“It was empty. A hollow hologram.” He nuzzled into me. “Precisely what I was before I met you.”

“I…I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. It’s my turn to speak.” His hand skated up my back, cradling my nape and pulling my hair until I tipped my head back. “Keep your eyes open.”

I sucked in a breath as his fingers loomed over my eye. I fought the urge to shut him out, straining as he carefully pinched the lens obscuring what was real and what was not.

I winced as he removed it.

Tossing the first one to the ground, he smiled.

I flinched.

My brain boycotted the imagery. One eye was free to see Sully on his knees in the stark villa of Euphoria. The other was programmed to view a blond farm boy with hay in his hair. The two images overlapped, flickering and giving me an instant headache.

I recoiled backward, shaking my head at the scrambled input.

“It’s okay. Don’t fight it. Come here.” Sully captured me again, carefully touching my pupil and removing the other sensor.

For a second, I kept my eyes closed, willing my head to stop pounding.

Sully waited patiently, his hands falling from my hair, not touching me at all.

With a heavy inhale, I stiffened and opened my eyes.

Sully.

In his shirtless, island glory.

Dark hair with their rebellious bronze tips. Sculptured body with its faint silver scars, so many stories from a past he refused to tell. Pressed trousers instead of jeans, kneeling on the tiled floor.

His lips glistened from our previous kiss. His chest rose and fell with hesitant breath. His exquisite blue gaze crashed with waves of blue and worry. Lines bracketed his mouth as if afraid I’d climb to my feet and bolt, and his forehead never unfurrowed, the strain of being honest painting him in a harsh, unforgiving light.

He looked older.

He looked exhausted.

He looked on the brink of that burnout he’d been running full speed toward.

His hand touched my naked thigh. “Please forgive me, Eleanor. Forgive me for putting you through that. Forgive me for scaring you, for being cruel to you, for not trusting what exists between us. I used that trick to prove to myself that I was stupid to feel so strongly for you. To school myself, once and for all, that you didn’t love me. You couldn’t love me. That I could never hope to be worthy of having you.”

He traced my knee, sending another flush of goosebumps up my limbs. “But…instead of breaking myself…I fear I’ve broken any trust you had. I fear that I’ve lost you, even while I touch you. I fear that I went too far, and that no matter what truth I give you…it won’t be good enough.”

He kept his gaze on my thigh. His touch warm and filled with that never-ending voltage.

My chest ached for him.

For his vulnerability. For his unshielded heart without his many, many walls.

Had he gone too far?

Could things be different now that we’d touched the end and both recoiled from it?

Only one thing would prove that this was salvageable, this was survivable.

One sentence to be said without any masks, disguises, or ways to take back his vow.

I placed my hand over his, pressing his touch into my naked thigh. The blue-flowered dress I’d worn in the hay barn had vanished, along with the hay, the boy, and the lace-ups.

It was just him and me.

A girl and a monster.

And an empty room full of possibilities.

Chapter Twenty-Two

 

MY HAND CAUGHT FIRE under hers.

I looked up, bracing against her rejection.

My heart lurched with panic because her grey gaze held one chance.

A single chance to fix this.

The knowledge of what I had to do blazed through my body.

She opened her mouth to ask. The first sound of her request fell from her lips.

But I intercepted her.

I didn’t want her to ask.

I didn’t want her to think she’d made me do this.

I wanted this to be the moment where she became mine…forever. Despite what I was. Despite what I did. Despite everything I’d done to her.

Snatching her around the waist, I yanked her naked body from the bare tiles and straddled her over my lap. The harness still trapping her jingled a little as her legs spread on either side of my hips, revealing her pussy, showing that she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

My erection strained against my trousers. My heart bashed against my ribs as our bare chests touched. I could barely breathe as I dived my hands into her hair and captured her head so she had no choice but to look at me.

Her long chocolate strands puddled over my legs. Her lips parted. Her eyes flared.

And I tore off my final mask.

For her.

I gave myself no going back, no pretending I hadn’t said such a thing, no way of convincing her she’d heard wrong.

“I love you, Eleanor Jinx Grace. I love you for your fire, your bravery, your stubbornness. I love that you’re not afraid of me. That you call me out on my bullshit. That you are the mirroring piece of everything that I lost along the way. I love that you are so kind to animals. That you are cursed with the same empathy I carry. That you’re a goddamn vegetarian. I love that Skittles fell for you, even though she’s the reason I lost everything I am. I lost everything because I gave it all to you the moment I saw her land on your shoulder. I love that you’re different from anyone else I’ve ever met. I love that every time we touch, we spark.”