The illusion that trust would hurt him. Trust would bruise and kick and punch him. Trust would kill his animals, his sanctuary, his heart.
My voice lost its heat, mimicking the ice he cast himself in. I arched my chin in his hold. I locked eyes with the one man I was made for, and hissed, “You make me serve a real guest, Sully, and whatever this is between us, is dead. No resuscitation. No reincarnation. I will never speak to you again. I will never look at you again. I will treat you as you’ve treated me. With disdain and impatience. I will turn my back on you when you summon me to serve. I will spit in your face if you touch me. I would rather sink to the bottom of the ocean than ever let you fuck me again.”
I sniffed, unable to hold back the two droplets of pure fury as they cascaded down my cheeks. “You do this, and you are invisible to me.”
His hand fell from my cheeks.
His chest strained in his suit. His arm trembled as he raked fingers through his bronze-tipped hair. Stumbling toward the trolley, he growled, “Put the harness on, Jinx.”
For a second, I heard a fairy-tale. I heard him say, ‘I love you with all my fucking heart. I’m sorry. You’re right. I do trust you.’
Instead, reality slapped me in the face, and I nodded with finality.
He chose to believe what he’d seen. That I’d betrayed him and given my name to a guest. He ignored my explanation. He rejected what Adam Marks had said.
He’d survived for too long without love or trust.
Jealousy was right.
Sullivan Sinclair was rushing headfirst toward a crash and burn break down. A burnout of his own making because he refused to allow anyone to carry a tiny piece of his heart.
I nodded slowly.
Another cloak of goosebumps settled.
My temper vanished with a silent scream of frustration.
My heart stopped thumping with violence and turned sick with loss.
So be it.
With sudden shakiness, I grasped the harness and quickly slipped it around my waist, shoulders, and thighs.
I didn’t look at him.
I kept my part of the bargain.
He was invisible.
He was nothing.
He’s gone.
Sully stood by as I secured the clasp, ruthless with silence.
The snap of the lock made me wince.
I let my arms fall to my sides, closing my eyes when Sully’s fingers grazed my belly, testing the latch, ensuring I’d obeyed and properly secured it.
With a fierce grunt, he passed me the small jar of oil. “Smear this over yourself.”
I swallowed back the sand and coral in my throat, ready to speak over the rubble left by our argument. To ask why he didn’t do it himself.
But he’d made his decision.
And I’d made mine.
I would never speak to him again.
Snatching the jar, I tipped a glistening puddle into my spare hand and rubbed it over my skin. I kept my teeth gnashed together as I diligently spread and coated my entire body.
The silence festered between us, rotten and full of goodbye.
His nostrils flared as I passed back the empty jar.
His five o’clock shadow seemed darker around his mouth, shadows swallowing him whole. “You have to take responsibility for your actions, Jinx. This is entirely on you. I will not prepare you. I will not make this any easier on you.” He leaned forward, his body heat scalding my chill. “Trust isn’t given…it’s earned.”
My eyes snapped up.
What does he mean by that?
That I had a hope of earning it?
That this wasn’t as black and white as my normal dealings with him?
Keeping my stare, he held up another box.
The mouthwash.
I cracked the lid and swilled without complaint.
My mind that’d logically accepted my defeat and my heart that’d painfully cast him out, slowly nudged me alive with idiotic optimism.
Trust isn’t given…it’s earned.
Did he expect me to prove myself by sleeping with another man? Prove that I would do whatever he commanded?
What would that achieve?
That I’d finally accepted my place as his belonging and not a woman with her own free will and thoughts?
No…that doesn’t make sense.
I bit my bottom lip, trying to rip out his secrets with just a stare.
He avoided eye contact, handing me the roller of scent deception, waiting while I smeared it beneath my nose.
I passed it back, and he threw it onto the trolley. Selecting the box of earbuds, he shoved them into my hands.
This time, our eyes did lock. And the sea-blue of his gaze was as deep as an abyss filled with sharp-toothed sharks. He looked as if he wanted to bite me. To make me cry out. To make my vow to ignore him meaningless.
Keeping his threatening stare, I inserted the buds into my ears.
The room muffled, amplifying my own heartbeat and breath.
Sully took the empty box and handed me the eye lenses without a word. Our transaction was void of anything but clinical interaction.
Gingerly, I fumbled with how to insert them.
Sully held up a mirror, being patient while I unwillingly learned how to plant contacts over my pupils, flinching with foreignness, once again hating how my vision went hazy, waiting for my brain to figure out how to see past the unwanted film.
Only once I stopped blinking and could see enough not to be taken by surprise, did Sully put down the mirror and pick up the final box.
The fingerprint sensors.
The one thing I wouldn’t be able to do myself.
With a heavy inhale, he murmured, “Give me your hand.”
I braced myself and placed my fingers into his control.
The second our skin collided, a supercharged current of want and wicked hunger zapped from him to me. I winced as the power bolt fizzled up my arm, through my heart, and into my core.
For the first time since he’d dragged me here, my body melted instead of tensed, preparing for love not war.
He vibrated with fraying self-control as he ignored the hissing, hurting bond between us, tearing off the sensors from its sticky sheet and placing them firmly over my fingertips.
With each sensor he glued on me, I grew hotter, wetter.
With each caress of Sully’s touch, it made me want to slap him, then kiss him, then slap him all over again.
By the time he’d done all ten fingers, neither of us had control over our breathing, or the nightmare our bodies had shackled us with.
I was wet.
He was hard.
Yet we would find no satisfaction in the other.
There would be no kisses before he loaded me into the arms of another man. No tongue on my clit while he tried to convince himself he didn’t want me for himself.
I’d never seen him so resolute or pig-headed about a decision that would only bring aching regret.
With a fierce squeeze of my hand, he let me go, unable to look at me. Avoiding me as if he walked the narrowest road where if he veered off course, just for a second, he’d choose a different path.
A fork in our destinies that had appeared the moment we met.
Does he see it, too?
Did he see the different destinations on offer? The dark, dismal ending if we turned our backs on each other, compared to the bright, hopeful beginning if we fought to be happy?
It was a shame really.
Such a shame we were so similar in all the ways that mattered.
We had the same morals, same ethics, same personalities.
We could have been amazing together.