Twice a Wish (GODDESS ISLES Book 2) Read online

  Twice

  a

  Wish

  Goddess Isles

  Book Two

  by

  New York Times Bestseller

  Pepper Winters

  Twice a Wish

  Copyright © 2020 Pepper Winters

  Published by Pepper Winters

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Libraries are exempt and permitted to share their in-house copies with their members and have full thanks for stocking this book. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Published: Pepper Winters 2020: [email protected]

  Cover Design: Ari @ Cover it! Designs

  Editing by: Editing 4 Indies (Jenny Sims)

  OTHER WORK BY PEPPER WINTERS

  Pepper currently has twenty-eight books released in nine languages. She’s hit best-seller lists (USA Today, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal) thirty-three times. She dabbles in multiple genres, ranging from Dark Romance to Coming of Age.

  For more information, please visit: www.pepperwinters.com

  DARK ROMANCE

  Goddess Isles Series - 2020

  Once a Myth

  Twice a Wish

  Third a Kiss

  Fourth a Lie

  Fifth a Fury

  Monsters in the Dark Trilogy – Available Now

  Tears of Tess

  Quintessentially Q

  Twisted Together

  Je Suis a Toi

  Indebted Series – Available Now

  Debt Inheritance

  First Debt

  Second Debt

  Third Debt

  Fourth Debt

  Final Debt

  Indebted Epilogue

  Dollar Series – Available Now

  Pennies

  Dollars

  Hundreds

  Thousands

  Millions

  SEXY ROMANCE

  The Master of Trickery Duet – Available Now

  The Body Painter

  The Living Canvas

  Truth & Lies Duet – Available Now

  Crown of Lies

  Throne of Truth

  COMING OF AGE ROMANCE

  The Ribbon Duet – Available Now

  The Boy & His Ribbon

  The Girl & Her Ren

  Standalone Spinoff

  The Son & His Hope

  STANDALONES

  Destroyed – Grey Romance

  Unseen Messages – Survival Romance

  MOTORCYCLE CLUB ROMANCE

  Pure Corruption Duet – Available Now

  Ruin & Rule

  Sin & Suffer

  ROMANTIC COMEDY written as TESS HUNTER

  Can’t Touch This

  UPCOMING RELEASES

  For 2020 titles please visit www.pepperwinters.com

  RELEASE DAY ALERTS, SNEAK PEEKS, & NEWSLETTER

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  Pepper’s Newsletter

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  Instagram: @Pepperwinters

  Facebook Group: Peppers Playgound

  Website: www.pepperwinters.com

  Twice a Wish Blurb:

  “There was a monster once. A monster who bought me, controlled me, and took away my freedom.

  There was a man once. A man who dealt in myth and secrets, hiding behind his mask, making me hunger and wish to know the truth.”

  Eleanor Grace belongs to the man and the monster, hating them both but unable to deny that something links them. Something she doesn’t want to feel, something that traps her as surely as the sea surrounding the island where she serves.

  Sully Sinclair belongs to his past and the black and white script his life has become. He views his goddesses as commodities—possessions to be treated kindly but firmly. The only problem is…Eleanor is different.

  She’s jinxed him.

  Cursed him.

  Awakened him.

  She’s a goddess with the power to ruin him.

  Contents

  OTHER WORK BY PEPPER WINTERS

  Twice a Wish Blurb:

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Pre-Order THIRD A KISS

  PLAYLIST

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Dedicated to:

  For all of those with filthy minds but are normal on the outside…(define normal).

  Prologue

  A HEART WAS LIKE a sea.

  In one beat, it could be ruthlessly cold, cavernously deep, and protective of its secrets, yet in the next, it could be blissfully warm, wondrously calm, and piercingly clear.

  That was my heart.

  A complex ecosystem of darkness and light.

  Hate and lust.

  Forgiveness and revenge.

  But if I were the sea, then Sullivan Sinclair was the shark.

  Sleek and sensual, effortless and cruel, he was the predator of the ocean, all while I was the keeper of his livelihood. Not only was I his goddess, to rent and pawn, to earn untold treasures from her flesh, but I also harboured his secrets and buried his truths in my bottomless heart.

  Without me, he’d just swim in sunshine and shadow, prowling and patrolling, hunting and surviving, his lifetime a monotonous replay of the day before.

  But the sea wasn’t monotonous.

  Each day was different.

  Tempest and full of storms in the morning.

  Crystal-spangled and serene in the afternoon.

  That was my heart.

  That was the breadth of my emotions when it came to the man who bought me.

  The crevices and cracks were the veins surrounding the stubborn muscle keeping me alive. The brine was my blood hish-hishing through those veins, granting me strength to keep sur
viving.

  Not because I had to win, but because of the tiny crumbs I collected about the god who’d captured me. His ability to hide a thousand shipwrecks was almost as impressive as the sea’s capacity to house a million creatures.

  Sully Sinclair said I had the power to ruin him.

  I believed him.

  Something bound us that we couldn’t explain.

  But that wouldn’t be what would destroy him.

  A tidal wave of injustice and anger, of loneliness and lust was cresting in my heart. Sweeping along the shallows, stirring up the shadows, ensuring I wasn’t just a droplet caught in a bottle but an entire tsunami just on the horizon.

  I had the power to ruin him, yes.

  But in the process, I would also destroy myself.

  Chapter One

  I CARRIED HER FROM the VR Room as gently as I dared.

  I tripped under her weight, my own muscles wrung ragged from the punishment I’d delivered while Eleanor was in Euphoria. My heart barely had enough energy to pump blood through my veins, my legs burned with lactic acid, my entire body squeezed dry of every life-giving molecule.

  But fuck, it was worth it.

  Worth it to feel somewhat sane after the nightmarish confusion of the past week. Worth it to finally find calm in the chaos that this dangerous goddess had caused.

  I looked at Eleanor, fast asleep and limp in my arms. Her lips were parted and still red from a thousand kisses. Her cheeks still flushed from untold orgasms. Her skin glowing from within, thanks to the magic of what she’d indulged in.

  Euphoria had the power to break you apart, but it also had the potential to make you rise from the ashes that you once were. Whatever parts were destroyed while she played in the fantasy, coded and delivered by yours truly, I had no doubt she’d awake stronger, bolder, and far more dangerous than before.

  My fingers dug into her silky skin, pressing her close.

  Fuck, I was in trouble.

  I knew that.

  But for the first time…I owned it.

  I’d made yet another colossal mistake…and this one, I honestly didn’t know if I could survive.

  “Who are you?” I whispered in the darkness, ignoring the trembles of my body, the hunger in my belly, the exhaustion in my mind. Every inch of me begged to rest. To place Eleanor on the sandy pathway and curl up beside her.

  To sleep after surviving a night we’d both never forget…for entirely different reasons.

  Stumbling forward, I groaned at the shooting stitch in my stomach. I’d overdone it. I’d drained myself to the point of sickness. I needed rest. She needed rest.

  But…just for a moment—a single, stupid moment—with no one around and no one to witness, I stopped, let down my shields, and stared. I stared at the girl who’d twisted me up just by existing. The girl who I still didn’t know what to do with. Could I keep her on my shores for four years? Could I rent her out to men who didn’t deserve her? Would I have the strength to keep my distance when parts of me that I’d killed years ago were slowly waking up?

  It wasn’t just her beauty that arrested me. It wasn’t just her temper or her personal choices. Something I couldn’t explain bound us together, drawing us closer, against our will…creating a minefield of destruction.

  Her forehead furrowed a little as whatever dream she had ghosted over her face. She shifted in my arms, curling deeper into my chest.

  And fuck if my heart didn’t kick with an extra beat.

  Tightening my grip on her, I continued walking, digging bare feet into soft sand, forcing a body that had well and truly been abused to keep going, for just a little while.

  She didn’t wake up as I carried her.

  I hadn’t drugged her to keep her under. I hadn’t used science to keep her unconscious. She’d done that. She’d drowned her system in pleasure, annihilated all her strength and reserves, and finally learned how to let go.

  How to be free in sex, in herself…even in sleep.

  “Sir?” Calvin appeared from the darkness, only half his face visible from the flickering tiki torch. “I can finish the process. You should…” He came closer, peering into my drawn, exhausted face. “Ah, fuck, you don’t look so good.”

  Baring my teeth, I barged past him. “I’m fine.”

  “You need to lie down.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.” My back straightened with anger, feeding my depleted cells some much-needed indignation.

  He muttered something under his breath, trailing after me. He remained behind me all the way to Eleanor’s villa. Scooting in front of me, he opened her door. I groaned as I stepped over the threshold and my gaze fell on her bed.

  Christ, I’d give anything to collapse face first into that cool white linen.

  My eyelids drooped, sleep coming for me, despite my attempts to stop it.

  “Sinclair.” Cal snapped his fingers in my face. “You’ll drop her if you fall asleep.”

  I swallowed back fatigue, tripping forward and placing Eleanor softly on the bed I very much wanted to claim for my own.

  My arms felt strangely loose and unattached to my body now that her weight no longer rested in them. I swayed. My knees buckled. Cal caught me around the waist and kept me standing. “Come on, let’s get you home. You don’t want to be here when she wakes up.”

  I nodded. I didn’t. I didn’t want to witness the flashing hate she’d feel toward me. Not after what I’d been through tonight.

  “I’ll finish up. You crawl back to your own place.” He guided me toward the door, but I shook my head and reached deep down for my final reserves.

  “Get me the container.”

  “Shit, you’re a stubborn son of a bitch,” Cal muttered, marching toward the walk-in wardrobe and the small drawer tucked inside. Each villa had such a drawer. Each goddess went through the same aftercare upon return from Euphoria.

  Cal came back, slamming the wooden box with black hinges on the bedspread beside Eleanor’s unconscious form. She lay on her back, her long hair spread like a halo, her naked body bruised and used but also so elegant and perfect. She looked like an innocent princess just waiting for true love’s kiss.

  Gritting my teeth, I ripped open the box and pulled out the specially designed towelette. Opening the package, I ran the damp softness over every inch of Eleanor’s skin. She arched her neck as I ran it over her cleavage, still at the mercy of the final dregs of elixir.

  My cock twitched in response, but the debilitation of my entire body meant a twitch was all I could manage.

  Once she was free from the oil I’d spread over her at the start of the evening, I tossed the soiled towelette back in the box. That oil had allowed her to feel every touch tonight, to sense the heat of the fire, to revel in the softness of fur. Next, I pulled free the earplugs from her dainty ears that allowed a caveman to command her. Moving down her body, I removed the sensor pads on her fingertips that permitted her to feel the male who’d most likely fallen in love with her tonight.

  All carefully designed tricks to turn an illusion into a reality.

  “Her eyes,” Cal muttered, standing close with his arms crossed. “Want me to get them? You’re not exactly…stable right now.”

  I waved him away, and as gently as I could, with quaking hands and a body that wouldn’t stop swaying to do such delicate tasks, I pried open her left and then her right eye, freeing the contact lenses that’d made her see a cave instead of my islands—allowed her to see a man she’d never met before, to fully exist in the deception of Euphoria.

  The second the contact lenses fell into the box, Cal scooped it up, shut the lid with a crack, then marched toward the exit.

  I trailed after him, glancing one last time at Eleanor.

  She looked so vulnerable lying in the dark. So defenceless all alone. Where had she been stolen from? That boyfriend she mentioned…was he looking for her? Or had he given up already?

  Goddammit.

  Turning around with a groan, I stumbled back to the bed
and pulled the white blanket over her nakedness. The night sky still held humidity and heat, but the instant the comforting weight fell over her, she sighed and curled onto her side. Her hair lay strewn over her pillow, inviting me to touch it.

  I’d become obsessed with her hair. I didn’t know if it was the length or the colour that appealed to me, or the fact that I could control her with a single fist in the strands—either way, it was a fucking struggle to back away.

  The gauzy curtains by the open doors fluttered with soft sea breeze. The scents of dense foliage and rich undergrowth ripe thanks to a tropical rainfall that’d passed through earlier.

  My eyelids drooped again; black feathered over my mind.

  “Sinclair.”

  Cal’s snap wrenched me back into purpose. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I couldn’t, not until I was safe in my own bed.

  Trudging toward the exit, I didn’t look back at the goddess who’d caused so many problems. I knew my exhaustion was due to my melancholy thoughts. My fatigue the reason I had no power over the weakness creeping through my heart, but it didn’t mean I was okay with the fact that I felt something toward that girl.

  Something I was powerless to stop.

  Cal closed the door behind us as I swayed on the sandy laneway, looking up through palm trees to the vast cosmos above. Stars twinkled, winking with secrets, fully aware of my sins.

  His hand pushed between my shoulder blades, and for the first time, I noticed I had no shirt on. My board-shorts were the only thing keeping me decent.

  “I’ll walk you to your villa,” he said quietly, nudging me forward until I lumbered down the path. “The other goddesses shouldn’t see you like this.”