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 harbored 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 surviving.
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.
