by Alyssa Day
He studied the second wall, luckily distracted from her remarks about his carvings. “This is similar to the maize god you told us about in the mural with Anubisa in it?”
“Yes! Yes, it’s clearly from the same artist or group of artists. I’m almost sure of it. Of course, without side-by-side comparison of photographs, I can’t be—” She swayed a little, suddenly overcome by a wave of dizziness, and started panting, unable to catch her breath.
He caught her with one strong arm around her waist. “Keely? You are unwell?”
She pushed her hair away from her face and tried to breathe, but the heat and dehydration, probably combined with the events of the past few days, had taken their toll. He released the energy sphere, lifted her into his arms, and moved them both out of the chamber and back to the mouth of the cave, where the outside air was much fresher.
She leaned over, pulling in slow, steady breaths, until the dizziness and hyperventilation passed. “I’m fine,” she said finally. “Just really could use some water.”
Unexpectedly, he smiled. “Although the Nereid still hides from me, or is recovering from the use of so much power, I find that my Atlantean gifts are returning. If water is what you want, my Keely, then water you shall have.”
He strode outside and stopped in the middle of the clearing, legs braced apart and arms held up in the air. The sunlight shone down on him as if he were some primitive god himself, returned to his people and ready to accept their worshipful homage. He was beautiful and stern and primal, and something deep inside her stirred, shaken and moved by the sight of him. Her breasts tingled and her nipples hardened, craving his touch, and her thighs tightened as liquid heat pooled in her center, readying her for him like some ancient virgin to be sacrificed to a lusty god.
Her face flamed at the thought and she tried to remind herself of the biological imperative that caused women to be attracted to powerful men in dangerous situations. She was a scientist. She of all women couldn’t fall prey to something so primal.
Even as she tried to resist the siren call of his intense sexuality, he lowered his gaze from the sky and stared straight into her eyes. His own had darkened to black with blue-green flames dancing in the exact centers of his pupils. “Poseidon, hear me,” he called out in a voice filled with tempest-tossed waves and gale-force winds, never taking his gaze from her. “Bring water to me that it may give life and health to my woman.”
“I’m not your woman,” she whispered, but this time even she didn’t believe it. At that moment, with winds circling Justice like a typhoon, whipping through the clearing to center on him, energy crackling around him like miniature lightning bolts in shades of silver, blue, and green, she could deny him nothing.
“For Poseidon,” he roared, throwing back his head. Somehow his braid had loosened, and long strands of hair whipped around his face and shoulders; blues all the spectrum of possibility caught in the strands of his hair flew in the wind as it danced to his call.
She looked up, following his gaze, unable to doubt him for even an instant. He had called for water, so it would come. She knew it, and when the swirling, twirling coils of crystal-clear water tumbled through the air toward him, she laughed with delighted joy.
“Come to me, Keely,” he said, and the heat in his eyes seared through her until she wanted to tear off her clothes and throw herself on the ground in front of him, a pagan offering to be taken right there in the downpour that he had created. But instead she stumbled forward, hands clenched at her sides, until she stood a mere breath away from him.
He laughed down at her and shouted out another word, a beautiful word, a word she did not know. The water turned into a spring shower, falling onto them and into their open mouths and down their necks and soaking into their filthy clothes.
Keely closed her eyes and turned her face up to the rain and laughed, drinking in as much of the clean, sweet-tasting water as she could. It was the purest water she’d ever tasted. Purer than mountain spring water, purer than the most expensive bottled water.
She swallowed as fast as the rain fell into her mouth and then, finally sated, she opened her eyes and smiled up at him, raindrops clinging to her eyelashes. “That was amazing! You can do that whenever you want? Wow, that would solve so many—” She fell silent, her torrent of words failing at the intent way he stared at her mouth, as if he must taste her or die.
His mouth came down on hers, and he pulled her so tightly against him that the heat of his body steamed against her through their wet clothes. There was nothing gentle in it; it was a kiss of claiming, desperate wanting, and need. She murmured a sound, lost in his mouth, and his hands clenched on her skin, pulling her tighter, still. His muscular body shuddered violently against hers and she drew back, alarmed, and looked up at him.
He clenched his jaw shut and tightened his grip on her even more, until it seemed that every inch of her body was touching his. “I need you, Keely. I have to have you right now. Please,” he said in a low and guttural voice that shook with the force of the passion behind it. Then he loosened his hold a fraction and dropped his head, inhaling deep gulps of air. “No. We can’t. I’m afraid that the Nereid will take over. You must tell me no.”
The lightning began to shoot through the air again, lighting up the still-falling rain with its thunderous cracks and silvery blue glow. Behind and above the rain, she could see the sun, still shining brightly in a clear sky. No cloud had anything to do with this downpour, and no other woman had anything to do with his desperate need.
It was all for her. Only for her. The realization and the heat flamed through her, making her womb clench and her knees buckle. He was holding her so tightly that it didn’t matter, though. She couldn’t fall. He was there for her.
Still waiting for an answer. A desperate plea in his eyes, but whether it was for her to say yes or no she couldn’t tell.
“Yes,” she said, jumping into the abyss. “I want you, too. Together we’ll tame your other half.”
He lifted her into the air and shouted out his joy, swinging her around in the middle of the raging Atlantean storm. Then he pulled her close again and bent his head until his lips were a breath away from hers.
“Together. We can do this together. Kiss me, Keely. Kiss me so that I can know you want this as much as I do.”
No power on earth could have stopped her—not reason, not logic, not any thought for what the future might hold. She needed him more than she needed water or air and for once in her life she was going to take exactly what she wanted, consequences be damned. She caught his face in her hands and smiled.
Then she kissed him.
Chapter 31
Keely’s soft, tentative kiss touched Justice so deeply that he felt as though his soul were being torn in two. Half of him wanted nothing more than to tear her clothes from her body and make love to her for hours, while the other, more honorable half of him wanted to run and hide somewhere far from her.
Far from temptation.
Far from the danger that the Nereid would take over and harm her.
I am part of you, the Nereid whispered in his mind. The sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner we can join forces to be more powerful than ever you have dreamed.
Justice lifted his head from Keely’s and stared down at her. “I want you more than I have ever wanted any woman. But—”
Take her, you slug-ridden bottom feeder! You know you want to fuck her until she screams our name.
“No!” he shouted.
Keely’s puzzled look turned to one of understanding. “He’s fighting you, isn’t he?”
“Yes. He wants you as much as I do, but in darker ways. I cannot—I’m not sure I can control him,” Justice admitted.
Keely’s smile, though tremulous, held a wealth of trust that humbled him. “Tell him . . . no. Let me tell him—tell you both. I want you. All of you. You don’t need to be rough or overpower me. Just make love to me. Please.”
The Nereid’s angry, driving need fal
tered, turning into confusion. How can she want me? Even you, who are the other half of my soul, do not want me.
Justice gave the question the careful consideration that it deserved, then responded out loud so that Keely could hear him, too. “Perhaps I am wrong in this. Perhaps I need to accept that we are both parts of the same whole.”
Dark laughter rang in his mind. If we get her, I am willing to try anything.
Then somehow, some way, something changed. For the first time in his life, Justice felt—even without his mental shields—a tentative truce. A kind of peace settled over him and his mind achieved a form of calm it had never known.
Keely looked up at him, a question in her eyes.
“Yes,” he said, his voice husky. “Yes, both of us—both of me—all of me wants you.”
He bent his head and kissed her, holding nothing back, and the vortex opened around him. Her mouth tasted like honey and home and everything he’d ever wanted. His tongue dove in and he took, feasted, drank her mouth and lips. He rained kisses on her cheeks, nose, and forehead the way he’d caused water to shower down on her before.
The wonder of her touch humbled him. The touch of her lips inflamed him. The feel of her body tightened his own almost to pain. His cock hardened until he thought he would explode from the merest touch. He wanted her; he needed her. She would become his and remain his forever.
“You are mine, Keely,” he said, desperate for her to admit it. “My vision quest has shown me, and the flame of Poseidon you’ve seen in my eyes confirmed it. Your soul is the destined mate to mine.”
She pulled back a little, but he tightened his arms. He would never let her go. She had to see that, had to understand it.
“Justice, this is too much. I want you, too. I’ve never felt like this before. But can’t we talk about destiny and vision quests later?” She twined her arms around his neck and lifted her face to his, and her silken brows were drawn together in frustration. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but can’t we get naked now and talk about the future later?”
He couldn’t help it. He shouted out a laugh. “Your wish is ever my command, lady. But first, we need to take care of this.”
He released her and removed his sword and placed it on the ground, then stripped off his clothes, tossing them away from him so fast that he had no idea where they landed. When he finally stood naked in front of her, he smiled. “Now I plan to do the same thing to you.”
Keely stared at Justice and remembered her offhand comment about statues come to life. His powerful body, sculpted in long lines and perfect, muscular curves, was enough to make her gasp. His erection was as big as the rest of him and, as he looked at her, it bobbed against his abdomen, very visual evidence that he wanted her.
Nothing was more potent than the knowledge of being truly desired, and Keely’s nipples hardened until the lace of her bra was unbearable pressure against them. Her muscles jerked in a spasm of delight and her thighs tightened against the heat flooding her core. “You—” Her mouth was too dry to get the words out, so she tried again. “You plan to throw my clothes all across the jungle?”
He flashed that very wicked smile and started toward her, slowly stalking her as any predator would stalk his prey. A fierce, almost feral heat burned in his eyes and she caught her breath at his plain intent. He wanted her, and he was going to take her. He was pure dominant alpha male, and she wanted him like she’d never wanted anything or anyone before.
When he reached her, he pulled her to him and kissed her with such possessiveness that she felt the heat of it sear through her to her soul. His tongue dove into her mouth and he kissed her as though he would die if he didn’t. He twined his fingers in her hair, his hand cupping the back of her head, and drew her to him more tightly, until not even a breath of air could have fit between them.
Passion soared through her; heat and pure crazed desire threatened to buckle her knees. “More,” she breathed against his lips. “I need more of you.”
He put his hand on her butt and pulled her closer so that his penis fit between her legs and the hard bulge of it drove her further into wanting and need. “Now?” he asked.
“Now, now, now,” she said, beyond embarrassment or reason.
In one smooth movement, he whipped her shirt up and over her head and tossed it aside, and then bent his head to look at her.
And she froze—she’d forgotten the carving.
Justice stared down at Keely’s beautiful breasts, barely covered by scraps of lace, her nipples jutting out and making him want nothing more than to taste them, bite them, suck on them. Her necklace hung down in her pale, lovely cleavage as if drawing his eye. The pendant was a wooden carving of . . . a fish.
His fish. One he’d carved hundreds of years ago.
He lifted it and examined it, sure he must be mistaken. But there was no mistake. “This is mine. But how is that possible?”
Keely bit her lip and a pink flush heated her cheeks. “I meant to tell you about that. I found it several years ago and I—well, I had a vision of you. Carving it. By a fire. I thought you were a warrior from centuries ago, and you, well, it, sort of became my talisman. Someone I could think of when times were difficult.”
He stared into her eyes as the truth of her confession slammed into his heart. She’d had a vision quest of her own—of him. She’d relied on him.
“You are mine, Keely McDermott,” he said, his voice coming out as little more than a growl. “I’m going to have you right now.”
He stripped off the rest of her clothes in seconds and took a moment to hold her at arms’ length and marvel at the glory of her body. Lithe and toned, she was no hothouse flower but a woman who used her body and treated it well.
“I love your legs,” he murmured.
“Thank you, I—”
“I need them to be wrapped around my waist.”
She gasped a little and he caught her lips with his own again and pulled her up so he could feel all of her against his body. She lifted her legs and wrapped them around him and he raised her even higher, his hands supporting her wonderful ass, until his cock was centered under her warm, wet center.
“I need you now, Keely,” he said, pushing against her just a little, straining every muscle to force himself to wait.
“I need you, too.” She kissed him and he drove into her as far as he would go, thrusting his cock into her tight, wet heat, feeling her sheath clinging to him and clasping him until he was sure he would explode right away like some untried youngling.
Keely cried out at the feel of him. His thickness filled her, stretching her so much that her nerve endings seared with a heady combination of pain and pleasure. But she was so wet from wanting him that her body accommodated his length and width and bucked wildly against him, needing more.
Needing him to move.
“Don’t stop,” she panted, lifting herself up and sliding back down on the velvet-encased steel of his penis. He was so hard and so long that he touched some spot deep inside her that drove her crazy. “Please, more.”
He devoured her mouth with hot, hard kisses as he thrust into her deeper and harder, rocking into a rhythm that made her whimper in delirious need. Heat and sheer urgent hunger shot through her until she was desperate for him, desperate to come, desperate to sate the almost unbearable need.
She bit his neck, driven beyond reason, and he growled something in Atlantean, then plunged into her so deeply that she cried out, so close to the edge that she almost couldn’t bear it.
He stopped, holding her in place, buried inside her, and held still until she looked up at him, dazed and barely coherent. “What? Why did you stop?”
An expression of sheer masculine triumph swept over his face and something feral glittered in his eyes. “Mine. Tell me. Tell me you’re mine, and I’ll fuck you until you scream my name.”
The crudeness of his words thrilled through her even as she recognized what he was doing. Laying a claim. Asserting his possession. Forcing h
er to admit, finally, that she was his woman.
But, ultimately, giving her the choice. She could refuse.
Something in her heart twisted at the thought. No, she couldn’t. Couldn’t refuse. As she looked into his eyes, which now held wariness and perhaps the beginnings of pain as the moment stretched out between them, she knew what she had to do.
Admit the truth, no matter the consequences.
She raised her head to meet his gaze. “Yes. I’m yours.”
He shouted out his triumph and then kissed her again, thrusting into her body again with even more power than before. When he raised his head, she could barely breathe over the rising intensity that threatened to explode in every inch of her body.
“And you’re mine,” she managed to gasp out.
“Always,” he said. “Always, mi amara.”
Then he made good on his promise and drove into her over and over until she came, screaming his name.
Justice shuddered at the strangely erotic feel of Keely’s gloved hands digging into his shoulders as her entire body tightened around him. Her legs were clamped around his waist like a vise, and she exploded, screaming out his name, her body clasping his cock in a series of spasms so intense that he had no hope of outlasting her. He pushed into her as far as he could and his release took him like a tidal wave, shooting out of him with more power than he’d ever experienced. She kept coming, shaking with her orgasms, and every tremor squeezed more and more out of his cock. He was sure his knees would give out from the sheer ecstasy of it, but he’d be damned if he’d go down without a fight. He braced his legs and pulled her even more closely to him.
And then the world itself exploded around them, and he fell into a whirlwind of colors. Greens and golds swirled around him. Somehow he knew that he was seeing her aura—seeing her true self. He marveled at the rich, bright beauty of it, and then he fell into her soul.