Atlantis Unleashed (37 page)

“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.

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—”

“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 faltered, 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 her 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.

Everything that she was and everything that she'd experienced flashed through him with a burning fury. He saw her painful childhood; felt the agony of a small child whose parents thought her a freak. Burned with impotent fury against parents who could hurt their own child in such a way.

He saw her goodness and enormous capacity for generosity, felt her wounded in a thousand ways over the years as unfeeling friends and colleagues painted her different. An outsider.

His heart ripped apart when he felt her anguish over the man who'd left her, and silently he vowed to find the bastard and rip his limbs off of him. Slowly.

Knew instantly that Keely would hate it if he did so. She was light and goodness and caring, the bright side of the moon, in contrast to the dark well of his own soul. He fell and fell, into the corners of her soul, and into love. She was his, and he would never, ever let her escape from him.