Warriors of Poseidon 01.5 - Wild Hearts in Atlantis

Moment, right there in the kitchen. Whatever it was that had taken over his mind and senses, Kat had felt it, too. At least for a single moment. And then she'd run away from him. Again.
     
    "It's so terrific, this effect I have on women," he muttered. Then he forced himself to reach for the calm center of his serenity—the center that seemed to explode into fractured shards whenever he was around Kat. Drew in a lungful of the humid evening air and stripped off his shirt and pants. He had need of a shower. Maybe an hour or two under icy water would help the current state of his painfully aroused body.
     
    He was Atlantean. He had no need for pipes and plumbing to find the water to cleanse his body. Legs spread apart, he lifted his face to the evening sky. Raised his arms, palms up, and called to the sea. Called to the water all around him. Called to the elements to purify the water and bring it to him.
     
    He laughed, delighted still, after hundreds of years, as the water rushed to do his bidding. He'd learned a few tricks over the centuries, and he manipulated the currents of water as they danced and swirled in the air around him. Ribbons of water sparkled and shimmered as they curved around and over him to wash the sweat and dirt of the day from his body.
     
    The coolness of the water soothed his overheated skin, calmed the nerve endings jumping and jangling under his skin, and caressed the fiercely hardened erection that jutted up against his body. Everything about Kat—her luscious curves, her scent of sunshine and forest, and her silky cinnamon and sunshine hair—had him walking Wild Hearts In Atlantis – Warriors of Poseidon 1.5
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    around in a state of permanent arousal. But the look in her eyes in the kitchen had made him want to lift her onto the table right there and then. Rip the clothes from her body and drive into her. Claim her heat and her wetness for his rightful place, and then spend the next ten or fifty years holding her.
     
    But wanting to claim her was wrong. It made him no better than Ethan. Not to mention the slight problem that she was half shapeshifter. Poseidon didn't exactly allow his warriors to interact with the dual-natured. He spared a thought for Alaric's reaction to the news that Bastien had mated with a shapeshifter, and grimaced.
     
    Not that it mattered. Kat had made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him, after all, when she went running down the hall. Bastien sent his senses into the elements and adjusted the temperature of the water sluicing down his body. He needed it to be icy.
     
    Kat finished toweling the water from her hair and wrapped the robe more firmly around herself. She'd been too distracted by Bastien to think of clean clothes when she'd escaped into the bathroom. Only ten steps, though. She only needed to make it ten steps down the hall to her bedroom without him seeing her.
     
    "Oh, get a grip," she lectured her reflection in the steamy mirror.
     
    "It's not like he's going to grab you and ravish you. He's a perfect gentleman."
     
    Her reflection seemed to have its own thoughts on the matter, though, because it made a face back at Kat. "Yeah, I know," she told herself. "Damn the luck, right? And, really, the only worry is that I'll jump on him."
     
    She pushed open the bathroom door, realizing that talking to herself in the mirror—and, worse, expecting her reflection to talk back—was a slim stick of beef jerky away from the crazy machine.
     
    Wild Hearts In Atlantis – Warriors of Poseidon 1.5
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    She peeked down the hall for a glimpse of her guest, but the coast was clear.
     
    As she slipped into the hall, she heard the sound of rain outside.
     
    "That's odd. We had sunshine in the forecast for the next three days," she murmured, then pushed aside the cotton curtain that covered the small hallway window and looked outside.
     
    Her knees turned to water. She had to grab the windowsill to hold herself up, because the object of her more heated shower fantasies was standing in the middle of her yard.
    Stark naked. And, from what she could tell, he was somehow magically causing water to dance around and caress every inch of his incredibly firm, muscled body.
     
    She stood there, frozen, and watched the playful loops and curls of water twirl over his thickly curved biceps and down the muscled planes of his back to his, oh, dear heavens, firm, tight, and gorgeous butt. She watched the water continue down the corded