Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

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