Warriors of Poseidon 04 - Atlantis Unmasked

would never let her go.
     
    It was hours or eons later, time another irrelevancy in the universe they‟d built between the two of them, and he felt her body slowly relax as she loosened her grip on his shoulders and her trembling finally slowed and stopped.
     
    “Alexios?” she murmured sleepily, and he kissed her hair and her forehead and her lovely, elegant nose.
     
    “Yes, mi amara ?”
     
    “Is it always like that for you?”
     
    He laughed, startled as always by the way her mind worked. Then he kissed her gently on the lips. “No, my love, my beautiful Grace. It has never, ever been like that for me before. But it always will be from now on,” he promised.
     
    “Oh,” she mumbled. “I‟m not sure I can take it.”
     
    He laughed and drew the blankets around her, and then he held her, content to feel the beating of her heart, for a very long time after she fell asleep.
     
    “Always,” he whispered, a promise and a vow. Then he carefully slipped from her arms so that he didn‟t disturb her when he left to go join the patrol.
     
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    He wasn‟t about to let his guard down now. Not when he had so very much to protect.

Chapter 23
    Grace woke, climbing slowly up out of a delicious dream, and immediately turned to find Alexios. But she was alone. Instantly, all of her old fears swamped her with their cold, dank forebodings.
     
    Why would he stay? What could she be to him, after all, but a blip on the long centuries of his life? Maybe the soul-meld had frightened him, and he‟d decided to back off.
     
    Maybe—but then she heard footsteps and relief and something deeper and sharper cut into her with an almost physical pain. How had she gotten to the place where his absence caused her such pain?
     
    How would she stand it when he was gone?
     
    But now wasn‟t the time. For now, she would take Michelle‟s advice and live in the moment. For all the years that he was gone she would have this treasure trove of memories to horde and cherish.
     
    Alexios came through her doorway, holding mugs of coffee and looking like a man who had been well pleasured the night before. He was all rumpled, sleepy-eyed male satisfaction as he surveyed her from head to toe. She let the blanket fall from one bare shoulder and glanced up at him from beneath her lashes, trying on an unfamiliar seductiveness.
     
    His eyes went hot as his gaze went straight for the bared expanse of skin, and she shrugged her shoulders a little so the blanket fell even further, exposing a precarious amount of her breasts. He smiled, but his knuckles on the mugs turned white.
     
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    “If you‟re trying to make sure I don‟t let you out of bed today, you‟re doing a very good job,” he said, his voice husky.
     
    “Who, me?” she said, batting her eyelashes at him. Then she raised her arms and stretched, and the blanket fell into a puddle at her waist. Alexios kicked the door shut behind him, put the mugs down on the table, splashing coffee everywhere, and headed straight for her with an expression like a stalking lion.
     
    She grinned and held her arms out to him, but he sat next to her on the bed, caught her hands in his and pinned them to her sides, pushing her gently back onto the pillows.
     
    “Your breasts are so beautiful,” he said, staring at them so intently that heat flushed through the skin of her chest and up to her face. “I can‟t look at them without needing to touch them and taste them.”
     
    And then he proceeded to do just that, drawing her nipple into his mouth and gently sucking on it, the pressure just enough to make her moan with frustrated longing as her hips bucked restlessly underneath the blanket.
     
    Then, still holding her hands, he released her breast and lay his head on her chest, right over her heart. The tenderness of the gesture took her breath away for a second, and her heart stuttered and skipped a beat or two.
     
    “I could listen to your heartbeat forever, do you realize that?” he asked her, his voice a quiet rumble, his breath warm against her skin.
     
    “Forever is a long time,” she said, suddenly chilled by the impossibility of his statement.
    “I‟m cold. May I have the blanket, please?”
     
    He sat up instantly, tucking the blanket up and around her shoulders, a look of concern on his beautiful face. She tentatively lifted her hand to touch the