Atlantis Betrayed Part 6

Declan piped up: "There's a new course on the Fae in next year's Oxford catalog." When Fiona turned to look at him, surprised by his first mention of Oxford, his cheeks flushed bright pink. "Not that I'm planning to go to university just yet. You need me here."

"I most certainly do not need you here, you idjit. You and that giant brain of yours are going to school. You need to meet girls and go to pubs. Experience the life of a college man," she said firmly.

Christophe grinned, and she shot him a warning glare. Family business was none of his. He raised his hands in an "I surrender" pose and said nothing.

Hopkins, however, was family and had no such restraint. "Ah, yes. The 'pints and birds' lecture given to generations of budding young Oxford men. A model of decorum, he'll be."

Declan's face flushed even hotter, if that were possible. "I'm not-"

"Having this argument now, yes, I agree," Fiona interjected smoothly. "In front of our new partner. partner."

"Don't mind me," Christophe said. "I don't have any brothers or sisters, so I'm finding this all pretty interesting."

She put her hands on her hips, ready to give him a piece of her mind, but she noticed that his smile was looking strained around the edges and he'd gone a little pale under his rich golden-brown tan. Guilt raised its head again. She'd shot the man full of drugs only hours ago, for Saint George's sake.

Speaking of which . . .

"How are you walking around? Those are pretty powerful drugs on those tranq darts."

"I have a natural resistance. But don't take that as an invitation to shoot me again. Please."

"Now would be a good time for bed," Hopkins said, smoothly making the pistol disappear in his jacket.

"Oh, I so agree," Christophe said, pinning Fiona in place with his hot gaze. "Where are we sleeping, partner?"

"There is no we we. Hopkins, please put him in the blue room for tonight and we'll . . . we'll sort this all out in the morning."

"If he doesn't murder us all in our sleep," Hopkins muttered, opening the door and motioning to Christophe to follow him.

As they left the room, Fiona heard Christophe laugh. "So, Hopkins. Where did you say that good silver was?"

Chapter 10

Fiona flipped the covers off her legs and stared down the length of her traitorous body in the moonlight from the open window. She was utterly exhausted-and utterly unable to sleep. Every inch of her body seemed to be on fire with a series of electrical charges, and her skin was tingling. Her mind kept whispering that satisfaction and relief was just down the hall. just down the hall.

He was just down the hall. was just down the hall.

All that beautiful male power and that big, hard body just waiting for her to strip him bare and lick every inch of him. Of course he would return the favor. She had some parts that really, really really, needed licking right now. Her nipples were so hard they ached, for example, and other parts of her? Well. Perhaps she could give herself just a little relief and finally be able to fall asleep.

She closed her eyes and slid one hand underneath the top of her silk panties, groaning a little when her finger touched her swollen c.l.i.toris. Yes. Just like that. It was his fingers touching her; those long, strong fingers rubbing, gently at first, then a little harder. Oh, yes.

Her breath sped up, and she felt hot wetness spilling from her core. The mere thought of him had her hotter and wetter than she could ever remember being before. She'd probably catch on fire if she ever had him in bed with her for real. She dipped her finger farther into the slick heat and rubbed it back up over just exactly where she needed the pressure and cried out a little at the sensation. Yes, his tongue would feel just like that, oh, G.o.d, oh, it would be so good, even better. But he wouldn't stop there. No, he would be voracious. He'd take his other hand and cup her breast. She took the soft weight of it in her hand and pinched her nipple, imagining him sucking her, hard, and her hips bucked up against her hand. Oh, it wasn't going to take much, just the thought of him touching her, saying s.e.xy things to her, was going to rocket her out of the bed any moment. She murmured his name, trying it out on her tongue, and it felt right, so she said it again.

"I'm here, and I can't believe you started without me," he said, and for a moment she thought she'd imagined it, part of the fantasy, and she twisted on the bed, but then his hands grasped hers and his weight settled on the sheets next to her. Her eyes flew open to stare directly into his, which were a burning, glowing emerald fire.

"I'm your partner, remember? And you called my name. That meets the terms of our agreement, doesn't it?" He pulled her wrist up so that one of her hands was above her head on the pillow, and he took the other, the finger that had been inside her, and sucked it into his mouth, licking every inch of it. She moaned at the sensation, too aroused to be embarra.s.sed that he'd caught her pleasuring herself.

"Ah, G.o.ds, you taste good, like the finest Atlantean honey," he growled, his voice a rumble in his chest. "I'm going to taste every bit of you before the dawn, my ninja."

She didn't speak-couldn't speak-it had been so long and she wanted-she needed needed-and just one taste of this man couldn't hurt, wouldn't hurt-the justifications tumbled over themselves in her mind so fast she couldn't think.

Didn't want to think.

Only wanted to feel.

"Then kiss me," she whispered, and he made a noise of sheer masculine triumph and took her mouth, captured it, plundered it like a pirate. He kissed her with skill and heat and something more-almost a desperation-as if he had to taste her right now right now. He made a noise, or she did, and suddenly he was lying fully on top of her, his hips between her thighs and his hard, thick erection pressing against her just exactly where she needed him. She rocked up against him, crying out into his mouth, and he pulled his head away and groaned, loud and long.

"G.o.ds, you're going to make me shoot off like an untried youngling before I even get you naked," he said, his voice husky. "I want to see you."

She bared her teeth at him in something like a smile. "Then get off me and get naked yourself. If I'm going to be bad, I'm going to be very bad, and I don't feel at all like being proper tonight."

She reached down and cupped him though his pants, and he threw back his head and made a guttural sound of need. She was delighted with herself. She was a temptress, suddenly, inexplicably, and she was seducing him.

"Take them off. The trousers. The s.h.i.+rt. All off," she commanded, drunk on her own power. She knelt on the bed and pulled her camisole over her head, so she wore nothing but the silk tap pants.

He inhaled sharply and froze, staring at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with such predatory hunger that she s.h.i.+vered, and a tiny sliver of doubt tried to surface in her mind. Could she really handle this man?

"You are beautiful beyond any dream of the G.o.ds," he said, dropping to his knees beside the bed. "I have never been so happy to have been shot by anyone in my life."

He reached out, cupping her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his big hands, and her nipples visibly tightened and hardened even further. He smiled and looked up at her. "They want me to suck on them, don't they?"

She s.h.i.+vered, staring at the deep, glowing pools of his eyes.

"Tell me," he coaxed. "Say the words."

"I can't-I don't-" She stumbled, fl.u.s.tered. "Ladies don't talk dirty."

He laughed, and the rich sound of it sent a wave of heat through her. "Ah, but warriors do, my beautiful ninja. So let me tell you that I'm going to lick and suck and bite those ripe berries until you cry out for me to do the same to your hot, wet c.u.n.t. Then I'm going to tease and torture you until you come in my mouth and finally, finally, my ninja, I'm going to plunge my c.o.c.k in you so hard and so far that you come, screaming, over and over."

She burned bright red at his crude words, but her body strained toward him, wanting every bit of what he'd just offered. "Too much talk," she whispered, and he laughed again, then licked her nipple into his mouth and sucked, hard. She cried out and would have fallen backward if he hadn't caught her with a hand on her b.u.m. He sucked and licked that nipple until she was writhing in want, needing more, clutching his head and all that silky hair, mindlessly murmuring nonsense words of pleasure and longing.

Finally, when she was near to madness, he released her and stood, stripping his clothes off in seconds and then lifting her in one smooth motion as if she weighed nothing and carrying her to the cus.h.i.+oned seat under the open window. He lowered her to the seat and crowded her until her naked back rested against the cold gla.s.s pane at the top of the window, with the cool breeze and nothing else against the skin of her lower back. Then he knelt in front of her again and, grabbing fists full of silk on either side of her hips, ripped her panties from her.

She gasped, the combination of his barely restrained violence and the cool air from the open window pus.h.i.+ng her to a dangerous edge.

"Shh, ninja," he purred soothingly, in between pressing hot kisses to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and belly. "I won't hurt anything but that bit of silk. I mean to have you now, though."

He grasped her thighs and pushed them apart, then held them still and bent his head to her. At the first touch of his tongue on her swollen c.l.i.t, she shuddered over the edge of the abyss to a hard, quaking o.r.g.a.s.m, almost as if she'd been ready for his touch since she first encountered him on the floor in the Jewel House.

Waves of nearly unbearable pleasure crested and broke over her until she couldn't bear it as his talented tongue dove inside her and swirled around her and then his lips captured her swollen bud and sucked as hard as he had on her nipple. She bucked up under him, crying out, and tried frantically to get away.

"Too much, too much," she gasped, barely able to breathe around the pounding waves of ecstasy sizzling through her. She pulled at his head to try to make him stop, but he simply shook his head, the soft waves of his hair brus.h.i.+ng her inner thighs.

"Not too much. Not enough," he growled, and then he fastened his lips and tongue around her again and began rhythmically sucking and licking at her until she writhed helplessly against him, the cool mist from the night rain icy cold against the overheated skin on her back. The contrast added yet more pleasure, and she had to stuff her fist in her mouth to m.u.f.fle her scream when she came again, over and over, long, sharp spikes of ecstasy stabbing through her in a pleasure so intense it was nearly pain.

He finally raised his head and shot a look of such possessive triumph at her it sent her off again into a shuddering spasm of aftershocks. He stood and lifted her into his arms again. He caught her b.u.m in those big hands and she answered his unspoken request by wrapping her legs around him.

"Yes," he said fiercely. "Now." And he lifted her up, and his enormous erection jutted up between them as if it, too, sought to conquer.

She shook her head, tried to find her powers of speech. "No, you-condom," she managed, but he shook his head.

"I cannot catch or carry any human illness, nor give a child until I pet.i.tion Poseidon," he said, positioning his p.e.n.i.s at her entrance. Everything in her wanted to wrap herself around him and slide down his erection, but sanity surfaced.

"What? Stop, condom. Now," she gasped, struggling. She pointed to the drawer of the table next to the window seat and he groaned, but yanked it open, still holding her with one strong arm, and s.n.a.t.c.hed a foil-wrapped square out of it and handed it to her.

"Do it for me. Please."

The second she had him covered, he drove inside her and she cried out at the sheer size of him. "Oh, oh, oh. So big, too big, you can't fit-"

Christophe groaned at how tightly her hot, wet sheath wrapped around his c.o.c.k. "Yes, I can. I will. Take me. Take all of me," he murmured in her ear as he worked his way deep inside her. His c.o.c.k, even inside the d.a.m.nable covering, was about to explode from the unbelievable pleasure of her wet heat and her tightness.

He pulled back a fraction of an inch, and then pushed his way in again, the silken wetness of her arousal easing the journey. He bent forward, leaning her against the gla.s.s of the window again, so the mist from the rain and wind swirled in against her lovely round a.r.s.e and his b.a.l.l.s. The effect of the heat and the cold combined to make every muscle in his body strain and harden. He had never wanted anyone like this; oh, by the G.o.ds, he wanted to spend a year or two just f.u.c.king her.

She gasped again and he took her mouth, swallowed her gasp, sucked on her tongue and fed from the honey of her mouth as he had from her sweet c.u.n.t. She cried out, the sound trapped between their mouths, and then her body tightened impossibly around him and she came again, shattering into pieces against him.

He tried to hold on-to make it last-but his body rode the waves of her o.r.g.a.s.m and he f.u.c.ked her harder and deeper; one, then two more strokes and he came, shuddering against her. He carried her to the bed and gently lay her against her pillows, then yanked off the condom, desperate to remove it as his seed continued to spurt out of him in the fiercest o.r.g.a.s.m he'd ever known. She gazed up at him, still trembling and gasping, then lifted a hand and closed it around his c.o.c.k, which made him cry out as he bucked against her hand and came even harder, spilling his hot come in her hand.

"Oh, my," she whispered. "I-oh. My."

He sucked in a breath and blew it back out, his body still shuddering from his release. "Yeah. I kinda feel the same way."

She let go of him and her arm fell back to the bed, as if she lacked the strength to hold it up any longer. He just stood there and stared at her, almost unable to believe how beautiful she was. Like a nymph in the moonlight-or one of her forest fairies-her perfect skin glowed. The triangle of silky hair between her thighs was a paler shade of moonlight, echoing the silvery blond of her hair. And those b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Surely poets would write odes to those round, perfect b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"You're staring at me," she whispered, and he could tell that she was blus.h.i.+ng as the moonlight picked up the slightest touch of pink.

"You're beautiful," he said. "I almost can't believe you're even real."

"I'm feeling rather that way myself," she said, still whispering.

He kissed her again. He couldn't help it, even though this was the time when he usually was looking for the nearest exit, after s.e.x. But there was no usually usually about this. about this.

He had never felt anything like this. He thought his mind might actually have exploded by the end of that o.r.g.a.s.m. Surely something was broken, or he would be able to do something other than stand and stare at her like a lovesick buffoon.

"I'll just go and freshen up, then," she murmured, and he followed her, crowding her, pressing kisses to the back of her neck and the curve of her shoulders as if he'd been bespelled by a particularly powerful love potion.

Terror ripped through him at the thought. No. Not love potion. s.e.x potion.

Besottedness potion, the honest part of his mind corrected. That was more than just s.e.x, and you know it. That was more than just s.e.x, and you know it.

He should run while he still could. Yet instead, after they made use of warm water and towels, he swept her into his arms and carried her to her bed, then tucked them both into it, his arms around her.

"I'm not going to let you go for quite a while, so it's a good thing we're partners," he said, reveling in the feel of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed against his chest and one of her legs tucked between his.

"I may agree to that," she said, ever so primly, her cheeks hot again. His seductress had reverted back to Her Ladys.h.i.+p now that she was satisfied, and it delighted him. He'd be perfectly happy for no one but him to ever see the wild side of her.

Ever?

"You just tensed up," she whispered. "What is going on behind those lovely green eyes?"

"Nothing at all. Just sleep. Tomorrow you have books to sign, and we have a national treasure to steal."

He held her and stroked her hair until she slept, and then he lay there, wide awake and simply holding her, until the sun's first rays sent their golden light through the window.

Ever. He'd thought the word "ever" in relations.h.i.+p to a woman. He didn't know whether to laugh-or run. She murmured in her sleep and snuggled closer to him, and he knew he wasn't running anywhere just yet.

Not yet.

He could always run later.

Chapter 11

Atlantis, the warrior training grounds, later that morning

Alaric, sworn in magical service to Poseidon and widely regarded as the most powerful high priest the Seven Isles had ever known, was getting his a.s.s handed to him by his high prince.

He ducked as Conlan swung a particularly vicious overhand strike toward his head, then whirled and parried. The thud as the two wooden training swords collided in midair smashed its recoil through his arm and shoulder.

"Remind me again why I'm doing this," he called out, feinting left. "When I can destroy any attacker with my magic before his sword leaves its sheath?"

"In case your magic goes on the fritz," Princess Riley said, from her seat on a blanket in the gra.s.s bordering the hard-packed dirt training ring. She held her son with Conlan, Prince Aidan, the heir to the throne of Atlantis. His Royal Drooliness, she called him. Alaric felt it lacked a certain dignity, but he refrained from pointing it out.

Humans could be so sensitive.

"My magic does not fritz fritz," he replied, vanis.h.i.+ng from under the force of Conlan's advance and reappearing behind the prince. He swatted Conlan in the a.s.s with the flat of his sword to emphasize the point.

Conlan whirled around, bending down with that innate grace that had fooled so many opponents into underestimating his ferocity, and swept Alaric's legs out from under him. Alaric's own a.s.s. .h.i.t the dirt, hard, before he could teleport. His control over the skill was only slowly improving in spite of practice, and trying to use it while under attack was tricky, at best.

Riley burst out laughing. "That looked like a fritz to me. Did that look like a fritz to you, wittle snook.u.ms?"