Jewel of Atlantis

bandaging his wound, she sat back and eyed the results. 'You'll be sore and weak for several more days, and I'm sorry for that but there's no help for it. The important thing is that you will heal.' As she spoke, her stomach growled.

His grin spread as quickly as the color in her cheeks. 'Hungry?' 'Yes.' She nodded, rubbing her belly. 'Very.'

'I have energy bars in my pack.'

'Energy bars?'

'Tasteless morsels packed with everything our bodies need to survive.'

'Sounds... delicious.' Her nose wrinkled, but she leaned over him, meshing her breasts into his chest.

His blood heated as desire rushed through him.

She rooted through the backpack. 'I have bread in my satchel.'

'Grab that, too. The bars will help us keep up our strength, but they won't do much to fill us up.'

'Is this what I'm looking for?' she asked, holding up a brown-packaged rectangle.

'Yes,' he said, his voice more hoarse than he would have liked. She started to pull away.

'Maybe you should dig one out for me, too.'

'Of course.'

'Just make sure you dig real deep.' He wriggled his eyebrows at her.

Her lips twitched, a smile clinging to the edges. She reached deep inside the bag and withdrew another energy bar.

'Oh, yeah. Just like that.'

'I suppose this is where I demand payment?' She slid away from him, leaving a trail of heat, and grabbed two pieces of hard, slightly crumbling bread. 'I did warn you that I planned to start charging you for your naughty invitations.'

He allowed his gaze to sweep over her. The hem of her robe was noticeably shorter where she'd torn the strips for his wounds, revealing the peaches-and-cream perfection of her calves. Smooth and lean, slightly muscled. All traces of amusement abandoned him. Though she'd moved away, he felt the imprint of her nipples all the way to the marrow of his bones.

'I did warn you that I planned to pay with kisses,' he said, willing her to close the rest of the distance between them. He needed her tongue in his mouth. Weakened body be damned.

She lost her amusement, too. Her smile disappeared. Desire lit her features, swirling in her eyes. 'Yes, you did warn me,' she said, breathless.

'Com'ere.'

Slowly she moved her face toward his, so close the sweetness of her breath fanned his chin. 'I shouldn't.' 'You should.'

'You're hurt.'

'Not too hurt. Kiss me.'

'Yes, I—no.' She blinked and straightened her back, widening the distance between them. 'No. We need to eat,' she said, giving no other reason for her sudden refusal.

What had changed her mind? He wanted to demand an answer, but his pride wouldn't allow him. A woman had never pulled away from him before, and he didn't like that one had now—one he wanted more and more as the seconds passed. One he wanted more than he'd ever wanted another.

He ate the bread first, relishing the familiar taste, then tore into his energy bar, eating half in one bite. Jewel, too, ate her bread, then nibbled on the bar, wrinkling her pixie nose in distaste.

The wind kicked up, rustling leaves and gusting tendrils of her hair over her shoulders, onto his chest It felt like a caress of her hand.

He gulped. 'We really should get moving soon. The longer we stay here, the more likely the demons are to find us.'

'They'll never find us here. In fact, we're safer here than we would be anywhere else.'

'How do you know?'

'Marina fears the owner of this land.'

He considered that and nodded. 'So tell me, Prudence. Where will I find the Jewel of Dunamis?'

Her cheeks paled, leaving her skin pallid. 'You need rest. There is no reason to worry about that now.' 'You swore to take me to it. Are you planning to renege on me?' He spoke quietly. Deceptively calm.

'No, of course not.' The thunderous look Gray was giving her now was the look he usually reserved for his enemies. Ominous. Deadly. 'I have every intention of revealing exactly where Dunamis is.'

His shoulders relaxed. 'So where is it?'

She turned to him, meeting his gaze and holding his stare. The fact that she was still fighting her need to kiss him didn't help matters. But run, she would not.

Kiss him, she would not. He might not remember what had happened inside his consciousness last night, but she did. She remembered how he'd thought of her as 'not for him.' Remembered that he'd intended to push her away if she hadn't done it herself.

If she kissed him now, she wouldn't have the strength to pull away from him, even if she heard him curse her to Hades in his mind. She'd spent the entire night caring for him, bathing him when his fever raged, pouring water down his throat. Sleep had been impossible when his survival depended on her, so shards of fatigue rode her hard, weakening her resolve to remain distanced from him.

'Where is it?' he demanded again.

She pushed out a breath and prayed he took her next words as the answer. 'I need you to escort me to the Temple of Cronus.' A sense of foreboding swept over her. For her? For Gray? Or the temple? She closed her eyes, trying to center the sensation, to study it, but it slipped out of reach.

Gray bared his teeth in a scowl. 'That wasn't the deal, babe.'

He hadn't taken it the way she'd hoped; instead, he'd heard the hesitation in her voice, the wistful catch. She couldn't lie to him, but now she'd have to utter a distorted truth he would assume meant one thing, when in fact, it meant another. It's what she had done with Marina, and she hated to do it to Gray, but she had to reach the temple.

The only memory she had of her father was inside that temple. His face was a blur to her, but she remembered how he'd descended the long, white steps, coming straight for her, his arms wide.

'I sprang you from prison,' Gray snapped. 'You take me to Dunamis. That was the deal, and you know it.'

'What if I told you that you will discover Dunamis at the temple?'

'Will I?' he asked, suspicious.

'I wouldn't have said so otherwise, would I?'

He remained silent for a long, protracted moment, then relaxed. 'If Dunamis is in the temple, that's where we're going. Geez. For a minute you made it sound like they were entirely separate things.'

She blinked innocently. It had taken Marina over a year to even suspect that when Jewel responded with a question, the real truth did not lie in the answer. Gray was well on his way to that realization after only a few days.

'Is anyone or thing guarding it?' he asked. 'Dunamis, I mean?'

'It does have one protector, yes.'

When she said no more, he added, 'You want to tell me what I'll be up against?'

How did she explain without lying? 'The protector is strong and brave, but he will let you do whatever you wish with Dunamis.'

Gray's eyes narrowed. 'Just like that?' He snapped his fingers. 'The man will give it up just like that?' 'Answer a question for me first. Why do you want it so badly? The jewel, I mean.'

'You mean you don't know?'

'All I know is that you do not wish to conquer and rule the surface world, nor do you plan to use it to destroy an enemy.'

His silver gaze pierced her all the way to her core. Jewel didn't think a man had ever looked at her the way Gray did, as if she were a platter of some unknown, but delicious smelling dessert.

'Will my reason affect your willingness to take me to it?'