Heart of Atlantis

sensuality, drowning in desire. She wanted him.

She needed him.

Now.

She drew in a shaky breath and gathered her courage, and then she put her hand on his erection. It was his turn to cry out, and he bucked against her and pulled away.

“Quinn, no, I’ll go off like a youngling in your hand,” he said, and the anguish on his face might have been funny if she didn’t feel exactly the same way, so she decided to take charge this first time, and she pulled him closer, wrapped her legs around his waist, and positioned herself just right.

“I’m going to make love to you now,” she whispered, suddenly shy at being so brazen, but she ignored the heat in her face because the expression of total awe and love on his face was all she needed to see. She lowered herself onto his thick, hard shaft, suddenly wondering if he’d even fit, but there was a will, so she’d definitely find a way. Slowly, slowly, she fit herself around him, and the tight filling sensation drove her crazy, so she pushed down a little faster than she’d meant to, and he groaned.

She froze. “Am I hurting you?”

His wolfish grin was all the answer she needed, and in fact her warrior priest was a quick study, because he grabbed her butt in those big hands and started thrusting into her so hard and so fast that she started coming immediately—it had been so long, so very long, and she’d wanted Alaric for what seemed like forever—and as she cried out and her body shattered apart around him, he thrust one final time, deeper than before, and then he roared out as he came inside her.

A prism of color and light flared around them, sparkling fireworks of magic spinning through the water of the forgotten shower, and Quinn leaned against Alaric as she tried to relearn how to breathe.

“Oh, mi amara,” he said, over and over and over, still standing locked inside her. “You have given me the greatest gift of all.”

“Oh, it gets better,” she said, when she could manage to speak again, and he grinned down at her.

“I meant your love, but now I’m ready for you to show me better.”

“Right now? My, you Atlanteans are quick to recover,” she said, running her hands down the hard muscles of his glorious chest. “I’m not sure I’ll survive it if we try for more. Now? Really?”

“Yes, now,” he said, getting that intent look on his face again as he reached for crystal bottles of what looked like soap and bath oils. “I want to make you scream again.”

And so he did.

* * *

Alaric stared up at the ceiling, sated and a little dazed from his third climax, and Quinn’s fifth or sixth, and he wondered how and why he’d ever thought anything in the world was worth giving up this. Quinn lay curled up next to him, her arm over his chest and one leg across his, and he thought he had never been so perfectly content simply to be still—present in the moment—in his entire life.

But then he thought that he wanted to try to make her come with just his mouth and hands.

He turned his head to look at her, and she shook her head. “Oh, no. Not again. Alaric, you’re insane. I’m not Atlantean, and I don’t have your magical powers of recuperation. If you don’t let me get some rest, I won’t even be able to walk tomorrow.”

“I’m happy to heal you. With my mouth,” he said, flashing his most wicked smile. “I’ll even let you rest. Simply lie still, and I’ll do everything.”

“Oh, this can’t be— Oh. Oh, boy,” she murmured, as his lips closed around one taut pink nipple. “You don’t . . . ah, oh. Oh.”

“You’re a little incoherent,” he informed her, just before he moved down in the bed, pushed her thighs apart, and put his mouth on her. He did as he’d promised and sent a pulse of healing power through her, to soothe any small abrasions he’d caused with his . . . exuberance, and she moaned and arched her body into the air as she came, yet again.

He raised his head and aimed a fierce smile at her. “You can come, as you have just proved. Now you will do so, again.”

“You’re giving me orders, Alaric. Even in bed, you’re—” She cried out and jumped, clutching at the bedsheets with one hand and his hair with the other. “You can’t, we— Oh. Oh, oh, oh, ohhhhh,” she moaned, as he licked and sucked at the pink bud that brought her such pleasure.

He knew the anatomy, of course, but he had never done such a thing, even back in the brief period before his service to Poseidon. He’d had no idea that the act could bring a woman so much satisfaction, but now that he did, he decided to experiment, and he slid two of his fingers inside her while he stroked her with his tongue, and she bucked underneath him again, arching her back, and then she came so hard she screamed his name.

“I have decided to spend the rest of my life giving you orgasms in various beautiful settings, all over the world,” he announced, feeling quite pleased with himself as he realized that her eyes were glazed and she probably hadn’t heard a single word.

“Mine,” he said, kissing his way up her body and then lifting her to lie on top of him, enjoying the blissful expression on her face and the almost-boneless feel of her body, which was limp with pleasure and satisfaction.

“Mine.”

* * *

When Quinn floated back down to the bed from wherever that latest earth-shattering orgasm had sent her, she found Alaric leaning over her with a glass of water in one hand and a towel in the other.

She took both, but she decided a trip to the shower again was in order, if she could only get her shaky legs to carry her there. When she told him her dilemma, Alaric carried her into the shower and washed every bit of her, which led to him soaping her breasts more carefully and thoroughly than he’d even done a few hours earlier, which ended up with her leaning against the wall, hands on the shower ledge, while he took her from behind. She came again, helplessly, endlessly, and he thrust into her with so much power and passion that the sheer eroticism of his joy in making love to her sent her over the edge once again. He roared—a primal sound filled with so much purely male satisfaction that it made her laugh—and then he came again, hard, and leaned down to pull her back against his chest and embrace her.

But even that simple hug turned into something more, when his fingers couldn’t seem to resist her nipples, and he started to caress her breasts again. She moaned a little, almost in spite of herself, but she grabbed his hand when it started to move down her belly.

“I can’t keep this up,” she said, but she bucked back against him helplessly when he ignored her restraining hand and stroked her again.

“I seem to be able to keep this up quite well,” he said, so proudly—so absolutely, positively male—that she started laughing.

She carefully moved forward and then turned around on suddenly very shaky legs. She stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn’t swept her up into his arms and carried her back out of the shower, dried her off, and helped her to bed.

“I have to sleep now, or I might die of too much wonderful sex,” she informed him.

“Lovemaking,” he said firmly. “We have been making love, not merely having sex. Do not forget it.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, smiling sleepily and raising two fingers in a mock salute, and then he climbed into bed with her and wrapped his arms around her. She knew nothing but blissful warmth and lovely sleep, until sometime in the middle of the night, when she woke to find him stroking her nipples with his long, sensitive fingers.

She retaliated by scooting down in the bed and taking his penis into her mouth, and he yelled something in Atlantean and his entire body stiffened and went rigid. He dug into the sheets with both hands and continued speaking in a low tone, saying something that sounded beautifully lyrical—either an oath or a promise—and she licked the entire length of his shaft, smiling as whatever it was he was saying grew increasingly more fervent.

“You cannot—”

“Oh, I can,” she interrupted. “Don’t move. This is my turn.”

She took her time with it, driving him to the edge of madness and beyond, as she cupped his firm balls in her hand and sucked on the sensitive tip of his penis with varying pressures, until she found exactly what he liked and exactly what made him lose all vestiges of control.

He cried out again, and she heard her name, and mi amara, and something that