Atlantis Rising

Healthy, clean desire. He hadn't felt desire in more than a century. Certainly not for the past seven years.

Nothing pure. Nothing not twisted.

Damaged goods.

He yanked his hand away from her. 'Aknasha means 'empath,' ' he said roughly. 'You're an empath. The first in maybe ten thousand years.'

Riley stared up at the man who had saved her from assault and, probably, rape. Maybe worse. If her mind had conjured up her most erotic fantasy to save her from a grim reality in which she really was being attacked, it had done a bang-up job. The man was some kind of superhero come to life.

If they made superheroes who looked like very dangerous Hollywood movie stars, that is. He stood a good eight inches taller than her five foot ten, and his body was a nymphomaniac's wet dream. Heavily muscled shoulders and arms, a broad chest that tapered down to a lean waist. God, his thighs had to be the size of her waist. The man was a mountain of muscle, improbably wearing a black silk shirt that tucked into elegant black pants.

She jerked her gaze up from going any further south and stared fixedly at his chest, her cheeks flaming to know that he'd caught her ogling him.

Although, really, the man must get ogled wherever he goes, so it's not like he isn't used to it.

His silky black hair brushed his shoulders in shining waves, framing a face that defied description. Beautiful. For the first time in her life, she used the adjective to describe a man.

He raised her chin with one finger, and she looked up at him again. He was smiling, amusement lighting up his dark eyes, almost as if he'd heard what she…

'Oh, God,' she muttered. 'Empath means you can read my mind?' She stared up past the silky hair, past the perfectly sculpted mouth, and past the cheekbones that seemed carved of granite. Finally, her gaze fixed on the icy black eyes that burned over her. Strange that ice could be so hot, she thought absently, trapped almost mindlessly in his gaze.

'You did hear me, didn't you?' she asked, embarrassment nearly an afterthought.

He touched her cheek with fingers so gentle she nearly shuddered from the sensation, and he spoke inside her mind with a voice that should be outlawed. I can hear your thoughts, but I can also somehow feel your emotions. It's impossible, but it's true.

Whiskey wrapped in velvet. His low, purely masculine voice carried a smooth, husky tone that curled around her nerve endings until her skin tightened with desire. Desire that caressed every erogenous zone she'd never even known she had.

Desire that he would touch her. Desire that he would keep talking to her on the mental path that no other person had ever shared with her.

Desire.

His voice echoed in her mind, rough. Strained. I hear you, and maybe you should think other thoughts. Because something about you is burning me up inside, and I don't know if I'm up to the challenge of controlling it.

She sensed his puzzlement, almost as if he were seeking the answer to an unanswerable problem. He stepped closer to her and wrapped one hand gently around the nape of her neck. I need to touch you. I don't want to frighten you, but please let me touch you. Just my forehead to yours.

His eyes held a stark plea. Please.

Trembling, sure she was out of her mind to agree to it, she nodded. She couldn't help herself. Something inside of her wouldn't let her run away. Maybe insanity, or maybe just the adrenaline high from surviving two near- death experiences in a single evening.

But every protective instinct that had served her well in her job—that should have been shouting caution, caution, back away from the superhunk—was screaming yes, yes, yes, touch me, touch me.

Riley snapped out of her mental ramble, realizing that the hottest man she'd ever seen was bending toward her. Slowly, ever so slowly, he lowered his face toward hers, as if to kiss her.

Oh, if he'd only kiss her.

A mere breath away from her, he smiled a slow smile of sheer male satisfaction. It made him look even more the predator he clearly was.

I'm down with that, aknasha. But first, I want to feel the touch of your mind. With that, he lowered his forehead to hers.

For the second time that night, Riley's world exploded.

Her body stiffened, and she jerked backward so hard she'd have fallen if he hadn't captured her with strong hands on her arms. He. Him. Conlan. His name was Conlan and he was… some sort of leader. Thoughts and impressions leapt from his mind to her own, drowning her in sensations and colors. His… thoughts?… aura?… soul? … a vivid blue-green, like a pool of the clearest water or the depths of the sea. But blackness—a boiling blackness swirled in the middle of it.

Torture. Pain. A name—a face—dark beauty ruined by evil and madness.

Anubisa?

She twisted in his arms, trying to escape from the intensity of his mind's capture of hers, but he held her with arms like steel bands.

Just as the pain branded in his memories held her in its thrall. Torture, pain, burning—slicing, shredding, searing agony… How could he have borne so much pain for so long?

She gasped, trying to breathe, trying for distance. No longer trying to pull away, but seeking to understand.

How? How was he inside of her mind? She felt him—she knew him—she understood him on some fundamental level. She could read his fierce determination to discover her, to explore her, to… have her? The intensity of his mind scan changed, with all the subtlety of the tidal wave he'd called earlier, into an outpouring of sexual longing.

A violent hunger, tinged with his shock at his reaction to her. She yanked her head away from his in a desperate attempt to protect herself and thought, for an instant, that she saw blue-green fire raging in the depths of his black pupils.

She shook her head to clear it, and spoke out loud to try to dampen the hunger rising between them. 'Conlan. Your name is Conlan, right? I don't know how I know that, but… mine is Riley.'

Then, in spite of her fear, she laughed a little. 'Wow. Talk about a 'me, Tarzan, you, Jane' moment.'

Then the memories banished the smile from her face. 'How could you bear it? So much pain for so long…'

She shook her head, aching for him. Aching for this man she didn't even know. 'It would have driven me insane.'

He finally spoke, voice flat. 'Don't jump to any conclusions. I never claimed to be sane.'

Chapter 6

Conlan threw his head back, gulping in a lungful of air, the ugly reality of his memories stark in the silence between them. She had more courage than he'd even guessed, this small human. With his mind thrust into hers, he'd touched the fundamental core of her—their thoughts nearly melded. The purity of her soul shocked him; his cynicism was centuries old.

One touch and he knew her, somehow.

Intellectually.

Emotionally.