Murderer. Coward.

With a painful growl, Gideon let go of the handles. The loss of her mesmerizing touch was his punishment, a deprivation he deserved, but which filled him with rage. At her, at himself. As he surged up, he shoved against the railing, splintering it on its base.

She didn't fall. Anwyn had time only for that brief impression as the beast she'd thought she'd lulled into a temporary peace came to savage life again. As he did, he tore the railing right out of the floor. Lithe as she was, she should have fallen ignominiously on her backside, because she'd spun her own enchantment. Having this dangerously powerful man on his knees, his head in her lap, had made her wish she could stay like this for the whole session, just soothe the rabid monster in his soul that called to her.

That was her weakness as well as her strength. A lion tamer, Daegan had called her, on more than one occasion.

The most terrifying part is you have no fear of the lion,cher. He fascinates you. No matter how close you come to his fangs and claws.

Well, she was pretty damn close right now. Gideon caught her upper arms before she could topple, cleared the debris he'd created and slammed her up against the wall in the recessed stained glass alcove.

The small fountain toppled, splashing water across their feet. Glass shattered behind her, the stained glass as well as the backlight bulb, sparks popping.

Despite that cacophony, he'd done it all in one superbly graceful movement that told her exactly what this man did for a living. He killed. It was a calling, not a profession. His deadly grace came from more than practice and experience; it was natural instinct, a terrible gift of the gods. Even if her courage didn't falter, her body had the sense to tremble.

He shifted her into the corner, away from that jagged bulb, and kissed her, hard, fierce, his fingers biting into her arms. He wasn't seeking pleasure, but brutal domination. Her feet weren't on the floor. His thigh pushed between her legs, holding her up, riding her on flexing muscle; his cock ground into her hip. His split shirt slid off his broad shoulders, exposing part of his chest, the hard cords of muscle in his throat.

His lips were drawn back, teeth clashing with hers. During those few harrowing moments, she forced herself to calm docility, despite the desperate thumping of her heart against her rib cage and the unexpected spike of arousal the grip of his hands and press of his body incited. She didn't reject his kiss, merely waited him out, waited for him to realize she was neither resisting nor accepting. She hoped that James and the security guards were obeying her orders, which were to leave them be unless she gave the prearranged signal for assistance.

Mostly, though, she thanked Goddess that Daegan had already left. That was all she needed, a testosterone match between a pissed-off vampire and an enraged vampire hunter.

Gideon drew back, his breath coming fast, his eyes cold and hard. His mouth was a rigid slash, wet with hers. During the kiss, he'd shifted one hand to the base of her throat. Gazing at him, she knew he was feeling her rapid pulse beneath that grip. “Gideon,” she said softly. “Put me down. You are hurting me, and you are hurting yourself. I won't tolerate either one of those things in here.” His lip curled in a half snarl, but it was silent. A quiver ran through his limbs, and she saw the muscles in his neck work, his shoulders bunch. The hands clenched on her, enough that she wondered if she would have to use that signal after all. Then he moved.

Not to obey her, not exactly. He shifted his grip, so he was beneath her legs and back, and lifted her out of the broken glass. Fortunately, his hard biceps pressed below where her shoulder had hit the stained glass. He carried her away from it, putting her on her feet next to the wing-backed chair. Then he stood there for a moment, staring at her. He was a tall man, more than six feet, but with her heels, the height difference was reduced. His hands crept up from her waist, his fingers tangling in her hair, almost like a child playing in his mother's curls, only the movement of his fingers inspired entirely nonmaternal feelings.

He slid along the surface of the camisole, the heat of his touch burning the skin beneath the thin barrier of cloth.

This man was not a submissive. There was nothing innate about it to him. She'd sensed that from the beginning. But what had fascinated and drawn her was what she felt now, in full, raging demand. He was seeking a form of submission, of surrender, that didn't have to do with whips and chains and kissing the sole of her shoe. It had to do with service and loyalty, with something so absolute the soul, not the mind, was the one pleading to be called into service.

She'd said she had a theory about his sense of chivalry, the type of man he was. Even in his rage against Tara, he'd confined his violence to the objects around her, and defensive maneuvers only. By opening him up, Anwyn had pushed him closer to direct violence than he'd probably ever committed against a woman. She could tell, because it was in the damning self-condemnation in his eyes, the tremor in those large, dangerous hands that held her.

The world outside Atlantis was one of intellectual, self-righteous cynicism, which mocked acts of nobility. It scorned the notion that there was a definitive right and wrong, a structure of morality and code of honor. In such a world, the soul of Gideon Green was quite lost.

“I'm sorry,” he said at last, his voice rough, a wounded lion's growl. “I'm going now. I'll come back and pay later, but I won't bother you again.”

When he stepped back, she reached out, hooked her hand in the waistband of his jeans. Her knuckles brushed his abdomen, her sharp-edged rings scraping his flesh under the cotton shirt. Holding his gaze, the color of midnight skies that never felt a hint of sunlight, she closed her other hand on the shirt collar where it hung low and tugged. The split back made it easy to take it off his long arms, over the lean muscles that rippled like strong river currents. Since she hadn't cut the shirt all the way down the back, it got caught at his hips, but she stepped closer, worked it free of the waistband and let it fall to his feet, around his boots.

Broad chest, gleaming shoulders, a lightly furred abdomen that couldn't hide the striations of hard, tough strength there, either. Maybe he'd used a gym to get to a certain point, but she was looking at a warrior.

Her lips pressed together at the scars. She knew what she was seeing. After all, in a former life, she'd been an emergency room nurse, having a front-row view of man's violence toward man, and toward himself.

Gideon Green bore scars from bullets, knives and punctures. There were burns, faint tracks along his rib cage that she knew would originate in the back, because they came from a brutal flogging, not meant for anyone's pleasure but a true sadist. Without the scars, he would have had a beautiful body. It was still a work of art, though, the cost interwoven with the potential.

“Stay completely still. Don't move. I'm going to show you the right way to get a kiss from your Mistress.”

He looked puzzled, but then she closed those several inches and brought her lips to his, staring into his eyes. His body constricted under her touch, her fingers resting on his chest and at his waist, all that lovely bare male skin. He kept his eyes open, gazing into hers, and she breathed into his mouth, brushed her lips over his, tasted them with a delicate tracing of her tongue, until she started to feel him sway toward her, the tortured pain in his gaze flickering with something else.

She stepped back as his hands were lifting to close over her body. He could have stopped her, but his fingers merely slid along her waist and hip as she backed away.

“I require two things,” she said. “That you tell me the truth, consciously. I will, on occasion, forgive the unconscious lie, the one you believe yourself, but I will dig it out, force you to face it. Outside this room, you can be a liar. Most of us are, to be what we need to be. But here, I only accept the truth that comes directly from your soul.”

“That's not what I want.”

Wrong, angry man. She arched a brow. “It's what I want that matters, Gideon. Remember? I'm in control of that.”

“What will you do to me, if I let those women tie me up?” His pulse was up again, she noted, and the fingers were clenching, but from the very question, she knew his mind was circling around the temptation of it, his need to surrender. It made it harder to keep her voice steady.

“Whatever I want. Your choice is to trust me, even if you've never trusted anyone in your life.”

“Why should I do that?”

The truth was there, but she almost hated to say it. The look in his eyes would break a Goddess's heart, let alone a mortal woman who found him too irresistible to be safe.

“Because you have nothing left to lose.”

4

GIDEON stood there. As his eyes shuttered, looking inside himself, she gave a signal to the cameras.

Otherwise, she held her position, knowing if she moved, it could break the moment in several different ways.

Ten minutes later, he was still standing there, but his gaze had focused back on her, disturbing in its intensity. She didn't flinch, though. He didn't break the link when the door opened, either, though it cost him, his shoulders twitching.

“An Amazon brigade?” he asked, that defensive flash back in his eyes.

“No. Something different for you.”

Gideon turned then to discover the three women she'd summoned were not Dommes, but three club slaves. Natural submissives employed by Atlantis to help wherever they were needed on the underground floor. All three were completely naked except for collars, their three different body types all tempting to the male eye.

Janet was a Renaissance beauty, with full hips and belly, heavy breasts and wavy golden hair long enough to belong to a fairy. It was twisted into a tail, the barrette fastened to a ring at the back of her silver club collar, while the rest of the locks tumbled down her back, brushing her pale buttocks.

Charlene was slender, small breasted with just a hint of hips, a willowy beauty with pale green eyes and elfin features. Ella was the classic hourglass, the kind that would cause every man on a beach to get hard, watching her sway and jiggle her way down the sand in a scanty bikini. Her red hair was caught up on her neck, whereas Charlene had close-cropped hair that only enhanced the elf impression.