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ARIK CRINGED AT THE HARSH SENSATION OF DENIM SLIDING against his bare legs The roughness of it was hard to take How did humans stand it?

The man, Teddy, had loaned him a white shirt and jeans But the texture of each was itchy and heavy

The clothing Arik was used to had no weight or texture At least none that he could feel, and in dreams

well, since he was considered an Erotikos Skotos, clothing was seldoet in the way of other,the jeans, he reached for the stiff white shirt at the saeara standing in the low, narrow entrance-way, looking e Her day white shirt untucked that made her appear to be a blob of material Or at least it would if it weren&039;t wet As it was, it left very little of her lush body to his iination

In this realm, she hid every indication of the full curves he knew she possessed Even her thick, blond hair was pulled back severely froht bun

But her face was the saent, sharp and clear, alht se of her nose And her lips

He had spent entire nights kissing those luscious lips Watching them dance over his skin as she nibbled and teased him until they were both blind with ecstasy

The ht, puckered nipples straining against her shirt, er

"How do you know ry tone that was undercut by a note of apprehension

He hesitated as he sensed her fear He would have to play this carefully if he were to get what he wanted from her He didn&039;t know much about the human world, but he knew from dreams that scared hosts wouldn&039;t let him touch them So it only stood to reason that they&039;d be skittish in this realain her trust

"You told ht they&039;d iven it to hieara No one"

"What do they call you then?"

"Geary"

"Then Geary you are"

"Yes, but that doesn&039;t explain how you knew my name when I hadn&039;t said it"

"Maybe I&039;m psychic" He&039;d meant that as a joke, but by the look on her face, he could tell she didn&039;t find it a

"I don&039;t believe in psychics"

"Then how do you explain it?"

Geary narrowed her eyes at hi with her, and she didn&039;t appreciate it in the least "Do I know you? Have we met?"

He hesitated before he answered "There&039;s no need to be afraid of iving a paper at Vanderbilt"

Geary frowned as she remembered the event clearly That had been her first paper in public ever

She&039;d been incredibly nervous So much so that she&039;d stues and notes in front of everyone, and then spent ten ain She&039;d been halfway through the paper before she realized that one page had fallen underneath the heavy wooden stand and they had to stop everything again to retrieve it

The event had left her huhed at her After that fiasco, she&039;d been lucky anyone had ever invited her to speak on anything

"I don&039;t remember you"

"I was in the audience at the time Dr Chandler introduced us afterward, but we didn&039;t really converse

You seemed a bit harried before you were pulled away by Dr Chandler to uely remembered that part The fact that he did lent credibility to his clai sonity at the mixer still, a man this hot should have been branded in hersmile quirked one corner of his mouth up "You left quite an iht A guy like this would actually reht frump who&039;d embarrassed herself? "I find that hard to believe"

But there was no laughter in his intense gaze Only sincerity "You shouldn&039;t It&039;s true"

Geary frowned as she struggled to recall hi that day that it was entirely possible they had otten it "Why were you there?"

"I was a student, of anthropology I asked you about Atlantis then and you were rather rude about it"

The smile spread across his face as he teased her with his eyes

She was still skeptical, but it did make sense She would have taken his head off over Atlantis back then

It would also explain her blocking him out of herabout him lately Maybe her subconscious had remembered him and his desire to find Atlantis

"Anyway, it&039;s why I&039;m here now Like you, I want to find Atlantis"

She stiffened at those words "Who says I&039;ean with a scientific tea and excavation What else would you be after?"

"Any ancient artifact"

"Then why is it you wear an Atlantean coin around your neck?"

Her hand went straight to it She&039;d had the coin mounted a month after her father&039;s death to remind her of her promise to him But what confused herwas on the

back The part that showed to Arik was the i bolts "How do you know that?"

"That coin bears the syosa Fonia Kataastreifa"

"Apollyoddess of wisdom, death, and destruction But she was mostly referred to in Atlantean as Apollymi Akrakataastreifa Apollymi the Great Destroyer"

There was no way he could know that Not unless he&039;d seen the mysterious symbol somewhere else

"Where have you seen the symbol? How do you knohat it stands for?"

"I&039; about this area that I don&039;t know Nothing I also know that even if you have found Atlantis, you&039;ll never get a per for years to gain one But she was persona non grata here

Arik&039;s eyes narrowed on her "You allow uarantee you a per"

He shook his head "I have more connections here than you can dream of Literally"

"And how can I trust you?"

"How can you not? I&039; what you want e double entendre there "I don&039;t trust you How can you get my permits when you can&039;t even remember your own name?"

"I&039;ve already told youelse"

Arik smiled at her before he took aSolin&039;s huiven Solin&039;s unpredictability, but his brother owed him this favor, and if he failed to cooperate, Arik would kill him

Geary stared at Arik suspiciously For over five years she&039;d been bogged down in red tape as the Greek government ran her around so badly she felt like a small plastic car trapped on a racetrack in an endless loop of frustration She&039;d gotten nowhere and she was quite certain she&039;d slammed off the track a few times and landed in a tree face first

Was it possible for hiet her the per to get thee and you know itAll she had to do was call his bluff and he&039;d retreat

"Fine, you want to prove yourself to et to stay on this

expedition is if I ns theery that lands eries You can trust me, Geary I promise"

Still not sure she could, or even should, she nodded grimly, then turned to leave Before she could ently pulled her to a stop She expected hi Instead heexpression that was part incredulous and part devouring No man had ever looked at her like that

Face it, at six feet tall, she dwarfed h she wasn&039;t hideous, she wasn&039;t skinny or beautiful She was just average and men who looked like Arik weren&039;t interested in women who looked like her

Except in their dreaeven now?

Arik wanted to tell her that he was here for her and her alone He wanted her to knohat he&039;d gone through to get here, but from what he knew of hue

Especially not about the part where he&039;d bartered her soul for it

But from the moment he&039;d touched her, words escaped him He wanted to taste her, to hold her