Stone Destiny (Stone Passion #3) (25 page)

“I did,” Armand admitted, smiling inwardly at the memory of how sweet it had been to bring her to orgasm, to bury
himself in her luscious body, to lose himself in her arms. Shaking his head to clear it of her, he shrugged, “But it’s the most damnable thing: she’s not out of my system.”

Rowan with the red hair snorted, a loose smile curving his lips, “Then s
tay with us until the girl figures out you don’t want her.”

“I do want her,” Armand pathetically admitted, feeling the heat of a blush steal into his cheek
s. He was just grateful that it was too dark for his brothers to see him embarrass himself like a schoolgirl with her first taste of puppy love. “She’s like a drug. I want more but she is the very last thing I should have, for so many reasons.”

“Give her your nights, Armand,” Leander advised matter-of-factly. It wasn’t really a surprise since his Greek brothers routinely gave up their nights for women, reveling in the flesh and relishing their time in stone. It made no sense to Armand but he wasn’t Greek. The black-haired, black-eyed
Leander let out a long sigh of pleasure, “Enjoy her for a month and when she rejects your gift you sleep and when you awake you can celebrate your new powers. If she accepts,” he smiled with dark amusement. “Well, that is a risk you must take.”

Armand’s heart faltered in his chest and his stomach tightened painfully at the thought
. She would be a fool to accept his gift and he would be a fool to offer it. Upon pain of torture he would never admit the doubts that had immediately plagued him when he had given up his nights to Katrina, with eyes he could have sworn were nearly turquoise. She had been young and sweet and terribly, terribly naïve. Superficially, Ferris shared the same traits, though perhaps slightly less naïve. Smiling to himself, remembering his days and nights with her, he added that Ferris wasn’t nearly as sweet, either. He had relished every hot and sweaty moment they shared.

With a grunt, he drank some more wine, hoping to feel the numb euphoria of inebriation,
wishing he had never brought her up in the first place, wishing he wasn’t so lost that he needed his brothers’ counsel.

“You’re all fools,” Etienne snorted, his blond head gleaming in the low light of the moon. The
terrifyingly beautiful jaguar gargoyle was passionate and pragmatic, an interesting combination that made for some interesting philosophical conversations over several bottles of wine. “Give another woman your nights knowing she will reject you. This way you do not have to risk either rejection or acceptance and it will all be under your control. Your heart will remain whole.”

He had immediately dismissed that suggestion
and yet the more he thought about it the more the third option made the most sense. Ferris deserved so much more than what he had to offer. He was a cold, hard gargoyle and not some romantic hero. A few days before the new moon he returned to the city, watching Ferris as she went about her day, the smiles she bestowed upon the people in her life. Being so close to her caused his chest to ache but he knew that he had chosen to do the right thing. It would kill him when she finally realized he wasn’t the man she envisioned for all of those years.

He reconnected with Felicity, a lover he hadn’t seen in nine or ten years. Felicity, tall and lithe with her smooth, pale skin and dark amber eyes
, was a kinky, sensuous beauty who looked forward to a night of sex, especially after everything she had been through. He had hoped she would erase the memory of Ferris. She hadn’t. If anything, it crystallized how different it had been with Ferris than with every other woman he had been with and that scared the shit out of him.

Recklessly, he gave her his nights, separating his mind from his body as he performed the ritual, imagining Ferris the entire time. Perhaps that was why he was still connected to the beautiful Ferris even though he had given his nights to Felicity. It was also why he hadn’t told Ferris Felicity’s name
since it would have made his foolish betrayal that much worse.

As soon as the sun rose, he thanked her and wished her a good life, disgusted with
himself by what he had done. Desperate to escape the madman he had become, he had promised himself that he would stay away until the month was over and Ferris was forever beyond his reach. He found a bar and tried to drown his thoughts but of course that didn’t work, not with how quickly gargoyles metabolized alcohol. The liquor also had the infuriating benefit of making him even more desperate for Ferris, the girl he promised to save from herself. Wild trolls couldn’t have kept him from returning to Ferris and spending the month in the sun with her.

Gods, she was everything a gargoyle could want, generous and passionate in all that she did. She made him laugh, she made him… damn it
, she made him happy. Every moment he spent with her made him even more perturbed because he had thrown his chance away without giving it a second thought. No, it was worse than that. He had actively searched out a way to get rid of her. His brothers would have been justified in taking a chisel to him.

Every moment
in his frozen state he could
feel
her as she curled her body against his, seeking his warmth when he had none to offer. The bond with Felicity was breaking as she passed away from this life and he was going to be waking soon. He was terrified of the end, of waking up and being too late to see Ferris one last time.

As his time frozen in stone drew to an end,
he was growing increasingly aware of her, the curve of her breast as it pressed against his stone chest, the soft puff of her breath as she breathed against his neck. Hell, he could even smell her, the sweet sunshine warm scent of her filling his senses until he thought he would go mad with longing.

Dread filled his entire body as it began to come back to life, the tingling along his nerve endings as blood began to flow through his veins once more. He didn’t mind the
pain, it was the least he deserved. What he dreaded was seeing Ferris and knowing they had such a short amount of time left to spend with one another. She was going to be old and not for the first time he wished time would slow down so he could remain frozen forever if it meant Ferris would live. He was going to miss her madly when she was gone.

His heart shuddered in his chest, a painful beat that wracked his entire body. The pain lessened with each beat that followed, until his heart found its rhythm once more. The stone surrounding him broke apart, cracking and shifting as his skin became flesh and he became
a man. Air filled his lungs and he shivered as the scent of Ferris poured over him, filling the dark places of his soul and damning him for a fool.

He wanted to remember her as the little girl who talked and talked to a taciturn gargoyle, burrowing her way into his life before he was even aware of the threat. He wanted to remember her as the tempting young woman who crashed through his walls of ice surrounding his heart and forced him to feel things he hadn’t felt in hundreds of years. He didn’t want to see what had become of her.

Slender hands framed his face and he shuddered at the touch, pleasure and sorrow and regret pounding his body from within. Frozen despite being flesh, he sat there as she pressed fervent kisses over his eyes, his cheeks, his chin, his lips. Her kisses were salty and he realized she was crying.

Brushing his thumbs beneath her eyes, he whispered, “Don’t cry, Ferris.”

A small hiccup of a giggle escaped as she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him, “I’m just so happy you’re back, Armand. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”

“
Shh,” he murmured, stroking her slender back, his thoughts in turmoil because her voice was not that of an old lady. How was it possible… it wasn’t. He was just hearing what he wanted to hear.

Slowly, she pulled away from him and her hands were moving over his face, “Open your eyes, love. I’ve waited ages to see your beautiful green eyes.”

Taking a deep, agonizing breath, he finally opened his eyes and found himself drowning in the sparkling, blue green color of Ferris’s gaze. Reluctantly, he tore his gaze away from her eyes and took in the rest of her face: the smooth skin of her cheeks and forehead, the unblemished lines of her jaw, her full, ripe lips. He drank in the sight of her, wondering if it was a dream since she looked twenty-five and very much alive. It had to be a dream. There was no way she could have survived sixty-five years and not age more than three or four years.

“What did you do?” he rasped, his vocal chords rusty with disuse and emotio
n, unable to keep from touching her as he trailed his fingers over the glowing skin of her face, the silky skin of her throat. Immediately he noticed that her freckles were gone.

“It’s only been ten years,” she grinned, punctuating her words with random kisses along his neck, over his face. With a shrug, she added, “
In the beginning I took a drop of Medusa’s blood once a month or so to retard my aging. But then it wasn't necessary and now you're back.”

He swallowed thickly, his pulse pounding throughout his body. “Is Felicity…
.”

“No,” she laughed, tears glistening in her eyes as she shook her head no and laughed some more, her
touch becoming more demanding as she moved her hands over his shoulders, down his chest, along his stomach. “She’s alive.”

His body was responding to her touch, to the nearness of her body. Instinctively, he moved his hands over her body, remembering the feel of her and savoring the ability to touch her once more. Wrapping his arms around her slender waist, he claimed her lips in a fiery kiss, drinking in the essence of Ferris as he plunged his tongue into her mouth. But he had to know. Breathing
heavily, he tore his lips from hers and asked, “How?”

Her chest was rising and falling with each panted breath and it took her a moment before she blinked her eyes open. The glossy, blue-green eyes pulled at him and he started to forget why they had stopped kissing. Licking her lips, her eyes darting briefly to his mouth before meeting his gaze again, she finally answered, “
Ajreis.”

His brows furrowed in bafflement since her words made no sense to him.
“The imp? How?”

She laughed at him, smoothing her thumb over his crinkled forehead before kissing the same spot. “Do you really care or do you want to be properly welcomed back?”

Slipping from his embrace, she moved down his body, covering his body in hot, melting kisses, running her tongue along the throbbing pulse in his throat, playfully biting his nipple before moving further down. He inhaled sharply as her hot mouth encircled the tip of his penis, as her tongue tormented the delicate skin around the slit.

As amazing as her mouth
on his dick felt he wanted more, he wanted to claim her in the most primitive of ways. Grabbing her beneath the arms, he bore her down to the ground, covering her body with his. Pressing a hard, demanding kiss against her mouth, he growled, “Tell me you’re naked beneath this skirt.”

“I am,” she confirmed as she pushed her fingers through his hair, dragged her nails along his scalp. “For two weeks I have been sitting up here without my panties on hoping you’d wake up.”

Ignoring her words, he rucked up the material of her skirt and settled between her legs until the heat of her sex was pressed against his cock. But he didn’t enter her right away because he wanted her naked. He wanted to feel the silk of her skin against his body as he fucked her for the first time in ten years. Almost as if she read his mind, she tore the t-shirt from her body, exposing her lace-covered breasts to his hungry gaze, smiling at him with a sensuality that almost shocked him.

Licking his lips in anticipation, he bent his head and took the tip of her nipple in his mouth, suckling the bud until it throbbed against his tongue and Ferris was arching her back in lust. Without thinking, he tore her skirt, pulling the shredded material from her body as he devoured her breasts. Running his hand along her slender thigh, feeling the delicate muscles quiver beneath his touch, he used his teeth to pull the lace of her bra away from her breast. He licked her naked nipple as he plunged his fingers into the wet heat of her sex, relishing the sounds of pleasure that came from the back of her throat.

Her body trembled violently against his as she watched him with absolute love and devotion, as she touched him with reverence. It was too much and he couldn’t bear the adoration in her eyes and he pulled out. Flipping her onto her hands and knees until her ass was sticking up and her breasts were hanging down, he was able to breathe. He traced the delicate bumps of her spine with his fingertips, the intricate design of the dragon tattoo that covered her entire back. It was an amazing piece of artistry, practically gleaming in the lights of the city. There was something familiar about the gorgeous design but his brain was lacking blood and coherency.

Grabbing her hips and rubbing his cock against the curve of her delicious ass, the heat of her weeping sex. Without giving her any warning, he found the opening and rammed his penis deep into her body, bowing her back with the strength of his penetration. His eyes slammed shut in ecstatic bliss and he feared that he was going to embarrass himself by coming after a single stroke. But then her body shuddered in orgasm around his and he was lost, furiously pumping until he exploded into white hot oblivion.