The Complete Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset (Books 1-9)

by Lisa Blackwood

  Her bedroom door opened suddenly, and Jason bolted out. He didn’t make it three feet before a long, muscular arm shot out of the billowing darkness and latched onto her brother’s shoulder.

  “Hey! I know you’re pissed, but I warned you about zippers!” Jason screamed as he was dragged back into the room. The door slammed in Lillian’s face. She sipped from her tea. There was another loud thump, then what sounded like a minor scuffle. Something heavy landed against the door, and she heard her brother curse before it was cut off. He continued to make noise, but it was muffled.

  Lillian reached for the handle, but the door sprang open of its own accord. She backed out of the way just in time as her brother was propelled out with a good deal of force. He stumbled into the opposite wall.

  She arched a brow at the sight her brother made—only to realize he couldn’t see with a pair of boxer shorts over his head. Taking her time, she circled her brother and then pulled the boxers off his head.

  She placed her teacup down on a side table. “I assume it didn’t go so well?”

  He glared at her when she smiled. He couldn’t do much else, not with the sock jammed in his mouth like a gag and his arms trapped under what looked to be at least three layers of polo shirts over the top of his own clothes.

  She pulled the gag from his mouth. “You okay?”

  “Your gargoyle has anger management issues.”

  Lillian grabbed the bottom of one shirt and pulled it up over his head while he disentangled himself from the others. When he was standing in front of her with the clothes he’d started with, she laughed.

  Her brother glowered, apparently not finding the situation particularly funny.

  Between bouts of laughter, she finally managed, “What happened?”

  “Gregory isn’t a fan of modern fashion. Zippers in particular. I warned him to be careful with the zipper on the jeans...guess he understands why now.” Jason made a grab at his crotch as his face screwed up in mock pain.

  “You didn’t...”

  “Laugh? You bet. In sympathy, of course. Though it was his fault for going commando.” Jason shrugged. “Unfortunately, I then might also have mentioned something about sending you up to kiss it all better.”

  Another ominous growl rolled out of the darkness behind her bedroom door.

  “Ah!” Jason darted around behind Lillian, putting her firmly between him and the black mist boiling out of her bedroom. “Think I’ve overstayed my welcome. Bye, Sis.”

  Without so much as a glance behind, Jason bolted for the stairs. His mop of unruly brown hair stood straight up in a near-gravity defying way as he vaulted off the top stair. He dropped out of sight and landed with a heavy thump before stampeding down the rest of the flight.

  Gran yelled something at Jason before the kitchen door slammed with its usual creak. Lillian waited a moment more and then turned back to her room, boxer shorts and shirts in hand.

  “Gregory?”

  Nothing.

  Bumping a hip against the partially open door, she eased into the dark room and tried the light switch on the wall. She flicked it a couple of times—still nothing. Great.

  Her gargoyle was beyond ‘pissed’ if his concealment spells had dampened the lights.

  “Gregory, love. I know you can see in the dark, but I can’t.”

  A rumbling huff echoed from three feet in front of her. Her searching fingers collided with warm, leathery skin, so soft it was suede-like. A wing membrane? Then it pulled out of her grasp as if he was turning away.

  The sound of tearing cloth was loud in the silence. Equally noticeable was the pounding pressure of Gregory’s magic against her skin. It hummed in her blood with each lungful of air.

  “Hmm.” Lillian wasn’t too concerned. She liked the wild essence pressing against her skin. And it was Gregory with her, after all. However, it would still be nice to see what was going on. “Light, please?”

  He huffed again, more growl this time, but his magic retreated, and the lights flickered back into existence.

  “Thanks.” She blinked against the suddenly bright room. When she could see again, her gaze sought out Gregory. He stood with his back to her, in gargoyle form—though by the shredded clothing clinging to him, he’d been in human form until recently.

  She came up behind him and plucked a mangled patch of what was once a nice oatmeal-colored knit sweater from the clawed joint of his right wing. Another larger swath of tangled yarn was draped over his other wing joint. Unwinding it, she brushed the rest away without comment.

  The remaining portions of the sweater were draped loosely across his broad shoulders and chest. A glance down confirmed a pair of blue jeans hadn’t fared any better. The seams had burst over his powerful thighs and calf muscles. And his tail hadn’t done the back of the jeans any good, either.

  One large hand came up and gripped the material at his right shoulder. With an interesting ripple of muscles along his back, he tore off a good half of the offending sweater.

  “I probably shouldn’t have enjoyed watching that as much as I did.”

  Lillian touched the back of one of his arms, keeping the contact light as she stepped around in front of him. When she was squarely before him, she transferred her fingers to his chest, gliding them under the torn sweater. Continuing up and over his shoulder, she pushed the knitted material away from his body and down his arm.

  Gregory didn’t move, not so much as a twitch, but she could feel his intense gaze locked onto her. Perhaps it was the decision of a coward, she mused, but she kept her eyes level with his well-muscled chest, neither looking up nor allowing her eyes to drift down below his waist. She pulled another scrap of material from his opposite shoulder and watched as the bit of sweater remains hit the floor. She pushed it off to the side with her toe, the soft rustle of fabric unnaturally loud in the silence.

  The weight of a long-fingered, talon-tipped hand coming to rest on her shoulder startled Lillian into looking back up until she was eye-level with his chest again. She only then realized she’d been staring at the floor because her confidence had fled.

  His fingers began to knead her tense shoulder in a gentle, rhythmic manner.

  Forcing her eyes higher, because she would overcome her personal cowardice and be the partner the other half of her soul needed, she finally met his intense gaze. Her throat tight with nerves, she swallowed past the lump. “No permanent damage?” she asked, her voice soft and unsteady, even to her own ears.

  “Just to my pride.” His warm breath washed across her one ear and on down her neck. “Nothing that won’t heal.”

  So, he had done himself some harm. In a spur-of-the-moment, she-wasn’t-really-thinking-about-what-she-was-doing move, she glanced down and started to reach for the split and sagging material of his jeans.

  Gregory moved at the same time, and Lillian jerked back. Her face heated in a fiery blush, thinking he was going to push her hands away from a place they had no business being in the first place.

  “Sorry.” She rushed on. “I don’t know what I was...it’s not like I still have any healing powers...it was some knee-jerk instinct...”

  “It comes naturally to us.” Gregory’s voice was deeper than normal, velvet and sinful. “We would commonly inspect and heal each other’s smallest injuries. It was one way we could show our deep love for each other without breaking our oaths to the Divine Ones.” Gregory enfolded her hands in his and drew them back to his body, curling them gently around the slight protrusion of his hip bones. “There is no shame in this.”

  He tucked his muzzle against his chest and closed his eyes but made no other move. Clearly, he was leaving the next move to her. Even motionless, he was still an imposing wall of muscle and sinew. His bulk of wings, horns that brushed the ceiling, and broad shoulders that dwarfed her smaller frame, all added to his overall air of menace.

  Yet, as different as they might be in body, they were one soul.

  And right now, her other half needed her. Touching h
im, she could feel what he felt, his bone-deep terror she would fear him and turn away, that she would not be, could not be, what he needed.

  She took one step into him, pressing her cheek to his chest as she sealed the length of their bodies together.

  “No shame,” she whispered against his chest. “None ever between us.”

  Gregory released a deep, rumbling sigh as the tension melted out of his body. His arms encircled her shoulders, and his tail wrapped possessively around her lower legs. They stood there unmoving for several moments. Gregory seemed willing to just stay like that, but Lillian knew she had a little more to do in order to be what he needed.

  She unwound her arms from around his waist and hooked her fingers in the top of his ruined jeans. It was easy enough to push the torn denim down his hips. Gregory shifted his weight for her, making it easier to shove the pant legs on down. When it was low enough, he kicked free of the shredded material and then went still once more.

  Almost done, she thought. Giving herself silent orders seemed to be the only thing holding her confidence in place. If she was standing in front of anyone other than Gregory doing this...

  “I would do them serious injury.” Gregory’s voice rumbled over her head.

  “There is no one else I would do this for.” Her voice had steadied, but when she reached out and pushed against one hip to urge him to turn toward the light flooding from the bathroom, she couldn’t hide the nervous tremble in her fingers.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d seen Gregory completely bare. He had little concept of human modesty. The other two times had been when he’d been in the shower. Both those times she’d averted her gaze within seconds but had still been left with the knowledge Gregory was impressive in every aspect. He was utterly hairless but had the correct number of parts to be mostly human-shaped, which maybe wasn’t so strange, since gargoyles and dryads did interbreed upon occasion. And dryads and humans were nearly indistinguishable in appearance.

  She arched an eyebrow in thought. Still, if Gregory was an average example of his species, dryads were made of sterner stuff than she’d credited them with. Lillian might be of dryad blood, but she wasn’t sure if she possessed the courage to tackle a gargoyle. Even at rest, he was larger than what a similarly proportioned man would have possessed.

  Gregory’s body language was still relaxed, but his thoughts hinted at an underlying sense of anticipation. She moved her hand from his hip and stroked her fingertips across his belly and was rewarded by the subtle flex of the muscles spanning his abdomen. He shifted his stance as he grew semi-hard at her touch. It was one of the sexiest things she’d seen.

  Her breath rushed from her lungs. She had to remind herself this was supposed to be an inspection, not a seduction. Though, she imagined, she was the one getting seduced by Gregory’s undeniable, virile nature.

  Inspection.

  “It’s just an inspection.”

  Gregory laughed, his voice a dark caress along her overheated body. “Then, by all means, inspect me, my Sorceress.”

  His baiting had her blood rushing to answer his challenge, and she made herself take a lingering look. “Everything looks...in order. You have fully healed?”

  “Yes.” It was more growl than word.

  “You’re in no pain?”

  “No, but...” He groaned and stepped closer. “I need you near.”

  His arms and wings settled around her, their warm weight a reassurance. A moment later, his tail coiled around her hips.

  She hugged him with a fierce strength, knowing he needed this intimacy, needed to feel the other half of his soul near. And it soothed a hunger in her body and soul to hold him so close.

  “Would you like to shower with me?” she found herself asking.

  “Yes, my beloved Sorceress.” His muzzle dipped down to nose past the neck of her tank top. He pushed the fabric out of his way until he encountered the black lace of her bra. His lips caressed the valley between her breasts. “You’re wearing too many layers.”

  “I am,” Lillian agreed.

  GREGORY STOOD, HARDLY daring to breathe for fear the slightest movement would startle Lillian into bolting from his side. But her confidence held, and she took his right hand in her much smaller one and tugged him in the direction of the bathroom.

  She was doing this for him. He knew it. He also knew she wasn’t emotionally ready to take their relationship into these new, dangerous waters. In his current touch-starved state after sleeping in stone for twelve years, he doubted he was any better equipped to deal with this part of their relationship. He should stop this before it went further.

  Oh, but her smaller hand felt good in his, as did the weight of her eyes every time she looked at him with a mix of innocence and desire. More than a few times in their past lives, they had played this dangerous game, caressing each other as lovers when the loneliness of being separated outside the Spirit Realm became too much to bear.

  Always before when they took turns giving and receiving pleasure, it was with their duty and its restrictions held firmly in their minds. Without the strong, disciplined mind of the Mother’s Sorceress overseeing him, he wasn’t sure if he could trust himself not to go too far. And Lillian, as much as he was coming to love her all over again in this life, was not the Sorceress of old. She could not hold him back by the sheer strength of her mind alone.

  Yet, all the same, he would not crush her fledgling courage, which led her to come this far, to strip him bare, to study and accept him and all his fierce differences. He’d craved her acceptance since he’d emerged from his first stone sleep. He would in no way endanger it by rushing Lillian into something she wasn’t ready for, so he’d let her choose when and how events would unfold.

  Lillian led him into the master bath, and after fiddling with the shower taps and adjusting the water temperature several times, she hesitated.

  Sensing her confidence about to flee, he playfully tapped the spade-shaped tip of his tail against her nearest arm. She startled at the contact and looked over her shoulder with a wide-eyed gaze. With a gentle nudge of his muzzle under her chin, he sighed with contentment and whispered against her skin, “Little dryad, this need not be anything more than a shower.”

  The tension in her shoulders eased visibly, and a warm smile brightened her expression to something truly beautiful. “I know. That’s why I trust you so much.” She worked loose the strange fastenings of her human garb, disrobed quickly, and then took his hand and tugged until he stepped in the shower with her. “However,” she said, with a mysterious little smile. “I do hate personal cowardice and would use this opportunity to work upon my own underdeveloped confidence.”

  “So very formal,” he said as happiness swelled in his heart.

  “Formal? Ha! It’s all your fault. Your archaic way of speaking is infectious.” She stepped into him, raised herself up onto her toes, and placed a kiss along the underside of his jaw, effectively taking any sting out of her words.

  “Mmm,” he rumbled softly, backing farther into the shower at her gentle insistence. He did so enjoy her method of apology. “I would be honored to offer up myself as a means to help you become more comfortable with our relationship.”

  In answer, she poured soap on what she called a shower sponge and applied it to his shoulders and chest. Mild disappointment flooded him. It was her hands—not an indifferent sponge—he wanted on his flesh.

  Her free hand suddenly came up and caressed the curve of his hip, tentative at first and then with a bit more boldness. His eyes drifted closed as she ventured farther afield, her delicate touch gliding lower.

  Belatedly, he realized his private wish had made his control slip, and she’d picked up the thread of his thoughts. But he didn’t feel guilty about it, especially not when she dropped the sponge and brought her other hand into play, stroking soap suds across his chest.

  A deep, rumbling purr escaped him. He wanted to return the caresses, but he held himself passive. It was more important for h
is other half to learn him and the limits of her courage.

  There would be time for his own exploring in the days to come.

  Chapter 12

  A SOFT, PERSISTENT knocking registered on Lillian’s senses. She tried to ignore it and burrowed deeper under the covers—wanting to escape the noise and the bright light flooding in the windows that declared it was morning. Gregory seemed to have a similar idea and attempted to bury his muzzle underneath her hair. She was draped over his chest, a leg sprawled over his powerful thighs. They were both completely naked. One part of her mind said this was probably inappropriate, but another part liked it rather too much to move.

  And after their shared shower last night, modesty was likely no longer an issue.

  Though, as he’d promised, the shower was no more than a shared shower. Afterward, he’d toweled her dry and then bundled her into bed. He’d joined her once he was dry. And she’d soon discovered he liked to cuddle. Which was how she’d come to have her limbs entangled with a gargoyle’s this morning, feeling warm, protected and cherished. It was a surprisingly pleasant way to wake up.

  Better still, the knocking on the door had stopped.

  Grinning, she stretched, enjoying the delightful feeling of his warm skin brushing against her body.

  Mmm.

  She most certainly didn’t feel like moving. Gregory didn’t seem inclined to either—well other than one part. His tail was flicking lazy caresses up and down her back. Lillian smiled and returned the favor, running her hands along his sides.

  “What if I’d been a team of commandoes?”

  Gran’s voice jolted through Lillian’s sleepy mind. She jerked fully awake, but Gregory replied first.

  “I’d have spread their ashes across the three Realms.” His chuckle shook Lillian’s entire body. “You’re lucky I’m fond of you. Besides, you feed me.”