by A C Warneke
“She’s getting better,” Vaughn protested feebly. In truth, Melanie had never gotten over her fear of heights. She barely tolerated flying with Vaughn and that was only because she loved him to distraction and utterly trusted him. It had to be nerve-wracking to be the mother of children who could fly at will, at least while they were in their gargoyle form.
“She covers her eyes with her hands and can barely watch,” Rhys snorted. “What is she going to do when Georgie wants to come up here and fly?”
Vaughn’s brows pulled together over his broad snout and he scowled, “My daughter just barely turned one….”
“And she’s flying up into the rafters when we can’t change into our gargoyle forms to bring her down,” Rhys said, obviously referencing the disaster that kept Vaughn from remaining human for the day. Arching an eyebrow, he smiled wider, “Didn’t you hear her giggles? She was quite pleased with herself for her daring escape.”
Ferris could easily imagine the adventurous little girl getting into all sorts of trouble, especially with a pack of imps ready and eager to assist her in any way. Looping her arm through Rhys’s, she grinned at her mother’s mate, “You’ll have to have a baby as soon as possible so Georgia has a playmate close to her own age.”
Rhys waggled his eyebrows at Ferris, grinning lasciviously for a stone monkey, “I plan on getting your mom pregnant the first chance I get. I’m looking forward to having a pack of little monkeys of my own.”
“Literally,” Ferris grinned, standing up on her toes and giving the stone monkey a kiss on his cheek. Rocking back on her heels, she stifled a yawn as she headed for the exit, taking the route that led past Armand. “I’ve got to get going. I have class in an hour and I should grab a bite to eat before I go.”
Automatically, her eyes went to the stern gargoyle griffin who was scowling at her. He growled, “You should get some sleep, you were up all night painting.”
She smiled slightly at the concern in his voice, “I’m fine. I’ll grab some coffee before class.”
“Ferris,” he warned.
“Seriously,” she countered calmly even as her heart was picking up speed once again. Running her hand along his arm as she strolled past, she didn’t miss his sharp intake of breath and she grinned, “I’ll be fine.”
His scowl turned ferocious a split second before he jerked his head away from her, making her chuckle softly. Waving her hand at Vaughn, she opened the door and was nearly bowled over by a white lion gargoyle, a panther gargoyle and a liger gargoyle. The trinity of terror had arrived.
Leo grabbed her arms to keep her steady, his massive form towering over the other huge gargoyles by at least a foot. The liger’s face grimaced as he asked, “Are you okay, Fer?”
“Of course I am,” she assured him. Unable to help herself, she glanced over her shoulder and saw that Armand’s back was ramrod straight and his talons were curled into tight fists. A soft smile curved her lips at the concern radiating off him in waves, filling her belly with a warm glow and letting her hope take flight. "But I don't want to be late so I'm saying goodbye."
With that, she slipped out the door, allowing the little kernel of hope to take root in her heart.
“The three of you should be more careful,” Armand scolded as soon as Ferris disappeared through the door. He could still feel the electricity of her touch and that scared the ever living shit out of him. He shouldn’t have been able to feel her touch. “You almost trampled Ferris and then I’d have to take a chisel to you on Jenna’s behalf for hurting her daughter.”
Michael threw his head back and laughed, “Ferris is a tough, little bird, Armand, not some hot house flower that has to be protected.”
“She’s still human,” Armand bit out, struggling to keep from punching his younger brother in the face and wondering where this animosity was coming from. The three younger gargoyles had always included Ferris in their boisterous play so he didn’t know why the thought of them rough-housing with Ferris suddenly annoyed him. And yes, damn it, she did need to be protected! She was too inquisitive by half, too sensual.
No, he couldn’t allow himself to think of Ferris – of Ferris – being anything other than Jenna’s precocious daughter who had been creating chaos in his life from the moment she entered it. The only reason his gargoyle body responded to her touch, the only reason he was able to feel it, was because it had been too long since he had buried himself in the warm and lovely flesh of a luscious woman, a woman that was not Ferris.
Turning his head, he caught Raphe staring at him, as if the young gargoyle could see the truth Armand wouldn’t acknowledge.
“She’s a human surrounded by and protected by magic,” the little shit said solemnly. “Even the imps tolerate her and they hate everyone. It’s a safe bet that she’s the safest of anyone.”
Armand snorted with disbelief. Hadn’t the foolish girl stayed up all night talking and laughing with him as she painted and then flitted off to class on no sleep? Someone needed to take care of her before she did something stupid and got herself hurt. “She’s impulsive and reckless.”
Vaughn and Rhys turned their heads and looked at him as if he had gone mad, an impressive feat for a gargoyle. Rhys cleared his throat, “Are you sure you’re talking about Ferris? Our Ferris? She plots out everything.”
“She’s too clever by half, Armand,” Leo chuckled,” Everything she does is for a reason.”
That was precisely what worried him. His entire world was in flux and he no longer knew where he belonged. The last thing he needed was a silly little girl thinking she was in love with him. He was just going to have to discourage her somehow.
Chapter 4
Retreat and Surrender
She was purposely driving him insane, that was the only explanation. Armand was finding it increasingly difficult trying to remember that the Ferris he thought he knew and this new Ferris was the same girl and both were completely off limits to him. Ever since she touched him as a gargoyle and he felt the electric current throughout his entire body he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her, wondering what it would be like to taste her sweet lips, touch her soft curves. He spent too much of his time with her imagining many different scenarios, all ending with them naked on the floor. When he wasn't being a horny bastard, he was laughing with her as she talked about mundane things in the most entertaining of ways.
He loved watching her, the graceful way she moved as she painted, her passionate expression as she concentrated on putting the colors on the canvas, her smile. The studio had become their private escape where the line between right and wrong was erased. He knew it was wrong to desire her, he knew it was wrong to fantasize about her and to plot her seduction, but in this place he knew he was going to have her. At least in his fantasies.
For the past couple of days he had spent his time beneath the sun contemplating the wonder that was Ferris and he discovered that he missed her when she wasn't with him. He was always eager to return to her studio just to be with her. When he was with her he felt… good and realized that ever since she was little she had the uncanny ability of dragging him out of his shell. How could he risk the friendship they shared with something as meaningless as sex, no matter how provocative her lips, her touch? He had to remind himself that she was an innocent and most likely unaware of her profound effect on his body and his psyche.
It was not something he wanted to dwell upon since he couldn’t offer her what she deserved. And if he gave her the only thing he could – a few hours of sex – she would hate him. Yet he realized that if she kept looking at him with those blue-green eyes and smiling that sweet, temptress smile, he was going to kiss those lips and see her eyes glaze with passion.
Ferris studied the image coming together before her, tilting her head to the side to see if she had captured Armand’s sensuality as strongly as he exuded it. She had decided to paint him as a warrior returning home from battle, his clothes filthy and torn and barely hanging onto his muscled body. The shredded mat
erial emphasized the strength and power of his nearly naked form, giving a tantalizing hint of the delectable length and width of his penis, which was barely covered by a scrap of torn fabric. It wasn't exactly the project her art teacher assigned but there was no way she was going to share a completely nude Armand with her classmates.
In the painting, he was weary, but deep and abiding passion burned in his green gaze as he looked out of the canvas and into the eyes of his lover. The lucky woman was going to be locked up for a week with her returning hero, being pleasured to within an inch of her life.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to share the portrait with anyone. It was so personal and anyone who looked at it would know how much she loved the model. Every line, every brush stroke, was painstakingly, lovingly created, capturing only a fragment of what made Armand so magnetic, the indescribable element that was simply Armand. No one was going to believe that he existed in real life or that he was even more devastating than any painting.
Slathering some light blue paint onto her brush, she lifted her hand and paused, not wanting to finish up the background just yet. She could do that when she didn’t have a nearly naked Armand sitting a few feet away with only a few hours left of their time together. Frustrated and dejected, she no longer knew what to do. God knows she had spent the last couple of nights trying to figure out a new plan to crack Armand’s shell since it was obvious having him sitting naked in her studio wasn’t working.
She couldn’t fault her efforts: she had put her time in the studio with Armand to good use, touching him frequently, adjusting the privacy cloth and letting her hand linger on his thigh a heartbeat longer than strictly necessary, playing sensual music that boiled the blood and enhanced the mood. Every evening she felt his response to her in her bones. He watched her with eyes that glowed with greater and greater hunger and yet he kept his distance, acting as if he didn’t desire her. It was even worse after the brief encounter on the roof because it took nearly twice as long to break down the wall he erected every day. Though by the end of each night they were talking and laughing as effortlessly as old friends.
Friends. She hated that word. She didn’t want to be his damn friend. She wanted to be his everything, the way he was her everything. It was blatantly obvious that he desired her: no amount of material could hide the impressive erection that seemed to have taken up permanent residence between his hard thighs. Why was he so reluctant to give in to the passion that practically singed the flesh from her bones every time she was near him?
She knew why: she was still a virgin and he was a sex master. What chance did she really have? Innocence only went so far in a world where he had experienced everything, including innocence. Maybe she should have played coy, been the coquette, acting like a petrified virgin instead of blatantly pursuing him with everything in her arsenal. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t in her nature to go after something she wanted half-heartedly once she put her mind to it. And she had never wanted anything as much as she wanted Armand, even if she had fought her own attraction for years.
“Are you finished?” he asked, his voice breaking through her thoughts.
Heaving a sigh, she pursed her lips and took a step back and glanced between the painting and the model. There was something missing but she couldn’t quite figure out what. With a shrug of her shoulders, she returned her gaze to Armand, “For now.”
He stood up and stretched, lifting his arms over his head and arching his back. His muscles bunched and flexed and Ferris’s mouth went absurdly dry as heat enveloped her body. Twisting around until the muscles along his rib cage popped and the muscles of his abdomen contracted, he asked, “Can I see it?”
She knew he was speaking. His lips were moving and sound was coming out but she had no idea what he was saying. The sight of his hard body took up all of her senses and if he hadn’t smiled and shattered what was left of her brain she would have realized his intentions as he made his way over to her and her canvas.
But she was picturing him as the warrior, coming to claim the lover he had to leave behind. In that moment she wanted more than anything to be that woman, to be the object of passion that was blazing in his green eyes. Her eyelids grew heavier as he approached and for a moment she thought he meant to take her in his arms and kiss her as if he had just walked through Hell to be by her side.
His hand reached out and she leaned forward, ready to be embraced when reality forced its way into her fantasy as his hand went past her to the canvas. Wrapping her hand around his wrist, she stopped him from going any further, “Um, no, you can’t see it yet. It’s not finished.”
“Come on,” he grinned, slaying her where she stood. Life was so cruel, making her love a man that refused to love and be loved. “Let me see it.”
Putting her plans of seduction aside, she fell back into the natural rhythm of their relationship. She was just going to have to figure out some other way of seducing him since nothing she did pushed him across that final line. Stepping between the portrait and Armand, she shook her head and grinned, “Not until it’s done.”
He smiled at her, that devastating smile that made the butterflies fuck and her skin burn. Without deliberate thought, only that she didn’t want him seeing the portrait yet, she reached out with her loaded brush and painted a line of pale blue down his naked chest. He froze and stared at her. She froze and stared back, heat blossoming in her cheeks. “Oh my gosh! I am so sorry.”
Before she could grab a rag and wipe it off he had easily wrestled the paint brush from her lax fingers and brushed it across her cheek. Startled, she gaped at him as a mischievous smile curved his lips. Her heart tumbled madly in her chest as she fell a little bit more in love with him. It was so rare that he let her see his mischievous side and she doubted anyone else even knew it existed.
He crossed his arms over his naked chest and he should have looked ridiculous holding the blue tipped paint brush but he didn’t. He looked sexy and so powerful that even a line of sky blue streaked across his chest didn’t take away any of his masculinity.
Matching his grin and holding his gaze, she reached to the side and surreptitiously grabbed a tube of paint. Without warning, she aimed it at his chest and squeezed, splattering hot pink all over his gleaming skin. Throwing the tube down, she stepped forward and smeared it around with her palms, taking a moment to enjoy the firmness of his muscles. “Much better.”
“You think?” he asked, his voice coming out as a rumble. Wrapping his arms around her, trapping her arms between their bodies, he hugged her. A little giddy by his response, she wasn’t fully aware of what he was doing behind her back until she felt cool, squishy paint oozing between her shoulder blades and down her spine. She gasped as his broad palms rubbed it in.
He stepped back and she saw the burnt umber staining his palms. His eyes dipped to her chest and she glanced down, seeing the light blue and hot pink smeared on the front of her shirt. Grabbing a handful of tubes, she took one and squirted it at him and ran across the room, prepared to get away from her masterpiece and take cover as the paint war escalated.
Ducking behind a shrouded chaise, she peeked over the top and saw Armand standing there with a blob of green smeared across his abdomen, the hard muscles flexing as he slowly and methodically picked up some tubes of paint, taking his time in choosing which colors to retaliate with.
“Now, Ferris,” he murmured, shaking his head in mock disappointment as he slowly prowled across the room towards her. “Is that any way to fight?”
“I don’t want to ruin my painting,” she explained, keeping her eye on the man who still stood too close to the portrait. A slow smile curved his lips as he looked at her and gauged the distance between her and the painting. Her eyes widened in alarm as she understood at once what his intentions were, “Please, Armand, don’t look.”
He hesitated, looking once more at the canvas before letting his shoulders slump and heaving a sigh, “I'll wait until you’re ready to show me.”
Ferris breathed
a sigh of relief, her tensed muscles relaxing when he promised to wait knowing that he would keep his word. Before she could relax completely, though, he looked at her with that mischievous smirk again, “However….”
He was across the room and leaping over the chaise, splattering her with paint. All she could do was laugh and try to cover her face with one arm as she blindly squirted paint at Armand with the other. “Stop! I give up!”
He laughed evilly as he tossed the empty tubes down. He then proceeded to rub the paint in, smearing it all over her shoulders and arms. With his hands occupied, she took the opportunity to create her own masterpiece on his torso, taking more enjoyment from touching him than from painting him. Lightly, she trailed her fingers over the contours of his chest, relishing the feel of his skin beneath hers. The vivid colors only enhanced his masculinity, his virility.
His shoulders were impossibly broad, capable of taking on the weight of the world and often did. His chest was carved from marble, uncompromising and beautiful. His stomach was ridged with muscles, the hard flesh unforgiving and mesmerizing. She could have spent hours tracing the lines of his body, learning him by touch and not just by sight. Her fingers trailed lower, to the soft material wrapped around his trim waist. The white robe was quickly stained by the paint on her hands and she chuckled.
Slowly, she realized that he was no longer chaffing his hands up and down her arms, across her back. Instead, his grip had tightened on her shoulders and his breathing was ragged, harsh. She looked up and met his green eyes and forgot everything. He looked at her with ravenous eyes and as she stared at him, his nostrils flared in recognition of a woman in heat. He tugged on the binder that held her hair in a ponytail, letting the long, dark strands fall to the middle of her back. Sliding his hand into her hair, cupping the back of her skull in his broad palm, he growled, “Ferris. What have you done to me?”
