by A C Warneke
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 emotion, 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.
Chapter 14
Betrayal
Ferris lay pressed against Armand’s hot and heavy body, a drowsy smile on her lips from the explosive reunion. His heart thudded beneath her ear, the most wonderful sound in the world, one she would never spend another night without listening to again. It felt so unbelievably good to be back in his arms, as if she could breathe for the first time in an eternity. Her skin tingled beneath the idle stroking of his fingers and she could stay that way forever.
“Where’s your dragon?” his smooth voice rumbled beneath her ear.
Tilting her head back, she looked up at his wonderful face to find him looking down at her. God, she had missed his green eyes that saw so deeply into her soul, to the places she kept hidden from everyone else. “Fray? He’s the tattoo on my back, though sometimes he prefers my stomach or my thigh….”
His lips curved up in a sexy smile as he pushed the hair away from her face and cupped her cheek. “So the two of you have bonded?”
“A few years ago.” A shiver went down her spine at his innocent question. There was so much that she had to tell hi
m but where would she even begin? Shrugging, she twisted around until she was up on her elbows looking down at him. Unable to prevent a smile, she grinned and started telling him about everything. “It’s amazing, Armand. Fray has kept me sane all of these years and when we bonded I felt this incredible jolt of electricity throughout my entire body. Now he is with me wherever I go and as an added bonus I have the coolest tattoo in a variety of places.”
“So you like the dragon?” he asked wryly, his eyes lit with amusement.
“I love him!” she beamed, pressing a kiss in the center of his chest. Resting her chin on the spot she just kissed, she looked up at him with all of her heart in her eyes. “Thank you, my love.”
His thumb brushed over her lips and the laughter faded from his expression as he became the brooding, pensive Armand that she had fallen in love with when she was sixteen. He looked at her with such seriousness in his beautiful green eyes that her stomach tightened in apprehension. “I should have known you’d find a way to be here when I woke up. Even if I was frozen for sixty years you would have still found a way to be here, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course,” she said matter-of-factly, as if there was any other outcome. “At first I contemplated vampirism but the only person I want to bite is you and I don’t think gargoyles are biteable, at least not during the day. Granted, you’d be a man at night when I’d be biting, but…”
“Ferris,” he teasingly warned, tugging a strand of her hair.
“Then I considered becoming an incubus’s sex slave but that would have only worked if you were the incubus,” she continued, loving how he smiled at her absurdity, loving how his fingers toyed with her hair as he listened to her. “There was even a brief flirtation with the black arts and coming back as a zombie but I don’t think you’d appreciate body parts falling off, especially during sex.”
He closed his eyes with a wince at the thought. “That’s disgusting.”
“I know,” she agreed with a dramatic flourish. “But imagine the possibilities.”
“I’d rather not,” he grimaced. “How’d you do it?”
Sticking her tongue out at him, she answered, “I was fortunate that I found a man who had a vial full of Medusa’s blood.”
“Only you, Ferris,” he chuckled, his fingers tracing the curve of her full bottom lip, the line of her jaw. “You do realize that taking her blood’s incredibly dangerous, don't you Ferris? You could have taken too much and been killed.”
“Fray always made sure the dosage was right,” she said, swallowing against the sudden thickness in her throat, knowing she had to tell him everything. Biting her lower lip, she raised her eyes and met his gaze, “And if not Fray, Marick kept the dose safe.”
His eyes moved over her face and she was afraid of what he would see. He must have seen something because his lips pressed together and a muscle ticked in his jaw. “Who’s Marick?”
Sitting up, she brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. Her body felt like a separate thing as it began to shake. Her stupid voice wasn’t working either and all she could do was stare at the man she loved more than life itself as the world turned to ice around her.
Abruptly, he sat up and framed her face in his hands, holding her eyes, “Sweetheart, I didn’t expect you to remain celibate when I left.”
She let out a nervous giggle that was unsteady because she was so grateful for his warmth and so afraid of his reaction. “I wanted to. I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”
“Shh,” he murmured, pulling her head against his chest, resting his chin on the top of her head. His heart was racing in his chest and he was shaking a little but he just held her.
Tears welled in her eyes but she wiped them away and tried to laugh again. It wasn’t funny. “God, I don’t want you to hate me.”
“I could never hate you,” he breathed. He pressed a kiss against the top of her head, holding his lips there for an eternity. Pulling back, he rasped, “Did you love him?”
“Yes,” she answered honestly even though it was so much more complicated than that. Because she was looking so closely she saw the flash of pain in his eyes and she knew she had to explain. Covering his hands with hers, she shook her head. “But not like I love you, never like that. I loved him like I love Ajreis and Raphe and the boys and I never, ever meant to sleep with him.” Now that she started, the words came pouring out, “On the fifth anniversary of you, um, leaving me, I got a little drunk and, well, it just sort of happened and that was going to be that but then it wasn’t, you see, and….”
“You had a child,” he said on an exhalation of breath.
“Twins,” she told him softly. Shaking her head, breathing in his heavenly and familiar scent, she relaxed into his arms, “Can you imagine? I get a little drunk and I get knocked up.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he crooned. “You really shouldn’t drink.”
“I know,” she agreed. Tilting her head back, she admitted, "But I wouldn’t trade them for the world, even if they aren’t fully human.”
His eyes widened as he stared at her for an entire heartbeat before his gentle caress became frantic as he ran both of his hands over her face, her shoulders, her back. He pulled her forward and over his lap, his rock hard thighs pressing against her pelvis as he ran his hands over her naked bottom. With a squeak, she twisted around and grabbed his hands to stop the manhandling, which she wouldn’t have minded if it weren’t so impersonal. "What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for horns or a tail,” he said wildly, pulling one hand free, scrubbing his fingers through her hair, running his hand down her back once more. She giggled as his fingers moved over her ribs. “What did you do?”
“It's complicated and I promise to tell you the whole story but there are a whole bunch of people who will be excited to see you,” she grinned. The reality of everything that had happened to her smacked her upside her head and she sobered a little. Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she hesitantly told him, “My children are here tonight if you want to meet them?”
“I do. Of course I do,” he said with an odd smile, standing up with her still in his arms. “But we might want to get dressed first.”
Giddily, she beamed at him as she pulled out a robe she had stashed up there for this moment. She hated handing it to him because that meant he was going to be covering up his gorgeous body and it had been ten long years since she had gotten to ogle it to her heart’s content. Well, at least in real life. Her canvases were filled with Armand. “This night has been so amazing, Armand. Don’t ever leave me again.”
His gaze heated as his eyes roamed over her nude body and she felt the blush begin along her chest. With a smile, she grabbed her clothes and dressed, tying the skirt at her waist to keep it up. Armand’s laughter washed through her and settled in her soul, making her deliriously happy. She was soaring on the euphoria flooding her system as she weaved her fingers with his. “Um, don’t freak out when you see them.”
He stopped dead in his tracks and looked down at her, arching a single eyebrow and looking absolutely, deliciously imperious. “Pardon? Are they green-skinned metamorphs?”
“Well, they spent most of their lives in a faerie realm where time moves differently,” she said slowly, her brows drawing together in trepidation. “They’re not small children. And, um, no one knows that they’re mine.”
Armand’s lips parted but no words came out and she grinned. She had managed to render Armand speechless. Pressing her finger beneath his chin to close his mouth, she tugged on his arm and grinned, “Come on, everyone is going to be so excited to see you. It’s going to be such a surprise!”
Armand hadn’t been sure what to expect when Ferris had suddenly sat up and physically closed herself off to him but it sure as hell wasn’t a confession to being a mother. It pained him to admit to the surge of jealousy that threatened to burst through his skin when she told him she hadn’t been celibate, which was ridiculous since he told her to find someon
e to love. He hated the idea of anyone else touching her and he knew it was hypocritical since he had touched so many women.
Hell, because he didn’t have enough faith in Ferris he had given up his nights to Felicity. What right did he have to feel jealous because Ferris found comfort in another man’s arms? She was with him when he woke up. She found a way to wake him up early.
His brows drew together in a slight frown as he recalled her words about getting drunk and he wondered if perhaps it was not entirely consensual. He remembered how muddled she got when she drank and if some asshole took advantage of her by getting her drunk he was going to kill someone. Obviously it was a supernatural creature since humans normally didn’t have access to any other realm and if they did they didn’t survive long. If Ferris had been in a place where time moved rapidly she should have aged and she hadn’t, which only made him even more curious to hear her story. It was bound to be interesting.
Only Ferris. She was the only human he knew who was accepted by everyone that wasn’t human. Draping an arm around her slender shoulders, he pulled her against him, smiling that she was back where she belonged. Gods, he had been a fool to not give her his nights. Out of all of the women in the universe she was the only one who would never have left him.
The only one.
A surge of panic welled up within him as the ramifications started to hit him: Ferris moved Heaven and Earth to be with him. How was he ever going to live up to her expectations? When he only had a month he was able to be the man she believed him to be but the thought of being that man every day for the rest of his life was exhausting. Ferris deserved so much more. How was he ever going to be what she needed?
