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  Her hand left his hair, her nails raking down the back of his neck. Every muscle in his body clenched as the sensation rode through him. Then her touch was curving over his shoulder, sliding down his chest and under his arm so she could draw her fingers down his back. The feel of her touching him was more arousing, it seemed, than him touching her was. The idea boggled because right then he couldn’t get his hands on her fast enough, hard enough, thorough enough.

  He drew back from the kiss, catching his breath, his mouth hovering so close to hers as he groaned with pleasure from her touch. If she kept heading in that direction, she’d soon have her hand on his ass, and the anticipation of it floored him.

  He tried to do her one better. His hand drew down to the hem of her sweater and lifting it with quick fingers he slid his hand beneath it, his palm running up over her ribs, his fingertips brushing the underside of her breast. It was far too tempting, far too overwhelming, the craving for more. He hotly embraced her breast, felt the fullness of it filling his hand, her nipple pointed and sweet.

  She moaned and lifted into his touch and it was like he’d captured starlight—that was how bright and burning his reaction was.

  “There now, there’s a willing lass,” he groaned against her mouth.

  Apparently it was the wrong thing to say. All her pliancy disappeared like the whip of a magician’s cloth revealing a trick. She drew back from him, before he could reclaim her in another kiss, as if she suddenly realized what she was doing and who she was doing it with.

  Damn, he thought with vehemence. Bloody hell and damn! I want her too much to stop!

  “Wait! Stop!” she said, her hands leaving his skin to push at him. Pushing him away as if she weren’t soft and wet with wanting him. And he could tell, just by the power of scent alone that she was all of that and more.

  It was too late for her to suddenly agree he was too much a beast for her liking, he thought fiercely. She couldn’t give him just a taste of something that powerful and then expect him to stop wanting it altogether.

  “Why wait?” he asked her, his hand leaving her breast to curve around her hip and around to the sweet shape of her arse. He loved the shaped of her, the way she filled his hand so well in spite of how small the rest of her was.

  “Because I don’t want this!” she blurted out.

  A fine and balder lie was never heard, he thought with amusement.

  Kat was suddenly awash with conflicting emotions and desires. Oh, he felt so good. So damn good. So male and powerful under the grip and press of her palms. One hand held him in a tight grip around his shoulder, and one hand was pushing against his chest and it was as if she couldn’t make herself agree on what to do.

  But she wasn’t going to be a “willing lass.” The kind of willing woman who acted and thought nothing of later consequences. She had made a good life for herself here, and she wasn’t going to let him come in and ride roughshod all over it. She wanted things. Things that had nothing to do with big, sexy Gargoyles.

  Just then his voice turned deeper, lower … guttural, his accent growing thicker with obvious desire.

  “I ken you’re afraid of me half the time, but the other half,” he said, his face turning against her neck until he was breathing her in, “the other half of the time you’re wanting me. I know it because I feel it. I smell it. ’Tis a thing so ravenous that I canna ignore it.” His hand ran up the side of her body in a long, purposeful caress, ending with him cupping her left breast in a hard, insistent hold again that made her gasp. “And I’ll be willin’ tae bet that if I touched you below and between, you’re wet and wanting me as well.”

  She gasped again, this time with indignation even as her face flamed hot because the rest of her flamed even hotter. “I am not!” she lied sharply. “Don’t think so much of yourself! And get your hands off me!” She wriggled as if to throw him off her, but his grip was like iron and it was laughable to think she was any contest to his incredible strength. Even weakened as he was, there was nothing she could do to fight him. And besides, half of her heart wasn’t in it because he was right. He was right to say she was overwhelmed with craving. There was a part of her that wanted him to do as he said, touch her there and prove her a liar.

  “Li’le liar,” he said, as though he could read her mind. His hand ran down from her breast and she began to breathe so hard it was a wonder she didn’t pass out. He swept his fierce touch down her belly and over the front of her jeans. He cupped her then with powerful fingers and used his grip on her to jerk her hips up, his erection so bold and hard against her thigh she felt her knees go weak.

  “There now,” he hissed. “I can feel the heat of you. And how could I be so hard that my bollocks hurt from it if you were as cold tae me as you say you are?”

  “I’m not responsible for the state of your … your …”

  “Bollocks,” he said with smug amusement.

  “Yes. Shut up!” She didn’t think she could burn any hotter with embarrassment, not to mention other things. He moved his hand then and ground himself against her and she felt herself responding wetly. A moan escaped her and he chuckled.

  “I canna help it. ’Tis my nature, lass. Gargoyles are a lusty lot even under the weakest of circumstances, but when we sense lust toward us from another … you ken there’s no resisting it. In other words, I wouldna be feeling it if you were as cold tae me as you claim.” He exhaled against her neck, his breath steamy and rich. “And there’s nothing cold about you,” he reminded her, his grip on her tightening just enough to get her attention. “Now I’m going tae slide my hand under this denim you’re hiding behind and I’m going tae prove tae us both how wet you are.”

  “So what!” she blurted out. “Okay, so what if I am. I-it’s been a-a long time and of c-course I’m going to feel something when you’re touching me like this! It’s not as though you’re hard to look at and all muscley and testosteroney! I’d have to be dead not to respond to that. What girl in her right mind wouldn’t want a-a man like you?” When he exhaled with satisfaction into her hair she made herself go stiff in his hold. “It doesn’t mean I actually am going to have sex with you! I’m a discerning woman and … and you’re … you’re …”

  “Go on and say it, lass,” he urged her, his voice like churning gravel, a sense of grimness to his tone. “I’m a Gargoyle. I’m a thing you don’t understand. An inhuman thing. Go on. Say it.”

  “No,” she said, deflating in his hold, half the tension in her body disappearing. “A Gargoyle, yes. A person I don’t understand. But not inhuman. I don’t think of you like you’re inhuman.”

  His hand slid away from intimate areas, coming to rest low on her belly. “Well,” he said, “that’s something I suppose. Something tae start with. And you’ve admitted you want me. Another thing in my favor.”

  She huffed. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “Nay, no’ when it comes tae you. I promise you that.”

  The promise affected her in unexpected ways. It made her feel … cherished. Did he mean it that way? Everything he’d said up to that point had been just hot hard lust, but that one statement made it more … personal. As if … as if it was more about her than it was about his sensual nature. As if her affect on him was somehow special.

  “Will you let me go now?” she asked softly, still aware that he held her very tightly and that he was still as hard as steel against her. Good God, she couldn’t help but recall how … endowed he was. It ought to be terrifying, and, she supposed, she was a little bit terrified. But that fear meant she was contemplating him actually using it with her and she couldn’t let her mind go there.

  Only, it was clearly already there.

  No. No, she lectured herself. You can do this. You just have to be firm.

  Firm. He was firm. Oh yes … very, very f—

  Shit. Shit shit shit! Stop it, Katrina Christina Haynes! This is a slippery slope and you’re just going to fall on your ass if you keep this up!

  “I canna l
et you go when you keep squirming again’ me. Feels too bloody good.”

  “I’m not squirming! And even if I were, it wouldn’t be so you could get your jollies with it! It’s because I’m trying to escape, you big oaf! Now let me go.” Oaf? Really, Katrina, was that the best you could do?

  “I will, but on one condition,” he said, his eyes light with amusement.

  “What is it?” she asked warily.

  “That you promise me another kiss. No’ now, but later on, at a time of my choosing. If I ask, you have to give over. Just a kiss, Kat lass. One wee li’le kiss.”

  Kat bit her lip, her heart thundering in her chest. Not just because of all that had happened thus far, but because the idea of him calling in a marker like that at any given moment in the future well and truly excited her as if he were already kissing her all over again.

  “All right,” she breathed. “But just one. And no tongue.”

  “Oh, there’ll be tongue and plenty of it,” he countered. “I doona do things halfway and I willna expect otherwise from you. But just a kiss. Whatever comes after, now that’s up to you.”

  “You promise?”

  “Aye, I swear it.”

  “Okay,” she assented.

  Slowly, with obvious reluctance, he relaxed his hold on her, letting her move away from him in small increments. She was about a foot away from him, sliding toward the opposite side of the bed, still bathed in the infernal heat he was giving off, when he reached a hand to her neck, stroking a long caress against the side of her throat and then up into her hair.

  “Good God, you’re beautiful,” he said on a low breath. “ ’Tis no’ because I’m tryin’ tae make headway with you that I say it, but only because ’tis the truth.”

  She didn’t acknowledge the compliment, or the way it made her feel all melty inside. Still she just moved out of his hold, got to her feet, and walked away. She left the room without so much as a glance over her shoulder toward him, and it was possibly one of the hardest things she’d ever done in her life.

  Ahnvil rubbed the heel of his palm down the length of his cock. He had a cockstand that could drive nails and the woman who caused it was walking in the wrong damn direction. Christ above, didn’t she understand how this was painful for him? And not just in the physical sense. No matter what her protestations otherwise, he knew she saw him as a thing … a thing to be frightened of. And she wouldn’t be entirely wrong to think so. It’d been a long time since he’d been human, and now he spent only half his life as one … if that much. He wondered sometimes if he had forgotten how to be human altogether.

  He shouldn’t be dwelling on this. He shouldn’t be doing things to push her away. If he had any hope of getting out of this mess he was going to need her help and his goddamn cock was thinking for him and fucking things up.

  Why? Why canna I leave off her and let her be?

  His life depended on her. He was entirely in her hands. And he suspected she knew that and that it was a heavy burden for her to carry. God, he wished like hell he could leave her out of this, but he had few choices available to him. He couldn’t turn to stone. He couldn’t risk it. Being away from his touchstone for this long could mean he would turn to stone permanently if he did. But it was only in his grotesque form that he could have access to his wings, the wings he needed to travel with any speed back to New Mexico. So that meant traveling by conventional means and considering his stripped down state he was going to need funds and resources for that.

  And then there was the small issue of leaving her behind or taking her with him. Well, actually, it wasn’t an issue at all. He truly had no choice in the matter. The problem was, he didn’t think she would come willingly.

  Damn him. Damn him to hell for ruining another woman’s life. For risking another woman’s life. And this one was mortal, human, and far more fragile than the one who had been lost before. At least the other had known what she was getting into. Despite all his revelations to her, Kat had no idea of the danger involved in being this close to him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Kat avoided the bedroom like the plague for the next few hours. She was tired, her usual bedtime having come and gone and the stress of the whole situation wearing her out even more. She tried her mother two more times and got the same lacking result. She wished, for the first time in all of the time she’d lived there on the mountain that she had a landline. Normally she wouldn’t have needed it, and it wouldn’t have mattered to her to be cut off from the rest of the world. After all, it was kind of the whole point of having moved there in the first place. And the cost of a landline on top of a cell bill was prohibitive. She’d had to make a choice and this was what she’d chosen.

  Of course, when making the decision she hadn’t taken Gargoyles into consideration.

  And other things.

  She ran through a list of beasties and ghouls in her mind and then shoved it all away. She had enough to worry about with the Gargoyle in her bed. No need to go looking for any more trouble than that.

  In spite of all her fretting, she did drift off to sleep for a little while, napping in the recliner in her living room. When she awoke, she found she had a blanket draped over her that she hadn’t had when she’d fallen asleep. She looked around in confusion for a moment, but then remembered there was a Gargoyle in the house. A very considerate Gargoyle, she noted, unable to help the little smile the idea brought to her lips.

  Well, she could at least return the favor and make him more food. Hadn’t he said that he had a high metabolism? Although at this rate he would eat through all of her stockpiled supplies in a week! Thankfully the storm wasn’t supposed to last that long and the roads would be cleared a few days after.

  It was only shortly after she started moving around the kitchen when Ahnvil walked out of the bedroom. When she glanced over at him she ended up doing a double take. He had apparently showered, cleaning away all the remaining blood and grime from his injury and from being in the woods. He was wearing one of the white terry towels from the bathroom and somehow looked twice as sexy as when he was completely naked … which was saying a lot because a completely naked Gargoyle was nothing to shrug your shoulders at.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked, turning her back to him in hopes that it would keep her from running greedy eyes all over his glorious muscles, his wet hair which made him look attractively tousled and that enticing line of hair that began slightly above his navel and darkened the farther down below his navel it went.

  Yes, that towel was slung across his hips very low indeed.

  Luckily for her he took a seat at the breakfast bar, sliding onto a barstool and putting an entire granite countertop between them as she moved around the kitchen. That was good, she thought. The more things that were between them, the better off she’d be.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked again.

  “Always,” he said, and she was glad she couldn’t see the grin that no doubt followed. His smile was an absolute killer all on its own, but add those vibrant amber eyes to the mix and it was utterly devastating. “And yourself?”

  “Actually, I think I am a little hungry,” she admitted. “I could make some more sandwiches or something hot …”

  “Hot. With meat. Something that’ll stick to a man’s ribs.”

  And better still, Ahnvil thought, to that already delectable fanny of hers. Which was, at present, facing him as she did her damnedest to avoid looking in his direction. But he wasn’t fazed by her obvious awkwardness. It was actually satisfying for some reason to know that she was so affected by him … no matter whether it was a good effect or a bad one.

  Honestly, he had no right to be looking at her as a man looks at a woman. He had made her life complicated enough as it was. She certainly didn’t need him making advances toward her and, logically, he couldn’t afford to do anything that might put her off to him. But as prevailing as his need for her to help him to get back home was, he was finding his unexpected desire for her to be equally prevailing.r />
  All the more reason to let her be. He was a rough, powerful man with equally powerful passions and she was human.

  Human and fragile, he reminded himself.

  There was a basket of fruit next to him and he picked a tangerine, pulled a napkin over, and began to gently peel it. She was a lot like the fruit he held. He had to be gentle with it or he would damage it and lessen the experience of enjoying it.

  On principle, Kat made herself turn around and face him. Principle and the fact that her cutting surface was in that direction. She moved all the vegetables over to the countertop on the opposite side of the breakfast bar and busied herself chopping them. Facing him … but not facing him. Staying intent and focused on her task. Not so focused, however, that she didn’t see him peeling his tangerine, his hands seeming so graceful despite their size as they completed the task. He slowly began to section the pieces, eating them one by one.

  “So do you have a wife?” she heard herself blurt out. “I-I mean …” she flushed, knowing it must sound like she was fishing for selfish purposes. “Do Gargoyles take wives like people do?”

  “We do everything like people do,” he said. Was it her, or did that sound suggestive? “But no, I doona have a wife. Nor a girlfriend. I have … partners.”

  “Oh! You mean … like you’re gay?” she was incredulous. “Or, I mean, bi. Right? You’d have to be because earlier …” Kat knew she was blushing, and his growing amusement at her expense wasn’t helping.

  “No’ gay. Just no’ attached. My partners are like me. Heavily sexual beings looking for a way to vent their intense sexual cravings.”

  “Intense?” she heard herself asking. She shouldn’t be even exploring this information. It was a bad idea.

  “Gargoyles are as much animal as they are human. When we’re forged we are actually blended with an animal.”

  “So … a human and an animal,” she encouraged.

  “Yes. And then a Templar priest used a vile spell to forge me, using a bear, in my case. I was always a big man, but that made me bigger, as well as faster and stronger. And, make no mistake, more vicious. More territorial and protective of what’s mine.” The way his eyes moved over her just then made her crave for a moment what it would be like to be his. To be protected by him. He would care for a woman, she decided thoughtfully. The fact that he had checked in on her, been thoughtful enough to realize she would be chilled on such a stormy day with nothing but the fire to warm her and then covered her. Yes, he would be very caring. And then for that libido to come with it, it would be a very intense package.