How to Seduce a Gargoyle in 10 Days Read online

All of the heat and arousal she’d felt chilled to nothing.

  Maybe he was waiting for her to order him to do her. That would never happen. Ginger wanted to be wanted for herself. Not because she told him to.

  Although, she had gotten the best sleep of her life. Not as good as the best sex of her life, but maybe it was a near second.

  She hadn’t been able to sleep since she’d kicked Gavin out. He’d play the injured party to the rest of the world, but he’d find a way to pay her back for embarrassing him.

  Even though he’d humiliated her with his very public affair with Aloe.

  The bell rang while she was still abed and even though she wasn’t inclined to answer it, Slade’s movement from her balcony railing intrigued her.

  He stood straight and tall on the thin railing, his powerful legs keeping him balanced. When his wings spread to their full glory, she might’ve actually sighed out loud.

  They were so beautiful—like a black/blue mother of pearl. Her fingers itched to touch them.

  Slade launched himself off the balcony and flew toward the front of the estate and her visitor.

  She cast a quick grooming charm and made her way down to the door.

  When she opened it, all of her good feelings vanished.

  It was Gavin.

  Slade stood off to the side and waited for her direction.

  “You can’t keep me out of my own house, Ging.” He flashed her that politico smile with all of his too-white teeth.

  “It’s not your house, Gavin. If you’ll refer to clause seven, line forty-two, sub part B of our marriage contract. It was my inheritance.”

  “Yes, but you’re my wife. What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.” Gavin eyed the gargoyle.

  “What’s mine is yours? And you say this works both ways?” Her temper flared, hot and volcanic. After being married for one hundred years, she would’ve thought he’d recognize the signs by now.

  “Exactly.”

  “So your wand? That’s mine? If so, what were you doing shoving it into Aloe Hugginfroth?”

  “Are you ever going to let that go? I’m a warlock. We’re not meant to be monogamous. Be a good blue-blooded witch and ignore it. We’ll go on about our business and our lives can get back to normal.”

  The part that pissed her off the most about this was that he actually believed the garbage he spewed.

  “Shall I eject him from the property?” Slade asked her.

  “No one was talking to you,” Gavin growled and tried to make a show of shoving him, but was ineffectual. Magick crackled around him.

  “If you try to curse him, how is that going to look for your pet project the Gargoyle Ball?”

  “Yes, how would it look? Does your new attack dog know that the ball lost funding because of you?”

  Slade was unaffected.

  “The ball lost nothing. Aradia’s son filled in where you couldn’t.”

  Gavin blasted Slade, but his magick beaded and rolled off his skin like raindrops.

  “As above, so below, I divorce you, Gavin Butterbean. So let it be done.” She’d been waiting to say the words that would irreparably dissolve their marriage contract. It was irreversible. They could never be bonded again—and Ginger could never marry another warlock. It was a magickal binding part of the pre-nup.

  “You’re going to spend the rest of your life alone. You’re going to be a bitter, wicked old witch.”

  “I’ve been alone for the last twenty years. It’s really not so bad. I’m alone, but I’m rich. And you, Gavin, you’re broke. You’ll have to rely on Aloe’s generosity, because no one else will support you.” She managed to keep the expression on her face unfazed and calm, even though his words cut her deeply. The wound in her heart ached as it cracked open a little wider.

  “It’s time for you to leave,” Slade closed his clawed hand around Gavin’s upper arm.

  “Get your hands off me.”

  “When you’ve exited the property. And if you come back without Ginger’s invitation, I’ll rip the meat from your bones,” he said conversationally and thrust Gavin through the front gates as if he weighed nothing more than a ragdoll.

  She wouldn’t cry.

  At least not where anyone could see her.

  Reporters from Magickal Mayhem erupted from the bushes and they were snapping pictures of Gavin, of her, of Slade. She forced a smile, even though she was sure her face would crack open wider than her heart, and she waved.

  Slade launched himself up the staircase, gliding with his wings splayed behind him. He turned to face the crowd and pushed Ginger behind him and into the house.

  Then he closed the doors, effectively stealing their prize.

  She scrubbed her hand over her face.

  Ginger knew it was coming, that she was going to divorce him. But he was right, she was going to end up even more bitter than she was now, and she’d always be alone.

  “Aradia should’ve sent me to you sooner. You shouldn’t have to deal with that,” Slade said quietly.

  Ginger shook her head slowly. “He’s right. I’ve been bitter and hateful. I almost ruined Aradia’s son’s wedding. I probably deserve everything I’ve gotten. I’ve just been so angry for so long.”

  “Anger has its place.”

  “Until you drown in it.”

  “You can’t drown while you’re flying.”

  “I don’t know how to fly.” She didn’t even know him, and she was confessing everything to him like he was a priest.

  “Come.” He held out his hand and led her through the house and up to the ancient archer post on the roof.

  She followed him blindly, thinking that flying was going to be some kind of orgasm, but he meant actually flying. Which in itself wasn’t bad. It was actually pretty amazing.

  But all she could think about was sex.

  Especially when he drew her against him. “Hold to me.”

  Holding to him was definitely not a problem. She leaned her cheek against his hard-muscled chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. He was so… big. He made her feel tiny, and when his embrace tightened, she felt positively dainty.

  He spread his wings and leapt into the air.

  The higher they flew, the colder the atmosphere, but she only felt it in bursts. It was a strange contrast to the heat building inside of her.

  Slade landed in a strange valley nestled between the peaks of two snow-capped mountains. It boasted a hot spring and an endless blanket of little purple flowers.

  “Where are we?”

  “Gargoyle lands.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Come.”

  Oh, how she’d like to.

  He drew her toward the hot spring and this time, she manifested her own swimming suit. It was a tasteful one-piece and there was no danger of flossing her bits, or exposing anything she didn’t want exposed.

  Except, she kind of wouldn’t mind him looking at her again, if he’d liked what he saw the first time.

  She stepped down into the water, and the heat seeped through to her bones. She sighed as the tension slipped from her body.

  “I don’t have a pineapple with rum in it, but I can offer you this.” He handed her one of the blue blooms, and she saw it was filled with a kind of nectar.

  As she drank it, he stepped into the steaming spring with her, the water beading on his skin and glinting like diamonds in the sunlight.

  It was like honey and whiskey—a sweet burn as she swallowed. That languid heat filled her veins and chased away a cold that she didn’t know she’d been harboring.

  It was as if the nectar pushed out all the bad feelings, scalded them and turned them to ash.

  “It’s so—” she laughed, “—magickal.”

  His stone carved mouth curled into a smile. “Yes, it is. It’s sacred to my people. It’s a healing of sorts, from the inside out. Your sadness was making you sick.”

  “Why would you bring me here and give this to me? I haven’t earned it. I don’
t deserve it.”

  He looked away from her. “Sometimes, we all get things we do not deserve. Good and bad.”

  She set the flower down softly and crept closer to him in the steaming water. “Thank you.”

  “Be well, Ginger.” He leaned back against the rocky edge, unfazed by the rough terrain.

  She wished she were bold enough to reach out and touch him. She knew that he wouldn’t tell her no. After all, he was essentially hers until the ten days were up. Only she wanted him to touch her because it was what he wanted, not because he felt it was his duty.

  Ginger was tired of being a duty.

  She sighed, and while this thought displeased her, it didn’t come with the same crippling doubt and sharp things poking into that hole in her chest. The nectar had done its work.

  “I want you to be well, too.”

  His dark eyes fixed on her with a singular, animalistic intensity. “Do you?”

  Suddenly, she felt like a rabbit, and he was a hungry wolf. She didn’t mind the sensation in the least. Her mouth watered and she bit her lip. “I do.”

  She wished she could say more than that, that she could tell him boldly all the things she wanted to do to him that could, perhaps, help him be well. In all the books she’d read and movies she’d seen, this was the time to tell him.

  Or even show him.

  Close the distance between them, push her hand underneath that loincloth, and bring him to culmination.

  But Ginger wasn’t that kind of witch.

  He brushed his knuckles so softly against her cheek that she wasn’t actually sure if he touched her or if she imagined it.

  “Your skin is so very soft—very fragile.”

  “I am not so breakable,” she managed. Ginger bit her lip just a little harder, wondering if he considered the same things she did.

  “Perhaps not, but Gargoyle bodies are like stone and swords.”

  Ginger arched a brow. “Swords, eh?” Then she blushed.

  He didn’t laugh. “Sharp and hard. All over. Meant for tearing, impaling, and destroying.”

  Impaling didn’t conjure the image he was probably going for. All she could imagine was being “impaled” on this cock. Straddling his powerful thighs, digging her nails into his broad, strong shoulders.

  She wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

  He’d touched her, so she wondered if maybe fair was fair. She reached out slowly, to return the caress he’d given her. Just a touch of her fingertips against his cheek.

  Slade watched her with that same intent expression—he was every inch a wolf.

  No—he was a gargoyle. A killing machine.

  She wondered how it had ever happened they’d prevailed in the Gargoyle Wars. He could crush her with his bare hands.

  And that’s what she found the most attractive about him.

  Gavin’s strength had always been rooted in her own, in the money and influence gained from that money. He’d never been powerful on his own. With Slade, he didn’t need anything from her. That was maybe more of a turn on than his sculpted body.

  His cheek was like the rest of him—hot, hard, granite.

  “That wasn’t so sharp,” she managed breathlessly.

  His claws curled around her wrist gently. “These are. My claws would rip through your softness so easily.” He guided her fingertips to his lips.

  Ginger was sure her heart was either going to stop or explode with expectation.

  He drew her fingertip to a sharp canine tooth. “And these are for fighting and tearing—and marking a mate.”

  She couldn’t help but imagine him biting her throat, branding her with his mark.

  Goddess, what was she thinking? She’d just divorced one man, she didn’t need to be marked by a gargoyle just to have an orgasm. Except, maybe she did. Maybe she wanted to.

  “Back in the days before the war, some gargoyles took witch mates as tribute. They survived it.”

  He released her hand and looked at her pointedly. “Some did. Some did not.” She took a deep breath. “What are you telling me?”

  He smiled, baring his sharp fangs. “That you should think long and hard before deciding what you want from me.”

  Ginger swallowed.

  Long.

  And hard.

  Dear Goddess in a ball gag.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” It really seemed like the only reasonable response.

  “I think you do, sweet Ginger.” He closed the distance between them, his wings burst to their full glory behind his back casting a long shadow over her. “It’s why I brought you here. So you don’t make a decision you’ll regret because your heart hurts.”

  “It’s not my heart that—” She swallowed the rest of her words.

  Ginger didn’t know what it was about the gargoyle, but just being in the same space with him made her think and do things she’d never have considered otherwise.

  He arched a brow. “No? Then tell me what hurts.”

  “Nothing. Nothing hurts.” She shook her head.

  Why couldn’t she just reach out and take what she wanted? If he’d been like Valerian, open and… for lack of a better word, light, it would’ve been easy.

  But he wasn’t.

  And she didn’t want Valerian anyway. She wanted Slade, and she wanted him exactly the way he was.

  “Are you sure?” His gaze focused on her lips.

  They were suddenly dry. She licked them, wishing he’d just grab her and bend her over, take what he wanted.

  “Because you don’t seem sure. Your voice, it says one thing, but your scent, it says something else.”

  “You can smell me?” she squeaked. Ginger had never been so embarrassed. This was worse than being naked. Witchy bits weren’t meant to be sniffed. The few times Gavin had put his face anywhere near her bits it had been right out of the shower and two grooming charms. She had to make it taste like apple pie, or he wouldn’t do it.

  “I forget you witches and warlocks don’t speak of such things.” He shook his head. “And, sadly, don’t enjoy them.”

  “Enjoy?” She hated that she sounded like a mouse. She was Ginger Butterbean, feared socialite and powerful witch. Squeaking was beneath her.

  Apparently, so were orgasms. Her mother told her she should lie back and think of family and honor while her husband did his business.

  Like he was taking a dump on her or something and sex wasn’t to be enjoyed. She’d always thought that way until Aradia had told her differently.

  Ginger exhaled slowly. “I don’t think it’s that we don’t enjoy them. I think it’s that you can perceive something about us during sex that’s supposed to be secret, and that makes us vulnerable.”

  “Vulnerable isn’t always bad.”

  “So says the six-foot-seven, five hundred pound, winged behemoth who can punch through castle walls.”

  Slade laughed. “So says the witch who could have me put to death for taking her to gargoyle lands without her permission.”

  The law to which he referred had been enacted by their ancestors because gargoyles would steal human brides. “Kidnapping really isn’t acceptable courtship.”

  “Among our people, it’s proof a male is strong enough, clever enough, wealthy enough to care for the female.”

  “Do you have a… female?”

  “No.” He still loomed over her. “If I did, I’d be with my people. Mated males don’t serve warlocks or witches.”

  “It’s a punishment for you to be sent to us, isn’t it?”

  “For some.” Slade nodded. “When Valerian was exiled, I chose to come with him.”

  “Why was he exiled?”

  “That’s his story to tell.”

  She was aware that the space between them was ever dwindling, and Ginger didn’t know if she was thrilled or terrified by the fact. Perhaps a bit of both.

  Slade looked up at the sky.

  “The hot springs will freeze as dusk falls. The temperature changes here in the Aerie ar
e harsh on witch flesh. Let me take you home.”

  She splayed her palms on his shoulders and pressed herself close to him. It occurred to her again that he was so hot and hard everywhere. She memorized the way it felt to be against him, and what it felt like for him to be against her.

  The loincloth between them did nothing to hide his thoughts on the matter.

  And those thoughts were very deep and intense.

  Even more so when she dared to wrap her legs around his waist—in the interest of not being dropped to a certain and ugly death while they flew, of course.

  He made no comment on her chosen position, but his grip was much different than when they’d arrived. One arm was braced under her ass and other around her waist, locking her against him.

  Ginger buried her face in his shoulder and inhaled the scent of him—he smelled like those flowers from the meadow. She couldn’t get enough.

  She wondered if he’d ever had sex while flying. She wanted to ask.

  No, she didn’t want to ask, she wanted to experience it.

  A low growl rumbled in the back of his throat.

  “Today is for thinking.”

  She didn’t have to meet his perusal so it made speaking what was on her mind much easier. It was silly, she supposed, that she was intimidated by him while they were standing on solid ground, but up here in the stratosphere she dared almost anything.

  “I am thinking,” she whispered in the pointed shell of his ear. “I’m thinking about a lot of things.”

  “Are you thinking about what happens if I hurt you? If I can’t stop, and I mark you? A pretty little society witch like yourself with the mark of a gargoyle on her neck?”

  If she were in the real world, the idea might horrify her. But they were still flying, and there was no one to see. Images flooded her of him inside her, his powerful thighs thrusting his hard cock inside her, and those teeth piercing the tender flesh just at the pulse in her neck.

  Ginger wasn’t sure what possessed her, but she bit him. She closed her teeth around the vein in his neck just hard enough to let her know she was there. Ginger’s blunt teeth were never in danger of piercing his skin, but it was more about the symbolism.

  It was easier for her to bite him than to ask him to fuck her.

  But her little nip didn’t elicit the reaction she’d imagined.