Chapter 37 #2
He slides his hand between us, and I moan. He knows exactly where to touch me to make me shatter. I explode and clench his body as wave after wave rolls over me. His release hits seconds after mine, and he gives a low moan as he comes.
Breathing heavily, he drops his forehead onto my chest. “You’re amazing.” After a second, he lifts his body from mine and rolls to the side, his signature broad grin on his face. “That was a hell of a good start to forever.”
It hits me. “We didn’t use a condom.”
He winces. “Damn. Sorry, sweetheart. I was so caught up in you saying yes I forgot to tell you it isn’t necessary.
Gargoyles control that aspect. I know you told me you want children, so the timing is up to you.
When you’re ready, you can decide if you want the biological father to be me or Macklin.
To be honest, I can’t wait to be a father, regardless of who you choose. ” His grin returns at the thought.
I run my finger over his mouth. “I must have sketched this smile a hundred times, wondering who you were, what role I’d play in your life. Not in my wildest dreams did I think you were meant to be mine.”
He captures my hand and raises it to his lips to place a kiss on my palm. “Yours. Mine.” His sterling blue-grey eyes begin to glow. His body stirs, and his cock twitches, hardening again.
“Hmm, and you want to know the best part?” I ask, sliding one leg over him and sitting up. I reach down and line him up, then slowly sink down. “You fit.”
I’m sitting on the couch in one of Teague’s T-shirts and a pair of his boxers, which for some reason are more comfortable than my pajamas, when Macklin and Andros walk in the next morning.
Teague sets my gingerbread latte in front of me, and I take an appreciative sip and sigh.
We were up almost all night. Setting it down, I search their weary faces.
“How did the hatching go?”
Andros lets a rare smile slip. “Incredible. I’d never seen a dragon born.”
Macklin comes over and scoops me up, carrying me down the hallway to Teague’s room. Holding me up against the door, he grips my hips and smashes his lips on mine, but unlike his other kisses, this one is hot and needy and wild.
Sensing his need, I match his passion with my own, until I have to pull my mouth away to catch a breath.
He freezes, then swears. “Sorry, love. Last night was a bit rough on me. Your hunger…Every pulsing need.…Not even a forty-mile run this morning could exhaust me.”
My face fills with fire. “You felt it? All of it?”
“Only glimpses of how you felt, when you came, not all of it,” he stumbles to explain. “It’s bad right now because our bond isn’t in place. Not that I want to rush into it or anything.”
“Is there anything I can do? To help?” I ask him, placing my hand over his jeans.
He closes his eyes, then vehemently shakes his head. “No, I need to get on the road. I’m meeting Kinji tonight. But when I get back in a couple days, I want to strip you down and taste you all over.”
“I’d like that,” I tell him as an image of his head between my legs flashes in my mind.
He chuckles and lets my feet drop, then tugs me back into the living room.
Andros is standing near the sofa, flipping through my sketchbook, and I walk over and grab it from him.
“That’s private.” I open it to the page where I started to draw his stern lips, the light beard covering his jaw, his thick, burnished brown hair.
“Here. The next few pages are of you. Or at least, your features.”
He flips through and studies each one, then turns to the last page where I’ve drawn his entire face. “And this one?”
My face flames. “I drew that one after we met.” I think about everything Teague said last night about Andros’ past. He’s my mate too.
Whether either of us likes it or not. I don’t know if we’ll find our way, but the one thing I do know is I’m not afraid of him anymore.
Before, in his office, his stare was intense but edged with a barely controlled hunger that both turned me on and made me feel like a deer in headlights.
Now, he’s giving me whiplash with all his emotions, but the intense hunger is tempered.
“I’ve got to get on the road soon,” Macklin tells him.
“Where are you going?” Andros asks, his gaze swinging from him to Teague.
Teague grabs the file and holds it up, silently asking me if it’s okay if he shares it with Andros. When I nod, he puts it down in front of him.
While Andros is reviewing everything, he explains that Macklin is going to meet up with Kinji to get surveillance started on Hank. “We want to make sure his death looks like an accident, so they don’t come searching for Charli.”
Andros pales and turns toward me. “He dumped a fire pit on you?”
“My back. It’s why I don’t let anyone see it,” I tell him, hoping my past isn’t going to trigger him.
In my peripheral, I see Macklin and Teague having a silent conversation.
Checking our connection, I don’t sense any of their thoughts or feelings.
I’m guessing after a thousand years together they know how to read each other without words.
But it reminds me. I do need to figure out how to block them.
If not, how will I ever pull off a surprise or buy them a gift?
“Your mother and Cara. He deliberately isolated you,” Andros states, a tic in his jaw.
“Hank’s obsessed. He won’t stop until he kills me,” I murmur, unable to help the shiver that runs down my spine.
Teague squats down. “Sweetheart, you’re immortal.
I did a little research. Talked to a few mated gargoyles in other Vales.
Basically, the only same things that can kill me will kill you.
Lethal poisons that act instantly. Magical fire.
Bombs or explosives, but only because it scatters pieces of us everywhere. ”
Shocked, I stare at him. I remember him telling me I’d be immortal, but I didn’t think of what it actually meant. “Seriously?”
Macklin shifts from one foot to the other. “Don’t go testing it out or anything.”
“I won’t.”
All the things I wanted but couldn’t have because of Hank.
A job, a home, family, love. I stop, realizing they’re all the things Teague has given to me.
And now this. Our bond. Immortality. A very long life to spend with them.
Right now, I don’t have a clue what fifty years feels like, much less a century or a millennium, but I’m looking forward to finding out.
Walking over, I take his face in my hands. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I capture his lips with mine, showing him how much all this means to me. How much he means to me.
“If I’m moving back in, we may have to set some ground rules,” Andros remarks, watching us.
“Fuck off,” Teague shoots back at him.
“Not happening,” Macklin adds before glancing at his watch. “I’ve got to go. My flight’s in fifteen minutes.
Be careful, please. I’ll miss you.
Macklin’s slow smile slides across his face.
Hmm, I like this. Don’t worry, love.
Andros stands up. “I’m going to run a couple of errands. Do you want me to drop you off?”
Macklin nods. “Thanks.”
After they leave, I pick up my notebook and show Teague the images of him and his features. He stops at the one in his office. The one I drew right before I came to Greystone.
“That’s me,” he says, tilting his head and squinting at the image. “It’s the same night the witch sent the spell, the one to entice you to Greystone.”
“How can you tell?”
He taps on the envelope in his hand. “She sent this to me.”
I really had been seeing glimpses of my future and didn’t know it. Taking back my sketchbook, I flip through the other images to see if I recognize anything else, and that’s when I realize Andros took the sketch I did of him.