9. Chapter 9
Rory
Bram lifts me off the floor without breaking our kiss.
I hook an arm around his neck, still clutching his hoodie with my other hand. This is a much better height for kissing him. I don't have to balance on my toes, and he doesn't have to bend nearly in half, and I can feel his smile against my mouth when I take full advantage.
"This is a terrible idea," I inform his mouth.
"It really is," he agrees, his voice so low I feel it through my hand on his chest. Then he kisses me again, and I tighten my arm around his neck.
He carries me toward the bedroom, ducking through the doorway while I keep myself occupied with his lips.
My bed is covered in pillows, which seemed like a good idea when I bought them.
Bram sweeps half of them to the floor with one forearm and lays me down.
The frame gives a scandalized creak under his knee.
"Be nice to my bed," I tell him. "I like that bed."
His mouth finds my throat, and I lose interest in defending my furniture.
We get his hoodie off between us, working it carefully around his wings. My dress has a zipper he handles with a delicacy that makes me want to wriggle out of it myself. Then it joins the pillows, along with my bra and underwear.
Bram draws back to look at me, and I resist the urge to smooth my hair. His gaze moves down my body, slow enough to make me squirm.
"There you are," he says, quiet.
He kisses my collarbone, then the freckles on my shoulder. I tip my head back, expecting his mouth to travel lower, but he takes my arm and kisses the inside of my elbow. I laugh, startled, and he looks up at me with his lips still against my skin.
"That tickles."
"Does it?" He kisses the same spot again, and I catch his shoulder, laughing harder.
His mouth curves before he moves on. He kisses my ribs, the dip of my waist, the point of my hip. His stone warms beneath my palms, and by the time he reaches my stomach, I'm no longer laughing. I want his mouth lower. I also don't want him to skip a single inch.
He's taking his time with me. Every time I open my eyes, he's looking at my face, waiting for my response before he kisses me again. My cheeks burn, but I leave my hands on him. I want him to know how good this feels.
"Bram, you're going to kill me if you keep going this slowly."
He lifts his head from my stomach. "You seem to be enjoying yourself."
"That's beside the point." I tug at his shoulders, and he kisses my hip again, the smug bastard.
Then he slides off the end of the bed onto his knees. His hands close around my hips and draw me to the edge of the bed. Behind him, his wings rise close to the string lights along the sloping ceiling.
I reach over his shoulders and run my fingers along the tops of his wings, where the thin membrane meets the hard ridge. He shudders beneath my hands and presses his mouth to the inside of my thigh. I do it again, slower.
"Careful, brat." His breath is against the inside of my thigh, his voice wrecked already.
"Or what?"
He answers by lowering his mouth to me. My fingers curl around the ridges of his wings, and I forget whatever smart remark I was about to make. He's slow and thorough, holding my hips steady while I try to move against him. My heel presses into his back.
He doesn't hurry.
Every time my hands tighten, a low sound comes out of him. I can feel it against my skin, and it makes me want to touch him more. The string lights blur above his shoulders. I'm barely managing to keep my eyes open when he lifts his head.
"You're my addiction." His lips brush my thigh as he speaks. "I could never have enough of you."
My fingers loosen on his wings. He looks up at me, and I can't make a joke out of it. Nobody has ever said anything like that to me. I've been useful, reliable, a great help. This enormous, gorgeous man is kneeling between my legs, telling me he can't get enough of me.
I stroke his wing, and his mouth comes back to me. This time, when I move, he lets me, his hands warm and firm on my hips. I come with his name spilling out of me, holding on to him while he stays with me through the last of it.
When I can breathe again, I pull at his shoulders. He lifts his head, and I sit up to kiss him, both palms against his chest. I want him on the bed. He works his trousers down while I push the remaining pillows out of our way, then he lets me urge him backward onto the mattress.
He has to lie diagonally, and his feet still hang off the edge.
I climb over him, knees on either side of his hips, and pause with my hands on his chest as his cock presses to my stomach, impossibly hard and maddeningly hot.
He's looking at me so openly that I forget to move for a second.
There is nothing guarded about his face now.
His hand settles on my thigh. "Come here."
I sink onto him slowly, watching his face as I take him. His hands tighten at my hips, but he holds still, giving me time to adjust. I draw a shaky breath and lean forward, feeling the warmth of his chest under my palms.
"Are you okay?" His voice is rough, his eyes fixed on mine.
"I'm better than okay," I manage, and start to move.
His wings sweep forward around us. The string lights disappear behind the membranes, leaving us in warm, close darkness. I can see his face and the pale striations in his wings. His hands span my waist, and when I lean down to kiss him, one slides up my back to hold me there.
I move more slowly, my mouth against his. He lifts his hips to meet me, and I lose the kiss on a gasp. For a while, all I can do is hold on to his shoulders and move with him, listening to the sounds he makes when I get it right.
The pleasure builds until I can't keep moving. My forehead drops to his, and I come with his arms around me, shaking against his chest. He holds me through it, then follows with a roar that goes through the mattress and the floorboards.
I feel sorry for the neighbors below. I’ll have to bake them a fresh batch of muffins or something as an apology.
Bram's wings loosen, and he eases me down beside him. For a long while, I lie with my cheek on his chest, catching my breath while his hand moves slowly up my spine. One wing stays draped over me, warm against my cooling skin.
I should probably ask if he's comfortable. His feet are hanging off the bed, and most of the pillows are on the floor. But his arm settles around me, pulling me closer, and I can't quite bring myself to suggest that either of us move.
Then his other hand shifts on my hip, and leather brushes my skin.
His right hand is bare on my spine. His left, resting on my hip, is still wearing the black field glove. He's had it on the whole time, but I was too turned on to notice. I lift my head and look at it, then at him.
"Bram." I put one fingertip on the leather cuff. "Why are you still wearing this?"
His hand stops moving on my back. He looks down at the glove, and for a moment he doesn't answer. Then he winces. I start to take my finger away.
“It’s okay. You don't have to tell me."
"I do." He shifts against the pillows, helping me sit up beside him. His wing slides down to cover our legs. I keep a hand on his arm while he works the glove off, slowly, until it comes free of his fingers.
At first, I don't see anything unusual. Then he turns his hand toward me, and the string lights catch a raised band around his left ring finger. It runs all the way around, smooth and unbroken, the same gray as the rest of his hand.
I touch it lightly. It's warm beneath my fingertip, warmer even than the stone beside it.
"What is it?" My voice comes out small and quiet, more like a whisper.
"It's a mating mark. It appears when a gargoyle touches their one true mate.” He watches my hand resting on his. "Gargoyles have one mate, for life. We don't choose who it is, we just react when we find them."
I stop tracing the band. "You mean I'm your mate?"
"Yes, Rory. You're my mate."
His hand stays open beneath mine. I look from the band to his face, waiting for him to tell me I've misunderstood. He doesn't.
"When did this happen?"
"That first night. The mark was there when I woke up."
When I was already gone. He found this on his hand, and I wasn't there for him to tell me. My stomach tightens.
“Is that why you’ve been wearing gloves at work?”
"Yes."
He nods, and I close my fingers around his hand.
"Why didn't you tell me before?”
"You'd given me a whole speech about not dating a coworker," he says. "It was a good speech. I didn’t want you to feel trapped if I told you, so I kept quiet.”
I can't smile. All I can think about is him standing there, letting me talk, while I waited for him to agree that we should forget the whole thing. All the while, he kept this a secret.
"It wasn't true that it meant nothing to me. It’s even less true now.”
His eyes lift to mine. I don't know how to explain the rest yet, and he doesn't ask me to. He sits so still beside me that I want to touch his face, but I can't let go of his hand.
I'm his mate. For life. I keep waiting for the urge to get out of bed and put some distance between us. It doesn't come. I'm shocked, and my heart is racing, but I don't want to move away from him. Maybe I’ve lost my mind.
"Rory." He turns his hand beneath mine and holds it. “The mating bond is permanent for me, but you already knew that. Everyone knows that about gargoyles. I can feel you, even when you're across town. It's like a hum beneath my skin. When you're close, I get warm."
I look down at his chest, remembering how cold his skin was before he kissed me. "That's because of me?"
"Yes. I can feel your moods, too, though I can't always tell what they mean."
"You can feel what I'm feeling?"
He rubs his thumb over my knuckles. "Some of it. I can't read your thoughts."
I study his face. He keeps looking at me as if he's waiting for the part that will make me pull my hand away. I hold on a little tighter.
"But for me, this is it." His voice is quiet and steady. "You are the only woman I will ever want. For the rest of my life. And I've wanted you for a year, Rory. That part didn't start with the mark."
The radiator ticks behind me. I can hear it so clearly while I sit there trying to take in what he's said. A year. All that time I thought he could barely stand to be in the same room with me.
He wants me. Permanently. I've spent so much of my life trying to be worth keeping that I don't know what to do with a man who says he already wants me for the rest of his.
My eyes sting. I look down at our hands before he can mistake it for something worse. That band is part of him. It will still be there tomorrow, and next week, and long after that.
"I need time." I look up at him again. "This is... Bram, this is enormous. I'm not saying no. I just need time."
"You have all the time in the world," he says, and his fingers loosen around mine. "I can wait."
"You say that like it's easy."
"I'm a gargoyle." One corner of his mouth moves, and I finally manage a small smile of my own. "I'm good at staying put."
I lean into him, and he draws me down against his chest. We have to shift a little to fit, my knee nudging his thigh while he finds room to fold his wings.
Then we're settled, warm and close, with one wing over us.
His bare hand rests on my hip, and I cover it with mine, my fingertip against the raised band.
The string lights glow along the slope. The radiator ticks. I listen to his heartbeat and let my eyes close.
"Bram. When you wake up tomorrow, I'm going to be right here. In your arms. I promise."
His arm tightens around me, and for a moment he doesn't answer. I press my cheek against his chest and stay there.
"I'll hold you to it," he says at last.