Rocked by Love (Gargoyles Series) (23 page)

He tried hard to wrap his head around her words, which as usual she had strung together and knotted into sentences that took him time and effort to untangle. Finally, he said, “I cannot think any of those questions has an answer. Even if they did, I am unsure the answer would satisfy you.”

She pulled a wry face and stuck her tongue out at him. “That big a
balagan,
am I? A big, crazy mess?”

“No.” Dag shook his head. “But you seek answers that do not exist, because Fate does not operate in ways the living can understand. She has Her own rules and Her own agenda.”

“Yeah, I think that’s pretty clear.”

He had to gather himself before he asked his own question. “Do you object so strongly to me that you wish to deny our connection?”

She gave a long, heavy sigh. “That isn’t it. There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with Fate. There’s not even anything wrong with the situation. I mean, if you take away the Demonic evil and its madcap minions. I’m not even sure what I feel is an objection to begin with. I don’t really know how to articulate any of what I feel.”

In the dark, his hand reached out and closed over hers. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her dainty fingers and squeezed gently. “Simply try.”

Kylie looked away from him, turning her gaze to the shadows filling the room. “I think maybe I’m kind of hurt.”

She spoke so softly, he had to strain to hear her, and when he did, he felt a jolt of shock and guilt. “I have hurt you?”

“No! No, you really haven’t.” The corner of her mouth hitched up just a tiny bit, and she squeezed his hand in return. “I was talking about Fate. It seems so strange to think that Fate could send me some perfect mate, some guy I’m destined to love and be loved by forever when it couldn’t even be bothered to make my parents give a crap about me.”

She tensed when she said the words, as if waiting for a blow or as if her own admission had shocked her. He suspected it might have been a combination of both.

Her hand tugged at his, trying to escape his grip, but Dag refused to allow it. Instead, he used the connection to pull her closer until he could scoop her into his arms and cradle her against his chest. She struggled halfheartedly while he settled himself in her bed, bracing his shoulders against her headboard and arranging her neatly in his lap. When she sniffled, he felt a crack run through his heart.

“I cannot explain the foolishness of your parents,” he said, bending close to press his cheek to her curling hair. “It is unfathomable to me that a parent should treat their child so coldly, let alone that anyone should behave so toward one as good and precious as you.”

She sniffled again, then followed with a laughing snort. “You’re just saying that because you want into my pants.”

“You are not wearing pants,” he pointed out, running his hand up the smooth skin of her thigh beneath the overlarge T-shirt she wore as a sleeping garment. “And as I have already been inside them, the argument loses all meaning.”

She gave another disbelieving snort, but then she let her head rest in the hollow of his shoulder and snuggled closer against him.

Dag continued, “You are precious to your grandmother, so much that she argued with her own child in defense of you, did she not?”

Kylie nodded with clear reluctance.

“You are precious to Wynn, too. Anyone can see the affection she holds for you. She claims you as her sister, in her heart even if not by blood.” He had to clench his teeth to get the next example out without biting something. “And it is clear that you are precious to your other friends, if Victim was any example.”

She slapped his chest lightly. “Vic
tor,
you big jerk. You know, you weren’t very nice to him while he was here. I’m sure that’s why he rushed off like that.”

Not
nice
to the puny human? Dag had allowed him to leave with his head still on his shoulders and his intestines intact in his abdomen, hadn’t he? He called that being very nice indeed, especially given the puppy-dog look of devotion the young male had turned on Kylie every time he glanced at her.

He swiftly moved to his next point. “You are precious to anyone who takes as much as a moment to get to know you, little one, because to know you is to see your true beauty.” His arms tightened around her and he nuzzled the soft, fragile skin at her temple. “You are very, very precious to me.”

She melted against him, which pleased him greatly, but he felt the hot warmth of tears on her cheeks, which made him want to kill something for daring to hurt her. Her relationship with her parents was clearly strained, but he sensed she might object if he tore their hearts from their chests and stomped on them.

He had to content himself with merely holding her, rocking her gently until her tears dried up and her breath went from uneven hiccups to a soft sigh. For a moment he thought she had fallen asleep until she raised a hand and laid her soft palm against his face. Unable to help himself, he turned into it and inhaled the sweet scent of her, loving the touch of bitterness that grounded her and made her somehow attainable for a monster like him.

*   *   *

Kylie threw her pity party for five more self-indulgent minutes. She wore the pointy hat, blew the noisemaker, threw the streamers, and ate the cake. Then she sat up and took a long hard look at the man sitting before her.

Dag looked back, his black eyes steady and unblinking, his expression calm and neutral. He didn’t push, didn’t withdraw, he just let her be.

How did he know to do that? Even she wouldn’t have been able to identify that as what she needed, but Dag knew and he gave it. Maybe that was why she trusted him; even after only a week—and what a week it had been—she knew that when he had sworn to protect her, he had meant it. And she knew that when he had sworn he was her mate, he meant that, too.

Did Kylie really want to fight him on it? After all, what good would it do? The man’s head had been carved out of granite, more literally than most, so she knew he wasn’t going to change his mind. She didn’t know if she could change hers, either, but she knew she didn’t like the person she’d been on and off for the last couple of days. She didn’t like being confused, didn’t like being angsty, didn’t like being a big, whining ball of “why me?”

Which meant that right here, right now, she was putting a stop to it. Time not just to nut up or shut up, but to make the choice that no matter what the future held, she would be fine just as long as she remembered to be Kylie.

Squirming in Dag’s embrace, she maneuvered herself to straddle his lap, pressing her knees against his hips and resting her hands on his chest. His own embrace loosened but didn’t fall away. His hands dropped to lightly clasp her hips and his face lit with curiosity.

She grinned and stroked the hard muscle hidden beneath his gray T-shirt. She knew he’d put it on for her, since he’d grumbled more than once that week over the necessity of confining human clothing when not in his natural form. Earlier, she’d been vaguely grateful. Now, she wished he hadn’t bothered.

“I’m done whining,” she announced, finding the edge of a pectoral muscle and tracing the curving line beneath the cotton covering. “I just thought you deserved to know that. And I should thank you for putting up with it. For that and for just now. What you said was really sweet. And you’re right. I’m a pretty lovable person, so I should get over myself and move on.”

He blinked, his expression looking a little dazed and more than a little confused. “You owe me no apologies, little one, nor any thanks, but I am glad to hear you acknowledge the truth.”

“That I’m lovable?” He nodded and Kylie let her grin turn wicked. “Yeah, I am.” She leaned forward and let her unbound breasts press against him while she whispered into his mouth. “Want to love me right now?”

For a second, she wondered if he had turned back to stone, but then he shot forward in a burst of speed, locked his arms around her and flipped her onto her back. While he loomed over her, growling his arousal, Kylie tipped her head back and laughed with giddy pleasure.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” She giggled, loving the flash of mischief that glinted in his eyes as he relaxed and realized her blue mood had truly passed.

“Take this as well,” he rumbled just before he dove into her mouth and dragged her into a riptide of desire.

She gloried in it, encouraged it, wanting to taste his wildness and the urgency of his need. When they had come together earlier, he had been careful with her, tender and seductive, until at the end when she had goaded him into letting go.

This time, she wanted him to hold nothing back.

She tried to tell him with the fervor of her response. She nipped at his lips, sucked at his tongue, and moaned at the rich, exotic flavor of him. She pressed herself up into his restraining weight, canting her hips to cradle his hardness, wrapping her legs around him and pulling him as close as she could manage. She twisted and writhed and dug her nails into his back, and all he gave her was the steady, smoldering heat of restrained passion.

Ha! She’d show him.

It would be great if she could pull off that trick of his and just make their clothes disappear with a thought, but she wasn’t a Guardian or a witch. She’d have to drive him crazy the old-fashioned way.

Breaking free from their kiss, she turned her head to nibble her way from his jaw to the corded muscles of his throat. She heard his growl echoing in her ear before he dropped his head and began his own assault on her shoulder. He pulled the neck of her shirt aside and scraped his teeth across her pale skin before retracing the same path with his tongue.

While he distracted himself nicely, Kylie slipped one hand from its grip on his back and slid it sneakily between their bodies. Her fingers burrowed beneath the waist of his soft, drawstring pants. At the same moment that she closed her fingers around his straining erection, she twisted her head and struck, sinking her even white teeth into the flesh where his neck and shoulder met.

Dag howled.

He shuddered like a bolt of lightning arced through him, lit up with violent arousal. Kylie had the fleeting thought that she hoped he hadn’t woken Wynn or Knox, before she decided to hell with it and stroked up his length with a tight fist. He muttered something sharp and guttural against her shoulder and half a second later she found herself imprisoned beneath more than two hundred pounds of male lust.

He had grabbed both her wrists, dragging her hands from him and pinning them to the bed above her head. While his own clothing disappeared with a thought, hers he dragged up over her head but didn’t bother to pull completely off. Instead, he bunched the fabric in his hands, twisted and manipulated it until she discovered for the first time that a properly knotted and tightened T-shirt could make an effective pair of soft, abrasion-free shackles.

Who knew?

She mentally kissed her second pair of panties of the day good-bye, since he tore them from her with even less finesse than the first pair. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to find all the pieces in the morning, but then again, she didn’t really care.

She cared even less when he grasped both her legs just above the knees and leaned forward until he blocked the entire world from her view.

“You know, it is not nice to tease, little one,” he murmured, his voice a rasping purr that raised goose bumps on her flesh and sent shivers racing down her spine. “Here. Let me show you.”

Before she could even process the threat in his words, he wrenched her legs apart and covered her pussy with his hot, hungry mouth.

Her eyes rolled so far back into her head, she’d need surgery to get them out.

His tongue lashed at her like a tender, silken whip, flicking back and forth across her swollen clit until she actually begged him to stop. He did, sort of, abandoning her clit to explore the soft folds around her entrance and stab his tongue deep inside her. What on earth had she done?

Her hips writhed in a futile attempt to escape the relentless pleasure he forced upon her. Again and again, his mouth brought her to the brink of climax, then retreated, varying or dulling the stimulation until the pressure eased and she once again fell to breathless moaning.

The man should be outlawed.

“Dag, stop.” She was panting, unable to draw in enough air for true coherence. “Enough. Just come inside me. Please. Fuck me.”

He lifted his head just enough to meet her gaze, licked his lips and shook his head. “Mm, not yet,” he growled and returned to his torture.

His lips closed around her clit and drew against it with soft, steady pulls that almost had her weeping. Her entire body felt feverish and aching, and she could feel beads of sweat trickling down her temples. She could only hope her heart was healthy enough for this kind of strain.

Desperate for relief, she brought her bound hands down and grabbed at his head, trying to pull him up and over her, but it felt like trying to shift a grand piano with her pinky finger. He batted her hands away and shoved them up out of his way before increasing the suction on her clit to something that tap-danced wildly across the line between pleasure and pain.

“Dag! Please!” she shouted, her voice hoarse and barely recognizable to her own ears. He responded by thrusting two long fingers into her soaked, empty passage and finding the spot on her inner walls that made her head explode.

The rest of her followed shortly after. The orgasm tore through her, taking her like a kitten in its teeth and shaking ruthlessly. Dag barely eased off the pressure, continuing to stroke and lick and torment until all she could do was shake and shudder and gasp for air.

Her pleas had dissolved into nothing more than a steady stream of whimpers by the time Dag lifted his head and stroked his hands soothingly across her belly and thighs. Her skin felt so sensitive that even the nonsexual touch almost set her off again.

“Such a good little human,” he crooned, continuing to rub with firm, comforting pressure, avoiding her overstimulated sex and her aching nipple until she finally felt like she could breathe again.

She forced her eyes open, surprised to realize she hadn’t just closed them, but had clenched them so tightly that they didn’t want to open. When she eventually managed it, she blinked up at him in a daze and found him watching her with that blazing black gaze.