Page 21 of Bumpy, the Gargoyle Slayer

I cross my legs to hide my straining cock from the modiste that I’ve hired to outfit Bunny. I’m so hard, so needy after tasting my fake girlfriend last night and making her orgasm, that no amount of taking myself in hand has dulled my desire. I strain tall, hard, and mighty.

After leaving her lying unconscious from the force of her release last night, I spent hours tossing and turning in my own bed. I was too afraid to remain with Bunny lest I test my boundaries. I feared that even stone wouldn’t hold me.

But here I am again, back in the same pink and white room that screams her name, as if I’d had it decorated in anticipation of her one day resting within its walls. Fate, that.

There’s been entirely too much of destiny lately.

But the innocence of the room in daylight is a reminder that I have no place in the slayer’s life. She’s twenty-seven. I’m over eight-hundred-years-old. That’s not an age-gap. That’s insanity. I’m pretty sure the difference makes me a perv. Then again, even a ninety-year-old female wouldn’t close the gap.

I cross my legs in the other direction and try to hold onto my best nature.

Which is made easier as she spills a cup of cold coffee down the length of fabric that the modiste pins to hers. As the seamstress flutters about like Bunny’s lit her on fire, I can’t help smiling.

“Oops,” she mutters, standing straight. She meets my gaze through the mirror and shrugs.

The room is elegant, graceful, and seeped in a comforting level of tradition, Bunny is… not. Not now, and not at her etiquette lessons earlier. I nearly expired watching her knock silver to the floor, trip when she attempted the curtsy necessary for royalty and upper human lords, and chug water from a bottle rather than a glass during a break in her lessons. She left me flabbergasted because when she moves, she moves with the grace of a dancer. And yet, with Monsieur Finnagan, her etiquette teacher, she flopped around like a beached fish.

Monsieur Finnagan was sweating by the time he ran out the door, his immaculate suit creased and his eyes watering.

My Bumps is not for the faint of heart.

Bunny leaves the fabric with the modiste and crosses to sit on the arm of the antique chair that occupies a corner of her room. The arm cracks off under her weight, nearly sending her to the floor, though she catches herself. “Oops,” she says again, sending me another glance. “My bad. Was this, um, expensive?”

“Only priceless, Bumps.”

A glimmer passes over her eyes before she tucks her gorgeous ass onto the chair cushion and places the spindly arm on top of the small table between us.

And suddenly, I can’t help laughing out loud. “Minx. You’re just pretending to be clumsy to annoy me, aren’t you?”

“Annoy. Test your limits. Whatever,” she replies, deadpan, before she burst into a wide smile. “You should see your face, Alain. You look like you’re about to vomit.”

“Charming.” But I am charmed. How did any human learn to be so precious?

Careful, Alain. She’s not your girlfriend. She’s not your beloved wife. She’s…

But my mind can’t quite finish the statement because I’m not sure what she isn’t, let alone what she is. Delightful. Gorgeous. Shaped to make my palms itch. Special. Brave. Inciteful. Funny.

And if you keep listing her attributes, you’re going to spoil everything. She’s only here because she trusts the pretense. If you fail at that, she’s going to run off, leaving your global initiative to fail and you to die of a broken heart.

“Stuff it, inner voice.”

“What?”

Damn. I said that out loud. “Er—nothing. Just talking to myself.”

She nods. “I do that, too. It doesn’t mean you’re crazy.”

Doesn’t it?

But her smile drops as she looks towards the modiste who’s still desperately trying to wipe coffee off her fabric. “Alain… is this necessary? I mean, I can just grab some stuff to wear from some place at the mall. Or point me in the direction of a thrift store. I’m a wizard with a thrift wardrobe. I don’t need anything fancy.”

“But I need to see you wearing something that befits your perfection.” I clear my throat. “I mean, you are my pretend girlfriend. You must look the part.”

Good save, dimwit.

She sighs. “Right. As spectacular as my billionaire boyfriend.”

She thinks I’m spectacular? I can’t help but preen… or lean toward her so I can inhale her scent—perfection and shampoo, the combination of which twists down into the heart of me, calling my cock to do something with its stone.