Page 9 of Coached By the Grumpy Gargoyle

All the way. Full spread, wall to wall, slate membrane with pale striations lit up silver by the moon, an entire private sky opening over me, and I forget how to breathe for reasons that have nothing to do with his size.

I reach up and run my fingers along the membrane.

He shudders. Every inch of him goes taut over me, his next thrust losing its rhythm as a groan tears out of his chest.

"The wings," he grinds out, "are very sensitive."

"Good."

I do it again. Both hands this time, fingertips trailing down the warm silk-thin membrane, and his control slips another notch. He swears into my neck and drives into me harder, and the discovery is intoxicating: this huge, controlled man comes apart when I touch his wings.

I stroke the membrane again. His mouth finds my throat. His hips turn rougher, deeper, and for a while neither of us says anything coherent.

The second orgasm doesn't announce itself. It just arrives, enormous, rolling up through me and clamping down around him, and I cry out and rake my fingers along both wings at once.

That does it.

He bottoms out and roars. Actually roars, a sound that shakes the rafters while his wings snap rigid above us. He pulses deep inside me, and I shudder around him with my hands still spread over warm slate membrane.

For a long time, neither of us moves. His weight comes down beside me, careful even now, one arm dragging me into the burning wall of his chest. The room is cold on my sweat-damp skin, and then it isn't, because his wings fold around me, both of them, a warm, dark canopy of slate and silver closing out the moonlight, and I am cocooned in gargoyle.

For once, I don't have anything clever to say.

His heartbeat is slow and enormous under my ear, his skin fever-warm against the cold air, and the last thing I register is the faint smell of hot stone as sleep drags me under.

I wake before dawn with a wing over me like a second quilt, and I am careful, so careful, slipping out from under it.

The gray non-light before sunrise filters through the glass doors. Bram doesn't stir. Asleep, the scowl is gone and his face is peaceful, almost soft. I stand there in the cold a moment longer than I should, looking at him.

This is a catastrophe. This is the biggest mistake I've ever made. I can’t mess up my career by sleeping with a colleague.

He said I was perfect.

Which is exactly why I have to go.

I collect my stuff down the length of last night's flight path. Underwear at the foot of the bed. Tights on the landing, beyond saving, balled into my fist. Skirt on the stairs, blouse in the hallway, coat and purse by the front door, my shoes standing in the hall like two little scandalized witnesses. I dress in the dark, fast, quiet, trying not to think about what comes next.

There's a notepad by the kitchen doorway. A pen on a hook. I look at it, and my hand actually lifts, and then I put it down.

What would I even write? Thanks for the aviation. See you at work. Sorry about your pants. There's no note for this. Notes are for people who plan on coming back.

I let myself out and ease the wide front door shut behind me, and the cold hits like a sucker punch to the guts.

The porch boards are frost-slick under my stockingless feet, heels in hand, and the gravel lane runs off pale through the pines toward the road. I walk slowly and carefully as gravel bites through my soles, breath fogging, arms clamped around my ribs while November goes through my light coat like it’s nothing, and every crunching step sounds like an accusation in the stillness.

Guilt comes with me. Of course it does. He held me in his wings, and I'm sneaking down his driveway before sunrise without even leaving a note.

But he's a coworker. I have one rule about that, and I have it for a reason. My job is the one part of my life I can’t gamble with. I’m still on an annual contract, and every June the school decides whether to renew it. More than that, Bram doesn't feel like a man built for one careless night. He feels dangerous in a completely different way. Like someone I could start wanting to stay with.

And if I stay long enough, eventually he’ll get a good look at me and realize I’m not worth keeping.

No. Better to leave while this is still something I can survive.

The pines let go of the lane and the road opens up toward town, streetlights still on, the sky over the bay going the color of dirty dishwater. I put my heels on, wrap my coat extra tight and start walking home. At least Saltford Bay is a small enough town that I know all the streets by heart.

One night. That's what it was. It was spectacular, and it's over.

Chapter 4