Page 40 of Guarded by My Gargoyle

She turned around.

“Do you want to come in?” she said. “For coffee.”

There was a silence. His eyes flickered, and she saw the warm gold kindling at the edges. They both knew that coffee was not what she’d asked for, and that she’d asked anyway, wide awake and entirely on purpose.

“Yes,” he said.

Her kitchen had always felt cozy with white cabinets and old appliances she’d told herself were retro and pots of herbs on the windowsill. The instant Garrick came through the door, ducking under the frame and his wings folded tightly against his back, it went from cozy to small.

“I’ll—” She turned towards the counter and the coffee pot, towards something that would give her hands and her nerves something to do. “The kettle’s⁠—”

“Maris.”

She stopped, and turned back. He hadn’t moved from the doorway. He filled it, the low gold light over the stove catching the stone texture of his skin, the sharp line of his jaw, and the wings folded down like a closed door. His eyes weren’t grey anymore. They were completely gold now, banked-fire gold, and fixed on her with an intensity that should have frightened her and didn’t. It never had. She’d never been afraid of him. Not once.

“I don’t want coffee,” he said.

“I know.” It came out steadier than she felt. “Neither do I.”

She crossed the small kitchen. Or he did. She was never entirely sure afterwards which of them moved first, and it hardly mattered, because they met in the middle. Then his hands were on her, one enormous clawed hand spanning the small of her back and the other cupping her jaw so carefully, absurdly carefully for a male who could crush stone, tilting her face up. And he kissed her.

It was not like the garden, and it was not like the greenhouse.

The garden had been a spark, startled and half-finished. The kiss had caught fire in the greenhouse, but then Toby had interrupted them. This time there was no one to interrupt and the kiss ignited like dry tinder to a spark and turned into an inferno. His mouth was on hers and she was rising to meet it. His tongue swept into her mouth and a sound came out of her she hadn’t known she had in her. He made a sound too, from somewhere in his chest, that she felt more than heard. Then his wings moved, flaring away from his back in a soft leathery rush that filled the little kitchen and half wrapped the two of them in shadow.

He walked her back against the counter. The cold edge of it hit her hips just as the warm weight of him hit her front. His hands found her waist, then moved down, his thumbs settling in the hollows above her hip bones. She had a fistful of his shirt in one hand and his heart was racing, faster than she’d have believed possible, beneath her other hand. The kiss deepened and deepened until there was nothing careful left in it at all.

He lifted her onto the counter in one smooth motion, putting her back against the cabinet and his hips between her knees. She gasped into his mouth and wrapped her legs around his waist, her dress hitching up, the worn denim of his jeans soft against her bare legs. He leaned into her grip and the sudden hard pressure of his erection against her core made her head spin. Then his hand slid up her bare thigh and under the hem of the green dress. She felt the prick of a claw retract before it touched her and it sent a shiver of excitement down her spine.

“Garrick—”

His mouth moved to her throat, his voice rough against her skin.

“Tell me to stop.”

“No.” The word came out embarrassingly fast, and she felt him smile against her throat.

“Then don’t ask me to be careful, little thorn.”

His hand slid further up her thigh, his thumb feathering the edge of her panties, and she knew if he moved an inch higher he’d discover how embarrassingly wet and needy she was. She started to arch into his hand and her head fell back against the construction paper mosaic Toby had brought home from school. Reality came crashing down around her.

I’m not ready.

Her body was screaming the opposite, ten seconds from letting him take her right there on the counter. But the rest of her had a five-year-old asleep across town and she hadn’t done anything like this since before he was born. That part of her put a shaking hand against Garrick’s chest.

“Stop,” she whispered. “Wait. Just—wait.”

He stopped. Immediately. He lifted his head and looked at her, his eyes still blazing gold, but not with anger.

“I want this,” she said, and his hand flexed once against her thigh.

“But?”

“But I didn’t know I was going to want it quite this much. I know I invited you in, but this is all moving a little too fast for me. It’s not—” She laughed unsteadily and pressed her forehead to his chest. “God. It’s very much not you.”

He didn’t argue. He lifted her off the counter and set her back down on the floor. Her knees weren’t entirely reliable, and he kept one steadying hand at her waist until they were. Then he stepped back, drawing his wings in, and she immediately, absurdly, missed the shadow of them.

“Then we stop,” he said calmly.