She nodded her agreement.
“Luckily, it was just me and one of the nuns the first time I shifted into my gargoyle form. She handled it better than my mother did, but she was also concerned for the other children’s safety. She was willing to accept what I was and believed that gargoyles were creatures created for the greater good, but she, of course, did not fully understand what it meant to have one in her care. So she told me I must hide my magic from all other humans, and then she took me to a social worker and asked that I be placed with a family that had no other children. And so I became a product of the human foster care system.”
His shoulders drooped, and Sofia wanted so badly to hug him, to console him, to assure him that she did not think any less of him for having shared this story that her arms wrapped around him before she even fully realized what she was doing.
His body stiffened for only a few seconds, and then he hugged her back. She sank into his warmth, and it felt so natural, as if this were something they did all the time.
“Why did you say you were being selfish earlier?” she asked, her cheek resting against his chest.
“You’re going to make me spell it out?”
She lifted her head to look him in the face.
He groaned. “I was attracted to you, Sofia. More attracted than I’ve been to another woman at any point I can remember. It wasn’t just that I sensed you were the right person to raise Penelope, it was…there was something else too.”
“My dragon senses it too.” The beast wanted to feel his touch again, and she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
She glanced out the glass doors. Ketu and Antoinette were sitting on a cushioned bench in the gazebo while Henri and Penelope were on the swings, clearly trying to see who could kick the highest.
“Oh yeah? What about you? What do you feel?”
She blew out a steadying breath. “I’m beginning to think my dragon is right.”
“That’s kind of sexy.”
A giggle burst from her mouth. “Don’t get used to it. We tend to disagree on a lot of things.”
“Except me.”
“She was far more willing to get over the fact that you left us than I was.”
He traced his finger along her hairline and down to her chin, and then pressed it against her lips. “I’m glad you’ve now come to a consensus.”
She wanted to ask what would happen next. Was this another one-night stand? Would he leave again? Did they need to establish any sort of ground rules before proceeding?
“You’re overthinking this,” he murmured against her ear before sucking the lobe into his mouth.
She clutched at his shirt as her knees buckled and a delicious shiver curled through her body. “Yes,” she said, her voice breathless, “I really am.”
“Let me see if I can help curb that problem.”
He kissed her neck and then nibbled his way across her cheek until he reached her lips. He threaded his hand in her hair, canted his head, and kissed her until she damn near forgot how to breathe.
No, she was most certainly not overthinking now. In fact, her brain had ceased to work entirely.
But her reflexes still understood how to bunch his shirt into her hands and tug it over his head. They knew how to scrape her nails down his torso, her fingers catching on each and every one of those sharply defined muscles.
She liked the way he sucked in a breath and groaned.
He twisted around and pressed her back against the wall, anchoring her there with his hips. She could feel the bulge behind his zipper and rotated her pelvis, trying to adjust her stance so that it rubbed against her most sensitive area.
He groaned again and slid his hands down her body until he cupped her ass and then lifted her, spreading her legs at the same time, and then he rubbed against her again, his erection situated exactly where it felt best.
Although it would feel a hell of a lot better if there weren’t any clothes between them. She wiggled and sucked his bottom lip into her mouth. He thrust, mimicking sex.
Do that again.
He did.
Oh gods, had she said that out loud?
She crossed her ankles behind his back, and then he caught the hem of her shirt and shoved it up and over her head. Staring down at her heaving breasts, he held them through her bra and thrummed the hardened nipples with his thumb.
And thrust again.
She let her head fall back against the wall. If he kept that up, she was going to orgasm without even fully undressing.
“I think we need to get rid of these,” he said, slowly lowering her legs to the floor and then fiddling with the button on her pants.
She pushed his hands away and expertly flicked open the clasp on her capris. “You do yours, I’ll do mine,” she suggested because that was the quickest way to get them both naked.
When he was down to a pair of gray boxer briefs and she stood there in a bra and satin panties, she nodded at the outline of his erection. “Might as well go all the way.”
“I like the way you think.” He shoved his boxers down his legs, slid his fingers into the waistband of her panties, and tugged them down too, dropping to his knees as he did it.
He kneaded her ass cheeks and pressed kisses to her thighs, her hipbones, her belly, until her legs were visibly quaking and her hands were flat against the wall, helping to keep her in a standing position.
Sliding his hand up the inside of her legs, he exerted the smallest
