Stone Romance (Stone Passion #2)

by A C Warneke

  At Melanie’s blank expression, Jenna chuckled, “About magic and dragons and gargoyles; you were right.”

  She blushed and caught her lower lip between her teeth, gnawing on the tender flesh as she admitted, “There were so many times that I wanted to tell you something, about Vaughn, about the castle, but my tongue always got tangled up.”

  Jenna laughed out loud, “That’s a first; you’re tongue never gets tied up.”

  “I know,” Melanie even managed a small smile. “I kept asking Vaughn all of these questions, trying to figure out what he was, and he simply couldn’t tell me; even when I guessed outright what he was! Can you imagine being so close to discovering a huge secret and being denied? It was awful!”

  Jenna laughed, easily imagining how hard it would have been, especially for someone like Melanie, who had never stopped believing. Glancing at her sister out of the corner of her eyes, catching the dreamy smile on Lenni’s lips.

  “It was so frustrating not being able to share everything with you but I guess that’s how the powers that be keep their secrets secret,” Melanie continued. “I didn’t even know Vaughn was a gargoyle until he caught me when I fell from my balcony.”

  The car almost flew off the road as Jenna’s hands jerked at that announcement. Straightening the wheels, her heart jack knifing in her chest, she glared at her sister, “What?”

  Melanie worried her lower lip some more, averting her gaze as she mumbled something about imps and Peter and the necklace around her neck. “But everything turned out all right; nothing actually happened.”

  “Jesus, Lenni,” Jenna growled, concentrating extra hard on her driving now that her hands were shaking slightly.

  “I’m okay.” Melanie reached over and put her finger over the medallion around Jenna’s neck, “You have to be sure to keep this on at all times, Jen; it saved my life.”

  Jenna glanced over and looked at Melanie’s neck, to the necklace that was no longer there. Lenni blushed, putting her fingers to her throat, “I gave my necklace to Ferris to keep her safe. I am under the protection of a gargoyle now.”

  “It’s been a very eventful year for you,” Jenna deadpanned, still freaking out about how close she had come to losing Melanie and not even knowing about it. She had to remind herself that Lenni was all right, that she was protected by a gargoyle and she was all right.

  “You have no idea,” Melanie blurted.

  After a weighted silence, Jenna hesitantly asked, “Does it bother you that the fates, or whatever, aren’t putting me through all of these trials to discover their secrets?”

  “Gosh, no,” Melanie gushed in all honesty. “It is such a huge relief to be able to talk to you about all of this. From the very beginning I have wanted you to know.”

  “And why is that?” Jenna asked, unable to keep the smile off her face.

  “Duh,” Lenni snorted. “You and Rhys are perfect together. You are going to love having sex with a gargoyle.”

  “Lenni!” Jenna gasped, not truly scandalized by her sister’s candor. But it was still a little embarrassing; she hadn’t even had sex with Rhys yet and Melanie had been acting like it was a forgone conclusion for weeks. An awful thought crowded out the excitement and she narrowed her eyes as she looked at her sister; her innocent sister who acted without thinking. “Did you put Rhys up to this, Len?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Licking her lips, Jenna lowered her voice, not wanting to say the words out lout, “Did you put him up to flirting with me? To making me feel… desirable?”

  Melanie stared at her for a long moment before she burst out laughing, the sound wonderful and frustrating. “I can’t make that man do anything he doesn’t want to do; I simply knew that the two of you would be perfect together and wanted you guys to have a chance. I never asked him to seduce you.”

  Jenna took comfort in her sister’s words; whatever was between her and Rhys was genuine and she could go into it with her eyes wide open. “All right, then.”

  As they pulled up in front of their parents’ house, the door opened up and their mom and dad, Jenner and Ferris all spilled out, their arms wrapped around each other, their eyes wide in their pale faces. Jenna smirked, “They’re worried.”

  “Yes,” Melanie whispered, her voice barely audible. Jenna turned her head and saw the horror and dread on Melanie’s face. “What was I thinking, Jenna? It never even occurred to me to call home and let all of you know I was all right.”

  Jenna took her sister’s hand, squeezing it in reassurance, “We understand, Lenni; As long as you’re safe now that’s all that matters.”

  Gulping, Melanie gave a tremulous smile before opening the door and stepping out. Jenna heard her mother’s low yelp of relief as everyone crowded in on Melanie and took the wayward girl in their arms and led the group back inside. Laughing uneasily, Melanie returned the hugs, saying, “It wasn’t me, guys; obviously it wasn’t me. I’m just so sorry that you had to go through all of that.”

  “Why didn’t you call?” her father asked, draping an arm around Melanie’s shoulders as the small group returned to the warmth of the house.

  “I am sorry,” Melanie apologized again, truly contrite. “I guess when I’m with Vaughn I lose track of everything else; forgive me.”

  “Of course,” Jenner grunted, kissing the top of Melanie’s head.

  “Where is Vaughn?” their mother asked, looking towards the door as if the six foot four man had followed them in without anyone else being aware.

  Jenna caught the look of panic in Melanie’s eyes and she stepped forward, “he had a business trip but he’ll be home soon.” Melanie mouthed the words thank you and she felt good for being able to offer some small measure of help. Clearing her throat, she added, “Speaking of trips….”

  Chapter 8

  A few days later Jenna sat in the Nosuntres’s private jet headed for London, awed by the luxurious interior and feeling so far out of her depths as to be ridiculous. Not only was Rhys incredibly sexy with a somewhat twisted sense of humor that she appreciated, he was also insanely wealthy, which would have been intimidating if Rhys had been anything less than wonderful.

  The interior of the plane reeked of refinement and taste, all plush leather and hard wood, and it was spacious, comfortably seating ten people. Because the sun had barely set, she was currently the only passenger, waiting for Rhys to appear so they could take off. As it was, the jet had been idling for the last twenty minutes and she was eager to be on her way, no matter how much she already missed Ferris.

  She still couldn’t believe that she was on an enormous plane getting ready to head across the Atlantic Ocean on the way to Greece. The past week or so had been a whirlwind of activity and she hadn’t had time to think, to doubt. She hadn’t even seen Rhys since the night Omari convinced her to take this bizarre trip, even though they had talked every night on the phone; talked and… other things.

  But now that she was sitting in the sumptuous cabin waiting for Rhys to appear so they could take off, the thoughts that she tried desperately not to think were filling her head.

  Knowing something to be true and accepting it were two very different things, of course, and Jenna found that she was having a few difficulties coming to terms with her new reality; it was all so fantastical. The Nosuntres brothers were gargoyles; the castle was a haven for supernatural creatures; and magic was real. Melanie had always known the truth but Jenna had not been able to believe because if magic was real why couldn’t someone have stepped in and saved Jeremy? Life would have been so different had he lived….

  She had loved Jeremy so much she could never have imagined letting anyone else into her life. When he had been taken from her it had felt as if all of the lights had been turned off and she had to find her way in the darkness. But then Rhys came along and turned everything onto its head and she was torn; she wanted Rhys with a passion she thought was dead. She feared that the more time she spent with Rhys the deeper the pit she would be digging
. It would be so easy to fall in love with him.

  There was a connection between them that was hard to explain and impossible to deny and her last chance to walk away disappeared the moment she stepped foot into his apartment and he took her into his arms and told her everything was going to be okay.

  They were moving too quickly, but she didn’t care. For the most part she was a reasonable, rational woman but Rhys short-circuited her brain. When she was near him, when she thought of him, her primitive side took over and she was a creature of lust. But it wasn’t just lust; lust alone would be easy to deal with; it was Rhys. How else to explain her brash decision to go on this absurd quest? The eagerness she had as she looked forward to sharing his bed?

  Her nights had been consumed with the desire to discover how Rhys’s human body compared to his gargoyle counterpart. She wanted to know how his body moved while he was making love, how his skin heated and how he tasted. She had imagined a hundred scenarios but her imagination only went so far. Was his skin the same gold kissed color of his face and hands or was he pale? Did he have a hairy chest or a smooth chest? Was the hair on his body, between his thighs, auburn, or was it browner or perhaps even redder? Was he as proportionately well-endowed as the monkey gargoyle?

  Her belly trembled with anticipation and she had had plenty of time to anticipate. The instant she realized that Melanie was all right, more than all right, her libido began clawing its way back out of the box she had put it in. Knowing that she was going to be spending the next couple of weeks with Rhys made her antsy and fidgety and so damn horny, as if her sex drive had been in a cocoon hibernating and it was suddenly as a giant beast. And all of that expectation made her oddly nervous; she wasn’t sure what the protocol was when it came to initiating sex.

  Before, it had been simple: she and Jeremy were on a camping trip with a bunch of friends; they drank a few too many beers and ended up sharing a sleeping bag. Sex had seemed like the most natural thing to do and so they did it, giggling and fumbling in the dark. And after that, they stole as many moments as they could, though with all of their activities and still being in school the moments were all too brief and all too few.

  Occasionally they would have a date and risk discovery to have a quickie in the back of his car in the school parking lot. Sometimes she invited him up to her room while her parents were out of town, blushing as he learned her body, as she learned his. Everything was tentative and new, two people who had given their virginity to the other.

  But she wasn’t on a date with Rhys; she hadn’t known him half her life, wasn’t planning on marrying him, and she wasn’t tipsy. And on top of all of that he wasn’t even human and he was a long way away from being a virgin. He had known some of the most exquisite creatures of mythology, had made love to some of them – hell, all of them for all she knew. How could a mere mortal even begin to compare?

  If she were honest she would have to admit that she kind of liked the restless anticipation of sexual discovery and the steady hum of arousal that had been keeping her awake at night. She just wasn’t sure how to go about seducing a man who was a mythological creature and who was far more experienced than a twenty-four year old woman with limited experience.

  Unconsciously, she touched the medallion around her neck, a slight smile curving her lips as she thought about a few of the scenarios she had imagined over the past couple of weeks, knowing they were tame in comparison to anything Rhys could come up with.

  “Excuse me, human,” a high-pitched voice interrupted her pleasurable musings and she started. Turning her head, she was eye level with a little creature that was staring at her with large orange and green eyes, the same color as the little man’s cropped hair and large wings. His name was Garyn and he had been the first of several pixies she had met when she boarded the large jet. “Is there anything I can get for you?”

  Smiling, she nodded her head, not sure how to respond to such an adorable creature. The pixies were the size of small children and yet up close they looked like adults, albeit adults with vibrantly colored eyes and hair. And wings. Her gaze darted to the man’s shiny wings, which weren’t as elaborate as the fairy’s wings in the elevator but still quite lovely. Her initial instinct was to engage him in conversation as if he were a child, as she did with Ferris, but she had the feeling that the pixies would be offended by such condescension. “A glass of water, please?”

  His nodded his head before scurrying off to fetch her water. Omari had told her that the jet was staffed primarily by pixies but was staffed by a fairy that had been born without wings. There were going to be only three other travelers who needed to return to the Old Country and had traded favors to be paid at some point in the future for passage. It was the standard arrangement for creatures who had more difficulty blending into the human world or those who simply needed to travel in a hurry.

  Omari had explained that it was easy to hold an illusion for a few people for a short period of time but only the most powerful could hold an illusion for a large number of people over an extended time. And those were the type of creatures you did not want to meet in the dead of night.

  “Are you one of those creatures?” she had asked and he had simply smiled, sending a chill down her spine at all it conveyed; words were not needed.

  Because the sun had barely set, she had yet to meet any of the supernatural beings who had to hide their faces beneath a magical mask and if she were being honest she wasn’t sure if she wanted to meet them. While Melanie was the one who devoured fairy tales and myths, Jenna was the one who read horror novels so she knew what kinds of things went bump in the night, even if she hadn’t believed they really existed until a few days ago. Omari promised her that she would be safe but she was still the only human amongst a crew of supernatural creatures.

  She had met only two of the pixies: Garyn and Orlain, a female with pale yellow and electric blue eyes and hair, but Orlain was very quiet and only stared at Jenna with her oddly colored eyes before rushing off to check… something. Garyn had showed her to her seat, making sure she was comfortable and pointing out the various amenities, from the small television and DVD player to the miniature bar that held a wide variety of alcoholic beverages. Jenna was afraid that if she had one drink she wouldn’t stop until everything made sense once again.

  Closing her eyes, she focused on her breathing, reminding herself that she was starting a new chapter of her life. Ferris was safe, Melanie was miraculously unharmed and had promised to spend some time at home with their parents, and Rhys was with her on this incredible journey. They were going to be given a second – no, a third – chance and she knew that she wasn’t going to waste it; she was going to brush off her meager but rusty skills and seduce Rhys, not that she expected it to be difficult. When she had said good bye before taking Melanie home he had looked at her with heated promises in his eyes.

  The scent of leather teased her senses as she leaned back in the generous chair and tried to get comfortable. Between her excitement and worry and fears she found that the hum of the engines was oddly calming. And after several restless nights, the sound of Rhys’s voice still in her ear, she was damned tired.

  Jenna was struck anew by how quickly everything had fallen together. One of her coworkers eagerly agreed to take on her clients and Ferris was happy as a clam to be spending time with all of her favorite people: both sets of grandparents and more importantly Melanie and Armand. Jenna wasn’t sure how Armand was going to like being a babysitter to a little girl who adored him but she wasn’t too worried; Melanie assured her that Armand was a teddy bear beneath his cold, stoic exterior and while he may grumble about having Ferris around he was unfailingly courteous to the chatty girl and he would be having tea parties with her in no time.

  The thought of Armand unbending enough to have a tea party with an almost six year old girl made her smile. She could just picture the grimace he’d wear as he sat in a chair that was too small for him and drank from a cup that disappeared in his grip. As amusing
as it was to imagine such a thing, she doubted he would ever unbend enough to play with a little girl. And if he was truly a teddy bear beneath his cold exterior Jenna had seen no proof of it.

  Of course, the man had healed Melanie so he couldn’t have been a total dick; just an over-protective older brother who couldn’t protect his brothers from themselves. She could sympathize with him knowing how hard it was to watch a sibling rush head long into heartache and disaster.

  The door to the cabin opened up and all of the oxygen suddenly disappeared as Rhys entered the aircraft. A suit jacket of dark gray hugged his broad shoulders, his muscled arms; matching pants caressed his long legs, ending just above a pair of shiny black Italian loafers. His shirt was a softer gray and the tie around his neck was a blend of blues and gold swirls. He was sexy as sin even though he seemed to be more of a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy. Her gaze drifted upwards and her brows pulled together in a frown.

  His long hair was… gone; the waist length mass of hair had vanished. Though it was a few inches long on top and in the front it was cropped close on the sides making the angular planes of his face even more defined and gorgeous. Without his hair there was nothing to detract the eye from his sheer, masculine beauty; he was breath taking. She could only gape at how much more mature the new length made him. Admittedly, he was a little pale as he caught her eye and offered a slight smile.

  Automatically, she stood up and as she held his gaze, she had to swallow; the heated look he sent her way was making her knees wobble. It was hard to think straight when one look from him had her brain cells clamoring for his attention. Her body also responded, with peaked nipples and a trembling belly. She was a grown woman, a mother, and yet she felt like a brainless nympho as soon as she saw him. “Rhys.”

  “Jenna,” he returned, taking her hands in his as he reached her side. The low light in the cabin was perfect for creating a sense of privacy, giving the illusion that nothing existed beyond their little world. Kissing each finger as he held her eyes, he murmured, “Forgive me for not being here sooner.”