Gargoyle’s Embrace
Lisa Carlisle
Fifth in the Underground Encounters series.
Tracy isn’t sure why she’s drawn to a particular gargoyle statue in the Goth club where she works. After the stone takes human form to protect her from her abusive ex, she brings the handsome, naked male to her apartment. It’s impossible to ignore the seductive appeal of a man sculpted like a Viking warrior.
Danton has only hours in human form to spend with the woman he has hungered for. He’s convinced what’s between them is more than hot sex, but he needs to convince Tracy of that before he turns back to stone.
A Romantica® paranormal erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave
Gargoyle’s Embrace
Lisa Carlisle
Chapter One
Tracy brushed her fingers over the smooth stone of the gargoyle perched at the end of the bar of the Vamps nightclub.
“I’m stuck with the late shift tonight,” she said. “But at least I took in some good money.”
She stood over the crouched gargoyle and ran her hand over the smooth area between its two horns, down the back of its head and over its hunched back where its two wings connected. “Thanks for always listening,” she said, aware of how foolish she sounded speaking to a statue. If anyone saw her, they’d think she was stone-cold crazy. She bent to kiss its smooth, chiseled stone cheek in gratitude.
Over the last few months, Tracy had begun talking to the stone gargoyle as if it were a companion whenever she had a few moments alone in the bar. Why she gravitated toward this one gargoyle while several others were perched around the club, she didn’t know. She found something compelling about it, drawing her in, and she often confided her secrets to it.
Tracy rested her hand on the gargoyle’s shoulder while she scanned the club. Bottles and cups were scattered in every dark corner and under the other perched gargoyles. The scent of sweat and spilled beer still permeated the club.
“Trace.”
Was it one of the guys out back? The guys she worked with were bringing out the trash and the bottles for recycling. The other bartenders had already settled up and left for the night. They rotated who could leave first and who had to stay to make sure they were stocked for the next night.
No, they knew better than to call her Trace.
“It’s Tracy,” she said, turning to face the intruder.
And stared into the face of her ex.
“What are you doing here, Brian?” The muscles in her body tensed as she gauged the distance between her and the pepper spray behind the bar should she need it.
She thought she felt a tiny movement under her hand.
No, she had to be losing her mind. As if stone could move.
She kept her hand on the stone like a security blanket, almost gripping it now that Brian had appeared.
“I came to see what you were doing tonight. Thought maybe we could hang out.” The way he slurred the words indicated he’d already had one too many, a bad sign.
“Definitely not. The restraining order should make that clear.”
“Babe, I was in a rough place and I took it out on you. Let’s put the past behind us and try again.”
The cold stone felt warmer beneath her hand. How strange. Was she so heated from the tension of Brian arriving that her palm could warm cool stone?
“No, Brian. I’ve given you too many chances and each time it ended worse than the time before.”
“Babe.” He approached her. “I would never hurt you again.”
“Don’t come any closer.” She moved away from the gargoyle to get to her purse behind the bar.
“Trace, you’re soooo dramatic.” He moved behind the bar.
Tracy was distracted by the gargoyle statue behind him. It was changing color, from gray stone to what appeared to be—flesh.
“Come on, we were good together. Don’t you miss the sex?”
The stone wings of the gargoyle statue unfurled into enormous sleek, black, feathered ones. The gargoyle reshaped itself, rising from a crouched position to stand on two legs to a full height well over six feet.
And its head. The horns sank back into the stone while light-blond hair sprouted to take their place, growing past its broad shoulders. Within a few seconds, the grotesque stone creature she found lovable had transformed into a breathtaking male with flawless bronze skin, long blond hair and the magnificent physique of a Viking warrior. Who stood before them stark naked.
“Holy shit!” she exclaimed, eyes widening.
“I know, babe. The sex was awesome.”
She fumbled for her purse, searching for the damn spray. She wasn’t even sure who she was going to direct it at now with two threats facing her.
It was too late. Brian had grabbed her wrists and tried to kiss her.
“Get off me!”
She attempted to knee him in his testicles, but he deflected the blow by turning his body to the side.
Enormous black wings surrounded Brian and a second later he was lifted off the ground. Brian exclaimed, “What the―” which was cut off as he was thrown over the bar onto the empty dance floor.
He scrambled to his feet on unsteady legs. The gargoyle stepped over to him in a few massive strides. While Tracy’s gaze paused on his sculpted buttocks, the gargoyle raised one of his sinewy legs and kicked Brian in the gut. Brian groaned and clutched his stomach. The gargoyle lifted a foot over Brian’s head.
Tracy screamed while Brian shielded his face with his forearm to brace against the gargoyle stomping on his head
Tracy tried a gentler tone. “Please don’t. You’ll kill him.”
The gargoyle paused and put his foot down, but then bent to pinch Brian’s neck, which made Brian pass out.
The sweetness in her voice departed as she exclaimed, “What in fuck’s name is going on?”
The gargoyle turned to face her, anger flashing from brilliant blue eyes.
“Don’t be afraid, Tracy.”
He spoke in a husky French accent that set her pulse afire, despite her natural reaction to retreat. The anger in his eyes gave way to warmth and intelligence.
“How the hell do you know my name?” She backed away.
Was she drugged? Hallucinating? She only drank water while she worked and kept her bottle behind the bar. She’d heard too many horror stories of what could happen if you left your drink unattended for a moment. Had someone managed to slip a tasteless drug into her water?
“It’s me, Tracy. The statue. The gargoyle.”
“I must be drugged.” She put her hands on her temples and closed her eyes in an attempt to clear her mind. When she reopened them, her eyes traveled from his chest down to a well-endowed erection.
Now she was imagining naked males with massive hard-ons? She had to be drugged. Drugged and horny.
“I know it sounds crazy,” he said. “But I’m alive. Flesh and blood, just like you.” Then he added, “For now.”
Tracy assessed her brain functions. She didn’t feel like she was under the influence of something. Her senses weren’t clouded in some haze and she wasn’t hallucinating things morphing and reshaping themselves. The only indication something was off was that she’d witnessed a gargoyle statue transform into a god of a man and throw her ex across the bar. If he was actually there and not some delusion—that meant she was alone with a naked man who was as strong as a Viking warrior and sexually excited. She fumbled in her purse and raised her pepper spray.
“Stay away from me!”
“What is that?” He tilted his head.
“You’ll find out the hard way if you come closer.”
“A weapon.” The curiosity in his expression turned to amusement. He raised his hand. “I’m clearly unarmed. I’m not here
to hurt you. My name is Danton.”
“How did you come out of the stone?” She kept the pepper spray directed on his face.
“I didn’t. I am the stone. I’m a gargoyle.”
She glanced to where the gargoyle statue had stood. It was still there the way it always had been.
“Bull-fucking—shit, pretty boy.” She nodded to the statue. “Then what the hell is that?”
“My shell.”
“Your what?”
“Listen to me, please.” He held out his hands palm up. “I am a gargoyle—man and stone in one. My role is to protect humans. Like you. Especially you.”
“Ha ha ha!” Tracy spat. “I’ve seen some crazy-ass shit working here. And some real out-there characters. Despite all the insane things I’ve seen, I have never seen a human come from stone. And the only people who do see that are on some whacked-up drugs.”
“You are not drugged. Let’s go somewhere and I’ll explain.”
Tracy’s curiosity was piqued. Something about the statue had compelled her to talk to it, reveal her innermost secrets. And now in a human form, he had to be the most captivating man she had ever laid her eyes on, even with all the hot guys who came to Vamps. While her mind sought to understand what he was exactly, her body yearned for him in other ways.
His head jerked up and he glanced to the back entrance. “Someone’s coming.”
Tracy pushed erotic images of being with the gargoyle out of her mind. “You’ve got to get out of here,” she said. “If they see a naked guy in here, they’ll—I don’t know—jump you or call the cops. Either way, it isn’t good.” She pictured having to explain how a stone gargoyle statue transformed into a human and knocked out her ex. They’d lock her up thinking she was bat-shit crazy! “For either of us,” she added.
She threw her pepper spray in her purse and tossed her car keys to him. “Go out the front door and wait in my car. Blue Mini Cooper.”
He caught the keys and said, “Thank you.”
His black-feathered wings were clearly too wide to fit through the doorway. Tracy watched in astonishment as the beautiful wings retracted into his back, revealing muscular shoulder blades. She blinked twice. That couldn’t have just happened.
Her gaze traveled to his buttocks and lingered there. She snapped her drooling mouth shut. “Wait. Throw this on.” She threw him a white towel she grabbed from under the bar.
He grinned, revealing even, white teeth, and wrapped the towel around himself. Tracy stared at the door for a good ten seconds after he left. What the hell was she doing? Maybe she was crazy. After all, the gargoyle statue was where it had always been. She walked over to touch the stone, which was cool once again.
She heard the guys chattering as they returned. Flipping a strand of her pink hair out of her eyes and closing her gaping mouth, she put on a stony expression.
“Did you scream?” Jimmy asked.
“Yeah. Thanks for rushing to my aid,” she added sardonically.
“Hey, we were in the middle of hauling boxes. Thought you just saw a cockroach or something.”
“Sort of.” She nodded to Brian’s unconscious body.
“What the hell?” Ty exclaimed.
“It’s my ex. He came in here all drunk and then passed out cold.”
“Should we call the cops?”
Tracy debated. He shouldn’t have come tonight, but maybe getting his ass kicked by a six-foot-plus gargoyle gave him a lesson. If she called the cops, he’d definitely be arrested for violating a restraining order. And she’d have a lot of explaining to do. Picturing the luscious gargoyle, she wasn’t sure how she could manage that without getting herself recommended for an evaluation.
“Nah. I’ll call his roommate to come get him.”
After reaching him, she explained. “Listen, Brian came in here tonight all drunk and saying crazy stuff. Now he’s passed out at Vamps. Can you come get him?”
After he agreed, she restocked glasses on the shelves and tried to make sense of what just happened. The only explanation was somehow she was the one hallucinating. Then she remembered Brian unconscious on the floor and how he made it there. Her coworkers had seen him.
Tracy walked out into the still-warm July night and saw the mouthwatering shirtless male in her Mini Cooper. He barely fit in the passenger seat—his head almost touched the ceiling and his chest extended beyond the width of her passenger seat. Whoever this Danton gargoyle guy was, he appeared real. Splendid and real.
She glanced around the parking lot to make sure they were alone and then climbed into the driver’s seat.
“How are you here? But the statue is still in the club?”
“To keep humans from suspecting anything with our absence, we leave a shell behind.”
“How?” She drove away from the club, glancing in the rearview mirror to make sure none of her coworkers saw her leaving with a bare-chested blond god.
Danton shrugged. “We just—will it.”
“Hmm.” Nobody she knew could will anything like that.
She scented an essence from him that made her heady with need. “Where should I drop you off?”
“I was hoping we could go someplace quiet and—talk.”
“Talk?”
“We always talk. Well, you talk and I listen.”
She flushed when she remembered all the personal things she had told him.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know why I showed my true self to you?”
She tried to come up with some flippant remark, but her curiosity won out. “Yes.” She stole a peek at his handsome profile. How did someone so beautiful come from a form many found grotesque?
Her eyes scanned down his torso to the white towel. Was he still hard? She pictured his fine physique, as perfect as if it were carved by a master sculptor with the finest tools.
“Let’s go back to my apartment,” she said. “We can talk there.”
Chapter Two
As Tracy prepared some hot cocoa for them, she thought about changing out of her vinyl dress with red lacing throughout—her slutty work wear as she called her outfits. The sexier she dressed and the more of her full cleavage she exposed, the better the tips. She wasn’t tall and thin like some of the women who came to the club, but she stopped longing to be like them ages ago. She was happy with her generous curves and displayed them proudly.
She considered what to change into—something comfortable that didn’t make her look like a slouch? She dismissed pajamas or a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
Shrugging, she decided to stay in what she was wearing. Better to look hot than dowdy, especially when a god of a man sat in nothing but a towel on your living room couch. She removed the chunky laced-up boots and tossed them into her bedroom. Then she added Bailey’s and Kahlua to the hot cocoa, one of her favorite after-work comfort drinks, before returning to Danton in the living room.
“I don’t have clothes that would fit you.”
“That’s all right,” he said, eyes glinting with sensuality. “We don’t need clothes.”
Her insides burned with need as her eyes scanned his body from his long blond hair down to his tanned torso, again. To stop ogling him, she asked. “So what really happened?” She handed him a mug and sat down on the couch at a safe distance to get a handle on her desire.
“I’m a gargoyle. We are protectors of the human race. When you were attacked, I transformed into human form to protect you from that animal.”
He was right—Brian could behave like an animal. He was good-looking and knew all the right words to say to lure a woman in, but once she’d gotten to know him, she discovered a darker side.
As if reading her mind, Danton asked, “He was your lover?”
She blushed when she remembered Brian mentioning the sex. “Yes.” She felt compelled to explain. “He was sweet at first. But when he drinks, he gets violent. He blacks out and swears it will never happen again. I was a fool
a few times and believed him, until I realized it was a pattern.” Tracy left out the damage he’d done to her, both physical and psychological.
“He’s hurt you.” The gargoyle inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring. “He’s the one you spoke of.” He strode to her front door in two giant steps.
“Where are you going?”
“To find him. And finish him.”
“No, Danton, no.” Tracy ran to him and clung to one of his massive sinewy biceps.
“I know what he did to you, Tracy. You told me how he’s struck you. Once he tried to strangle you.”
“I know. You scared him off earlier. If you attack him now, you will make it worse.” When the tension in his arm lessened, she added. “Come. Your cocoa is getting cold.”
While Danton sat down and drank some cocoa, Tracy watched the tension leave his face.
He raised the mug. “This is delicious. It’s been ages since I had anything like this. Thank you.”
Although a question arose in her mind wondering when, what and how a gargoyle ate, she was more concerned about what else she might have revealed to him when she thought he was merely a statue.
“Shit! What I told you is private.”
“Anything you revealed is between you and me. I won’t tell a soul.”
She took a sip of cocoa. “Maybe you should tell me some of your secrets. I have so many questions burning in my brain. Besides, I won’t feel so,” she searched for the right word, “exposed.”
Danton leaned forward to put his mug down on her coffee table, which opened enough of the towel to reveal his upper thigh. She tilted her head to see more and then realized she was caught when he asked, “Do you like what you see?”
She responded, “Oh yeah,” before she could censor herself. Closing her eyes to regain her focus, she asked, “What are you, really?”
“I’m a gargoyle.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t gargoyles supposed to be perched on buildings like Notre Dame or something? Can you change at will?”
Danton tapped his finger on his exposed thigh that revealed well-developed corded muscles. Was he avoiding her question?
After several moments, he said, “No. I can only take on my human form to protect someone. Then I have twenty-four hours before I return to stone.”
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