LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. IT WAS THE ONLY WAY Medusa could ever know the elusive emotion. She never had. She never wanted to.
“Unhand me, you beast,” she said, her tone acidic.
“It’s not my hand that holds you, m’lady.”
Medusa tried hard not to squirm with the feel of his penis quickly swelling inside her, filling her up to bursting. The wicked impertinence. He’d take her again. She’d see that he paid dearly for his brazenness—never mind how glorious it felt.
Did he not know who she was? What deadly, stone-cold power she wielded? She’d turn him to—
“Why aren’t you stone?”
“Give me a minute, goddess, it’s getting there.”
Oh, that wicked joker’s grin on his beastly face incensed her last nerve. “Not your penis, you dolt. All of you. Why have you not turned to stone?”
He shrugged, an easy roll of his massive shoulders that made his black wings bob behind him. “Perhaps I’m already stone and it’s only the sweet nectar of your pussy that keeps me flesh. I was made of flesh once. Long ago.”
“Clearly you’ve mistaken me for someone who cares,” she said, noting the stone-gray color of his skin. “If it’s my pussy that keeps you flesh then the lack of it should return you to form.”
She raised a leg, the shift of muscles over his cock sending a warm tremble through her sex, and wedged her foot against his hard belly. With her hands on his chest and her foot on his stomach, she pushed, using all her goddess strength to unsheathe his sex from hers.
The gargoyle stumbled back, his stiff erection wagging from his body, wet and shiny with her pussy’s cream. Medusa fell the few feet to the floor from where he’d held her, landing with the grace of a goddess. She straightened, resisting the urge to snag her tunic from where she’d dropped it when his lust-filled gaze raked over her.
Let him look. Precious few before him had ever enjoyed the privilege. They were solid stone before they could even take in the full beauty of her face. Again she wondered, why wasn’t he?
“Who are you, gargoyle? Who made you? Who placed you on this castle?”
“To begin with, I am not a gargoyle,” he said, and his voice resonated through her body. It was truly the voice of a beast. The sound was too deep, too filled with power. It was as though his words echoed from within the massive frame of the monster, just as it echoed through her head, through her body, vibrating through all the sensitive parts of her feminine flesh.
“Then are you a god or a devil?” she asked.
He propped his hands on his hips, the roll of muscle across his chest distracting her gaze. “Tell me your name before I take that sweet body of yours again. It’s been a long while and I’ve not had my fill by half.”
“What are you?”
“What’s your name?” he insisted.
“How did you come to be frozen in stone on the side of this castle?” she asked.
“Your name?” he snorted. “Glare at me all you want with those ghostly eyes. I’ll not turn back to stone. I’m flesh now and you see how this flesh strains for yours.” He glanced at his erection and back at her so she couldn’t help following his gaze.
Her mouth watered, her body warming at the sight. “Medusa.”
“Medusa,” he said as though the word had form and substance he could feel and taste on the tip of his pointed tongue. “Daughter of Athena, are you?”
She blinked. What did he know of the goddess who’d gifted her? “How dare you speak her name, beast? To hell with you.”
“To hell indeed.” He laughed, and the sound rolled through the air like thunderclouds, stealing her breath as it engulfed her body.
The laughter stopped like a thing unplugged and his face turned hard and cold. “Trust me, little one. I’ve damn well earned the right to speak her name. I spit it from my lips as I would a bitter poison. And yours right along with it if your loyalty lies with her.”
It did, but she hesitated to admit it.
His sex hadn’t wilted one bit for his anger, and the memory of it stiff between her legs still tingled through the muscles of her pussy. He was as thick and hard as he’d been in stone. Only now that stone-hard erection was gloved in velvet-soft skin and made of flesh and meat that would give and bend and twitch inside her.
A warm shiver tingled up her spine at the thought and her gaze shifted to the creature’s face. He flashed that joker’s grin again, reading the lust in her eyes as easily as a picture book.
Having her gaze met eye to eye unnerved her. Having her thoughts exposed and read from her face was just damn annoying. “I’ve told you my name—now tell me yours. Tell me what you are and how it is that you meet my gaze and not have your flesh and innards turn to stone.”
“I cannot tell you what I don’t know,” he said.
“Then tell me what you do know, and quickly. For you are right. I am a goddess and by all that I am I will find a way to end you should you displease me.” She stiffened, chest out, chin high, knowing full well her body was a form to be proud of.
His narrow brows hiked high on his wrinkled, hairless head. His long, pointed tongue flicked along his lips, the very tip resting for a tantalizing second at the corner of his mouth. Lord, what he must be able to do with that tongue.
Medusa banished the thought before her blasted face betrayed her again.
“Then I shall make every effort to please you, goddess.” His voice lowered. “In every way.”
She shuddered as the thought and sound warmed through her body.
“My name is Uphir. And I am, as you suspected, not of this world.” His big, fisted hands dropped from his hips as he took one casual step toward her, then another and another. His progression was slow but sure, closing the distance between them.
She swallowed hard, feeling his growing nearness as surely as if he’d reached out to her. Her body tensed, her pussy slicking, readying for the cock that wagged before him.
“Not of this world? That’s as helpful as describing a particular star as bright. What are you, Uphir? Is this your true form?”
“I am demon,” he said. “And yes, this is my birth form. But it is not the form in which I once walked this plain. It is not the form in which I drew the goddess’s curse.”
“Athena?” What could he have done to bring her mother goddess’s wrath? “Show me your alternate form.”
“So you’re not frightened by the term demon?”
Medusa scoffed. “Certainly not. I’ve not been human for aeons. Human religion, zealots, ignorance corrupted the word long after I became what I am. No,” she said. “I know there are as many races of demons as there are humans, and one no more predestined to evil than the other.”
He circled behind her, his breath a faint, warm breeze across her shoulders. The sensation set her skin on fire, lust tightening every muscle, coiling low in her belly. She closed her eyes to better withstand it, to better enjoy it.
“I see. Clever little goddess.” His lips brushed her ear, breath hot on her neck and smelling of warmed brandy. The head of his cock nudged the top of her ass, made her breath catch. He flicked his tongue, teasing her lobe, and again her mind flashed on all the erotic possibilities.
She fought her body’s treacherous reaction, cleared her throat and forced a strength into her voice she didn’t feel. “What passed between you and Athena? How did you draw her wrath?”
“How?” He laughed, and it was the same rumbling thundercloud laugh as before. But this time his chest pressed against her back and the sound rumbled straight through her, filling her from head to toe.
“I was too pretty. That’s how,” he said.
Medusa snapped her gaze over her shoulder. “Too pretty?” She couldn’t fathom it.
Uphir was tall, broad-shouldered, thick-muscled, with a cock fit for the most insatiable of female needs to be sure, but pretty? His face was not so much ugly as frightening. A mix of beast and man. Devilish, mortals would call him.
He reached up and traced her cheek to her chin with a gently laid claw, razor sharp. “Your eyes are stunning when not clouded white with fury.”
She jerked her chin back around, ignoring how his touch sent a thousand tingles rippling through her belly. The monstrous creature made her body ache for his. What must his alternate form be like?
“Show me,” she said, her voice too weak, too breathy with need. Curses. She loathed such vulnerability.
“What? My true form? To you, daughter goddess to she who cursed me to stone for all eternity?” He snorted a laugh. “I think not.”
Uphir snagged her in a breath-stealing hug, pulled her back tight to his body, his cock thick and full along the crease of her ass, the small of her back. His clawed gray fingers splayed across her belly, sliding warm and heavy toward the apex of her thighs. His other hand kneaded her breast, teasing the hard, sensitive nipple.
“Besides,” he said, hot and breathy against her ear, “I can bring you far more pleasure in this form. A truth which your dear mother failed to consider. I am Uphir, the handsome, renowned lover of woman, who refused to bed a goddess at her command. She froze me in stone, captured me for all eternity in a form she thought hideous. Forever ready for a woman, but never again to be desired, to be loved, to be fucked.” He squeezed his arms around her. “Until you, Medusa, her daughter, mounted my ugly, stone-hard cock.”
Medusa’s breath caught, her exhale shaky, shallow, as the hot point of his tongue caressed along the sensitive flesh behind her ear. A tidal wave of pleasure zinged over her skin, crashing through her body, flooding her sex.
Her knees buckled, but his hold, and her pride, caught her, firmed her legs. She swallowed against her arid mouth, licked her lips. “You’re free now. By whatever means, you are free. I’ve no further need or want of you. Release me and let us both go our separate ways.”
He laughed, that deep, rumbling belly laugh that left her weak and breathless. “No further need of me? Little goddess, I can smell the sweet cream of your pussy from here. I can feel the wanton heat of your womb through your belly, warming my palm. If you wish to go, to be free of me, then leave. You’re a goddess. I am but a lowly demon. It’s not my strength or will that holds you.”
It was true, she knew. He’d be no match for her goddess strength, but mounting the will to break his embrace required far more of her than simple physical ability. She squirmed weakly, a pathetic display. And Uphir’s hold on her snapped iron-tight.
“I’m impressed. You’d deny your body to spare your pride?”
“I’m not ruled by my body,” she said, finding the will to squirm again, though the way her body warmed and softened in his embrace, she scarcely believed her words. Medusa had vowed long ago never to allow a man to rule her in any way. But tonight, for the first time in aeons, with this man, this creature, she wanted to be ruled, to be dominated. And that, more than anything, made her squirm again.
Uphir’s hold tightened once more. “Fascinating. I can’t say I’ve ever met a woman with such inner strength. I like it. More than you know. Very noble. I, however, am not so noble. At least not tonight. Tonight I am a slave to my body’s needs, and to yours.”
He bent his knees, dropping lower, and rocked his hips up so his cock slid hard against her, spreading the cheeks of her ass. “And your body needs mine.”
The powerful demon spun them both, turning her to face the low opening at the top of the castle wall, where warriors of old had peeked to shoot their arrows and spears. Even this low wall came to her waist, so when Uphir bent her over along the thick ledge her legs were straight, her feet firm on the floor.
“Mmm, such a lovely view,” he said, then traced a clawed finger over the wet lips of her pussy and along the long crease of her ass.
She glanced over her shoulder, watched him lower to his knees behind her and knew, instinctively, his plans. Her breath caught in her chest, her sex muscles flexed and slicked. She looked away, squeezing her eyes tight, her heart thundering in her ears.
With one swift stroke, she no longer had to imagine all he could do with that long, pointed tongue. It pressed between the sensitive folds of her pussy, licking straight up to her ass. A powerful quiver shook her body in its wake, from her toes up her legs, through her pussy and up her spine, leaving her body in a hot rush of breath.
“Mmm, the taste of a female. It’s been too long.” And he licked again, the firm point of his tongue fondling over her clit, pressing up to the entrance of her body. He drove his tongue inside her, its length and width and firmness like a tiny cock that could wiggle and curl inside her.
Her sex clamped around that long, wicked tongue. She gasped, pressed her hips back against his face on reflex. His fingers clenched on her buttocks, the razor points of his claws denting her flesh. He spread her wider, held her open even as she pushed her feet farther apart.
His tongue slithered in and out through her walls, sending ripples of pleasure to every corner of her body. He flicked the tip deep inside her, finding the spot that made her writhe like a thing gone wild against his face. He brought her over, her release flooding into his mouth, spilling down her legs, wetting her from clit to anus. He drank it in, coaxed her sex for more.
Medusa’s breath came in ragged heaves, her knees weak, her head low between her shoulders as her fingers white-knuckled over the edge of the castle wall. Uphir withdrew his lascivious tongue from her pussy, lapping up her come, slicking his way to her anus.
But when he flicked the firm, moist tip over the puckered opening, her whole body tensed. Heat flooded through her, her mind doing more to ready her body than anything Uphir could accomplish. For the first time in her long life she’d know this pleasure. She wanted it, feared it, relished it.
“Relax,” he said, pressing a warm kiss to the cheek of her ass. “No other man can give you this as I can. I was made for this.”
He swiped his firm tongue over her anus again, then swirled the tip, teasing the tight hole. Her body shuddered at the feel, muscles pushing, opening on reflex. He’d moved a hand to her clit without her notice, so when the round of his knuckle stroked over the sensitive nub she flinched, then arched her back, pressing into his touch.
Uphir tasted her again, his knuckle working her clit while his tongue pushed and teased against her ass. Liquid heat gushed through her sex, and her muscles flexed, eager to be filled. The wet press of his tongue pushed through the puckered outer rim of her ass, and Medusa’s breath caught.
Sensation swelled within her, like the constant pluck of a cello string, building and humming through her clit, vibrating within the muscles of her sex, pulsing down the channel of her ass. Uphir stroked in and out of her anus, going deeper as her body opened, his tongue never too large, never too hard, filling her perfectly.
Her legs spread wide, opening her to him, her hands tight on the castle wall, Medusa’s body caught the rhythm, rocking faster, driving Uphir’s wicked tongue into the forbidden depths of her body. Her pussy gushed hot and wet, muscles clenching air, mimicking the tight grip of her ass.
He tugged her clit between his knuckles, sending jolts of pleasure sizzling through her body again and again. Her chest tightened, skin humming from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. The tiny spasms mixed and mingled with the filling thrusts in her ass, and the maddening emptiness pulsing through her pussy.
As though he were pulling the trigger of a gun, Uphir stroked the back edge of his claw against the gaping, needy entry of her sex and Medusa’s body exploded in a tidal wave of liquid heat. Her release pulsed threefold through her sex, her clit and her ass, each response slightly different, each one enhancing and propelling the others.
Her orgasm washed over her, roaring through every fiber of her body, exploding through muscle and meat, tweaking sensitive nerves. Pleasure hummed along her skin until every part of her gave way to it, and her knees buckled beneath her.
Uphir moved fast, catching her, hugging her to his hard chest. They crumpled to the floor, Medusa resting on his lap, leaning her head against the stone wall, her breaths ragged, shallow.
A smile bloomed from the very depths of her soul. “That was…dear goddess, what was that?”
He kissed the back of her shoulder. “Your future…if you wish it.”
Medusa managed to raise her head to glance over her shoulder. She scoffed at the earnest look on his face. “Years of living as stone have affected your brain, demon. Or perhaps your brain has always been thick as stone.”
His brow knitted along his ashen forehead, and then before her eyes that forehead flushed with color. His head sprouted rich golden hair. His eyes rounded, turned a pale sky-blue, and the claws hugging around her shrunk to thick fingers, meaty hands. Within seconds it wasn’t a monster that held her, but a man, big and breathtaking.
“You are a goddess who cannot love or be loved without turning your lover to stone,” he said. “And I am a creature that cannot live but for the touch of you. We were meant for each other, Medusa. End my imprisonment, end your years of bitter loneliness.”
“And if you turn to stone again?”
“I’m filled to overflowing with your sweet nectar, little goddess. If the cream of your pleasure is indeed my magic elixir, I’ll not be turning to stone anytime soon.”
The thought streaked through her mind and stabbed her heart. She’d never even considered the possibility of a companion. Not once since the day she’d become what she was.
Why? Why now, why him? She’d felt something strange the moment she’d seen him from the dark Paris streets below. Something that had called to her, propelled her up those long, twisting stairs, over the high edge of the castle wall and down to his cock. Something that had made her want to feel him inside her, to touch him, kiss him.
Was it simply that she’d never gazed into a man’s eyes before and had him gaze back? Or was Uphir able to gaze back because no other man was meant to?
A strange heat pressed through her chest, squeezed around her heart. It warmed her, filled her up so she could scarcely breathe. Was this…love?
Ice raced up her spine.
No. Panic.