“We’re going to see Lirgon at an art exhibition?” Riley asked, looking up at the façade of the building Damian was leading her toward.
“Sculpture exhibition.” He pulled notes off a bill clip and handed them through to a woman behind the glass at the ticket counter. Then he took her hand again.
The building was light and very white, full of square white blocks and steel, all except the floors, which were a very pale natural wood, sealed and varnished to a bright gleam. Even the stairs were white blocks and steel.
Ahead, there was a security scan walk-through frame and a couple of bored looking guards, also in white. Riley wanted to giggle except that she was suddenly aware in a morbid way of the knife weighing down the inside of her coat.
Damian tugged her forward. “Come on,” he said, thrusting a program into her hand. She glanced at it. Fábio Natan—Gargoyle Exposé was written in huge letters on the front of the booklet.
“They actually know about gargoyles?” she asked in a whisper.
“One at a time, sir!” the guard called out.
Damian dropped her hand. “I’ll go first.” He walked through the frame, turned and beckoned her. She tried not to hesitate or show any awkwardness. Instead, she looked down at the program as she stepped through, like that was taking all her attention, instead of the scan.
Nothing happened. She looked up at Damian and smiled. “Now, are you going to show me what’s got you all excited?” she said, for benefit of the guards.
He took her hand again, and hurried her toward the stairs. “Gargoyles,” he said, in a normal voice, “Are carvings they used to add to old buildings to shed water off the sides of them. Castles and towers. That sort of stuff. Later on, gargoyle designs for public buildings got more and more elaborate and decorative. But Natan has designed his own gargoyles just for the hell of it, and put them on exhibition. They’ll never sit on a public building anywhere.”
The stairs split and turned one eighty degrees and headed up to the next floor. Damian took the right hand side.
“You mean, he just carved Lirgon out of rock?” Riley asked in an undertone.
“Yes, pretty much exactly that, with some added complications.” Damian pulled her forward. “Meet Lirgon.”
Her first instinct was to scoot backward and she did step back, right into Damian. His hands came down onto her shoulders. “I’m here,” he said. His voice reverberated against her back, warm and reassuring. “The creature is asleep for now. You are safe. All gargoyles sleep during the day. It is called stone sleep and it is when they are at their most vulnerable. Someone who knows of their true nature might take it into their heads to batter them to pebbles. But we cannot—not here and now, for the place is guarded and public.”
Riley drew a deep breath and stared up at the twelve foot mound of stone before her. It was the ugliest creature she had ever seen. The eyes bulged and wings curved around to protect a hunched and clawed body that included horned toes and hooked fingers, jagged teeth and a long snout that snarled even in sleep. The tongue protruded from the mouth, but it did not look pathetic.
“Is...Is it aware of us?”
“No.”
“It’s wretched. People are paying to look at these things?”
“Don’t let that fool you,” Damian breathed. “This is the deadliest foe your parents faced. Now you must face it, or more people will die.”
She bit her lip. “Why me? Why not Nicholas? He’s a hunter.”
“We think Lirgon came back just for you, Riley. The seed of the Connors. The only way we can protect you properly is to teach you how to defeat the monster yourself. We will help all we can, but you must do this.”
She looked around the big display room and counted quickly. “There’s twenty more. Are they all like Lirgon? All…real?” She flipped the program open. “How long has Natan been doing this for?”
“We don’t know how many for sure. Nicholas came to the exhibition as soon as he heard of it and remembers five of them at least, beside Lirgon. The rest of the gargoyles we believe are just what they appear to be. Stone carvings. Dead lumps of rock. But the six, including Lirgon…they are from the original Stonebrood clan that Nicholas has been hunting, on and off, for over two hundred years. Up until August 1977, the night your grandfather died, demon hunters believed gargoyles were extinct.”
“Then how…?”
A long finger stroked her cheek, making her nerve ends snap and sizzle. “That is a tale for closed doors and no witnesses.” His voice breathed in her ear.
Riley couldn’t take her eyes off the snarling, still creature crouched in front of her, and the lifeless stone eyes. “It really isn’t aware of us?”
“No. The stone sleep is profound.” Damian sighed. “Lirgon could not have chosen a more protected place to return than this. Simple, but brilliant. Security guards to watch all who approach him during daylight hours. All Lirgon must guard against is an untimely waking at night.”
Riley flipped the program over. “It’s short opening hours. Look.” She held up the exhibition opening and closing times listed on the back of the program. “They coincide with daylight, more or less, at this time of year.”
Damian tilted his head back to look up at the roof. Overhead, three large leaded skylights allowed sunlight to stream into the airy gallery, giving the displays the best possible light. “It’s still only three p.m.,” he said. “We have three hours to kill until he rises.”
“You intend to watch him rise?”
“Yes.”
“The guards won’t let you stay here after the gallery closes,” Riley pointed out.
“We can watch from another building.” Damian bent to bring his lips closer to her ear. “The glory of Manhattan—there’s always another building next door.”
She shivered at the closeness of his lips, as images jumped into her mind. His hands, which were still on her shoulders, sliding farther down to cup her breasts, as he ground his pelvis into her from behind. She wanted to hear him make hard, breathless, helpless sounds as he handled her. She wanted to know he found her irresistible. She was too used to the power she had over normal men. Damian had the power now. She needed him too much.
Him and Nicholas.
Just thinking of the other vampire made her heart beat a rapid tattoo and her pussy throb hard. Her clitoris beat in time with her heart and she could hear her breath in her ears.
“Damian,” she whispered almost silently.
He drew in a breath and turned his head to look at her. His black eyes narrowed. “Tell me what you want,” he murmured.
“You,” she said honestly. She swallowed. “Now.”
His lips brushed over hers. The light touch was electrifying. “How?” he asked softly.
“I don’t care.” She knew it beggared her, but didn’t care about that either. She ached only to have him inside her. “Please,” she whispered, knowing he would hear her when others wouldn’t.
Damian stepped around her to stand before her and studied her face. His thumb stroked her cheek and sparks seemed to leap from his touch. She gasped unsteadily as she stared up at him. “Now,” she whispered. “Hurry.”
He glanced around them, making it look casual. There was a big, five-foot-square black leather upholstered flat bench nearby, strategically placed for visitors to sit and study the artwork. There were others scattered around the gallery.
“You want me to lower you upon that and have my way?” Damian murmured. “You should have worn a skirt, my lover.”
Riley thought she might burst into flames. It wasn’t just the idea behind his words. It was Damian’s low voice rippling over the words themselves. My lover. They were true enough. She intended to let him seduce her as soon as discretion allowed. But they still touched a chord that sent startling shockwaves through her.
Damian’s eyes narrowed as he studied her face. He picked up the shopping bags next to her feet with one hand, and lifted her hand with the other. “Come,” he said simply, and tugged her into following him. She went willingly, her new boots tapping on the pale wooden flooring with what sounded to her like incredibly loud raps that drew attention to what they were doing, like a trumpet call. But no one turned to look at them. No one paid any attention at all.
Damian threaded his way through the still and silent gargoyles towering over them, heading for the back of the large gallery, which took up the entire floor as far as Riley could tell. At the back of the room, she saw what Damian had spotted before her, thanks to his extra height. There was an exit sign glowing over the top of a corridor that was lined with doors. At the far end was a metal-lined door with a fast release bar. The fire escape.
The doors along the corridor seemed anonymous, but there were discreet tags. International signs for male and female washrooms, a janitor’s closet and a manager’s office. Damian pulled Riley up against the manager’s door and knocked. When there was no answer, he knocked again, more firmly. Still no answer. Riley’s heart was thundering now, for she guessed his intention and his body was pressing her hard up against the door. She could feel his long length against her from behind and it wasn’t helping her pulse stay steady at all. Anticipation was making her tremble and her thoughts almost incoherent.
Damian glanced along both directions of the corridor, then reached out for the doorknob. He gave it a twist. It seemed like a gentle turn, but the door gave a low agonized metallic groan and gave way. Damian pushed Riley inside, shut the door, grabbed a slim visitor’s chair from in front of the big wooden desk and rammed the back of it under the handle of the door.
The desk took up most of the room. There was a silver plaque sitting on the front of it. John Sandford. An in-tray and a computer monitor with a blank face.
As Riley blinked in astonishment, Damian was suddenly there in front of her, his hand sliding under her hair and curling around her neck. His lips were on hers, his other hand on her waist, sliding right around her, possessing her.
But then the kiss took hold and she lost track of what his hands were doing to her. She dropped the bags, or maybe he took them from her. But her hands were somehow free. Her coat came adrift and slipped from her shoulders as the kiss lengthened.
When Damian finally lifted his lips from hers she was panting, her thoughts a chaotic tumble of incoherent erotic needs. She reached for him, with a hazy, half-formed thought of undressing him, but he caught her wrists in his hands and turned her, bringing her hard against him. She could feel his cock throbbing against her ass and moaned, pushing herself back against him. She moved her arms so his hands would rub against her breasts.
“Sweet Dion…” Damian muttered. His grip on her wrists tightened. “You’re pushing me, Riley.” There was a note of warning in his voice that both frightened and aroused her beyond belief.
She moaned. “Fuck me,” she begged. “Fuck me hard.”
“Ah, Christos.” Damian’s tone was that of a desperate man. His hand snagged in the top of her camisole and yanked. The tough cotton gave way with a tired sound. He grabbed her bra and ripped it the same way and she was abruptly bare from the waist up. He spun her around to face him and there was a light in his eyes she had not seen before. Raw lust, animal need, unshuttered. He licked at her throat with a hungry growl, his hand fisted in her hair. His mouth worked its way down her flesh to her breasts as his hand lifted them one at a time for his mouth to latch on to each tip and sip at it. Then he nipped with his teeth, drawing them out, making the nipples hard, erect and rosy with arousal.
Riley clutched at his shoulders, clawing at the coat he still wore, feeling an odd excitement at being half-naked while he was still fully clothed.
Damian’s hand was at her belt buckle, unsnapping it, slipping the leather out of the slide, pushing the belt aside, and tackling the fastening of her jeans. His fingers brushed against the flesh of her abdomen, making her abs quiver and tighten and her pussy to throb in anticipation. Her clit was swollen, beating with promise, a bare inch or two from his fingers. She trembled with the possibilities.
The zipper slipped undone and her jeans sagged around her hips.
“Take them off,” he breathed and she barely recognized his voice. It was thick with desire and strong with the accent she knew was his, but was normally suppressed and controlled better. “Your panties, too. Everything. I want you naked.”
Excitement shuddered through her. She bent to do as he had demanded, her hands shaking, and stripped herself of her garments. Her panties were soaked through. She put her new boots to one side. Barely had she dropped the last item to the carpet when Damian’s hands curled around her arms, turned her and pushed her so her back was up against the door he had so recently closed and jammed shut. She could feel the cool steel frame of the visitor’s chair against her thigh.
“Undo my pants,” he commanded, his voice hoarse with lust. His thumbs moved against the sides of her breasts as he held her against the door. She remembered that even though the light was low in here, he would be able to see far more detail than she could. She reached for the strained buttons holding his trousers closed and struggled to push them undone. They popped open. Next, the zipper. She merely had to lift the tab and start the zipper sliding down and the pressure on the metal teeth did the rest. The zipper almost unraveled by itself.
Riley caught her breath. No underwear. No belt. As Damian’s trousers opened she saw his erect cock beating against his hip. It was thick and hard, with a flaring head. Just the sight of it made her moan and lick her lips. She looked up at his face.
He was watching her, his black eyes narrowed and sleepy. “You’re a gourmand of a different sort, aren’t you?” he murmured. “Perhaps the rumors were true after all. That would be…interesting, if it were so.”
A question barely began to form in Riley’s mind before Damian pressed himself against her, stealing her breath and her thoughts in one hard kiss. His cock pushed against her stomach and she could feel it beating with the tattoo of his pulse, as his hands gripped her thighs, lifting and separating them, opening her up to him.
The tip of his thick, blunt cock nuzzled her sopping pussy and the muscles around the entrance gripped him convulsively, trying to draw him in. Riley clawed at Damian’s shoulders, her nails digging into the coat. “Harder. Deeper.” Her voice was husky. She desperately wanted him to thrust into her with every bit of strength he possessed…except that in the back of her mind she knew he could possibly crack steel girders with one hand if he chose to. “Please,” she begged hoarsely. “Fuck me.”
He was studying her, watching her writhe against him, trying to take him deeper into her. Almost clinically, he gripped her legs and pushed into her with one long, smooth stroke, burying himself to the root. “Like that?” he asked softly.
Riley let her head fall back as he filled her. She curled her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck. “Mmmm… Good,” she told him. She moved her hips. “More.”
Damian’s smile was wicked and lust-filled and she glimpsed, just for a moment, over two thousand years’ worth of sexual mischief in his eyes. “Of course,” he said simply. “But there is little more delightful than this moment right here,” and he withdrew his cock a little and pushed it back into her.
Riley felt her pussy walls quiver and ripple around him and in response, his cock seemed to pulse. She sucked in a breath. “Oh!”
“Mmm…” he agreed and pushed into her again.
This time even her clitoris beat in response to his impalement. Riley felt her hips jerk of their own volition as a shocking wave of pleasure jolted through her, centered upon her clit and her pussy. She gasped, but Damian did not slow down his assault upon her, or spare her a moment to recover. The delightful assaults rolled over her one after another, building up inside her a tidal wave of intolerable pleasure. She clawed at Damian, feeling the monstrous great climax building in her and frightened by it.
“Come for me, Riley,” he breathed.
She shook her head.
“Sink into it,” he breathed next to her ear as his cock slammed into her. “Let yourself go.”
She couldn’t. Not something this large, this awesome. It would overwhelm her. Consume her. She would lose control. Riley panted, staying on top of it, beating the excitement back.
Right next to their heads, on the other side of the door, a sharp knock sounded.
Damian covered her mouth with his hand. He thrust into her. Once more. Twice. She felt his seed spill into her in hard spurts, his fingers digging into her thigh.
The knock came again. “Anyone there?” Security. From the tone of the question it sounded like they were doing rounds and checking every door as per standard procedure.
Damian’s hand fell from her thigh, down to the doorknob and curled around it, over the top of the chair thrust under it. She saw the knuckles tense. Only the pressure of his hips against her was holding her up against the door now.
On the other side of the door, the doorknob was rattled – they had tested to see that it was still locked. After a few seconds, there was a soft patter of steps heading away from the door. The guard had moved on, satisfied.
Riley dropped her head onto Damian’s shoulder, weak with relief and trembling as adrenaline pumped through her body. He lowered her to the floor and kissed her, his hand tangling in her hair. “Get dressed,” he murmured, fastening his trousers. “I’ll check for the guard. We can slip out via the fire escape.”
Of course, they couldn’t go back out into the gallery where the guard might see them emerge from the corridor he had just checked and found empty.
He slipped off his coat and drew his singlet over his head. “Wear this. I’ll have to replace your shirt for you.” He put his coat on again and zipped it up so his bare chest was hidden.
Riley reached for her discarded clothing with a shaky hand as Damian lifted the chair away from the door, peered out carefully and slipped out.
When he returned, she was fully dressed. Damian’s singlet was much too large for her, but by knotting the arms together at the back, she could make it sit high enough that her breasts were covered decently.
Damian picked up the bags once more, and led her silently from the room, turning right instead of left when they stepped out. They moved down the corridor to the fire escape door.
“Watch for observers,” Damian told her, putting down the bags.
Riley turned to look over her shoulder, back toward the gallery. The small slice she could see of the white, light room was empty of people. She heard Damian moving, a small grunt of effort. Then, “Quickly.”
She turned back to him. He had the fire escape door open and brilliant late afternoon sunlight was pouring in. She blinked. High up by the top of the door, bare gleaming wires hung loose over the frame. That was what he had been doing while she had been watching out—severing the alarm wired to the fire escape door so their opening the door didn’t set off the alarm.
Riley picked up the bags and stepped out onto the metal landing. Damian followed and shut the door behind him. Quickly, they climbed down the ladder to the ground and hurried along the alleyway onto the street, where Damian relaxed once more and looked at his watch. “Time to find a perch to observe the skylights. Nicholas should be here for this, too.” He scanned the skyline around them as he spoke.
Riley stared at him, as she realized the terse orders and his imperious air were not going away now they had reached safety. A chill touched her middle.
“Damian?”
He glanced at her. “You need food first?” he asked. “It is getting late.”
“I’m fine for now,” she assured him. “Is something wrong, Damian?”
His eyes pinned her to the pavement in a searing glance utterly without concession. “I think that is a question I should be asking you, but now is not the time for it.” He hesitated. “I’m not even sure there is a time.” He looked away, as if he were still searching the skyline.
Riley could feel her breath drop out of the bottom of her lungs, exactly like someone had opened a trapdoor and let out all the air without warning her. Suddenly, she had no oxygen and her chest wouldn’t work properly.
For sixty queasy seconds she fought to breathe, as her mind raced and her heart labored. She knew exactly what Damian was talking about. Even though he spoke in euphemisms, even though he was being deliberately obscure, she knew. She hadn’t been able to give up control. She didn’t trust him enough to let go, even in his arms, even though he was possibly one of the most powerful creatures walking this planet.
Riley was flawed, weak, useless. Damian knew it now. He suspected it was a weakness she may never be able to overcome and already wondered if he wanted to try.
She watched him scout the terrain. More than ever, she wished Damian would try. She wanted him like no other man she had ever wanted in her life.
Except Nicholas Sherwood.
Tears pricked her eyes at the cruel dilemma.
Yes, she was indeed flawed.