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“Amazing? Perfection? Everything I’ve been waiting centuries for?”

He asks all those toe-curling questions between soft kisses against my neck. He presses the last one over my pulse, and I know he can feel just how hard my heart is pounding.

“I’ve never been this wet in my life,” I admit, going cherry red.

“Thank you for the honor,” he chuckles, bucking his hips gently into mine and drawing a loud moan from my lips. “But I think we should take it slow, leave it to a little extra heavy petting and…not dry humping.” He grins at me, and I huff.

“Really? Get a girl all worked up and then leave her hanging?” I complain softly but offer him a small smile to let him know I’m joking…mostly.

“It’s important you know about yourself and more about gargoyles before we get into this and it possibly becomes something more,” he says, stroking the bare skin of my waist.

I didn’t notice him slip his hand under his sweater, but I’m certainly not complaining. I want to curl up and purr like a damn kitten as he strokes me.

“Is there a big difference in dating a supernatural?” I ask, sitting up slightly, dusting light kisses over the bridge of his nose and cheeks.

“With gargoyles especially,” he says with a soft sigh. He pulls himself away and stands from the bed. “And with our nest even more so. We have a duty to protect mortal life, and we feel a strong call to do so. We often don’t have much time, and things will get worse now that we are able to go out and about as we are,” he explains, and my joy begins to deflate like an overused parade float.

“So I’m hardly going to see any of you?” I feel a fissure form in my heart.

“We’ll do our best to be around…and, well…” He pauses, biting his lip and taking a long moment. “We’re all in this together when it comes to relationships.”

That fissure turns into a crack right before my heart splits in two.

“So Atlas will never be on board, and we’ll never have a chance.”

Chapter 16

CHARLOTTE

For a womanwith four huge gargoyle roommates, I haven’t seen or heard from any of them since that day when the horrific alarm went off. The signs of them are still here, the baked goods in the morning and muddy footprints after a hard rainstorm, but for almost two full weeks, I don’t so much as see a smudge of color in the corner of my vision. I almost believe this place is just mine again, considering how often they’ve been away.

I guess that’s what I’m telling myself to excuse painting them nonstop. My art room is covered with little portraits of them. Those brief moments of seeing them are etched into my mind so clearly that putting them down on canvas, making them stagnant, feels like a crime.

Tossing aside my latest piece of Marcus’ smile, I groan. My hands cramp a little, and I do my best to rub at the joints until they ache just a little less. I can keep going if it’s just a little less.

“I have some Tylenol, if you’d like it.”

It takes a long moment for it to sink in that I’m actually hearing Marcus’ voice rather than imagining it. I turn to facehim in the doorway of my studio and jump when I see Julius standing at his side with a forlorn look on his face.

“I’m fine. Always have been and always will be. I don’t need protection from my own dang joints,” I grumble, turning quickly to keep the canvas I’ve been working on hidden behind my body. “Why do you have Tylenol anyway? I thought magic would be your cure-all.”

“Why did you toss this one?” Julius asks choosing to ignore my question, and I go completely rigid as he picks up the canvas that is much closer to them than it is to me right now. “Oh…well, this is lovely, Charlotte.”

A soft chuckle mingles with an excited gasp as the two hold the canvas no bigger than one of their palms between them.

“I knew you liked my mouth, Char. It’s missed you nearly as much as I have…My mouth misses yours and you, like all of you really, even if they haven’t been introduced just yet,” Marcus says with a cheeky grin.

“You are the worst,” I groan, pressing my face into my paint-flecked hands.

I can feel the acrylic getting into my fricken pores, but I ignore it and instead focus on the mortification.

“Well, sure, but I also have a pretty mouth,” Marcus laughs.

“Any of me in that pile of yours?” Julius asks, and I can feel him at my back.

His presence is so distinct from anything and anyone else. He smells like berries and herbs and citrus from his simmer pots. The ones I find cold on the stove by the time I get down there in the morning to make breakfast.

“This one is incredible,” he whispers against the shell of my ear, and I want to melt like a baked candle.