Page 96 of Hearts of Stone

Nothing in the world had felt as good, as natural, as this. They only had to touch me and my body turned to fire. My nails raked down Seneca’s front, scudding over his cobblestone abs, to curl my fingers around his rigid cock. He moaned into my mouth, his member jumping in my palm, as my fingers spreadthe slick of his precum over the head. But as Carrick shoved my blouse up and out of my waistband and then slid down the zip of my skirt, I remembered one of the reasons I was becoming aroused so easily. Someone else had been turning me to fire today, and that reminded me of what I needed to raise.

“Wait… wait…”

“There’s no need to wait,” Carrick insisted, his hand sliding up my inner thigh. “Not when we are dying to give you everything you need.” My underwear was pulled to one side and blunt fingers probed my entrance, then shoved in, the impact making me toss my head back. For a few moments, no thoughts were in my head as I rode his hand, pushing back to meet his every stroke, that vicious rhythm just what I needed. Then Graven stepped forward.

“Our mate asked us to wait.”

I blinked, trying to dispel the haze that hung over me. Bloody hell, I wasn’t usually this overheated, but then, Daniel had always said my world would change once I started getting good dick. I pulled in a breath, then let one out in a sigh as Carrick pulled his fingers free. That sudden emptiness threw me right back to what happened before, with Adam.

“Look, I need to talk to you all about something.”

“We are listening, Jade,” Graven said, moving into view. His very impressive arms were folded and he glared at the other two meaningfully until they moved back slightly.

“So, warlocks…” Each one of them stiffened, something I never would’ve noticed if I hadn’t become exquisitely attuned to subtle shifts in my lover’s moods when I was with Trevor. “Am I right in thinking that they actively try to get between gargoyles and their fated mates?”

“They have no use for us other than power reservoirs,” Carrick said, his voice bitter. “Women are a means to bind us more securely to their houses. Each one of us was lured intobondage by a pretty face, by promises of finding our mates, but it was never in their best interests for us to find her.” His hand slid much more gently now over my shoulders. “We would move heaven and earth to find her, break bonds that had for hundreds of years held us fast to a place, resist their dominion: none of which they like very much.”

“You’re a part of their power base,” I said, with a frown. “They don’t see you as sentient creatures with needs and wants.”

“After the Fall, our nature was to serve,” Graven said. “Warlocks have exploited that for centuries. Why would they stop now?”

As I stared down at the bed, it was Adam I saw, not the pretty coverlet.

“Because not every warlock was brought up in a system built upon the servitude of gargoyles,” I told them before I straightened up. “You guys seem happy to share me. What if warlocks learned the same?”

“Not warlocks,” Seneca said, his expression now very serious. “A warlock.” He cupped my face in his hands, tilting his head so he could stare down into my eyes. “Has one caught your eye, my love? Is there someone you wish to bring to your bed?”

“Our bed.” I gripped his wrists. “No one is usurping you from your position here in my room.” My hand shook as I slid one of his down and under the collar of my shirt, letting it come to rest on my chest. “Or in my heart.”

Although Seneca smiled at that, Graven stepped closer.

“Who?” he demanded, his tail flicking back and forth. “What warlock would be so willing to put aside the practices his kind have lived by for centuries? Who?”

I was regretting this terribly. We only had so much time together each night, but I was ruining it with this shit. I shook my head and then forged on, because there was no other way forward.

“Adam,” I said, and each one of them responded differently. “When he touches me it feels exactly the same as it does when you touch me. He said he would never try to get in the way of what we have and…”

“Adam?” Graven’s voice had changed utterly, becoming taut as stretched wire.

“I knew I didn’t like that little prick…” Carrick muttered, but it wasn’t his discontent that plucked at my heart; it was Graven’s. He nodded sharply, then those dark eyes of his met mine.

“If this is what you wish, Mistress…”

That, that was exactly what I didn’t want and I pulled away from the other two and crossed the room to stand before Graven. His hands were limp in mine when I grabbed them and he stood there impassively, as if tolerating my touch.

“That’s not how this works,” I said. “You’d never do anything to me without my enthusiastic consent and…” My thumbs rubbed across the backs of his hands. “And the same goes for you.”

Chapter 53

Graven

I had been shocked by Adam Stuart’s appearance the first time I saw him, due to his resemblance to Wulfstan. Now, however, I held the memory of his face in my mind and cursed him with everything I had. No warlock would ever allow a witch as powerful as Jade to maintain anything with us, but I didn’t know how to tell her that.

She wanted this: I felt that like a punch to the gut. Jade wanted this upstart warlock with his eye on her fortune. And, worse, she’d voiced that before demonstrating any sort of preference for me. I took a step away from her despite it tearing my heart in two, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was either that or I’d snatch her up, fly from the estate and hole up with her in some cave, holding her close until all she craved in the world was me.

“Graven…”

Her hand stroked mine, but I couldn’t let myself be seduced by the magnetic pull between us. Instead, I raised her knuckles to my lips and pressed a gentle kiss there, even as I wanted to tug her against my body and claim her mouth as mine.

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