Stone Passions Trilogy (8 page)

“It is not necessary to explain it to me,” Vaughn growled. “I know the reasons and I agree with you that it is necessary to keep her safe. I just wish there were another way.”

Armand’s teeth ground together as he bit out, “I will not allow you to give up your nights for a human. They are fickle and treacherous.”

Vaughn’s brows drew together as he shook his head no in automatic denial, even if he briefly weighed the possibility. “If I made that choice you wouldn’t have a say in the matter.”

“You’re too optimistic for your own good, Vaughn,” Armand said calmly, which only emphasized the seriousness of his words. “You’ll lose fifty, sixty years of your life just when things are starting to get interesting.”

“I know,” Vaughn swallowed, not wanting to consider the probable outcome of giving up his nights. But how could he convince Armand that Melanie was different based on nothing more than a… a feeling? He knew the dangers, and there were many, yet he was willing to risk it all because he was captivated by a human. It was madness and yet, he didn’t care. He wanted Melanie.

Armand arched a perfect brow, “Are you prepared to give up everything for her?” At Vaughn’s marked hesitation, he smiled, “I thought not.”

“I didn’t say no,” Vaughn growled. “I barely know the girl. I’m not going to act rashly only to regret my decision for hundreds of years like you did.”

Armand’s lips lifted in a rueful smile, “I was young and impetuous, Vaughn. You don’t have the same excuse.”

Vaughn looked away, regretting the spiteful words he uttered as they hit the mark. But as Armand shrugged out of the silk robes, revealing his naked body, Vaughn growled and pushed himself off the wall. It took everything in him to stop himself from walking over and grabbing Armand by the short hairs. “Is it necessary to cast the spell using sex?”

“She is resilient,” Armand said coolly, the flame of the candle bathing his hard body in golden light. “In orgasm, she will be vulnerable and the spell will be more… effective. Besides, there will be no actual intercourse since it is in the spiritual plane.”

“Then it’s even more insidious,” Vaughn sneered, not wanting his brother to know Melanie in such an intimate manner, even if it wasn’t truly physical. “Try something less… invasive.”

Armand’s smile was dark as he looked at Vaughn, belying the seriousness of the threat. “If you had done the spell when you fucked her this night it wouldn’t be necessary for me to do this now.”

Vaughn closed his eyes in remorse. What Armand had said was true and he
had
failed to protect his family’s best interests when it came to the girl. He had failed to safeguard the girl. After she was safely back where she belonged, maybe he would take a few days and find a place where he could spread his wings and fly for more than a few minutes at a time. He would get his thoughts back in order, remember where his loyalties lay.

Armand watched his brother go, wishing there was more he could do for him but there was no way he could allow a human to remain aware of them, of their home. He remembered the madness of falling in lust with a human female and he also remembered the fall out. It had been a painful lesson, one he wouldn’t wish on anyone, especially his brother.

He hadn’t been completely honest with Vaughn, though. The girl was an anomaly, that much was true, but she was also intriguing. She had been able to withstand his powerful hypnosis. No one, not even Katrina, had been able to do that. There was no choice but to invoke the power of sex. He could justify himself by saying it wasn’t truly sex, that it was necessary to ensure the girl’s compliance, but that wouldn’t be the entire truth, either. Armand wasn’t sure a less intimate spell wouldn’t have worked, but he wanted to discover for himself the unique girl.

Picturing her in his head, he felt the power ebb and flow around him. She was a pretty, little thing with a classic oval face and a small, tip-tilted nose. A smattering of freckles danced across the bridge of her nose and the apples of her cheeks, giving her an air of freshness and sweetness. Her eyes were blue, which had surprised him when he had stared directly into her blue eyes. Her damnable blue eyes. The color reminded him of the summer sky, of a brief moment in time he still dreamed about. He could feel the heat of the sun on his flesh, see it behind his closed eyelids. It had been so long since he had seen that color….

He forced himself back to the present and forced the memories away. Concentrating on Melanie, he conjured her face once again, her eyes, her nose, her lips…. She had a wicked, seductive mouth, with full, blush-colored lips. It was a mouth made to fuck.

He had actually liked the girl when he had danced with her. She had made him laugh with her irreverence and determination and if things were different, if he and his brothers weren’t who they were, he would have encouraged Vaughn to pursue her. But they were what they were and when all was said and done the girl was only a human and she would never choose Vaughn. Armand would rather carve out his own heart than see his brother suffer. So he had no choice but to invoke sex to erase her memory, he didn’t want to take the chance of a lesser spell failing.

His only regret was that he wouldn’t be able to see her face when he brought her to orgasm. He was still a male and could appreciate a beautiful woman, even if she belonged to Vaughn.

Closing his eyes, he blew out his breath and started to chant. The physical world fell away as he entered the ether between realities. Perception was so skewered in the mists surrounding him and he had to rely on memory to find the girl’s essence. In a short time, she had filled her entire apartment with her energy, with the strongest concentration coming from the bed.

He let his conscious mind fade, letting the magic course through him to create a proxy with which to cast the spell. In her dreams, she would see him as he appeared in human form. If the girl were to wake, all she would see was a nebulous mist hovering over her, clinging to her skin and she would believe she was still sleeping. It didn’t matter because after she came and the spell was cast, she wouldn’t remember anything.

Slowly, he mentally moved his hands over her body, his mind filling in the blanks that did not translate into the ether realm. That was one of the drawbacks of sex in the spiritual realm. He enjoyed the physical aspect of sex, of feeling a woman’s lush breasts, her wet arousal. His voice low, thick, dreamlike as he asked, “Do you remember me?”

“Yes,” she breathed, her heart rate accelerating in arousal. “You were at the club tonight; you and two others.”

Armand smiled to himself, or what constituted as smiling in the ether world. The girl did not seem disappointed to have him in her dreams as compared to Vaughn. Perhaps if things had played out differently, he would have been the one to have sex with her in the bathroom of that club and he would have been able to mind wipe her then. He also would have been able to leave a back door in her head for him to visit in her dreams. The good thing about knowing the rules so well was the ability to also know how to break them, something his brothers hadn’t learned.

“Let me into your body,” he breathed, the syrupy sound of his voice lulling her further. “Your mind.”

“Yes,” she repeated. He could picture her chocolate hair spread out on the pillows, her face flushed with arousal. He could almost smell her feminine musk.

His hands moved over her body and he imagined the feel of her nipples puckering beneath his palm, her stomach quivering under his fingers. “Remove your barriers.”

He felt the rustle as she stripped out of her night clothes, laying herself bare literally and figuratively. An image of Melanie wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants and a tank top flashed in his head and he had an unexpected flash of guilt for doing this to her. He quickly reminded himself that it was for her own good, his brother’s as well.

Sexual energy came off her in waves, mingling with his energy and fueling his power. Her response pleased him, even if he found it somehow lacking, even if he couldn’t explain what he had been hoping for. Forcing himself to concentrate on what he had to do instead of fantasies and wishes he couldn’t indulge, he sent a surge of lust directly to her feminine core. “Touch yourself.”

When he didn’t immediately feel a surge in her desire he was a little concerned; was she resisting him even in her sleep? But then he felt another energy source and grimaced for she had grabbed a masturbatory enhancer. While it wouldn’t interfere with his spell, it was going to be annoying. The rhythmic pulsing of the droning, electric cock played havoc on a body in the ether realm.

Gritting his teeth, he continued to send his own pulses of lust through her body, concentrating on the spell he was forming even as her passion built. Ignoring the humming, he continued whispering, “Tonight you experienced a normal New Year’s celebration. There was nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Oooo,” she moaned, the pressure building. He didn’t have much time.

“You did not meet anyone interesting,” he continued, trying not to rush the words, the spell. “You want to keep your life normal. You have no interest in magic or gargoyles.”

He doubted she was even hearing what he was saying, which was as it should be. Why, then, was he so disappointed? The spell was doing exactly as it was supposed to do, and in a way that was far less challenging than he had expected. Perhaps that was what was bothering him, he wasn’t being challenged. Her body was tightening as she fought for release and it was time to finish it, finish her association with him and his brothers.

“You no longer wish to remain in this building and you never want to return. In a few moments you are not going to remember any of this, my brothers, this building. When you wake in the morning all of it will be a dream that quickly fades.” As he said the last word, her sexual energy spiked and he felt her climax tumble over him, trying to suck him into the abyss and failing to do so.

He could feel his essence being pulled back into his corporeal body, the coldness that reminded him that he was still part of the living. As tempting as it would be to remain in the ether world indefinitely, he enjoyed the physical realm too much to give it up all together. Even if he returned with an erection that required a manual release because the spiritual orgasm failed to bring him off. That was strange. Usually when he cast a spell of that magnitude, where sex was a necessary element, he returned bodily sated.

Curling his fist around his cock, he frowned. He felt … betrayed because the girl had proven all too easy to seduce. Her submission was, well, anti-climactic. He had been hoping for more of a struggle on her part, a willingness to fight for Vaughn. All in all, it was best that he was able to ensure her capitulation so easily since she obviously wasn’t worthy of Vaughn’s affection.

His body still bristled with latent power, power that he thought he was going to have to use but did not. Perhaps he had been mistaken about the girl, perhaps she was just like everyone else. But how to explain her ability to resist his powers of suggestion while he held her in his arms? It had to have been a fluke, some quirk of fate.

It would be better not telling Vaughn how easy it was to ensure their secrets. It would only hurt him to know the girl wasn’t worth the effort after all, that she would not have been worth the sacrifice Armand was sure Vaughn would have made. In that, he was grateful.

As Melanie lay in her bed and stared up at the ceiling, Vanessa’s soft snoring was the only sound in the room because Frankie had taken a cab home rather than crash at the small apartment. Melanie’s thoughts tumbled and somersaulted over one another. S few hours ago she had sex in the bathroom of a bar with a complete stranger. The Whimsical Melanie temporarily disappeared and for that moment she had been replaced with the Daring and Adventurous Melanie. The slightly stupid Melanie.

The sexually satisfied Melanie.

If she were to get involved with Vaughn – she loved that name, it suited him so well – she would be able to retire Simon. She would never have to bring herself to orgasm again. Hell, if she continued to have sex with Vaughn, she knew that personal, sexual gratification was going to disappear altogether because nothing she did to herself could ever compare to how it felt having Vaughn between her thighs.