Stone Passions Trilogy (9 page)

She could still feel his cock deep within her and she was pretty sure he had been very well endowed. Sadly, the only thing she regretted from their encounter was the fact that she didn’t get to see him naked, didn’t get to see the penis that had impaled her and made her body burn. A small shiver whispered through her body just thinking about what she had done and who she had done it with. Heck, she was still a little tender from Vaughn.

With her brain still buzzing from the aftermath of having sex with a perfect stranger, she knew she wasn’t going to be getting to sleep any time soon. How could she sleep when she was torn between euphoria and anxiety? Having sex with Vaughn was so outside the realm of normal behavior for her she wondered what she had been thinking. More importantly, when would she see him again?

Heaving a sigh, she flung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, stretching and feeling a pleasurable ache between her thighs. A small smile played at her lips at the reminder of just how phenomenal the sex had been. Making sure Vanessa was covered, she walked the short distance to her kitchen and turned on the hot water maker. She was going to make a cup of hot chocolate, sit down at the kitchen counter and try to figure out where the hell her brain went when she had sex in the bathroom with a man she hardly knew.

Granted, she had drunken a bit more than usual but she had been by no means drunk, just slightly tipsy. She had gotten far drunker before and not ended up in the bathroom with a gorgeous stranger between her legs. Even before she had her first drink she had been tempted by Vaughn, before she even knew his name. In fact, it was his fault that she had drunk so much to begin with… not that she was blaming him for what she voluntarily did. He had simply been the inspiration for her recklessness. Unfortunately, she was pretty sure she still would have had sex with him even if she had been stone-cold sober because he had been that intoxicating.

Would she have had sex with him had she still been dating Peter? A rush of guilt swept over her as she realized she would have seriously considered it and she thanked God they had broken up all of those months ago! Although, he had left a strange message on her machine sometime before she got home saying he was planning on coming over to ask her something in the next few days. Hopefully he was all right since they had parted on such good terms. She had even seen him around town and he had looked happy. She briefly wondered if he was okay.

With a shrug, she dismissed her thoughts of Peter; she would listen to whatever he had to say and then maybe she would tell him to give Vanessa a chance. Vanessa would help loosen him up a bit and he could be a stabilizing influence on her. She felt like she should be uncomfortable with the idea but she was strangely okay with it, almost as if Peter and Vanessa belonged together. Maybe she had been standing in the way of true love for all of those years, maybe….

Vanessa started to moan and Melanie looked up from pouring hot water into a mug. At first Melanie thought her friend was having a bad dream. But the moaning was quickly sounding like moans of pleasure, of ecstasy. Stirring the decadent chocolate powder into the water, she was grateful to her friend for distracting her from her depressing thoughts.

With a wry smile, she took a sip of her hot chocolate. Maybe that was the reason why Peter had been so down on Vanessa when the two of them were dating – he was secretly in love with her. Thank God he had been too honorable to cheat on her to pursue a relationship with Vanessa. Of course, Melanie probably shouldn’t have been feeling so pleased with herself since she had admitted, even if it was only to herself, that she probably would have slept with Vaughn had she met him before. 

She wondered when she would be seeing him, seeing Vaughn, again. She knew that it wasn’t likely to lead to anything permanent – after all, how many one night stands turn into something more? It didn’t even matter because there was that nearly combustible spark that flared between them and he practically gave her an orgasm by looking at her. Of course she knew that lust didn’t last but she was hopeful that there could be something more than physical desire, that whatever was between them might lead to something more.

“Yes,” Vanessa’s sleepy voice filled the small space of her apartment, making Melanie jump from the unexpected sound. Had she spoken her thoughts out loud and woken her friend?

No, Vanessa was still asleep. At least her eyes were still closed. Odd, there seemed to be a faint mist covering her friend’s lithe body. Even as she watched, Vanessa grabbed the hem of her slinky top and whipped it over her head. Squirming, she pushed the covers away as she pulled her panties off her body. Melanie’s eyes widened in disbelief as Vanessa writhed on the bed in all her naked perfection.

Wow, that had to be some dream. Melanie almost felt that she should leave her apartment and give her friend some privacy. She was about to do just that until she heard the soft, seductive voice. Even though the words were barely audible and almost seemed to be coming from another world, she knew at once who it was: Vaughn’s brother, the black-haired one. Armand. It was eerily similar to the dance they shared a few hours before.

Much to her shock and alarm, Melanie saw Vanessa twist around in the bed, reach into the bedside dresser and pull out Simon. She watched in horror as her friend slid Simon between her slender thighs and began pleasuring herself. The mug of hot chocolate slipped from her fingers, clunking down on the countertop and spilling the hot liquid over her front.

“Damn it!” Melanie swore, not sure if she was swearing about her hot chocolate-stained tank top or Vanessa stepping way over the lines of friendship. Grabbing a few paper towels, she mopped up the mess, her attention morbidly focused on the scene that was taking place on her bed. As she cleaned, she strained her ears to hear what the man was saying.

“New Year’s….” Armand’s disembodied voice murmured, the drugging quality wrapping itself around Melanie’s mind. But a few words made it through the fog that seemed to have coalesced around her: “Ordinary…. Normal…. Magic…

“Gargoyles.” 

That word forced Melanie’s attention back to the present. Vanessa was humping Simon as her long, slender fingers moved him in and out of her body. Swallowing the bile that was rising in her throat – it was time to replace Simon, if nothing else was true – Melanie forced herself to listen to what the black-haired man was whispering in Vanessa’s ear. She chose to ignore her friend’s actions.

“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.”

Melanie sucked in her breath, the spilled hot chocolate forgotten. He had tried to make her forget her apartment and his brothers earlier. The auburn-haired man – Rhys – had tried to do the same thing only she thought they were playing around. She had no idea that they were serious, nor how far they were willing to go to make her forget.

But why would they want to do such a thing? She loved this building and the three gargoyles that guarded it. She was hardly what anyone would consider a threat. Besides, if they were trying to cast some sort of… spell, well, that would mean that magic truly existed and she wasn’t completely crazy for believing in it. But then, that would mean magic truly existed and that was actually a scary thought. If they could use their power to make a little nobody like her forget that she just had the most amazing sexual experience of her life, than what else could they do with that sort of power?

Perhaps make it so the roof of her apartment building was warm in the middle of a Minnesotan winter.

Pacing the short distance between one wall of her apartment to the other, very consciously avoiding the area surrounding her bed, Melanie tried to untangle the thoughts whirling around in her head. Once they realized the spell didn’t work, or rather, that it was cast upon the wrong person, they were going to try again. She had to figure out a way to protect her memories from outside forces, at least until such a time that she could convince the three brothers that she wasn’t a threat.

The thought of her being a threat to those three muscular demi-gods was almost laughable. Except they obviously considered her one if they were willing to make her forget. Okay, so how did a girl go about convincing someone that she was not a threat? Especially when she wasn’t a threat at all. Oh, she didn’t have a clue!

Absently, she noted that Vanessa was still once again, a satiated grin curving her lips. Her fingers were still wrapped around Simon, which lay on the bed next to Vanessa’s slim thigh. A shudder tripped down Melanie’s spine at the thought of ever using Simon again. She was going to throw him away as soon as she could bring herself to touch him.

Maybe while she was out trying to find some way of preserving her memories – and her ability to stay in her apartment with the three gargoyles – she would pick up a new bedroom buddy, maybe get the next size up because Vaughn proved that she could take quite a bit more than simple Simon. 

An uneasy bubble of laughter escaped her at the thought. Was Vaughn part of the plot to make her forget? If so, why didn’t he try anything when they were alone in the bathroom? She was pretty sure if he had suggested something immediately after bringing her to a powerful release, she would have complied. It would have been later that she would have regretted any capitulation but that was neither here nor there. Not that it would have mattered, she wouldn’t have remembered. But, no, she was almost certain Vaughn was innocent. At least, if not innocent than not guilty.

Pressing her hand over her stomach, she tried to ignore the caterpillars squirming within her gut as another horrific realization hit her: they hadn’t used protection. True, she was on the pill, because even though she and Peter had always always always used a condom, she didn’t want to take a chance on getting pregnant before she got married. She must have realized that she and Peter were not meant to be together because she had never imagined a little Peter in her arms. 

How sick was it that she could easily picture a baby with Vaughn’s golden hair and golden eyes suckling at her breast? She had never considered breast feeding before – or anything to do with babies. But the fantasy of nursing a baby Vaughn had immeasurable appeal. Except she was still reeling with the knowledge that his brother cast a spell to erase her memory. And magic was real. And the fact that she had sex with a stranger and they hadn’t used protection. Her stomach cramped as that thought echoed in her head.

Hopefully, he was clean. And the pill was probably effective against Vaughn’s excessive virility, though women have gotten pregnant while taking the pill before. The idea was so ludicrous that she fought against another crazed giggle. She wasn’t even sure whether she would be allowed to remember Vaughn in a few days and she was already imagining his baby! How much would it suck to have her memories of him wiped from her brain only to end up pregnant and not knowing – literally – who the father was?

Of course, she would just assume it was Peter’s and they would end up married and when a golden eyed baby smiled up at her she would know that Peter wasn’t the father. But it would be too late, they would have been married. And she would be stuck in a loveless marriage with mediocre sex and a baby that she didn’t know from where it came.

Okay, so she was getting way, way, way ahead of herself and she could almost guarantee that she wasn’t pregnant. Besides, she still had to figure out how to prevent her memory from being erased, at least, long enough until she could convince Vaughn and his brothers that she was not a threat.

Maybe it would be best if she didn’t return to her bed. In fact, it might be in her best interests not to fall asleep at all. What if the black-haired man were to realize his mistake and take measures to correct it? Melanie would wake in the morning with no memories of her most unforgettable New Year’s Eve ever!

Sliding down, she sat on the floor with her back to the kitchen cupboard, her brain whirling with a million thoughts. Deep down she had always known that there was magic in the world but to nearly be the recipient of a spell was admittedly scary. And what did he mean about gargoyles? Was he talking about the three creatures that were on the roof? What other gargoyles could he possibly be talking about?

Ooooh, maybe the three gargoyles were magical, coming to life at night and protecting the city from dark magic, like her favorite cartoon. That would explain why Armand forbade her from going onto the roof at night.

Melanie’s forehead crinkled in thought. It was obvious that Armand had planned on erasing her memory all along so any permission he gave would be pointless. She would hardly be able to visit her gargoyle if she didn’t remember him. Oh! That man was a devious, gorgeous bastard! She was going to have to have a word or two with him after she figured out a way to protect herself from him.

Chapter Five

Melanie’s eyes burned from the lack of sleep but she was grateful to make it through the night with her memory intact. Was it because she stayed awake? If she had fallen asleep would she have forgotten everything? Well, if she thought about it, she had to admit that she was pretty sure another spell hadn’t been cast so it was more than likely that Armand believed he wiped the memory of the right girl.