Stone-Cold Lover by Mel Teshco Read Free Book Online Page A

accept her loss. Grieve for her mother. Yell and scream if need be.
    “I let those horrible people take my mother,” she said woodenly. “The same people who sent a ransom note three days later, demanding an outrageous sum of money.”
    He knew Lincoln had paid the money. But he needed her to spill the story, accept what had happened. “Your dad wouldn’t have given up on her.”
    “No.” A bitter line pulled at the corners of her lush mouth. “Dad agreed with their terms. The kidnappers responded by delivering three large parcels, with pieces of Mum inside each one.”
    Cray had seen more in his century life span than most mortals could imagine. What she’d gone through was a horror he knew few would contemplate. Or survive. He’d heard it had taken over a year before she talked again.
    “I didn’t see those parcels. But I saw Dad’s grief, felt an anguish all my own. And I finally came to realize that loving someone, needing a person… well, it’s just too painful, too scary.”
    His heart melted. “Thank you,” he said softly. For trusting me. But a sickening despair chased away any trace of optimism. Her blind faith wouldn’t spare her from further pain. He was cursed, never to be free.

Chapter Four
     
    Her jade eyes glistened, her inner beauty reflected in her soulful stare. The male in him shouted adoration, a devotion that had nothing whatsoever to do with his guardian role.
    Her stare widened. Her lips parted. And as she turned to him fully, his head swooped, their lips meeting on a breathless sigh. He cupped her face, deepening a kiss that was more about a sharing of their souls than even the physical need soaring between them.
    She whimpered beneath his mouth and pressed closer against him, the friction of her body beneath the satiny-soft dress driving him slowly mad with need. When she slipped a hand low to stroke his arousal, he knew without a doubt there would be no turning back.
    Blood rushed to his cock and he growled before he wrenched his head back and said thickly, “I told myself this wouldn’t happen again.”
    “And I told myself it would,” she countered in a whisper. “I want you.” Her eyes glinted when her hand moved to cradle his swollen balls. As she filled her palm with their weight his breath whistled from between clenched teeth.
    “And if having you now is our last time together,” she reiterated, “then—”
    He pressed an unsteady finger to her lips. He couldn’t think upon the possibility of their separation, much less hear it. Not right now.
    Loretta half smiled when his hand turned over, his knuckles grazing her parted lips and following the contour of her porcelain-smooth cheek. He clasped her nape and drew her closer still and they kissed with a slow, aching tenderness that turned his blood from a simmer into a boil.
    “You’re right,” she murmured against his mouth. “We’ve said enough this night.” With a decisive touch, she scored her nails into the flesh of his scrotum before trekking a torturous path to the base of his cock.
    He hissed with pleasure-pain, shivering reflexively as she clasped his hard length and began to stroke up and down.
    Hot damn.
    Something fierce, primitive and altogether too possessive burned from him from the inside out. That she even wanted to touch him in his repulsive gargoyle form, worshipped him as if he were some sexy Adonis, undid him in ways nothing else ever could.
    His wings unfurled from where they were tucked close to his spine. The tips fluttered, fanning the air above and reminding him only too well of his ugly deformities. Shit. What was he thinking? He needed to be human. Now.
    He put a hand over Loretta’s. She paused then released him. Cray gritted his teeth while his fingers twitched. The urge to press her hand back around his cock robbed him of all rational thought. But regaining a little composure, he at last made a move to climb to his feet.
    “No.” Her open hand rested against his heart and she