53. Stella

53

STELLA

I wake being spooned by a gargoyle and nearly start crying in relief. My sniffle is cut off by his gravelly voice.

“None of that.”

I inhale. “I can’t help it.”

His arm squeezes me to his chest tighter, and I shudder in relief.

“How’s the baby?” he asks, probably trying to distract me from the emotional rollercoaster.

“As disagreeable as ever,” I say automatically, but hesitate. This is the first morning I’ve woken up without the need to vomit. “Actually, I feel pretty okay right now.”

He hums in thought.

“What?” I ask.

“Just a suspicion. Nothing else.”

“Stoneheart.”

“It will hardly make you feel kinder toward him if I’m right.”

Him . I swallow. I sensed his absence on waking up, but I tried to distract myself with appreciating that I have Stoneheart back.

Ben is gone. Even if I have a memory of sleeping between the two of them, the sheets in front of me are cold.

“You think that not being in contact with Ben contributed to the sickness?” I ask. Magical pregnancies have weird symptoms, so it’s not like this is unheard of.

“I think the distance made you both sick,” Stoneheart says.

That makes me feel a little better except for the fact that he’s gone now.

Stoneheart kisses my throat. “He’s coming back.”

“Stop reading my mind.”

He smiles against my skin. “I don’t need to.”

“Did he say he’s coming back when he left this morning?”

He’s promised me he was staying, and now he’s gone. It’s taking Stoneheart’s hand moving down my body and groping my breast to keep me from lingering on the gaping chasm of disappointment in my chest.

I don’t want Ben to break that promise to me.

“He didn’t need to,” Stoneheart says.

“Your confidence is astounding.”

His chuckle is dark. “You enjoy my confidence.”

I do, but I’m not going to admit that to him. His confidence in me is what made the past week without him possible.

“I missed you,” I say, and it comes out with all the yearning and doubts that have tried to claw me down the past week.

Stoneheart rolls me under him, and his pale gaze captures my attention, scanning my face.

“I know. I’m sorry you had to handle that.” He settles between my thighs, and I gasp at the contact of his skin there. He’s naked, and I’m near to that.

I weave my fingers through his hair, stroking one of his horns and appreciating how his lids drop in pleasure.

I frown as I take him in.

“Where are your tattoos?” I ask.

I didn’t notice last night what with my heart breaking and being put back together again, but his gray skin lacks the ink I enjoyed tracing so much.

“They must have been healed by the stone sleep. There’s a reason why gargoyles don’t usually have tattoos.” Stoneheart dips his face to nuzzle the skin between my breasts left exposed by the way my sleeping dress gapes. “You can design the next tattoo I get. I want your mark on me.”

Delight curls my lips. I’d like to give him some mark of mine to go with the bite mark he left on me and on Ben.

“You’re distracting me,” I say. Because as the minutes go by without sight of Ben, anxiety starts whispering doubts in my ear.

“Don’t you want to be distracted?” Stoneheart hooks a talon in my dress and shears the fabric in half. “You’re going to have to trust that he means to stay. You can’t let your fear?—”

“I know, but knowing something doesn’t mean it’s easier to do,” I say, breathless. Though when it comes to being with either of these men, it’s easier to get over the fear when they’re touching me. Stoneheart’s long tongue traces the curve of my breast before circling my nipple.

I hiss, my toes curling at the instant hot but stinging draw when he sucks. His mouth eases he frowns. “Too much?”

“They’re a little sensitive.”

He rumbles. “Apologies, firefly.”

When he returns to the task, his mouth and tongue are gentle and make it hard to catch my breath.

I make a sound when I can hardly stand it anymore, and he releases me with a satisfied smile, licking over to the other one.

“He came running as soon as he found out you needed him,” he says even as I grind my need-softened pussy against his bare chest.

I scoff. “We needed him the whole time.”

I may have denied that last night, but that was out of spite. I want him with us always.

“Not to mention that he’s the reason the spell broke. It seems we needed the blood of both your mates to break it,” I say, having woken up enough to process what happened last night as Ben said his blood vow.

“Does that mean you’ll welcome him into our clan?” he asks.

“A clan? Is that what we are?”

He pinches my ass, and I gasp at the rush of heat that accompanies the tease.

“Yes, my highly capable wife. We are a clan,” he says, half exasperated.

I nod, done with my teasing. I want that official title.

“That’s if he comes back though,” I say.

Stoneheart flips me over, and I let out a yelp in surprise.

“Apparently I’m not doing a good enough job of distracting you,” he says. “Those doubts have no place here.”

I move to rise, chastened, but Stoneheart presses the space between my shoulders down until my chest and stomach rub against the bedding.

The dress is nothing but rags that he casts away before laying his body against mine. I make a satisfied sound. Being engulfed like this settles me.

His cock grinds against my ass, and my legs widen without need for instruction.

“I love having you like this,” he murmurs, and I bite my lip to keep from moaning as, with an adjustment of the angle of his hips, his heated length slides against my wet pussy. “Watching my knot disappear inside your wet and ready cunt is transcendent, but there’s something about having you under me like this that feeds my darker tendencies.”

He lifts my hips higher and grinds the side of his knot against my opening, and I moan into the sheets.

“Take me, Remy. I’m yours.”

“Of course you are,” he says as the head of his cock stops slipping teasingly through my folds and enters me.

We both moan as he sinks inside me. He doesn’t rush through the stretch. As soon as my pussy struggles against his girth he merely rocks in and out to coax me to open more, give him more.

With my chest on the bed like this, all my senses are full of him and the soft pace he’s setting. The heat of his skin against my back. The puffs of his breath on my scalp. The heavy weight of him inside me, moving in a way that makes my insides shiver and a tight sensation in my lower belly build.

I don’t try to rush him. I want every reassuring touch.

The pleasure he’s building tingles warnings in my limbs but doesn’t break free yet.

I lose myself to the soft movements and groaning praise. His knot brushes against my opening before he grinds it in deeper on the next rock.

“That’s it. Such a soft and beautiful mate begging to take me.”

I moan when I realize his intention. He won’t withhold any part of himself from me anymore.

I arch my back and try to soften around him even more. The rumble of Stoneheart’s growl against my back has me shivering as with the next thrust, his knot presses against me hard and insistent. The tight muscles of my body ease around the bulbous flesh, letting it slip inside me.

Tears fill my eyes as my soul, still so reticent to believe that this is all real, that I’m not alone anymore, finally gives.

The pressure is enough to release my own climax, and I cry out as Stoneheart holds me still, groaning so loudly that if there wasn’t sound suppression magic involved, he’d wake the whole penthouse.

His cock pulses inside me as his cum fills me. The pressure sets off another surge of pleasure.

I think I must lose time because the next thing I know, Stoneheart is laying on his side, spooning me with our bodies still connected and sweaty.

A clearing throat has my eyes snapping open.

“Am I interrupting?” Ben asks, his cheeks flushed, and his expression part amused and part uneasy.

“About time you came back,” Stoneheart says, making no move to remove his still very hard knot from me. “She’s been desperate to see you.”

My cheeks burn, but I can’t deny it’s the truth. Stoneheart flings the sheet back in invitation.

Something dark flashes in Ben’s eyes as he takes in my trapped and stretched body and tosses his bag down, quickly undressing. He left to pack a bag. He didn’t abandon us.

I squirm at my vulnerable position, but that only pulls against the knot trapped inside me and causes the gargoyle behind me to tut.

“Don’t hide from him now. You’ve been wanting his presence all morning long, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” I say. Ben doesn’t leave me waiting, sliding into the bed as soon as he’s bare.

The kiss he gives me is rougher than I’m used to with him, but I need it. I need to taste his need.

Stoneheart makes a rough sound. “Fuck, my knot will never go down if you keep making her tighten like that.”

Ben’s smile when he breaks the kiss is part dazed and part mischief. “Something I’m sure you’d hate to experience.”

Stoneheart huffs, but it sounds satisfied. His large hand comes to cradle my breast, massaging it softly before offering it to the demon.

“Careful. Your baby has made them sensitive,” he warns.

Ben’s nostrils flare, and there’s something soothing about the possessive satisfaction on his face at the mention of the child we made.

“I will be,” Ben says reverently before his head drops to worship my breasts with his mouth. The soft drawing sucks of his mouth has me losing my mind.

I moan and move as much as I’m able to while Stoneheart’s knot swells even more inside me. Someone is rubbing my clit, but I can’t quite track who.

My hands explore Ben. I didn’t get much of a chance last night. The sensation of his smooth skin and heated shadows caresses my senses. When I get to his hardness against my thigh, I can’t help but to stroke him.

He licks my nipple hard, and I shiver as he goes back to teasing them, switching to the next breast.

I inhale and nearly freeze at the scent of him. The dark sweetness. He’s not wearing the charm. He really means to stay with us and officially be a part of our clan.

We’re really going to be a family.

That beautiful revelation is interrupted by Stoneheart circling a knuckle against the delicate skin of my asshole. “And one day, you’ll learn to take both of us.”

I’m shaking my head before I even realize. “I saw how rough you were with Ben.”

Ben gasps as I tighten my hold around him without meaning to. His cheeks are pink with a blush.

Stoneheart chuckles. “We’d prepare you much better. There’s no need for the type of pain he likes.” The knuckle disappears only to press against where I’m stretched around his knot before returning to tease me, wet with our mixed releases.

“And perhaps he’ll be the one to take you here first. I’m sure he’d love to claim this part of you while we take you together.”

Ben groans, his cock hardens in my grip at the picture Stoneheart is painting, and I can’t help but want that too.

Through some magic, Stoneheart slips the swell of knot from me with a grunt. I lose my grip around Ben, and suddenly he’s filling me.

It’s a mess, but that doesn’t stop Ben from making a deep pleased sound at fucking me while Stoneheart’s cum oozes between us. It’s so slick, and I lose myself for a moment in thoughts of being marked by both of them like this, one after the other.

It makes it easier to accept the teasing stimulation of Stoneheart knuckle against my asshole. He must sense our demon beginning to break because he abandons taunting me and grabs Ben’s hips, pressing his body hard against mine, sinking his nails into the skin.

The pain is always what Ben needs because he cries out, pulsing his seed inside me. Marking me with his scent as much as his cum. The act causes me to shake and shiver along with him, as much in the throes of passion as he is.

Stoneheart sighs with contentment.

The bright warmth in my chest hums along with my own magic as the truth of our connection becomes vibrant in its glory.

This demon has bonded the three of us together, and I want it to never end.

“Stay with us?” I barely breathe the question.

Ben kisses me. “You couldn’t get me to leave even if you tried.”