Mona Lisa Awakening

Chapter Two

Darkness welcomed me. Cold wind licked across my skin, soothing me. The stars winked and the waxing moon, three-quarters full, beamed benevolently down, its invigorating rays caressing my face. I walked quickly down the street, alert, watching, searching with that extra sense. There was no one. No one else out there like me. They had either come and gone, or they had not yet come.

With Gryphon's blood scent gone, there was no way to detect if he had passed this way. My heart clenched as I wondered if he had. Passed this way, that is. Perhaps he had changed his mind and fled. The thought of him weak and alone out there quickened my steps. I entered the apartment, a modest brick building, and passed by the elevator—it would be too slow. I walked to the stairwell and took the steps six at a time in that effortless strength that had always seemed a part of me, bounding up the seven flights of stairs in less than a minute. I stood before my door, hesitating. Then I heard it, that wonderfully slow heartbeat.

"It's me," I whispered and the door opened.

I slipped inside. The locks clicked loudly into place in the fluid silence and Gryphon stepped back quickly, careful not to touch me. The room was dark, no lights, but I saw him clearly. He was more beautiful than any man had a right to be. The alabaster white of his skin and deep red of those full lips were a siren's call that I had no desire to resist, and his sad blue eyes had a quiet allure I could not deny. He smelled like the night—a faint scent or trees, wind, and earth. He smelled like home.

Deliberately I breathed him in, taking the scent of him deep inside of me with a fierce, possessive joy. This was what I had been waiting over twenty long, parched years for. A messenger from my world, an initiator into my real life. This was what had been vitally missing in the few men that I had taken into my body. None that I had been intimate with was of my chemistry, my kind. I hadn't known what was wrong with them, with me, until that moment when I had sensed Gryphon with primitive recognition in that sterile emergency room. Mate. Now he was here, in my apartment, waiting for me in my home.

Some strange malady possessed me. A bold, aggressive spirit that I had not known was within me came to the fore and controlled my next actions, and I succumbed to it because my body wanted him, and my heart desired him, too.

Gryphon stepped back as I approached, a hand held up in strained beseechment. "No." He shook his head as I advanced, retreating until his back was pressed against the wall. "It would not be wise. Mona Sera…"

"You left her."

"But she still thinks of me as hers, to punish, to destroy."

"Bur you are not hers." I stopped, my body a mere whisper away from his. "Don't you want to be mine?" My hot breath wafted over the pale sweep of his neck just above where that slow pulse pounded. "Don't you want me to be yours?"

He shuddered and closed his eyes. "More than I wish to live."

My eyes glittered in triumph.

"But it would not serve you well."

I pushed away from him and he breathed deeply in relief until I pulled loose the elastic band, spilling my black hair to fall in an inky wash down my back, around my shoulders, the front strands teasing over the gentle rise of my breasts.

Gryphon froze in a stillness so deep he seemed like carved marble.

"You told me to seduce the men and make them mine." I kicked off my shoes.

He swallowed, his jaw clenched. "So that they would be bound to you and protect you."

I bent over. Watching him watch me, I pulled up one pant leg, smoothed down a sock. Both of us watched it fall to the ground.

"There is no need to seduce me." His voice was gratifyingly strained. "I would protect you to the best of my ability without claiming you."

"I know." I pushed down the other sock. He stared, seemingly fascinated at the simple sight of my bare feet.

"You already have the benefit without the risk." He breathed heavily as I untied my pants and let them fall in a pool around my feet.

"If you take me, Mona Sera's rage will be great," he said hoarsely but there was a wild inconsistency between his spoken words and what his eyes bespoke. He wanted me.

"Rage great or little, she'll still want to kill us both, you said."

Slowly, oh so slowly, I lifted my top up. His eyes fastened on the smooth roundness of my belly and his breathing grew harsher.

He tore his eyes away from the yearning indentation of my belly and forced himself to look up into my eyes. "Your chance of surviving her will be greater if we restrain ourselves."

I ignored his noble plea and pulled off my top and dropped it to the floor. No bra. Gryphon clenched his fists, his eyes falling irresistibly down to my small, high, firm breasts. The peaks stiffened and pebbled beneath his gaze and I felt a wave of triumphant satisfaction wash over me at the knowledge that the sight of my body could affect a man so powerfully, bringing a flush to his face and a tremor to his hands. It was glorious.

"Our chances of survival with Mona Sera are small either way," I whispered. "Don't you want to live now, fully? I do. I want to touch you. Have you touch me in return. I want to know what it's like to take a man into my body and truly enjoy it." I closed my eyes. "My body weeps for you. I want you so much. I've never felt like this before, ever."

"You wear silver," Gryphon said with surprise.

It took me a moment to comprehend what he was saying, so caught up was I in what I was feeling. My hand flew up to the cross I wore always around my neck, covering it. "I'm sorry. Does it hurt you?"

"Why would it hurt me? It lies against your skin, not mine."

"Does the holy cross bother you in any way?" I undid the clasp, walked away from him and dropped it into the drawer of a credenza set against the wall. Then I turned back to him. With the distance of the room between us, I felt that peculiar possession leave me and felt myself reverting back to my old self, filled with trepidation and self-consciousness, remembering once again that pain, not pleasure, was all that I usually harvested when I tangled men upon my bedding sheets.

"We can touch and look at the holy cross and enter churches without impunity. It is only the silver content that irritates us. Does not the feel of silver against your flesh disturb you in any manner?"

I shook my head in denial and crossed my arms over my bosom, coldly naked, coldly aware that I inhabited a body men would never consider voluptuous. That awareness prompted me to venture the conclusion: "Perhaps you are not pleased with my body."

"No," Gryphon said gravely. "Your body is most pleasing to me."

But in the sudden chaos of my emotions, I could not discern the truth of his words. I did not believe him. The pull between us was there and strong, but that seemed to be instinctive, something he couldn't control. His willful choice, however, was clear. He hadn't moved. He did not want me.

"I'm sorry." I laughed brittlely. "I don't seem to be too good of a seductress. Men are attracted to me at first but afterward they say I'm cold. And I am. Frozen inside."

"We are not attracted to humans," he explained again, quietly, patiently. "We do not feel with them what we would feel with another of our kind."

The irony was that I wasn't sure whether he included me in with those humans. "I see. You're right, of course, about us. We shouldn't…" I inched toward the haven of my bedroom. "I shouldn't have tried to force myself on you. I'm sorry."

Gryphon crossed the ten feet between us with one giant leap, moving so quickly, he wasn't even a blur. He was just suddenly standing there, an inch away from me. I gasped.

"I've changed my mind," he said softly, perverse man that he was.

Anger flared up, burning away my self-consciousness in a wonderful wash of cleansing heat. "I don't want your pity," I hissed, backing away from him, retreating into my bedroom, silently cursing the vagaries of all men, no matter what their kind.

"Good. Neither do I desire yours," he said shortly, pursuing me until the back of my knees bumped against the mattress. My bedroom was so small there was no room for anything other than the bed and bureau and a few feet of walking space.

"The last emotion I feel for you is pity," Gryphon said, his eyes soft and luminous. Unbuttoning his top two buttons, he tore his shirt over his head and let it drop to the ground. The sound of a zipper rasped loudly in the tense silence. Gracefully, he stepped out of his pants and stood before me, baring even more of himself to me than I had to him. I still had on my underwear. All that adorned him now was the white bandage on his left side. It did nothing to hide his glory.

I sank down onto the bed, my knees suddenly weak, marveling at the revelation of how lovely the male form could be. Clothes had hid him, masking him in commonness. Unclothed, his full beauty was revealed. He was divine.

I let my eyes wander freely over him, to and fro, over the excessive loveliness of his form. Allowed my visual senses to gorge without restraint on the sensual feast that he was after a lifelong famine. His chest rippled, more muscular than I could have imagined, more than that brief, tantalizing glimpse of his abdomen had hinted of when I had tended to his wound.

He was sleek, powerful, dangerous. A graceful, deadly predator with wide shoulders that tapered down to slim hips, powerful thighs, and thick calves roped with muscle. The only soft thing about him was his swathe of dark hair that fell in thick waves to tease his shoulders. My hands itched with the need to bury themselves in the long strands, to discover if they would be as soft and silky to the touch as they promised to be. His chest was smooth perfection, needing no other adornment but the twin areolas that were the color of warm chestnuts and would no doubt be as tasty. Crisp strands of hair arrowed down his lower belly to bush in a dark frame around his stiff, rampant rod that rose up eagerly to meet me, an elegant melding of form with function. It brushed against the hard ridges of his abdomen, bobbing almost as if in greeting. A nervous giggle escaped me and I clamped a hand over my mouth.

"Do you not still want me, Mona Lisa?" he asked softly, his dark eyes glowing.

I licked my dry lips. His sizzling eyes followed the movement.

"I will always want you," was my simple, truthful reply.

His eyes squeezed shut, then opened, his eyes blazing like burning sapphire. "You are more than I ever hoped to find, a Queen I never dared to even dream of. Will you not lay your hands upon me? Grant me permission to lay my hands upon you?"

He crawled with sinuous grace onto the bed, his knees resting on either side of me, sinking down onto the mattress, moving carefully as if afraid of frightening me. He needn't have bothered. The extreme lust I was feeling for him, the desperate control I was exerting to not fall ravenously on him and devour him up was scaring me near to death as it was. I scooted back a few inches and fell onto my back as he straddled me and lowered himself down, his arms braced on either side of my head, stopping just short of contact in an unnatural distance that was harder to maintain than just the natural touching of skin against skin would have been.

"Do you not wish to touch me?" he asked.

"Yes." Oh, sweet mother may I, yes! Taking a deep breath, I reached out a trembling hand and lay my fingers upon his chest. His skin was cool and smooth, silken skin over living rock. It felt so good it edged toward pain. We both groaned with the thrill of contact. I snatched my hand back.

He rolled in a fluid motion onto his left side. I turned to face him. He reached out his right hand and I was comforted, reassured when I saw its fine trembling. He touched me lightly in the same spot that I had touched him, just above the heart. I gasped at the pleasure of it. Nothing more, just that light touch, and liquid desire trickled down my thigh. The scent of my arousal thickened and permeated the room. Gryphon's nostrils flared and he breathed harshly, deeply, but did nothing more. When I could stand it no longer, I reached out and placed my entire palm flat against his chest. He shuddered and grated, "Yes. More."

I stroked him, unable to stop myself, not wanting to, and his hand moved as mine did. A light stroke along the collarbones, a second hand to trace along the line of his shoulder, down the slope of his arm. I buried both hands in the cool falling silk of his hair that felt even better than I had imagined, and made a surprising discovery at his nape. "You have soft, downy… feathers?"

He hummed an acknowledgment, absorbed in the feel and play of my own hair.

Suddenly, I had to taste him. I whispered my need, "Gryphon," and rose up on my knees and lowered my lips to his. Satin smoothness. Sweet coolness. And soft. So soft. I brushed my lips against his, enjoying the smooth glide of skin against silken skin until he moaned his need for more and parted his lips. My tongue slipped into the shockingly warm cavern of his mouth and I lapped along his teeth, traced the wet lining of his cheeks, and brushed against the roughness of his tongue. Gryphon groaned again, gripped my shoulders, and pulled me down to him. The pleasure-pain of flesh against flesh, the meeting of my peaked nipples against the smooth hardness of his chest, the brush of his warm, swollen member against my soft belly spurred him into action. He rolled, pinning me beneath him, his lips moving aggressively against my lips, his tongue entwining with mine in a rub-slide-enter-retreat plunging motion that had me parting my legs and arching my hips against his. I pulled him to me, wanting more of his delicious weight. I slid my hands with frantic greed down his back, over his slender waist, to the succulent rounded globes of his bottom, urging him to come into me.

His hot mouth moved down my cheek, onto my neck, and I gave pounded. He filled his mouth with my flesh, pressed his teeth down with restrained ferocity, growling with his desire to pierce the flesh and taste the sweet blood. But instead of biting me, he sucked hard and released me, laving me with his rough tongue, and dipped down to taste the hollow at the base of my neck.

"Tell me you want me," he said roughly.

"Yes," I cried.

He took my nipple into his mouth, laving the sensitive tip again and again.

"Please, Gryphon." I gasped.

"Yes, say my name." His voice rumbled in a pleasant sensation against my breast. "Tell me you need me."

"I need you now. Please."

He bit down gently on my nipple and I reared up, crying out as he tugged and sucked with leashed savagery, his other hand molding, caressing, squeezing my other breast, his thumb rubbing over the nipple, sending thrilling sensations spearing through me.

"Oh, God. Gryphon… Gryphon!"

"Yes, yes. Say my name," he said hoarsely, his other hand sliding down my stomach to brush through my curls. He parted my folds and slipped a finger into me and I stilled in shock at the wonderful, surprising sensation—such magnificent pleasure—not even daring to breathe as he stroked gently in and out.

"You're so tight. Relax, yes. Let me…" He slid a second finger into me and I quivered uncontrollably and whimpered, my lashes fluttering shut. He stroked and soothed me with his other hand as he pushed in past the second knuckle, then further.

"Yes, that's it," he crooned. "How beautiful, how sweet you are. More than I ever dreamed." He stretched me wide with his fingers then slid out. His weight lifted, and my eyes flew open with a cry of protest that stopped as he stood and pulled me forward until my hips hung over the edge of the bed, lifting my legs over his shoulders. His cheeks were slashed with color and his dark eyes glittered like blue diamonds. With his eyes locked on mine, he guided himself into me, filling me slowly as my eyes widened at the incredible feel of him, at the supreme agony of being stretched by him.

"Oh." I breathed at the breathtaking miracle of wet pleasure instead of dry pain.

"You're so hot. So hot." He panted. "Yes, like that. Take me. Am I hurting you? "

"No. Your wound… "

"I'm fine." He groaned and thrust in all the way. "Fine," and started to move.

"Yes." I moaned and held myself still for fear of aggravating his wound, of hurting him while he devastatingly destroyed me with his deeply measured strokes. I watched him, drank him in, the sight of him, the feel of him—the sweet agony of pleasure clenching his face, the Tightness of his body sliding into mine, letting him control it all while I took him and held him tightly within.

He began to move faster, muscles rippling, straining, as he thrust deeper, more forcefully, destroying me, tearing me apart with such frightening pleasure. I felt myself tighten even more, moving toward something that grew and grew in power. And when I thought he could not be more savagely beautiful, he began to glow. We began to glow, a light that started at our joining and spread up our entire bodies, filling us with an incandescent glory that made his skin translucent and limed his mink-black hair with a halo of light, lighting him with a terrible beauty that brought tears of agony and joy to my eyes. Yes, came the thought. This is what we were meant to be, and that power swept over me, flooded me, tore me apart, and rebuilt me even stronger. I convulsed, pulsing and pulsing and pulsing. Blindly above me, I heard Gryphon cry out, "Mona Lisa… mine!" and then he was pumping hotly inside me, groaning sorely, dearly, as he filled me with his seed.