GargoylesEmbrace by Lisa Carlisle Page B

the most captivating man she had ever laid her eyes on, even
with all the hot guys who came to Vamps. While her mind sought to understand
what he was exactly, her body yearned for him in other ways.
    His head jerked up and he glanced to the back entrance. “Someone’s
coming.”
    Tracy pushed erotic images of being with the gargoyle out of
her mind. “You’ve got to get out of here,” she said. “If they see a naked guy
in here, they’ll—I don’t know—jump you or call the cops. Either way, it isn’t
good.” She pictured having to explain how a stone gargoyle statue transformed
into a human and knocked out her ex. They’d lock her up thinking she was bat-shit
crazy! “For either of us,” she added.
    She threw her pepper spray in her purse and tossed her car
keys to him. “Go out the front door and wait in my car. Blue Mini Cooper.”
    He caught the keys and said, “Thank you.”
    His black-feathered wings were clearly too wide to fit
through the doorway. Tracy watched in astonishment as the beautiful wings
retracted into his back, revealing muscular shoulder blades. She blinked twice.
That couldn’t have just happened.
    Her gaze traveled to his buttocks and lingered there. She
snapped her drooling mouth shut. “Wait. Throw this on.” She threw him a white
towel she grabbed from under the bar.
    He grinned, revealing even, white teeth, and wrapped the
towel around himself. Tracy stared at the door for a good ten seconds after he
left. What the hell was she doing? Maybe she was crazy. After all, the gargoyle
statue was where it had always been. She walked over to touch the stone, which
was cool once again.
    She heard the guys chattering as they returned. Flipping a
strand of her pink hair out of her eyes and closing her gaping mouth, she put
on a stony expression.
    “Did you scream?” Jimmy asked.
    “Yeah. Thanks for rushing to my aid,” she added
sardonically.
    “Hey, we were in the middle of hauling boxes. Thought you
just saw a cockroach or something.”
    “Sort of.” She nodded to Brian’s unconscious body.
    “What the hell?” Ty exclaimed.
    “It’s my ex. He came in here all drunk and then passed out
cold.”
    “Should we call the cops?”
    Tracy debated. He shouldn’t have come tonight, but maybe
getting his ass kicked by a six-foot-plus gargoyle gave him a lesson. If she
called the cops, he’d definitely be arrested for violating a restraining order.
And she’d have a lot of explaining to do. Picturing the luscious gargoyle, she
wasn’t sure how she could manage that without getting herself recommended for
an evaluation.
    “Nah. I’ll call his roommate to come get him.”
    After reaching him, she explained. “Listen, Brian came in
here tonight all drunk and saying crazy stuff. Now he’s passed out at Vamps.
Can you come get him?”
    After he agreed, she restocked glasses on the shelves and
tried to make sense of what just happened. The only explanation was somehow she
was the one hallucinating. Then she remembered Brian unconscious on the floor
and how he made it there. Her co-workers had seen him.
    Tracy walked out into the still-warm July night and saw the
mouthwatering shirtless male in her Mini Cooper. He barely fit in the passenger
seat—his head almost touched the ceiling and his chest extended beyond the
width of her passenger seat. Whoever this Danton gargoyle guy was, he appeared
real. Splendid and real.
    She glanced around the parking lot to make sure they were
alone and then climbed into the driver’s seat.
    “How are you here? But the statue is still in the club?”
    “To keep humans from suspecting anything with our absence,
we leave a shell behind.”
    “How?” She drove away from the club, glancing in the
rearview mirror to make sure none of her coworkers saw her leaving with a
bare-chested blond god.
    Danton shrugged. “We just—will it.”
    “Hmm.” Nobody she knew could will anything like that.
    She scented an essence from him that made her heady