Guardian of the Abyss by Shannon Phoenix Page A

responses. Most of it comes from pretty long-term baggage."
    She ran her hand across his chest. "I love the feel of your skin. It's like expensive low-nap suede over stone. So soft and smooth." She laid her head down against him and rubbed across his skin, loving the feel of it against her cheek and lips.
    "Sarah," he warned her, "you are testing my resolve to do the right thing by you."
    He still thought that being 'stuck with him' would be a sentence worse than death. So she told him the truth, "I'm not going to stop trying to seduce you, Abaddon. Not when your reasons for refusing are so utterly ridiculous."
     
     
    Chapter 13
     
     
    Abaddon stood up, Sarah still in his arms. Despite her cheerful attitude, he could feel how low her energy levels were.  They needed to gather up what sunlight remained in the day.
    "We must replenish ourselves," he warned her. She shifted in his arms, and he worried for her. She still retained her human fear of the water. As a human, it had crushed the breath from her lungs when she jumped in. As a gargoyle, it would do nothing to her at all except feel like weight pushing on her.
    He said nothing, however, and jumped down. For several hours, they sat as statues in the weak sunlight that barely penetrated to their depth. It gave him a lot of time to think. He found himself trying to justify the idea of marrying Sarah. She was a gargoyle. She wasn't as confused as when she first arrived, so he wouldn't be taking advantage of her.
    Except that he would be, he had to admit to himself in the end. She wanted to be happy while she was dying, but if she didn't die, she would never forgive him. He wouldn't marry her, because that could never be undone. But what he could do, and would do, was make love to her.
    He'd lain with women in the past because he'd been forced to. This time, he would lay with her because she wanted him. He would give her both... the freedom to find someone worthy of her if she survived, and what pleasure he could bring her until she either died or survived and finally realized he wasn't as wonderful as she told herself he was.
    He was already damned. At least this time he would be damned for doing something that brought someone joy. Or at least pleasure. He knew that her soul was too beautiful and genuine to be damned. It was only his own damnation possible... and that had happened long ago.
    When the light no longer filtered down through the water, he shifted and picked her up. With gentle care, he carried her back inside. As he jumped into the cavern, water sluiced off of them in sheets, even as Sarah turned back into her humanoid form.
    "Oh no, I'm all wet," she said through their link. "Whatever shall I do?"
    "I have enough magic to dry you off," he informed her.
    She laughed and turned his head towards her. Then her lips met his as she told him mentally, "This is the kind of wet that only one kind of magic can solve."
    With the words came a fuller explanation, and he felt the power of the suggestive comment blaze a path to his groin, where he grew impossibly harder. He let her legs down until she was standing, holding her mouth with his. When she was standing, he lifted her so that her legs were around his waist. Then he let the loincloth go.
    She pulled away to look at him. As their eyes met, she blinked once, a furrow between her brows. He reached up to kiss that look of concern away.
    "You're not even going to try to argue?" she demanded.
    "No."
    "Why not?" She was clearly suspicious of his easy capitulation, and he didn't blame her.
    "Well, if the only way that your remaining days can be happy is to spend them under me, how can I tell you 'no'?" He tried for a grin, and it felt unfamiliar, but not unpleasant.
    Her eyebrows tried to get acquainted with her hairline at that. "What if I want to be on top?"
    Amusement welled up inside him and he made a strange, involuntary sound. Another came, and it sounded so strange and unfamiliar that he made another. For long