No Magic Moment (Secrets of Stone Book 4) (6 page)

“Pardon me for splitting hairs. Where I come from, ‘a shitty idea’ translates to the same thing.”

“A shitty idea
right now
.” She dumped the amber liquid into a highball then shoved it at me. “Drink. That’s not a request. You have to calm the hell down.”

“I
am
calm.”

“Not working, buddy. Not with me.” She tossed back half the liquor in her own glass. Was anything more erotic than this woman, still spilling from her schoolgirl threads, downing Scotch like a Highlander? “Just because you’re not punching the wall doesn’t mean you don’t want to.”

I shot out a huff. Downed the damn Aberlour. At least it would take the edge off my growing fantasy to fuck her again—a fact my bedraggled suit would be shit for disguising in a minute.

“You ready to listen now?” she prompted. I replied by nudging my empty glass forward, demanding another round. She obliged, though kept her stare locked on me as she tipped the bottle. “Tell me something,” she murmured. “Why do you think I’m such a freak about keeping this ring?”

I waited a second to respond. Was she serious? Did she think I didn’t know that answer? No. That wasn’t the case. But she wasn’t playing around, either. Raised with little knowledge of the word “play” at all, Margaux was only comfortable with the word in the bedroom or the shoe store. Imagine
that
. I never counted the sole occasion otherwise, when I’d coerced her to play hooky from work and enjoy some time with me on the beach. She’d sworn me to secrecy about that day…

“It represents happier times,” I finally responded. “And the woman you experienced them with.”

Her lips inched up. Her eyes softened.
Damn
. Knowing I’d touched her heart…I felt as huge as a Sequoia.

“And what else?” she pressed.

A frown pushed my forehead. “It probably centers you, too,” I guessed. “Focuses you on a stronger version of yourself.”

Long before I’d even kissed the woman, I’d figured that the sass she slung at the world was a sham, ordered there by an equal hoax of a mother. Andrea Asher had simply expected Margaux to be strong, without the necessary lessons for the integrity beneath it. Fast-food character building, doled by a woman now on the International Wanted List for her caviar taste—and the white collar crimes she’d committed to finance it.

“Hmm.” Margaux inched her grin up a little more. “That’s a good one. And true, as well.”

“But there’s more.” I inserted the word willingly this time.

“A lot more.” She set down her empty highball and made no move for a refill. Instead, she leaned against the counter, thoughtfulness taking over her face, fingers again twisting the ring.

“It’s okay,” I urged. “I’m here.”

She pulled in a deep breath. Finally uttered, “Connection.”

“Connection?”

“That’s the more. The ring…it’s connecting me. Back to…me.” She shook her head, and I almost thought she was going to laugh off the introspection. Though it made no more sense to me than her, I was glad when she pushed on anyway. “For so long—
too
long—I’ve been living as an extension of Andrea Asher’s world. Okay, so I was probably the best-dressed one in the garden, but it was still
her
garden. Yet now…”

“You don’t know what
your
garden is supposed to be about.”

Her shoulders lowered, releasing visible tension. The fact that I’d said it, not her, cleared a lot of the air between us. She reached for my hand and squeezed despite the sadness of her next words.

“Damn. I don’t even know how to start a garden.”

“Of course you do.” I grabbed her other hand. “You just don’t know it yet.”

Her eyes slid shut. When she opened them again, there was no mistaking the bright sheen across their emerald surfaces.

“I’m still missing pieces, Michael. Lots of them. How am I supposed to promise myself to you, when I don’t even know what ‘myself’ is?”

I lifted her hands to my lips. Pressed into them, acknowledging—and hating—the desperation of the move. To watch her struggle through moments like this, fighting to learn even the simplest truths about her heart, gutted me. I saw the enormous courage of that heart. I also saw the fucked-up wasteland of a childhood she’d had to drag it through—a wilderness that would’ve beaten her spirit even bloodier, if not for that ring.

“You think all of us gets to have
all
the pieces, sugar?” I released her fingers to stroke my knuckles down her cheeks. “News flash, Miss Asher. I fell in love with the pieces I already have.”

She sighed and smiled. “And I love all the pieces you’ve given me, too.”

I dropped my hands. “Shit.” Her resolute tone, added to the sigh, didn’t require a rocket science degree to interpret. “There’s another ‘but’ coming here, isn’t there?” Because this night hadn’t gone downhill fast enough from the
first
two.

She notched her chin higher. “You deserve more than pieces, Michael.” Then higher. “But so do I.”

I rolled my stare toward the ceiling. “Yep. Here it comes.”

“
Don’t
.” She stabbed a finger to my sternum. “I’m not your damn fishwife, nagging you about taking out the trash. I’m the woman who loves you—”

“Margaux—”

“And the woman you just
proposed
to.” She pushed off and stepped back. “Unless you were really just fucking around or something.”

A hundred switches of fury flipped in my blood. “Did I sound like I was fucking around?”

She folded her arms. “You want an honest answer to that?”

“Dammit.” I muttered it while dipping my head, confirming I’d already figured that part out. I’d really turned this into a crap pile, hadn’t I? Yeah, even knowing that the woman didn’t let me keep calling her “princess” just because it was a pretty word. Sometimes—a lot of times—she yearned for petticoats and chivalry, for old-fashioned school desks and rules she could push…and for a marriage proposal from a Disney movie, my knee on the ground and her ring on a pillow.

“I thought we were talking about
you
.”

“Which equates to
you
, dumb shit.”
Now
she poured herself more Aberlour. “That’s the way it still works, right? ‘The two shall become one’? ‘Lookin’ at the other half of me’? ‘Anywhere you go, let me go, too’?”

I sucked in air through my nose. Muttered back, “Yeah. That’s how it still works.”

“So maybe
you
have something to tell
me
?”

I ground my jaw.
Not without serving you a heaping plate of ugly, my love. Not without showing you my deepest pain, my worst shame—and my darkest fear. That you’ll take one look and decide
this
prince was more than you bargained for.

“Michael.” Forget princess. She stamped both syllables with queenly command, setting aside her drink to stand before me. I’d conjured her as a Highlander just minutes ago; now she was a royal one. Her stance made me wonder if the schoolgirl shirt was about to spring an ermine cape. “We’ve already been through so much.
You’ve
helped
me
past so much…”

I pushed my gaze back into hers. All her fire, spirit, passion, and love waited for me. I swallowed past a tight throat. She was so beautiful—and deserved to live every day knowing that. “I’m glad,” I murmured. “No. I’m delirious. What I said, earlier…it wasn’t just words for the middle of a good screw. I’ll be here for you, baby. Always.”

Her lips tightened. “And I love you for it. But that’s only half of what we are.
I
need to be
your
safe place, too.”

I lifted my hands toward her hips. She stepped out of reach again—dammit. She was keeping this shit real—free and clear of any pheromones, hormones, or chemistry that could get in the way.

“I’m not hallucinating this, okay?” she asserted. “Don’t think I didn’t learn anything useful from Andrea. The woman didn’t know a lullaby from a rock ballad, but she sure as hell taught me how to spot a person holding back secrets.” Her head cocked, emphasizing the muss of her hair, piling more arousal onto my tension. “You think I’ve simply ‘written it off’ that you call the police substation in Julian every week to check on the farm—not Carlo, your mom, or anyone
at
the farm? Speaking of your mom, do you really think I don’t see those strange glances you trade with her, when you assume I’m preoccupied with my phone? Are you assuming I’ve forgotten the bruises she disguised with makeup, when we went to visit over the Fourth of July?”

A lot of times, silence was really the best response. I banked on that now.

“For all your talk of wanting to help with my pieces, you’re still holding back a shit pile of yours from me, Michael.” She swallowed so hard, I heard the lump slam the bottom of her throat.
Note to self: rethink the silence-is-best thing.
“If you think I’m pissed off,” she pushed on, “then think again. You’re not pissing me off. You’re breaking my heart.”

Hell.

I reached for her again. She stumbled back again. Sometimes, being bigger and faster came in handy. I captured her after two steps, yanking her against me, growling into her hair. “Your heart is the most precious thing in my world.”

Her frame remained rigid. “You have a shitty way of showing it.”

She wasn’t going to relent. Admitting it to myself didn’t help the impression of being a lion in a corner. I couldn’t exactly swing back with teeth bared and claws out, so I chose another counterattack: pulling her head back by her scalp then crushing my lips to hers.

Sweet fuck.

Nothing like planning a little retaliation—and gaining some sweet perks.

I’d taken her by surprise, meaning she had no time to think of a defense. Everything she turned over in that kiss was her purest instinct, wild and open, sighing and free, brimming with all the fire and sensuality that had first hardened my cock, long before my idiotic brain caught on. Back in the days when she was just the boss’s daughter, a headstrong blonde with an impressive sarcastic streak, and I was another cog in Andrea Asher’s corporate wheel. I’d damn near gotten off to thoughts of kissing her like this and never understood why. Now, I comprehended every speck of it.

She was meant to be mine.

And always would be.

So why did I have to smear that with filth from my past? With degradation I’d never asked for? Why did
I
have to keep paying the price for what Declan had done?

It ends now.

Before I could stop it, my soul punched the same words over my lips. I’d broken off a kiss like
that
for it, too? What the hell?

“What the hell?” Margaux’s echo was stabbed with equal confusion “What are you talking about?”

I kissed her again. She tasted doubly as good, the bite of the Scotch mixing with the ambrosia of her passion, plunging my mouth back over hers for more. Goddamn, if I could only ravage her like this for hours…

The thought made it hell to drag away, but if she was half as affected as I was, now was the time to do it.

“It ends now.” The words dovetailed into my purpose, so why not? I punctuated by lifting her right hand off my chest and curling her pinkie finger toward my lips. As I brushed a kiss over the gold circle there, I delved my stare deep into hers—and realized my intention of mesmerizing her was a massive fail. Instead, I wondered where my lungs had stashed my air and where my brain had dumped my equilibrium. “You take my breath away.”

Her features trembled, too. Nevertheless, she prodded, “Michael?”

“This.” I tugged on her hand as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. “
This
. The ring—and all the mystery about it—why don’t we end it? For good?”

Her forehead furrowed. “Huh?”

“To accept my ring, you need to get ‘pieces’ back from this one, right?”

She added a catlike head tilt. “Why do I smell a giant pile of distract-the-girlfriend?”

“Full disclosure?” I countered. “Maybe it is a distraction. But it’s also a solid offer.” I tucked her knuckles against my chest, and let my forehead dip to hers. “Your happiness…it’s everything to me, Margaux. You keep telling me how you sense Caroline has been near, how you even think you see her sometimes.” With the slow track of one tear down her cheek, I knew her reply to that. “So why don’t we learn the answer for sure? To find her, reconnect with her…to find more of those missing parts of
you
?”

“Goddammit, Pearson.” She angrily swiped the tear. “That’s one hell of a distraction.”

I grinned. “I like pulling out the stops for you, blondie.”

She popped up on tiptoe and rammed a kiss to my lips, as if intending to punish as well as pleasure. Did I dare tell her that the only true punishment for me was a life without her? Hell, no. First, the tinge of salt on her lips turned her into a pure taste of heaven. Second, I vowed to make so many of her dreams come true, she’d never want to leave my arms.
This
dream was one of the biggest: the quest for Caroline Beacham, the woman who’d been more mother to her than Andrea Asher ever was, then paid the price for it by being banished from Margaux’s world when Margaux was just a kid. After pulling
that
loser move, Andrea had ordered no tears be shed over the matter. Almost two decades had passed since then. Margaux still didn’t know what had happened to Caroline.

My girl’s single tear, even now, was a blaring broadcast of how meaningful a reunion with the woman would be—no matter how hard she tried disguising it with a snarky smirk.

“For the love of Gucci.” Like every good princess, her favorite colloquialisms were a creative take on the almighty. “I really need to be more careful, don’t I?” She wound her hands around my neck and tugged at the ends of my hair. “When you’re up to something, you’re really up to something.”

I snaked my lips upward. “I like being ‘up’ for you, sugar.”

Her answering smile could cut miles through the emerging fog outside—not to mention my cock, now straining to prove my words as truth to her. “Incorrigible.”

I flipped up her skirt. “Just the way you like me.”

She hitched her hips around my waist. “Just the way I
love
you.”