No Magic Moment Read online

  Table of Contents

  Legal Page

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  New Excerpt

  About the Authors

  Publisher Page

  No Magic Moment

  ISBN # 978-1-78651-135-5

  ©Copyright Angel Payne and Victoria Blue 2017

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright February 2017

  Edited by Rebecca Baker

  Totally Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorized or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2017 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

  Totally Bound Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.

  Warning:

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Burning and a Sexometer of 2.

  Secrets of Stone

  NO MAGIC MOMENT

  Angel Payne and Victoria Blue

  Book four in the Secrets of Stone series

  Abracadabra…

  My name is Margaux Asher—and I’m in love.

  Crazy, right? Me, the girl who grew up in the lap of luxury and the shadow of cynicism, is now head-over-heels for an apple farmer’s son who rocks my world and steals my breath. He’s seen the woman beneath the princess, and loves me—for me. Trouble is…he wants all of me. But how can I commit that to him if I don’t know who ‘me’ is? There are pieces missing—and not just mine. Until Michael opens up and shares all of himself, we’re a great opening explosion, but not a lasting magic tale.

  Don’t look at the man behind the curtain…

  My name is Michael Pearson—and I’m in love.

  Margaux is the fire of my dreams, the fulfillment of my fantasies and the woman who’s asked the impossible. When your past has been hell, how is it possible to walk through it again? But fighting it isn’t an option—especially when the ghosts rise up and battle back. Especially when fate issues an ultimatum—battle back, or lose her forever. Can I do it? Is love enough to change a person’s soul, or will our magic become a forgotten moment for us both?

  Dedication

  As always, for the man of my world.

  Thomas, you and our girl make it all worth it…and teach me something wondrous every day.

  Special thanks to amazing Elisa:

  For knowing just what to say, and how to say it with your special love and humor.

  I value you so much!

  —Angel

  For Aunt Mary.

  No, it’s not Hemingway, but it is from my heart—the exact place where all of my thoughts and memories of you are from, and what can be better than that?

  Peace, happiness and pain-free days from now until eternity—wherever it is your angel wings have taken you. We love you.

  —Victoria

  Acknowledgments

  Our social media fan base! You guys are so much fun!

  The bloggers, readers and reviewers who have been behind this series from the beginning.

  Your unwavering support has meant the world to us.

  Special Angel shout out to all my Obsessenach sistahs, who remind me why striving for the best in the work is worth it. Tha gaol agam ort, my friends!

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Aberlour: Pernod Ricard S.A.

  Audi: Volkswagen Group

  BMW: Bayerische Motoren Werke AG

  Calvin Klein: Calvin Klein Inc.

  Captain America: The Walt Disney Company

  Chanel: Chanel S.A.

  Crisco: The J. M. Smucker Company

  Dick Tracy: Tribune Media Services

  Disney: The Walt Disney Company

  Dudley’s Bakery: Dudley's Famous Bakery

  Esquire: Hearst

  Ferrari: Ferrari S.p.A.

  Flashdance: Paramount Pictures

  Gucci: Kering

  Hotel del Coronado: Anbang Insurance Group

  iPod: Apple Inc.

  Jaguar: Tata Motors Limited

  June Cleaver: NBCUniversal Television Distribution

  King Kong: Radio Pictures

  Louis Vuiton: LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE

  Maserati: Maserati S.p.A.

  Patrón: Patrón Spirits Company

  Peter Pan: J.M. Barrie

  Piano Concerto No. 21 (“Elvira Madigan”): Mozart

  Pottery Barn: Williams-Sonoma, Inc.

  Ron Jon: Ron Jon Surf Shop

  Sierra: General Motors Company

  Star Wars: Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC

  Starbucks: Starbucks Coffee Company

  Stolichnaya: SPI Group

  The Andy Griffith Show: CBS Television Distribution

  The Phantom of the Opera: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart, Richard Stilgoe

  The Godfather: Mario Puzo

  The Twilight Zone: CBS Television Distribution

  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: L. Frank Baum

  This is Your Life: NBC

  Tissot: The Swatch Group Ltd.

  Tom Ford: Tom Ford

  Chapter One

  Michael

  If any moment proved I was hopelessly in love with Margaux Asher, this was it.

  Dirty water dripped down my face—technically, up my face, toward my hair—as I watched a water beetle scurry along the wall of the drain sewer off 5th and G in downtown San Diego. Yeah, the sewer I’d dove down headfirst, in the full suit I’d worn to dinner, still half-buzzed from the martinis I’d enjoyed at said dinner.

  Thank fuck for those martinis. In some strange way, they helped with my inverted equilibrium. They sure as hell didn’t hurt.

  This was about as low as I went.

  Literally.

  Laughing at my private joke wasn’t an option. I settled for grunting. Good compromise between breathing and passing out from the stench. America’s Finest City was a different world below the surface.

  “What? What is it? Do you see it, Michael? Do you see it?”

  In an instant, I forgot about the smell and the wet—and the fact that if Andre’s hold on my ankles slipped at all, I’d be reenacting the Star Wars trash compactor scene, minus t
he blasters and the Dianoga. Or so I hoped. But even facing a giant sewer snake would be worth it, to banish the dread in my woman’s voice.

  “Andre,” I barked at the burly Jamaican, “don’t let go.”

  “I got you, boss.”

  Now wasn’t the time to tell him I hated that ‘boss’ crap—and the laugh he surely intended as reassuring.

  “Michael!”

  Margaux’s cry was shrill. She’d been in this panic for at least ten minutes now, when our after-dinner walk had gone from relaxing to horrifying in the space of five seconds. Instead of gunshots, our black moment had been delivered in five pings—the sound of a small gold ring falling to the pavement then disappearing through the hole in the sewer cover.

  “Do you see it?” She choked it out this time. Hell. My girl did not like bawling, despite how much she’d softened in the three months since our relationship began. She fought the tears with everything she had. Her conflict echoed down the sewer, shattering my heart and steeling my resolve. Find the damn ring. The jewelry represented a huge chunk of her past, the only part that had meant emotional safety for her. She wasn’t strong enough to lose it yet.

  I knew it. She knew it. I just prayed Andre knew it, too.

  “Michael. Talk to me!”

  I grimaced. “Not in a position to chat right now, sugar.”

  “Just tell me if you see it.” Her breath caught again. “Please. Please tell me you—” A car horn cut her off, something sporty by the tenor of it. “Hey! The translation of Maserati isn’t ‘license to be an asshole!’”

  Andre’s grip tremored from the force of his chuckle. I grimaced then swore. “Not funny, man.”

  Margaux backed it up with a gritty girl-growl, a sound curling straight to my cock, which apparently didn’t care about its current setting. “Drop him and your testicles are mine.”

  “Not until you’ve dealt with other testicles first,” I muttered.

  “What?” she shouted.

  “You mentioned testicles,” Andre explained.

  “Oh, for—” She snorted. “You two want to focus with your big heads for once?”

  Andre snickered again. I wanted to bark at him but was busy smirking myself. God damn it if my princess wasn’t more irresistible with a pissy bee under her figurative crown. On top of that, envisioning her in the middle of the street above me, leaning over the manhole in the slinky dress and pumps she’d worn to dinner, still unsure whether to play out her stress with sass or penitence…

  Yep, it was official. Even hanging upside down in a sewer, I had a hard-on for the woman.

  The sooner I found the damn ring, the—

  “Bingo.”

  “What?” she shouted.

  “Bingo,” I yelled back, curling fingers around the small gold circle that had, by a pure miracle, caught on a steel peg to my right. ‘Miracle’ was putting it lightly. The band, not fancy, was sized for a child of nine—the age Margaux had been when she first received it. It never left her pinkie finger now—except, as we’d learned the hard way, on cold nights when her fingers contracted. It had become just as important to me once I knew the story about who had given it to her. I’d never forget the night she’d dug so deeply into her past and all its pain to give me the confession. It had been the start of our journey from friendship to passion, and finally love. The trust she’d handed over to me that night still blew me away at times. It was a gift I’d never take for granted and a responsibility I’d never diminish.

  She meant so damn much to me.

  More than I could screw up the courage to admit.

  But somewhere, somehow, I was going to have to do just that.

  She’d put the secrets of her past into my care. It was about damn time I gave the same to her.

  I’d start with giving her something more pleasant.

  “‘Dre,” I shouted. “Let’s roll it up, man.”

  “Oh, my God,” Margaux exclaimed. As soon as I emerged, brandishing the gold band, she screamed, “Oh, my God!”

  Before I could remind her I’d just been down a hole dripping with slime and runoff water, she mashed herself against me. As her body and lips molded to mine, the ecstasy of her yelp hummed through me. “I love you, Mr. Pearson,” she declared against my mouth.

  I chuckled, ordering myself to enjoy the moment—and for the time being, leave my morose thoughts from the sewer in the sewer. “I love you, too, sugar.”

  “No shit!” As she slipped the ring back on, I literally watched her reconnect with that part of herself. Joy flowed from her, but it wasn’t the only thing. She was grounded again. Solid.

  I didn’t know if that recognition was heartening or disconcerting.

  She muted the conflict by kissing me once more. Whoa. This time, there was tongue—the kind of tongue I loved. Pulling at mine, as if needing my mouth deeper inside hers…usually her fun little way of asking to have other parts inside her too. She emitted a kittenish mewl and waited for me to give back the Captain America version, before dragging away with a lust-heavy gaze.

  “The knight who saved me.”

  I smiled. “The princess who saved me.”

  “Take me home, stud. This princess aches to reward your bravery.”

  Andre had already pulled up in the BMW, waiting for us to finish the PDA as he yanked open the door to the back seat. With his other hand, he extended a small silo of baby wipes. “Not saying you smell worse than a baby’s batty, but…”

  I chuckled at his Jamaican slang. “But you’re thinking it.”

  “Never said that, either.” His lips twitched as he kept the hand extended, waiting to take the cloths I scraped from fingers to elbows.

  “Thanks, man.” I made sure our gazes met. “And not just for the cleanup.”

  As I expected, the big guy just rolled his eyes. “Not a worry, brother.”

  When he shut the door and sealed us in, I swept toward Margaux in one lunge, lowering for another kiss. Now that we weren’t in the middle of the street, I attacked her with deeper passion and growing need.

  “What if I don’t want to wait for my reward?”

  Her eyes flared at the husk in my tone. As she nudged her head up and bit into my bottom lip, she replied, “You still smell, Sir Knight.”

  “Exactly how you like me.”

  “We’ll get the car dirty.”

  “Exactly how you like it.”

  I watched my edicts curl through her, making her writhe with renewed arousal. Yeah, I was in love with a woman who reveled in orgasms on silk sheets, beneath gold shower heads, and in marble elevators—but my princess also craved being taken like a peasant, her passion just accepted and enjoyed, as raw and raunchy as she could get it. Getting her to admit that? Another thing entirely—which was why I yanked the decision from her sometimes. Told her exactly how hard she’d take it from me and love it as I did.

  “You want me to get you dirty.” I hovered my mouth over hers, tempting but not giving, while pushing a hand beneath her dress and bra. We both moaned as the bud inside stiffened. “You want me to put my naughty hands all over you…to make your body as filthy as your mind.”

  She cupped a hand to the back of my neck. Tried to drag me down for another kiss. I held fast where I was, pinching her nipple at the same time. “Say it, Margaux. Tell me you want it—and exactly how.”

  Her throat vibrated with a little snarl. She knew the sound drove me to sexual insanity. I resisted the temptation, steeling my jaw.

  “Say. It.”

  I shoved her dress open wider, trailing my hand to her other breast. Her breath snagged as I rolled the erect nipple between my knuckles.

  “I—want you,” she rasped. “God damn it, I need you, Michael.” Her fingernails dug into my neck. “Satisfied?”

  A rumble prowled up my throat. “Not yet. And you know why.”

  She shot her free hand to the front of my slacks but only worked the loop of my belt free before I caught her intention, and captured that hand. Slammed it to th
e cushion beside her head.

  Her eyes flared. Her lips parted. Her hips bucked. “Oh, Christ!”

  “You’re getting warmer.”

  “Bastard.”

  “Say it.”

  “Fine. Fine. I want you to get me dirty. To put your grimy hands all over me. To defile me with your touch…make me hot for your nasty cock.”

  As I growled approval, I was conscious of another sound blending with it—Andre’s low chuckle, fading as he disappeared behind the partition he’d activated. I grinned, knowing he’d return us to the El Cortez the long, long way. Margaux had all but ordered me to move into her condo in the swanky building after I’d terminated my lease in a heartbroken stupor three months ago, thinking I could forget her by accepting a job offer in Atlanta.

  Idiot.

  As if I’d ever forget this woman.

  As if I ever wanted to.

  I moved both hands to the front of her dress, opening it more. Let my smile widen as my stare fell to the front clasp on her bra. With a twist, I released it. With a snarl, I watched her breasts fall free.

  “Holy fuck, how I love these tits.”

  She returned my smile, purposely lifting her chest. Little minx. She knew exactly what I’d want to do then. I dipped my head, transfixed by the sight of her gorgeous, puckered nipples. I sucked one breast in, teething her flesh but licking her nipple. Margaux sighed, digging her hands into my hair, shooting a thousand points of heat down my spine, into my balls.

  I should’ve known she wouldn’t be happy with just that. The woman was like an electron, never satisfied keeping still, even when all but ordered to do so. With my attention focused on her incredible chest, she knew I wouldn’t be minding the store inside my pants. Sure enough, before I knew it, she was unzipping my fly and reaching in. With eager surety, she palmed my throbbing dick through my briefs.