No Magic Moment Read online

  Not a concern for now.

  I shivered on the way to the car. The nighttime temperature had dropped considerably, so I was thankful Andre waited nearly right outside the doorstep, with the car already running.

  “Damn, it’s gotten cold tonight.” I hustled into the 750i. Andre had also turned on the seat heaters so it was nice and toasty once he shut the door.

  “You called it quits early,” he remarked as he climbed in. “The girls’ night out isn’t what it used to be?”

  “We…had an unexpected turn of events.”

  “I see.”

  The curiosity in his tone was glaring and I really wanted to tell him the news, but not before Michael. We’d let Andre in on the excitement when deciding, together, that it was time. Some people waited until they were further along to announce and maybe that would be our plan.

  God, another decision. There seemed so many now. I let out a heavy sigh and dropped my head back against the seat.

  Once home, I went straight up to our room, where I heard Michael watching TV.

  “Hey,” he greeted, muting the volume then sitting up. Despite the continued churn in my belly, I could appreciate the delicious sight of him, shirtless and chiseled in a pair of low-slung navy sweat pants. I was a damn lucky girl.

  I desperately hoped he felt the same way in a few minutes.

  “Hey.” I averted my eyes, dropping my purse—imagining a diaper bag plopping down next to it.

  Oh, my fucking God.

  “How was girls’ night? You’re home much earlier than I expected.” I felt the intensity of his scrutiny. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Everything is great. I’m—I’m just not feeling well.” I hurried into the closet to change into pajamas. “Actually, Claire and I have the same thing.”

  “Well, you work in the same office. Maybe it’s in the water.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  I overlaid it with grim weariness. Contrary to that ridiculous old wives’ tale, this definitely hadn’t come from drinking the SGC water.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Michael

  Ha-ha?

  Never, in the nearly two years I’d known the woman, had she let anyone out of a smartass comment with something like ha-ha.

  I sat up straighter, punching the remote to turn off the football stats show. For a long second, just listened to her rustling in the closet. Her movements were slow, almost hesitant. “You sure everything’s fine? Did you and Claire have a tiff or something?”

  She giggled. It sounded maniacal. “No.”

  “Can I get you something? Ibuprofen? Some crackers?”

  “No.” Softer this time. And weirder.

  “Is it just your time of the month?”

  The crazed giggle again. “Ha! No.”

  Well, that did it. I swung off the bed, tossed aside the remote and marched to her closet—

  Where I froze in the doorway.

  She wasn’t standing in front of her drawers, as I’d expected. I found her crumpled on the floor in her panties and a T-shirt that read Wake the Princess at Your Own Peril. Her hands were balled against her thighs, her sleep shorts twisted between them. Tension dragged visibly on her shoulders and defined her spine. With her back to me, I couldn’t see her face—nor was sure I wanted to, if the apprehension in my gut was an accurate predictor.

  This really wasn’t a typical girls’ snit. Not PMS, either. And sure as hell more than a little bug she’d picked up at work.

  A thousand what-ifs rained on me like locusts. What was I missing? Or was this yet another squall threatening to capsize our boat again, something I couldn’t figure out yet?

  “Margaux.”

  She jerked and gasped as if I’d materialized from thin air. “Damn it,” she snapped. “What?” But in doing so, gave me a fast enough glimpse of her face to spur me to motion.

  “Margaux.” I fell to my own knees in front of her. “Sweetheart.” I pushed thumbs against her jaw, lifting her anguished face, running fingers over its distraught creases. “What is it?”

  “I—” She twisted her face to the side, eyes jamming closed. “I don’t know how to—”

  “How to what?” I spread my fingers, framing her face urgently. “Christ, baby. You’re scaring me. Did I do something?”

  She spurted out a laugh, once more pitched with hysteria. “Did you do something? Hmmm. That’s a fun way of saying it.”

  “What? Tell me so I can undo it.”

  She snickered—another crazy burst after this and I’d just chalk up everything tonight to tequila shots that had gone too far—and shook her head. “Nope. Sorry. No Undo key on this one, buddy.”

  I dropped my hands. “Okay. Not going to guess at this one anymore. I give up.”

  “Might be the best idea, stud—because you knocked me up.”

  Not too much tequila.

  The absurdity of the thought, along with the wallop of her words, knocked me onto my ass. Another giggle spilled from her, but this time I didn’t mind. Not one damn bit. On the other hand, there could’ve been nails under my ass that I didn’t mind, either. I couldn’t feel a fucking thing beyond the roaring in my ears, the tumult in my blood—

  The jubilation in my soul.

  I lifted my stare back to her, speechless with wonder, wild with joy. As thoroughly as she’d awakened my heart when walking into the room, she was a goddamn defibrillator on me now.

  “Are…you sure?”

  She peered at me from beneath her lashes. “Are you happy?”

  “You’re not answering my question.”

  “You’re not answering mine.” She tangled her shorts tighter. “Are you happy, Michael? Damn it, it wasn’t like I did this on purpose, okay? Accidents happen, and—”

  I silenced her by surging forward, smashing my mouth over hers, holding as much of my sudden anger back from it as I could. “That phrase isn’t to be spoken again,” I ordered, “until our little girl spills her milk for the first time.”

  A tentative smirk teased her lips. “Little girl? You sure about that, stud?”

  I meshed our lips together, softer on her now, working the tip of my tongue between the warm cushions of her lips. “A little girl,” I whispered, “with huge green eyes, bright blonde braids and an imp’s smile of mischief.”

  She twined fingers into my hair. “And her daddy wrapped around her finger?”

  “Surely.” I grinned. “Because she’ll know she wasn’t an accident.” I pressed her back until we were sprawled on the floor, there between her highest heels and her glitziest gowns, the sparkles of the princess I’d fallen inexorably, irreversibly in love with…to depths I could never even imagine, until now. “She’ll know she was brought into the world because her daddy couldn’t get enough of her mommy…and that he never will.”

  She sighed, curling a leg higher on my waist as I dipped a hand lower…beneath her sexy little panties. Her pussy was an oven, welcoming my fingers with dripping tightness, sparking my desire to the same level as my adoration.

  “Just like she’ll never get enough of him. Ohhh!” She let out the little squeal as I impatiently twisted the scrap of lace, finally tearing it away. Able to touch her without barriers, I groaned from the ecstasy of thrusting another finger into her wet passage.

  I needed to claim her. Tonight more than any other.

  “I love you so much, princess.” I nipped and licked into the curve of her neck, along the gorgeous line of her jaw. “Will you let me show you how much? With every inch of my body?”

  With her head thrown back, her reply was the most arousing rasp I’d ever heard. “Yes. Oh, yes.”

  She hooked a toe into the back of my sweats then yanked down hard. Goddamn, I loved her toes. And her fingers. And her lips. And her—

  No more list-making. No more thoughts at all, swept away in the two seconds my cock kissed the air before sliding up into her wet, tight heat.

  We rolled into a rhythm that let us gaze and kiss, smile and adore,
connect and complete as our orgasms built like embers into fire.

  It was perfect.

  It was also kind of crazy.

  An hour ago, I was a guy relaxing after work with the sports shows. Now, life was completely different in the most amazing ways, like the universe had waved a magic wand while I wasn’t looking.

  And wasn’t that the key to magic?

  It wasn’t moments orchestrated into being. It was the surprise that came from surrendering, believing…

  Loving.

  And God, did I love this woman. The forgiveness she’d given my soul. The completion she’d given my life. The future I beheld in her eyes. The child she carried in her womb.

  The heart she held in her hands.

  Yeah. Magic.

  The…Beginning

  Coming Soon from Totally Bound Publishing:

  Secrets of Stone: No Lucky Number

  Angel Payne and Victoria Blue

  Released 14th March 2017

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  My rolling luggage beat a steady click-click-click on the pavement breaks as I walked up to the VIP security checkpoint at the terminal of San Diego’s Lindbergh Field. I knew this trip would be a turning point in my career, but a funny feeling nagged at the back of my mind, predicting it would be more than just that.

  I’d been feeling stagnant for a while, wanting so desperately to move forward, though continuing to be anchored in the same place. This trip, while only a few days, was the change I needed. Our cosmetics line at Stone Global Corp. was finally ready to take flight. Consequently, so were we—to launch the new line and all its products at Cosmetics Con, the internationally-attended trade show that took place each year in the City of Sin. What better place to get out of a funk than nonstop Las Vegas?

  The team, consisting of Drake Newland, Fletcher Ford, and me, was taking SGC’s corporate jet from San Diego to Las Vegas. A thirty-five-minute flight would take us right to the bright lights of the neon Strip in the Mohave Desert. I’d been to Vegas a few times before with my family—Auntie Maisie’s fondness for dollar slots was the stuff of in-jokes for us all—but I had a feeling this trip would be very different from hanging out with my parents, siblings, three uncles, three aunts, five cousins and a baker’s dozen of nieces and nephews.

  That premonition didn’t have a thing to do with my travel mates.

  Okay, maybe a little something.

  Drake Newland.

  Fletcher Ford.

  Oh God.

  It was all Claire’s and Margaux’s fault. They were the ones responsible for the anxiety practically eating me alive. We’d had a girls’ night last week at my place and, once they learned I was taking this trip with Drake and Fletcher, the taunting advice and playful jabs had begun in full. They’d teased me with all the love in their hearts, but I still couldn’t erase their words from my frontal lobe.

  “Those two can smell a girl like you coming a mile away.” That was the only G-rated dig I could recall. By the end of the night and after a good amount of Patrón, I was getting advice on what lingerie to pack—and not to pack. I was certain my usually olive-colored skin had gone three shades of rose after that one, but Claire and Margaux were good at doing that to me on a regular basis. I hadn’t been sure if they were truly serious or just trying to see how crimson they could make me.

  “Good morning, Miss Perizkova. You look lovely today.”

  I glanced up at the uniformed steward who appeared just as I cleared security, not quite sure how to react.

  “Stop flirting with my girl, Martinez.”

  As the man chuckled, heat crept across my cheeks. Fletcher Ford appeared by my side, swiping my rolling bag before it left the TSA belt. The SGC board member, innovator and creative taskmaster—not to mention dead-on Justin Timberlake lookalike—who’d helped start up this new wing of the company fell into step with me as we headed toward our flight.

  “Mr. Ford.” I tried to give his physique, perfectly fitted in Armani today, as discreet a onceover as I could. “Good day.”

  “Well, it’s a good day now,” he murmured in return.

  Time for a new subject. Pronto.

  “I can handle my own bag, thank you.”

  I snatched at my roller. He moved the luggage just out of my reach. “Darling, I’m sure you can handle a lot of things for yourself, but would it kill you to allow me to be a gentleman now and then? Come on. Let all of my mama’s hard work do some good.” He laid on the killer smile that had earned him the devil’s own reputation. My resistance turned to dust.

  “Where’s Drake? Err, I mean Mr. Newland?”

  And I’d asked that…why? The two men made me almost speechless when I was with them one-on-one. When they were together, which was damn near all the time these days, I became a bumbling fool. I should’ve been grateful for the reprieve.

  Fletcher smiled again—though this time a bit of sadness seemed to flicker in his blue eyes. “What’s wrong? You don’t like just me?”

  “That’s not what I meant at all.” Now I felt like an idiot. “Really, I didn’t—”

  He put me out of my rambling misery with a steady hand on my forearm. “Easy, Tolly. I was just yanking your pretty chain.”

  “Why do you call me that?”

  “What? Tolly? It’s your name, isn’t it? Talia?” He said my full name more dramatically—before adding that damn grin again. Thankfully, we were nearing the plane and I could get away from the uneasiness of having to worry about witty chit-chat. While we were interacting professionally, I could hold my own, but this personal stuff was so far out of my league. I was never really good at it with normal guys, let alone a smooth, gorgeous god like him.

  He opened the door to the tarmac and the San Diego sunshine instantly warmed me. A grin spread across my lips. We were having one of the mildest winters I could remember, and it was wonderful. I really loved living in Southern California.

  “Of course,” I finally answered him. “I’ve just never been called anything but Talia.”

  “Maybe it’s time for things to change then, hmmm?” Before I could generate something cute to volley back, he nodded toward Stone Global’s private jet, sleek and white, waiting across the pavement. “And there’s the other subject of your wonderment—already getting on board the plane, I see.”

  I followed his line of vision to the top of the jet’s entry stairs, where Drake Newland was ducking his tall frame to fit into the doorway. His short hair was spiked in its usual perfect fashion, his tight, muscular body molded into his custom-fit, buttoned-down dress shirt.

  Not that I noticed the fit of his clothes.

  Okay, I noticed. But it was hard not to—with either of these men. They were tall, handsome, and very well-defined. I’d been working with them on the development of the cosmetics line at SGC for many long months, over many long hours. I would have had to have been dead not to notice their jaw-dropping physical appeal.

  And their flirtatiousness.

  Oh, yeah. That.

  As in, flirtatiousness. All the time.

  In the beginning, I told myself they simply behaved that way around all females, until Claire and Margaux insisted that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t long before Taylor Matthews, my girlfriend from the tech division’s sales department, added her own agreement to that theory. After that, I began to watch Drake and Fletcher a little more closely. For research purposes only, of course.

  And what had that research told me?

  At the moment, the only female I could pinpoint their pulling out all the blatant charm and urbane behavior around for—was me.

  So what did I want to do with that recognition?

  I had no idea.

  The truth of it thrilled me.

  But really, it terrified me.

  Order your copy here

  About the Authors

  USA Today bestselling romance author Angel Payne has been reading and writing her entire life, though her love for romances began in junio
r high, when writing with friends on “swap stories” they’d trade between classes. Needless to say, those stories involved lots of angst, groping, drama and French kissing.

  She began getting a paycheck for her writing in her twenties, writing record reviews for a Beverly Hills-based dance music magazine. Various entertainment industry gigs and a number of years in the hospitality industry later, Angel returned to the thing she loves the most—creating character-based romantic fiction. Along the way, she also graduated with two degrees from Chapman University in Southern California, taking departmental honors for English, before writing five historical romances.

  Angel found a true home in writing contemporary-based romances that feature high heat and high concepts, focusing on memorable alpha men and the women who tame them. She has numerous book series to her credit, including the Secrets of Stone series (with Victoria Blue).

  Angel still lives in Southern California, where she is married to her soulmate and lives on a street that looks like Brigadoon, with their awesome daughter and Lady Claire, the dog with impeccable manners. When not writing, she enjoys reading, pop culture, alt rock, cute shoes, enjoying the outdoors, and being a gym rat.

  Email: [email protected]

  Victoria Blue lives in her own portion of the galaxy known as Southern California. There she finds the love and life sustaining power of one amazing sun, two unique and awe inspiring planets and three indifferent, yet comforting moons. Life is fantastic and challenging and every day brings new adventures to be discovered. She looks forward to seeing what’s next!

  Email: [email protected]

  Angel and Victoria love to hear from readers. You can find their contact information, websites and author biographies at www.totallybound.com