No Magic Moment (Secrets of Stone Book 4) (16 page)

“I need you, princess. I need to know we’re okay again. To be a part of you again.”

She didn’t answer in words. Just swiveled her head up and down and as she clutched me tighter, compelling me closer.

“Say it.” I pressed the words into her skin. Added a hard bite into the valley beneath her ear. At the same time, I slid a hand along the sleek line of her hip and the perfect indent of her waist, gliding my touch higher, higher… “Say it to me. Tell me you want it, too.”

“Yes.” She lifted higher, pushing at me like a flower into the sun, opening more with every moment. She was so real about what she wanted…and needed to give in return. “Oh yes, Michael.”

I swallowed hard, humbled in ways I never imagined. I had no right to claim her like this, no right to expect anything from her after the hell of the last two days, followed by the story I’d just dropped on her like a three-ton brick. But here she was, writhing and pulling and biting and kissing as if our passion were her sustenance and she’d been fasting for two days.

I pushed my hand up, toward the perfect promise of her breast. She sighed and shivered as her hardened, visible through her bra
and
T-shirt.

I bypassed it.

Instead, I reached for the windblown hair across her face. The strands, soft as the lavender they smelled like, were the beginning of the balm I badly needed. Touching her, breathing her, loving her…I suddenly couldn’t get enough. She alone could erase the last twenty-four hours of concrete, steel, and iron bars.

“I do love you.” I uttered it only for her, for she was the only thing that mattered. The purest light in my world. The beautiful blade who’d been brought to cut my life wide open…then heal it. “And I promise, I
promise,
there will never be secrets between us again.”

She grabbed my hand. Pressed it against her cheek. Stared up at me with the smile of an angel but the gaze of a temptress. “I’m going to hold you to that, motherfucker.”

A laugh erupted—the kind of sound only she could pull from me—filling every inch of my body and fissure in my soul. Only now, the feeling was…more. So much more. Where I’d basked in it before, I drowned now, and never wanted to come back up for air. The truth glared so brightly now. The secrets,
my
secrets, had barred me from this…walled me off from this tidal wave of joy and freedom and fearlessness.

Why the hell hadn’t I come clean with her sooner?

I curled my fingers against her scalp and lifted her face, kissing her with hunger and desire that climbed by the second. When we dragged apart, our stares were heavier, our breaths harder. “I’m sorry,” I finally uttered. “For everything.”

I didn’t need to elaborate. The fresh light in her eyes told me she’d already been through the list. “Shut up and touch me, stud.”

With my hand still cradling her head, I gently lowered her to the rock floor beneath us. “My princess commands…”

The corners of her lips inched up at the fervent promise in my voice. I kissed them both while skimming my hand beneath her shirt and working my way up to her bra.

Front clasp.
Fuck, yes.

After twisting the closure free, I thumbed one of her nipples then the other. Both stiffened at once for me—well, harder than they’d been before. They formed the lushest fruit I’d ever seen, begging to be unwrapped from her delicate white tee, the erect stems nested in areolas the shade of fresh apricots.

I groaned. Margaux whined. Her head snapped back as she lifted her chest higher. “Yessss. Ohhhhh!”

Her needy cry was a siren’s song. My head dipped in its thrall, driving my mouth to one of her breasts. I sucked on her right through the cotton, only adding to the feeling that we were a pair of hormone-crazed kids playing hooky in the middle of a Monday morning. Her nipple strained against the fabric, tempting me to take more. I didn’t hesitate. Her mound consumed my mouth. Her arousal dominated my will.

She was, in every sense of the word, my princess. My goddess. My savior. My strength. I rejoiced in the scent of her desire. Craved her pulse on my tongue. Existed, in this moment, for one sole purpose: to give her the best pleasure of her life.

Lust fed my blood and powered my movements, including the slide of my hand under her skirt. With silken strokes and fervent squeezes, I tracked up her thigh and over her lush hip, where my fingers hit the edge of her panties.

“
Fuck
—”

“Yes!” she finished for me.

I traced the top edge of the lace. “I need what’s in here.”

“Then take it.”

Normally, that’d be my cue to tear away the lingerie—but if there was any time for leashing the caveman, it had arrived.
She came first
.
Now and always.
I’d proved it once by spilling my guts an hour ago. Proving it in this way was going to be a hell of a lot more fun—no matter how vigorously my cock battled the decision.

“Soon, princess.”

The luscious peaks of her breasts instantly betrayed the effect of my hated promise…and how her body had hated our separation as much as mine. I didn’t cloak any of my own arousal while gazing at her erect nipples, parted lips, and strained neck, throbbing with the wild cadence of her pulse. She was already a taut, sizzling wire, and I couldn’t wait to electrify her even more.

With slow deliberation, I trailed my hand inward, caressing more of that soft French lace until hovering over the silk triangle covering her sex. I grazed the fabric with my fingertips. Margaux gasped and grabbed my shoulders with astonishing force. She almost derailed my aim of a steady, sultry seduction.
Almost.
I recovered composure by digging both knees against the stone and focusing on the pain from it.

A very temporary fix.

As soon as I pressed my thumb to her pussy, my blood turned to fire. My erection surged with agony. My lungs pumped with exertion, fighting the need to lay her flat and bury myself to the balls inside her.

“Michael!
Shit
!”

I rolled my thumb harder, still using just the pad. “So wet,” I drawled, approving and low. “So succulent.”

Her hips bucked, positioning for deeper contact. “Need…you,” she panted. “Please. Your cock…”

“Not long now, baby. I promise.” I leaned on my free elbow, curving my hand to her forehead, stroking off the dots of sweat. “But first, one for me to watch. Let me see it, Margaux. All of it.”

The skin beneath my hand furrowed. “So good,” she whispered. “So close.”

With her gaze still braced to mine, I pushed her panties aside. Her eyes flared. Her mouth fell open. I surrendered to a groan as my fingers met her soft, slick cushions. “You really are my sugar, aren’t you? Spun so sweet for me. So fucking sexy.”

She dug harder into my shoulders. Her lungs pumped faster, pushing husky little sounds up her throat that might as well have been fists around my dick. God
damn
. Purgatory existed after all, and this was it. I was enthralled but tormented, ecstatic at her ascent to heaven but burning in a very singular hell.

“I love you,” she rasped.

“I worship you.”

“I’m going to come apart.”

“And I’m going to catch all the pieces.”

The flesh beneath my thumb began to tremble. The center of her desire, at last. I growled, deep and exultant, rolling my touch on the hot little bundle. Margaux panted faster. Writhed harder.

I pressed in once. She hissed.

Twice. She swore.

On the third, she screamed. Pushed up against my hand, all quivering thighs and glistening skin, before her sex clenched in a rhythm as primal and perfect as the beat of the sea on the rocks outside.

I kept stroking, helping her ride out the climax, greedily soaking in the electricity of every convulsion. In the world outside our grotto, gulls danced on the breeze and sunlight dappled on calm waters, but in here, I was the guy who’d belted a home run into the lights, the immortal who’d short-circuited a city with his broadsword.
There can be only one.

This woman was
my
one.

I didn’t let up the pressure. She tremored again, shrieking louder.

“Yeah, sweetheart,” I encouraged. “That’s it.” I dropped my forehead to hers. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Michael.” She sighed then gasped. “
Michael
.”

“Oh, yeah. So good. Give me another.”

I was so absorbed in watching her face, I never noticed the little minx reaching for my pants. As she tugged down the zipper, a groan erupted from my gut—my cock’s way of thanking her for the jailbreak. She gave me two seconds to enjoy the bliss before caging me all over again, sprawling her fingers around my shaft, scraping my balls with her nails. In the space of ten seconds, she’d given “sweet torture” a new definition.

“Damn,” I gritted. “Oh…
damn
.”

Let me go.

Squeeze me harder.

Did it matter? Nothing would ease the throb in my cock now—except the clutch of her core.

“You want another one?” She lifted her brows, mixing mischief and promise in one look, firing every cell of arousal in my body—and oh, how she knew it. “Not until you’re with me, stud.”

“Hmmm. That can probably be arranged.” I finished it with a smirk but the woman knew exactly how to wipe the look away, gripping me tighter then backing off. Fresh blood surged between my thighs, making me unleash a hard moan. How the strain didn’t rip my dick open right now, I had no idea. The milky drops I spilled on her fingers were little ease from the pressure. The deeper I pushed into her hold, the stronger I craved her.

“I need this.” Her lips parted, exposing her gritted teeth. “I need
you
.”

That did it. I’d been battling for the noble thing in keeping her panties intact but that shit just wasn’t happening. A twist, a jerk, and another twist, and I’d expelled the damn lace. Her pussy, trembling and glistening, practically called to me. “As I need you.” I rolled my fingers into her folds, coaxing her to bloom for me. “I need
this
. Yes. God
damn
, sweetheart. So beautiful.”

She dropped her legs open, letting me tease the erect pearl at her center. At the same time, she hitched one leg up, hooked a toe into the back waist of my pants, and pushed them halfway down my thighs. Silently, I thanked the Creator for those toes. Mentally, I made a note to send a fan letter to Tom Ford. These pants had survived a dust-up on the beach, an overnight in county lock-up, and now an amazing hour in a little coastal cove that we’d remember until our nineties. And beyond…

Yeah. And beyond.

I wanted everything from this woman—even that naughty little smile of hers, bracketed by all the beautiful lines she’d earn by ninety. I wanted to share a whole life of this fire, this fever, this honesty, this love. Nobody had ever consumed this much of me. Nobody ever would.

I let the thought storm my mind as I fitted my erection to her entrance and turned our bodies into one. The line of her jaw tensed for a moment, as it always did…I selfishly reveled in the sight, as I always did. Knowing I stretched her, pushed her, filled her…it made me nothing short of giddy—and very ready to flood her from the inside out.

It was an even trade. Though my sex dominated hers, her soul commanded mine. Power for power. Control for control. A heart for a heart.

I loved watching the moment she recognized it, too. Her lips curled in a wider smile. Her chest pumped, signaling the rise of her arousal. Her arms strained as she cupped my ass, urging me to take her deeper, harder, faster.

We grinded in perfect sync, bodies formed flawlessly, hearts twined seamlessly. Wind swept around us. Sea salt mixed with the tang of our sweat. As waves gave in to the friction of the air, our bodies succumbed to the force of our passion, fusing and melding, pulsing and pounding, then finally exploding…completing.

Together.

As it always needed to be.

As, so help me God, it always would be.

*

We picked up
a pizza on the way home, inhaling two slices each before Andre stopped the car at the Cortez’s front door. Though the Jamaican didn’t say as much, I read the happiness in his eyes when he opened the back door and caught Margaux and I closing the gap to each other by chomping at opposite ends of a string of cheese.

Margaux giggled as I cheated my way in, sucking the mozzarella then kissing her in victory. Her laughter dissolved when Andre added a soft snicker. “Make any jokes about animated Disney dogs and I’ll make you eat this pizza box for dinner,” she declared.

“Wouldn’t
dream
of it, ma’am.”

“Bullshit,” she muttered.

“He’d be within rights,” I asserted. “I feel like a damn tramp. Must smell like one, too.”

“It’s not bad.” She nuzzled my neck. “Kind of earthy. Interesting.”

“Now
you’re
full of shit.”

She scowled. Andre chortled. “It is, nonetheless, very good to have you home, sir.”

“Damn great to be home, Dre.”

I meant the fuck out of those words—but more so about fifteen minutes later, when stepping into the cavernous designer shower. When first moving in here, I’d joked to Margaux about the white-tiled stall, comparing it to a girlie version of a superhero incubation tank. Right now, I didn’t care if she called it a magical-mystical mermaid cave. I’d never been so happy to be standing here, surrounded by all her female potions, sparkling beneath the torrent from the rainforest shower head.