by Angel Payne
You had six eyes mooning at you like the best thing to come along since red velvet wedding cake.
Not a good idea, girls. Not tonight. Just talk to Margaux Asher. There are much better flavors out there than me.
“This is Teresa, and this is Tammie. We go to academy together.”
Of course they did. Academy. Because—gasp—high school just wasn’t a concept anymore. Like preferring lettuce over kale or saying “filet” and meaning “mignon” instead of tempeh.
“We’re in alpha rotation together. It’s pretty cool.”
“Alpha rotation. That sounds cool.”
What the hell? Like they were in the Army and on latrine duty every other day? Didn’t girls go to school and just learn the essentials these days? Texting without teacher detection? Sneaking smokes in the bathroom? Ogling boys?
Maybe they had that last one nailed juuussst fine.
“So what’s the best thing about being in…alpha rotation?” Still not feeling comfortable with all that shit.
Kelsey swiped at the grass with the toe of her shoe. Like her friends, she wore modest pumps, though I’d caught them all eyeing Margaux’s uber-heels with more than a little shoe lust. I couldn’t fault them a shred of the obsession. My cock had done a great job of tormenting—er, reminding—me, all damn night, just how thoroughly Margaux rocked those strappy gold stilts.
“Well,” Kelsey went on, “we get to learn ballroom dancing.”
I nodded, the perfect picture of approval. “Impressive.”
Teresa—or was it Tammie?—shrugged with “nonchalance” she’d likely perfected in the mirror. “And required. We all come out next year. In the spring.”
“Big times.” I forced the gravity into it. Helped in disguising how bizarre this felt. Forty-eight hours ago, in any diner in Julian, “coming out” meant visiting someone’s farm with a pie and a smile. Twenty-four hours ago, in any coffee place in downtown San Diego, the same words meant visiting Mom and Dad with “interesting” news. These girls were talking about a year’s worth of dance lessons to prepare for one night that would carry a price tag close to this wedding.
“Guess so.” The same twin shrugged again. She had the I-couldn’t-give-a-shit act down pretty good.
Or maybe it just takes one to know one, buddy.
Like the way I’d been taking care not to notice every step Margaux took, or every guy she stopped to talk to. Or, for that matter, girl. The passion that percolated beneath the woman’s kisses alone was enough to justify that assessment…
Thoughts that had to go away. Now.
I looked again at Kelsey. The girl was as exposed as her friend was guarded. Her smile still wobbled with nervousness. She jabbed chunks of her hair behind her ears with frantic fingers. “So—uh—Chad was telling us about how you know some moves, too.”
I was going to kill him.
Lock down the grin before you call Chad a fucker in front of these nice girls. Yeah, even the one who thinks she can see through your shit.
“He did, did he?”
It was all too easy to find the ass munch in the crowd. He clearly lay in wait for me, abandoning his earlier smirk in favor of the Joker-who’d-just-wedgied-Batman grin. The look was no different than the day I’d first stepped up—literally—to help Talia prepare for the wedding of her high school crush. I’d figured karma would eventually catch up with him on that whole front, but he’d obviously gotten ahead of the wench tonight.
I widened my smile but narrowed my gaze. Payback’s a bitch, Lerner. And I’m waiting for the day when your tab gets dropped on the table.
“Well, Mr. Lerner is right.” I stood and extended an elbow toward Kelsey. I couldn’t watch the girl go through another second of angst when her intent was increasingly clear, and the band had just hit the halfway point on their rendition of the latest Enrique Iglesias hit. “What do you say we hit the floor, beautiful?”
Even Nonchalant Twin joined in on the task of pushing Kelsey toward me. Once we got to the floor and decided a mambo would fit the song best, I made sure to keep my hold chaste and the moves at a G rating. I didn’t give a shit if either or both of Kelsey’s parents were watching. I did give a shit that she knew it was possible to have “fun” with a “boy” while still having his decency and respect.
A good strategy—until ten minutes later, after I’d given each of the girls a song, when the band downshifted the set into another ballad. The tune was slow but the melody was powerful, a pretty good cover of a new rock ballad I’d only heard a couple of times so far. The lyrics were also typical for the genre, with a lot of talk about lips, hips, temptation, need, and even a reference to cherries—in the first verse alone.
In short, the huge cue for a long break.
Now, I just had to figure out how to do that with tact, grace, and dignity—and words that would make all three girls feel like they alone had made my night.
“Anyone mind if I cut in?”
I visibly exhaled.
Karma did know how to send angels.
Especially ones in you-know-you-want-this red dresses, who had the girl cojones to cut in on three teenagers mooning at a guy with the unabashed focus of—well—teenagers. Who also had the guts to go Scarlett Johansson dominatrix with her tone to said teens, infusing her “request” with enough badass Black Widow to emphasize it wasn’t a request. Who then stepped past all three girls with enough of a glance to convey sincere gratitude and you-can-all-get-lost-now in the same exquisite, perfect moment.
Like Kelsey and her friends, I didn’t know whether I adored her or feared her. No way was I tempting fate’s wrath by going for the trite answer of “a little of each”. Margaux Asher deserved so much more than trite. So much more than easy. So the answer to that? Yeah, I adored her and feared her.
And revered her.
And wanted her—now more than ever.
And had no fucking idea how I was going to get through this entire song without fully mauling her.
I took the edge off by allocating enough brain power into a charming farewell to my dance partners. “I think you lovely ladies have earned yourselves some of that awesome cake. And maybe someone can grab a corner slice for me, too?”
“Me!” The answer came back in triplicate. As the girls scurried off toward the cake table, I looked back to Margaux in time to catch the sardonic twist on her lips.
“Holy shit, how I’ve missed that,” she drawled.
Holy shit, how I’ve missed this. All of it.
Her spine beneath my fingers. Her body pressed against mine. Her fingers, soft and slender. Her gaze, huge and mesmerizing. Her hair, a mist-kissed halo.
Diamond captured.
Moonbeam pinned.
Princess come to life.
And I thought I’d be able to just “get over” this?
“Missed what?” I took a page from Nonchalant Twin, feigning that the answer didn’t really matter—and that I didn’t hold half my breath waiting for her reply.
“Watching women trip over themselves because of you.”
I mulled a long list of profanities as answer to that—and turned them all down. What good would it do? She’d find a better profanity in return, and look twenty times better delivering it—with proportionate effects on key parts of my anatomy. I was pretty sure Kil was the only guy approved to sport major wood on this dance floor tonight—and he and Claire had conveniently disappeared two songs ago.
In short, either way, the losing straw belonged to me on that one.
So…what the hell…maybe pure honesty was the way to go.
“I haven’t missed a lot of anything but you, blondie.”
She stopped. In both her gorgeous strappy shoes. Just for a second, though long enough that I had to stop, too—allowing a full gaze at the color rushing over her face.
So much for letting Killian hog the dance floor erection duties.
Cheeks still stained, she looked down then back up. Her eyes were just as incredible, thick lashes
framing the luminescent green depths—an accurate description, given the extra fires now burning their way up to me.
Uh-oh.
That extra heat usually meant the princess was pissed—and though I couldn’t figure how my sincerity could’ve sparked it, I braced myself for impact.
“Missed me?” She canted her head. “Well, I’m glad you cleared that up—because it felt more like being avoided.”
My feet jammed us to a stop this time. I squeezed her extra close to counteract the shock to her balance, though instantly wondered if I could get away with doing it all over again. The feel of her leaning completely into me, her body soft and pliant…I was Zeus harnessing the lightning, ready to scale Olympus in a single bound.
If only there wasn’t the not-so-small issue of her voice to deal with. And the ire in it—acting as a thin disguise for the hurt.
I kept her locked in the standstill, despite her effort to return to the rhythm of the song. Pushing a tiny huff through her nose, she glanced back up. Glanced. Giving me just enough let-it-drop-buddy impatience to communicate she’d meant that as the last and only word.
In another world—like, say, the one of six months ago—I’d have rolled with that. When Margaux raised her walls, especially with those strange lines of loneliness etched across her face, my MO had typically been “respect the boundary”. But where the hell had that gotten us? Six stupid months of separation. Texts so awkward, Kelsey and the twins would likely laugh in derision. A handful of phone calls that hardly made it past talk of the weather—the fucking weather—so that now, I’d driven myself crazy about wondering who she’d brought as a date to this thing, only to get my first up-close of the night and see the exact same solitude haunting her beautiful eyes.
Isolation I now related a little more to.
Maybe more than a little.
“Guilty as charged,” I finally murmured. The upsweep of her gaze nearly unraveled my resolve to blurt the rest. “I was…avoiding…things. But not because of—”
“Of what?”
Not because of you.
The lie pounded at my lips, threatening to charge through the gates of my control. But what would that say about the “respect” I’d just admitted for her? And all the things I’d come to feel beyond that…which had, without a doubt, only strengthened over the last six months…
But the truth sure as hell wasn’t an option, either.
No. Fucking. Way.
“Dude?”
I couldn’t help but laugh when she actually waved a hand in front of my face. Though she stopped short of adding “Earth to Michael”, her single syllable handled the syntax pretty damn well.
“Sorry. I’m here.” I pressed one of my thumbs into the base of her spine, the other into the middle of her hand, cupped in mine. “I’m…all here.”
Fuck. Guarding the truth like one of the hounds of Cerebus, eh, man? Because that won’t tip her off at all…
Her quirky little smile told me nothing—except that her quirky little smiles could still turn me into something close to a real dog. Dear fuck, I hoped I didn’t drool. “And I’m damn glad you are, mister.”
Translation: let me fondle your crotch here and now. It was exactly what her words did anyway, making me suck in tight air, clench my jaw, and force my body a few inches away from her—when all it yearned to do was the opposite.
“You’re not going back up there, are you?”
“What? Back up where?”
“To Julian.” Her forehead V’ed. “Pearson, are you all right?”
Besides trying to keep up the semblance of dancing with you—while not getting everything else “up” in the process? “Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry, princess. I’m just—”
“Princess?”
I scowled. Shit, it wasn’t like I’d called her the b word, or some other girl’s name. “What’s wrong with princess?”
Her eyes bugged. “What’s wrong with princess?”
I shrugged. “Okay, scratch it. I’ll just graduate you to queen.” I prayed like hell that one would stick—and not like the crap pile I’d apparently stepped into. For insurance, I added a little tug, bringing her close again. Surely I could keep the monster in my crotch under control for a few lousy seconds. “No. Fuck that, too. You’re beautiful enough tonight to be the empress.” I hated that I’d miffed her, but the way her angry flush worked with the tint of that dress…damn. More than a few guys here were glaring daggers at me right now, I was certain of it. And then I smirked a little because of it.
Wrong. Move.
Margaux stopped again. Stepped back. Revision: jerked away. “Are you trying to dig yourself in deeper?”
I reached for her again—a second too late. She’d already begun her march off the dance floor. I followed her out to the grass, where the light was dimmer—which only enhanced every aspect of her beauty. Fuck. I wasn’t going to win the hypnosis-by-Margaux battle tonight.
“I’m not trying for anything, prin—” Hell. “Margaux. We haven’t seen each other in half a year—”
“And whose choice was that?”
My teeth jammed together. “You had a standing invitation to visit and never used it.”
Air rushed out of her in a mirthless laugh. “Me? In frontier land? You’ve been breathing thin air for too long, Davey Crockett.”
I dropped my hands. “So choices were made on both sides.”
Her head slid back as if on a horizontal rail. The new distance didn’t lessen the shock in her gaze. “Wait. You think I didn’t want to see you?” When I maintained deliberate neutrality, her head slid back—and she didn’t stop there. After revving the move into a gorgeous, gold-stilletoed stomp, she fired, “How the hell do you get off, arriving at that kind of a conclusion?”
Because believing alternate answers isn’t an option, princess. That number one, somebody was keeping you too busy to make the trip to “frontier land”, or number two…you were just as scared to get together as I was.
That if we applied the right pressure to this gas pedal…we’d be going mach five inside thirty seconds…
And then what?
Deep breath in. Equal effort on the exhale. Pick. Words. Carefully. “Probably the same way you got off making yours.”
Her lips pursed. “Except that mine was right.” She jutted her chin. “You left, Michael. I don’t give a damn that you were only sixty miles away. You told me you’d be gone for a few weeks—not six months.” She pushed out another breath. Not a note of surface mirth this time. The dark green sheen in her eyes confirmed it—despite how flippant she tried to be with her next rasp. “Did you…meet someone…up there?”
“What?” I stopped to unglue my eyebrows from their crash landings over my eyes. “Holy fuck. No.”
Was I dreaming this? Was this woman, the hottest reboot of Aphrodite that ever lived, actually standing here with pooled eyes and shaking breaths because of imagining me with “someone” up on the mountain? I almost laughed. Christ, if she knew. Five days out of each week I’d been in Julian, the only females I’d seen were Mom, the knitting club ladies, and a camel named Bertha.
I went ahead and laughed. Not loud, not hard, but enough to land my foot into the ca-ca mound again. Dammit. Did Bertha decide to send some of her more fragrant “byproducts” down the hill with me?
“Okay, then.” Margaux tossed her head up, even turning the pissed filly thing into something entirely new and sexy. “Glad to know I could amuse you tonight, Mr. Pearson.”
Yep. Bertha had clung to the soles somehow. And wasn’t about to be ignored.
Neither was her friend, the white elephant now taking a huge squat—and defining every damn thing I said and did. “Fuck,” I growled. “That didn’t come out right.”
“You think?”
“Margaux. Shit. Work with me here.”
“I work with people who work with me, Pearson.” No more tears now, either, hardening her eyes to emerald crystals. “And right now, I don’t feel ‘worked with’.
I only feel…worked.”
My teeth tangoed again. My lungs lurched, pulling in heavy air. Her accusation screamed for a fire and brimstone comeback—but would that budge the elephant? And if it did, was I prepared? The elephant made it convenient to hide a lot. Like my truth.
I stayed on the mountain because I was trying to get over you, princess.
Amazing, antagonizing, gorgeous, gutsy, smart-assed, sexy…you.
And I kept on trying—and trying. And failing. So I just stayed longer. Time. Distance. I prayed they’d be my keys out of the straitjacket of you—but they only locked me in tighter. Thinking of you. Craving you. Touching myself because of those cravings…
And the more time I spent inside that prison…the more I liked it.
And after those words were out? Then what?
I’d imagined how the moment would play out, more than just a few times. Run all the possible scenarios of what she’d look like, what she’d say, what she’d do. Odds were on it ending pretty damn great, at least for a few hours. The sexual spark between us had never been an issue or a secret. From the moment I’d first kissed her—and fuck, I’d never forget it—in front of the lions at the San Diego Zoo, we’d known about the combustion of our mouths and the chemistry of our bodies. We’d been holding ice cream bars. By the time we finished that kiss, we were both covered in smeared lipstick and melted ice cream.
So yeah, I’d likely get lucky—if I kept the confession restrained. If all I told her about were the hot fantasies and the trips to the orchard to whack off because of them. If I could hold back on all the other parts, like how I missed the room lighting up from her smile, or my chest bursting from her laugh, or my face splitting when that laugh turned into snorts. How I wanted her to recite this year’s hat trends and last year’s NFL stats in the same conversation, just because she could. Then how I yearned to lend her my jacket because she’d forgotten—again—to bring her own. How I longed to see her huddled in that same jacket as I kissed her goodnight beneath a streetlight, mist from the bay turning her eyelashes into stars…wishing I could give her every jacket I owned, for the rest of my life…