No Perfect Princess

by Angel Payne

  “Unless you burn it off in more creative ways.”

  She gave me a scorching look over the rim of her wine glass. “There is that.”

  I almost hurled my wine into the trees and took out the food as collateral damage with my reaction. Goddamn, when she gazed at me like that…and now that I had full freedom to return those kinds of looks, with no worries about behavioral editing anymore…

  And I thought yesterday had been the best one of my life.

  I loaded up her plate with everything from the rest of the feast—tuna steak sandwiches fixed nicoise style, marinated vegetables, seasoned olives, and custard tarts—and handed it over, actually admitting to a stab of nervousness as I did. Journey back to the land of fifteen and dorky, anyone? The ticket was already in my hand. Even after countless business trips, even more crazy happy hours, one unforgettable Independence Day, and two mind-exploding trips to sexual heaven with the woman, this moment carried all the trappings of first date uncertainty.

  I kind of liked it.

  And thoroughly hated it.

  “You look really pretty today.”

  Seriously?

  I’ll take “Lamest Flirt Lines” for six hundred, Alex.

  “Pretty” was just the start of it, anyhow. She’d opted for a Daisy Mae sort of look, with a black flippy skirt, a black-and-white gingham blouse, and those sexy boots again. No accessories besides her pinkie ring—and now, the delicate flower chain she’d connected, then donned as a crown.

  My princess.

  So fucking perfect.

  “Thanks,” she murmured—only to giggle at herself. Or me. I wasn’t sure, and the answer felt all-important. Yep, still cruising through the land of fifteen and dorky.

  “What is it?” Did it sound interested, not insecure? Cool guy, not jerk-off?

  “I just…well, I realized…I’d been hoping you’d say that.”

  I set down my glass as confusion surely took over my face. “What? That you’re pretty?”

  “Well…” She took a fast sip. “Yeah.”

  “You must get told that all the time, Margaux.”

  “Never when it mattered.”

  Something crept across her face before she put aside her own glass and dipped her head. Something I liked seeing there—and needed to see more of. Compelled by that craving, I reached over the food to lift her chin with a finger. And was so damn glad I did. Emerald eyes, bright with the sun. Tremulous lips, turning up to welcome my intrusion…and my kiss.

  I didn’t plunge or attack. Simply brushed and nipped, stealing just the tip of my tongue inside her, needing to discover what her mouth did to transform the wine and food…and fuck yes, my theory was right…the resulting nectar should’ve been listed on the state’s narcotic substances list.

  When we finally dragged apart, I grated, “You matter, princess.”

  Shit. The word tumbled out so naturally that I didn’t think about it. I braced for a retaliatory cold front from her.

  Didn’t happen.

  Huh?

  Her smile deepened in response to my frown. “I think I like that one better when it comes from you, too.”

  Her confession flooded a new sensation through me. It blazed in like the sunlight but kept ripping through, like a killer Santa Ana gust. A new kind of arousal? No. Shit. This was better. And worse.

  And terrifying.

  Which meant it got ignored. Now wasn’t a time for terror. It was time for the let’s-make-time-stand-still perfection of this place, this woman. The poetry of her movements. The light along her skin. The breeze in her hair, flowing around that delicate crown…

  I fingered one of the flower stem knots. “This is pretty good workmanship. If the royalty gig doesn’t work out, you could set up shop making these.”

  She snickered. “Years of practice. Mother shipped me off to camp for a month each summer. When you’re the token bitch at Lake Chimetoona, you log in a lot of hours stringing flower chains by yourself.”

  My back teeth ground together. Then my front. I flat-out disregarded the twist in my chest. “That doesn’t sound right.”

  She shifted away, stretching out to the side, though kept her plate within reach. “All-girls camp, darling. There’s no such word as ‘fair’. Roles have to be filled. I naturally drew the B card.” She looked over and punched a deprecating laugh at me. “Stop it!”

  “What?”

  “Looking like your Captain America helmet is going to implode.”

  I wasn’t about to argue that the guy technically didn’t wear a helmet. There were bigger things right now to get at—and now that she’d cracked the door to this room in the ivory tower, like hell was I passing it up.

  “No implosions,” I stated. “But I don’t think I’m the only one wanting to call out your mother on some bullshit these days.”

  On the surface, my assertion didn’t ruffle her by a single feather. But I knew what to watch for now. The tightness of her lips, battling how her stomach led the charge in combatting her anxiety. The trembles of her fingers as she reached for more bread to calm it. The swing of her gaze, anywhere but back at me.

  “Why don’t we just sing some camp songs? You know The Moose Song, right? Bazooka Bubble Gum?”

  “Not letting you run there, sugar.”

  “Do I look like I’m running, Pearson?” That kick-started little bobs of her feet—another evasion tactic disguised as nonchalance. I battled not to seethe. She’d actually gone there. With me.

  “You don’t look or sound like you’re addressing my question.” In an easy sweep, I repositioned myself at her feet, grabbing both her ankles, earning me a new pierce of attention. Here it is, man. Fresh opening. Breech, breech, breech! I took a breath to strain that violence from my voice. “Margaux…what’s going on?” I slipped my hands to her calves, coaxing with fingertips, letting my words sink into her tension. “It started a while ago, didn’t it? Whatever’s gone down with you and your mom…it happened last year, when we were all in Chicago to put out that fire for Trey Stone.”

  A few rounds of warm-warm-hot, anyone? It seemed so—and I’d just taken a giant step toward hot. The tension through her whole body, even her calves, spoke it as loudly as if she had.

  “Trey Stone has nothing to do with this.”

  “Didn’t say he did.” Though I highlighted her comment before stowing it into the “Coincidence or Not” file for deeper examination. “I’m talking about you and your mom. And what happened that ripped you apart in Chicago.”

  Tight huff. “Nothing happened in Chicago, Michael.”

  “And your shoulders just got heavier for no fucking reason.” I pressed forward, hoping it came off as concerned and not furious. Because right now, I was a lot of both. “Hiding the burden is going to be damn impossible with me, sugar.”

  She swallowed hard but didn’t look away—yet didn’t appear any more ready to open to me, either. “Says the one who hid up here for six months?” She nodded at the treetops. “Though now, I’m beginning to understand why.”

  “I was a goddamn idiot.” Time to mean business. I freed my hands from her legs and simply sat on them, instead. “I think we’ve been over that already.”

  “Yeah, but it’s so much fun to hear you say it again.”

  “Nice try. But I’m not biting that hook today.” Keeping her pinned, I leaned over once more. “No bantering. Just the truth. I’m not going to insult you with the obvious, either. You know life, Margaux. You know people even better. So you’ve already figured out that my six months of stupidity were tied into you—but not because I was afraid of our attraction, our passion—”

  “Which is pretty fucking good.”

  “Which is pretty fucking good.”

  I conceded the point to her because it was a: true, and b: a damn good instigation for her smile. Dammit, I didn’t want this to be hard for her. It shouldn’t be hard. With Andrea obviously out of her life’s landscape, she had no one to truly pour shit out to. I wasn’t sure Andrea
had ever even been that person, but the necessity for someone like that was clear now. Though she’d mellowed a lot since getting here, I still caught her starting at shadows like they’d grown claws and were coming for her.

  “So what…were you afraid of?”

  Her whisper, so uncertain, tore at my soul—bringing a whole new slew of bafflement, since it was exactly what I wanted her to ask. If I could loosen her truth by giving her mine, and show her I wasn’t scared of it anymore…

  “You stripped me naked in other ways, Margaux.” I shook my head. “So many other ways. It’s been more than bizarre to comprehend. Just a year ago, we talked to each other for business only. When we started taking things to other places, I admit, I was pretty intrigued…”

  Her smile was so deep, her dimples came out to play. “Me, too.”

  “Yeah, well…then you started peeling back new parts of me. Things I hadn’t exposed to any person, let alone a woman I was interested in, for—well, a very long time.”

  “So I wasn’t intriguing anymore?”

  “You were off the fucking charts intriguing.”

  “Which was also when I became terrifying. Which was also when you took a page out of the Howard Hughes playbook.”

  “Gooooal.”

  I threw up both hands and added a Spanish accent for comedic value. But instead of laughter, Margaux sobered her smile. Sat up straighter. Tilted her head. “So in reality, it wasn’t all just me. It was the shit I dug up inside you…the stuff that was hard to look at.” When I didn’t falter my focus she went ahead and laser-beamed hers in, openly assessing me. Dammit. Discomfort wiggled in. Though I did trust her, she rarely looked at me like this if we both weren’t floating in a martini haze. But a lot had changed since we’d last bellied up to a bar together. A lot.

  Finally, I gritted, “Keep going. I can take it.”

  She bent her head in the other direction. “What was her name?”

  I inhaled hard. The question wasn’t unexpected. “Laci,” I supplied. “We were together three years. I almost proposed. She broke up with me to go live in Tibet and find herself.”

  “Whoa.” Her eyebrows jumped. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, really. Tibet.”

  “Whatever. Tibet’s nice if you don’t miss indoor plumbing. I was referring to the rest. Three years?”

  I laughed. Loud. It felt good, lifting my face into the sun along with it. When I realized Margaux wasn’t joining the party, I cut it short, looking back down. “Breathe, sugar. It’s not unheard of. Three years is a blip when you’re in love.”

  Her gaze, deep and green and penetrating, roamed my face, and taking in so much. Too much. Discomfort corkscrewed into get-me-the-hell-out-of-here. But that wasn’t happening, either. This was too important. She was too important. I was staying put.

  “Were you…” she finally asked. “In love? With her?”

  I cocked my head in order to meet her gaze completely. “Yes. In the best way I knew how to give love at the time. That was almost six years ago. I’ve grown. Changed. Learned to deal with lots of things better.”

  “Like the asshole who gave your mom the black eye?”

  Hell.

  So it was my turn to look away. Natural reaction when someone came swinging with an emotional mallet to a guy’s gut—not that I’d expected her to deliver anything less. Not when she’d noticed Mom’s injury before I had the night we’d arrived. Not when I’d fucking ordered her to keep going at me.

  But most importantly, not when I knew she truly cared about the answer.

  And there it was. The final splash of paint that sealed off the corner I’d trapped myself in. Why the hell hadn’t I envisioned it more clearly? Telling her the ugly details about Declan meant the possibility of the cocksucker catching her in his crosshairs, too. Just the idea of Dec sniffing anywhere near Margaux was a match on kindling through my brain. My gut, the unfortunate backdraft zone, burned with bile to the goddamn boiling point. When I envisioned Mom’s face once more, mottled as it hadn’t been since I was twelve, walls began to slam up inside. Big ones.

  “Did he hurt you too, Michael?” She shifted upward, bending her knees, reaching over them at me. I was conscious of the movement but didn’t equate it to how jarring her touch would be, alighting over my face but searing to my mind. As if she could see all the shit that invaded it now, too…

  No.

  Princesses weren’t supposed to see the ugliness.

  I was supposed to be saving her.

  No. Have to—stop this. She doesn’t save you, dickwad. She doesn’t save you!

  I managed to lift both hands. Grab hers. Jerk her away. “Some things are best left in the past, Margaux.”

  She smiled softly. Not gloating, though she had every right to—for as our gazes locked again, it was with the understanding of what I’d just given her with the words. Victory. Instead, she curled her fingers out and around mine, tugging them in to bring us closer together, before whispering, “Yes, Mr. Pearson. Sometimes they are.”

  Wind picked up through the trees, scattering sunlight across us both. I watched the gold and green dapples scatter over her legs, up her torso, and finally into her eyes, transforming her gaze from somber forest into dazzling meadow inside a couple of seconds. And why did that astound me? Why did the hues of this woman, as changing and fascinating as the depths of the ocean, continue to stun me with their newest beauty?

  A beauty broadcasting only one message to me now.

  She wanted to kiss me.

  For the first time in the last fifteen minutes—it had felt like fifteen hours—we were finally on the same page.

  I untangled our fingers in order to flow my hands up her arms, delighting in the little shivers I gave as I went, until framing both edges of her jaw with the length of my forefingers. Her eyes pulled me in deeper, so many facets and lights, my personal, sensual Emerald City.

  I tugged her closer. “Come here.”

  I kept the kiss sweet—for all of ten seconds. The moment our lips formed tighter and I began to taste her, pulling in the tang of the wine and the balm of the sunshine, I was demolished. I slid my grip to her neck and yanked her tightly as I pushed inside and ravaged her tongue, her teeth, her pliant, perfect softness. And Margaux, my passionate, magnificent Margaux, gave exactly as she received. With a husky moan, she ravaged hands into my hair, too. Seared my scalp with the force of her torque while blazing my tongue with the sweet savagery of her surrender.

  Surrender?

  Careful what you assume out of the gate, tough guy—especially when Ms. Asher is coming to the soiree.

  A lesson I was taught in breath-halting detail—when she pulled a hand out of my hair, and dropped it directly to my zipper.

  Yeah. That zipper.

  “Margaux!”

  “Hmmm?”

  Was she kidding? With the Strawberry Shortcake innocence and the My Little Pony eyes?

  “What the—” My own choke cut me off as she reached in, palming me past my balls. Shit. She wasn’t kidding. And I wasn’t sure I wanted her to be. Just kissing her had woken everything up down there—duh—but her unabashed move was the ideal jolt of rise-and-shine for everything between my thighs. As she stroked down my length, trailing fingers over the veins with appreciative languor, I hissed, then bucked farther up into her touch.

  She flashed a grin, razing my defenses even more, shoving down my khaki shorts and pushing up my T-shirt. As she did, I winced for a second. Christ. She had me so amped, even the abrasion of the cotton against my nipples acted as another crank on my cock—and damn if the playful little princess didn’t know it. She bit her lip as more of my length came surging out, so impish and eager, my naughty little minx.

  “Damn!”

  It burst between my gritted teeth as she stroked over and over, including little squeezes at my sack each time she got to the base. I’d never understood all the hype about hand jobs. Now I realized I’d just never been treated to a great one. Great? This w
asn’t “great”. This was a fucking spiritual experience. As I fell back on my haunches, supporting myself with my elbows in order to watch every steady glide of her fingers over my flesh, I wondered if I’d start spewing prayer tongues next. Her nails were painted in a lush, deep red. Maybe I had to switch up this fantasy and turn my princess into Little Red…coerced to service the big bad wolf in the woods for his private pleasure. And maybe I had to think about getting my affairs in order, because I was surely going to hell for tapping prayer and sexual penitence into the same line of thought.

  But damn, would the fall be worth it.

  Especially now.

  She’d found a way to go psychic on me, surely discovering my fixation about her nails the second I had it, because she tucked her fingers in enough that they began to scrape my balls along with the squeezes. With every new graze, my hips shot up a couple of inches. Dark grunts and hisses ripped past my lips, making me wonder if that prayer language thing was really coming to fruition.

  Until she suddenly stopped.

  “Fuck!” I bellowed. “Margaux—Jesus!”

  I slashed my gaze up to hers. Unbelievably, My minx had left the meadow. So had Red Riding Hood. Correction—they’d likely been sent off by the goddess who’d remained in their wake, quirking a grin so gorgeous at me, I was tempted to lift up, kiss her senseless then flip the fucking tables on her impudent little ass. If only I didn’t love what she was doing so much…

  “Forgive me…Sir,”—she flung out the word as a deliberate taunt—“but I simply want to respect—what’s the word they use?—proper “protocol”? After all, you are in charge here, Mr. P. I’d never think of seizing the upper hand. Errrm, pardon the pun.”

  “Not pardoned.” I growled the words, but smirked my lips, making sure I focused long enough on her face to lock her stare to mine. “And believe me, little brat, you’ll pay handsomely for it.”

  “Oh, no.” She pushed out a mock gasp. “Not payment for the pun!”

  I chuckled harder. Goddamn, what a handful she could be. And would I want it any other way? Or her?

  The question answered itself—with stunning brilliance. Had someone asked me to sit down and write a wish list for my ideal woman, I doubted half of the descriptors for Miss Margaux Asher would make the list. But I couldn’t imagine my life now without any of them.