The Magic's in the Music (Magic Series Book 5)

by Susan Squires

  Tris shoved his hands in his jeans’ pockets and cleared his throat. “Maybe he wasn’t thinking real clear. You remember the last one of us who brought someone home?”

  “Yeah,” Kemble said. “You.” His eyes widened. “You don’t think…?”

  “Well, when has our little brother, Mr. Extremely-Anti-Social-of-Late, ever gone out of his way to play Sir Galahad?” Tris shot a look to Jane. “He usually makes them drop him off at the gate, if he lets them get within ten miles of here.”

  “Jane?” Kemble asked. The whole family trusted Jane’s instincts on things like this.

  Jane sighed. “It could very well be.” She shot her husband a penetrating look. “Which is why we are going to let her stay as long as she wants.” She held up a hand to stave off Kemble’s protest. “Correction. As long as we can convince her to stay. The way she was apologizing for intruding she’ll want to be off before the rest of us are even up.”

  “Or not,” Kemble said through gritted teeth. “She could be a fortune hunter. Get her talons into a Tremaine kid who’ll inherit the farm, so to speak.”

  “Well, then,” Jane said mildly. “We should try to get to know her, shouldn’t we? So we can reveal her true intentions to Lanyon.”

  Tris couldn’t help the half-grin that twisted his lips. “Think what she’s trying to say, big brother, is that you and I should maybe try to not scare her away.”

  “Oh, very well,” Kemble said, conceding with bad grace. A purposeful look brightened his eyes. “What did she say her name was?”

  Jane took his arm and led him to the stairs. “Gretchen Falk. And you will not stay up all night researching every detail of her life. You’re coming to bed with me.”

  Tris let his grin out as his brother was led away. It was tough loving a woman with as much spirit as the Tremaine women had, whether they were born or married into the family.

  “And yes, I know you’ll sneak a look while I’m in the bathroom,” Jane added as they disappeared up the stairs.

  Whoa. Jane was a tough one. Tris hadn’t always realized that about her. He watched his brother put his arm around her. It slid down to her derriere. “You’ll have to distract me.”

  Tris bet she would, too. Strong women were a handful. He knew Kemble wouldn’t have it any other way. Tris wouldn’t either. Which meant he better get his butt back up to the apartment over the garages to his own delightful handful.

  *

  Greta showered quickly, though the soap and water were painful on her scraped knees, and put on the loaned robe. When she’d finished rinsing out her panties and hanging them to dry, she slipped into the big bedroom and pulled back the coverlet on the four-poster bed. It was an antique of some kind, with giant carved wooden posts in a dark wood. The coverlet was blue and gold brocade. Sheesh. She could be in some castle in Europe. But no, the room was way more comfortable than the castles she’d toured. Thick rugs covered the dark wood floors. The lamps glowed warmly. Heavy brocade draperies covered the windows. The dressing table and the chests were all equally heavy antiques in dark wood. Fresh flowers sat in a vase on the dresser. Roses. Who kept fresh flowers in an unused guest room? The Ghost hadn’t been kidding when he’d said they had so many bedrooms no one would notice her. The place was huge, and yet from what she’d seen of it, it looked lived in, comfortable.

  At least there had been a family at the end of the line rather than some dingy hotel room where he tied her up and raped her. It spoke volumes about her night that she considered that a plus. She had to boost herself up into the bed, it was so high.

  Jane had been so nice to her, trying to make her feel like she wasn’t a total intruder. Even promised her a nice breakfast in the morning. Greta turned out the light before she slipped off the robe and slid into bed, naked. She wouldn’t intrude for long. She’d call Bernie in the morning, and he’d think of something to keep the paparazzi away. She hated to admit how scared she’d been tonight. Between the drunk guys wanting to touch, and the paparazzi crowding around…

  She wouldn’t think about that or she’d never get to sleep. She pulled the six-hundred count sheets up around her naked body.

  Why the hell did this guy affect her that way? It was like there was a car battery hooked up between them. She’d seen a movie just the other day where they tortured the hero with a car battery. Well, tonight had been torture for sure. Her response to him was way out of control. And that was something Gretchen Falk never was—out of control. Was this what directors meant when they said that some stars had ‘chemistry’? She couldn’t imagine it was. This thing she had with the Ghost would be made of chemicals that were combustible. And she had to stop this reaction before her life exploded.

  So she’d be gone tomorrow. End of story.

  The sheets against her nipples were not helping. She turned onto her side. Even under the leather, she’d been able to tell he was muscled, with broad shoulders and a lean waist. Her brain started flashing images of bare torsos and rounded biceps. Not going there. She turned over onto her other side. Her groin had pushed up against his butt as she’d sat behind him. He didn’t wear his jeans skintight. He wasn’t looking to show off. It hadn’t mattered. She started imagining what his bare buttocks would look like; firm, round, flexing as he…

  She threw herself onto her back. She was not going to think about some guy whose name she didn’t even know. Well, his last name was Tremaine. Jane’s husband had definitely been his brother. You couldn’t miss the resemblance. Dark hair, fair skin, blue, blue eyes. The light in the foyer had revealed their true color for the first time. His brother’s hair was short, while her guy had wild, dark waves to his shoulder.

  Her guy? He was not her guy. He was some crazy who got off by faking everybody out about who he was. Why all the mystery? It wasn’t like he couldn’t get a regular gig. Any club would kill to have him. In fact, she was pretty sure he’d turned down a recording contract tonight. She felt his music rippling around her like an echo from earlier tonight. The pain, the emotion, the sheer virtuosity had been astounding.

  He shunned publicity, so the whole thing wasn’t a stunt. She was pretty sure Mr. Tremaine played because he had no choice. And he worked at being a mystery because he didn’t want eyes prying into that pain.

  That was intriguing.

  But if she didn’t stop thinking about him, she was never going to get to sleep, and she wanted to be up and ready to leave as soon as she could after she called Bernie at his office.

  The image of the Ghost’s hands on the keyboards, the wide-legged stance of his body as he thrust his hips into the chords, washed over her again. Great, she was going to leave a wet spot on the sheets of the nice people who had taken her in because she was lusting after a member of the family. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. It was going to be a long night.

  *

  Lan pulled off his boots and tossed them into a corner of his room. He stripped off his clothes and added them to the pile. Standing naked in the middle of his darkened room, he realized he was trembling, sweat pouring off his body. The music in his head was the thunder of the finale in a symphony. He also had a raging hard-on. Shit. His dick was acting like he was a teenager again. What was wrong with him?

  He knew exactly what was wrong with him. She was upstairs.

  He wouldn’t think about that. He strode to the window, trying to shove down the demons circling in his brain. He needed to play. But the last thing he wanted was to wake the family and get more third degree on who the girl was and why he’d brought her to the house. The keyboards with the headphones would be quiet. But they were upstairs in the music room, next to the blue guestroom. No way was he getting that close to her. He threw open the draperies and looked out over the garden, awash with moonlight.

  Complex emotions rolled over him like waves battering a sea wall in a storm. Longing and a sense of incompleteness made him want to rip open the door to his room and stalk up the stairs to claim her, ram his aching cock into her velvet hea
t and know he was home. At what cost? Rebellion flooded him. Fuck it. He was his own man. He didn’t belong to anyone or anything. There was no such thing as inevitable. Destiny didn’t exist. A man didn’t have to be what everyone expected of him. He could chart his own course. The last thing Lan was going to give in to was some genetic pre-destination with some girl he didn’t even know.

  But the rebellion churning in him only seemed to fuel the pull toward the girl. He was stuck in a maelstrom that was tearing at his gut. The music in his mind was vicious.

  He didn’t know how long he stood there, but finally he felt like something was going to rip inside him if he didn’t get relief. He looked around wildly, thinking maybe the Scotch in the liquor cabinet in the living room would dull his mind and his body.

  Finally, he registered what his eyes were seeing out the window. Cool flagstones, wet grass, the sea. Moonlight drained all color from the landscape and bathed it in soothing silver.

  He had to be out under the stars. He had this crazy idea that starlight or moonlight would wash away his turmoil.

  He didn’t bother to dress. In fact, he didn’t want any clothes between him and that cleansing light. He jerked open his bedroom door and headed to the French doors a few steps away, at the end of the corridor. He threw open those doors and stumbled out onto the path. The cool air felt good on his heated body. The crashing of the waves at the base of the cliffs was relentless. He lurched toward the rear of the house, across the flagstones of the terrace, his bare feet gripping the rough stone. Then he stepped onto the wet grass of the lawn, which stretched down to the pergola overlooking the Pacific. He came to a jerky halt in the middle of the open space. The moon was almost full, waning or waxing, he couldn’t tell which.

  Heal me, he begged silently. The way my mother can’t anymore. Not that anyone could heal what was inside him now. He stretched up his arms, fingers splayed, as if to make himself vulnerable to the light. Strip me bare. And he didn’t mean of clothes. He was still naked, his cock unperturbed by the night air. It rose almost against his belly, aching with need. His mind reeled.

  Make me numb. Strip me of need. Strip me of desire and compulsion. Strip me of music.

  He sucked in a horrified breath at that thought. Would he give up even his music to avoid his fate? Music had been his life, solace, his nurturing influence ever since he could remember. If that was the price to escape the maelstrom inside, would he give up part of his soul?

  The moonlight seemed to beat at him, not a kindly cleansing influence anymore but a battering ram, banging against the door of his soul. He collapsed to his knees, his body shaking. He bent his head, hunching his shoulders as if to protect himself.

  But there was no protection from this assault.

  Maybe there was a way, though, to relieve the pressure building inside his loins and his gut. He grabbed his cock in his left hand and began to jerk it roughly.

  *

  Greta threw back the covers. She wasn’t getting any sleep tonight. She was still painfully aching between her legs and her thighs were wet. This was ridiculous. And she was not going to masturbate in some strange house because she had it bad for…whatever his name was. How could she have it so bad for him when she’d seen him exactly twice? She didn’t even know him. She’d only seen him in good light for the first time in the foyer downstairs an hour ago. She was really losing it.

  She didn’t even pull on the robe Jane had lent her. She just started pacing the room, growing more agitated by the minute, until she stopped as though something had shaken her into stillness. She turned to the draped windows. Her breasts felt full and tender. Her center grew quiet as she walked slowly to the window and pulled the brocade aside.

  The moon, partially obscured by a graceful tree with feathery leaves, washed over a flagstone terrace. Grass stretched down to a pergola covered with heaps of some vine. The lawn was surrounded by gardens. She recognized rose bushes and birds of paradise among other plants. Beyond the pergola, the moon cut a silver channel along the ocean. The house must be up on cliffs here, since she couldn’t see the breakers. Stars dotted the night, though you couldn’t see as many at sea level as you would in the mountains.

  She opened the latch on the window and swung it outwards. The roar of the waves breaking against the cliffs thundered. The air smelled of seaweed and sand and the fecundity of the ocean that had given birth to all life. Stars were fainter than usual, washed out by the light of the moon. But there was her old friend Orion. And she could, very faintly, see the Pleiades. Soon, in the south, she’d be able to see the comet Galahad with her naked eye.

  She gasped as she caught sight of a man. He was naked, standing in three-quarter profile, his arms held wide, fingers splayed in supplication or in prayer. God, it’s him. The dark waving hair to his shoulders gave him away. Even from here she could see he was trembling, every muscle tensed, and he had a very impressive erection. She shouldn’t be seeing this. But she couldn’t look away from the muscular buttocks and thighs flexing to keep him upright as some strong emotion washed through him. The moonlight hit his chest, outlining his pectorals and abdominals. Its glow was bright enough that she could even see the muscle in his shoulders and back that didn’t face the light. His penis jutted out, thick and straight. He was beautiful. She’d never seen anything so elemental, so…real as the Ghost in the moonlight, in spite of his name.

  The ache in her loins was just this side of real pain. When he sank to his knees, legs spread in the grass, shoulders shaking, her heart went out to him. And then she saw him grip his cock and begin to stroke. He wasn’t gentle. He wasn’t coy. This wasn’t for pleasure. He wanted to rip an orgasm out by its roots.

  Greta was mesmerized. Worse, she found her own hand reaching downward. At least he had no idea she was here, watching him. She spread the lips of her sex and stroked herself through the thick juices, her eyes glued to the man below her, doing the same. She meant to do it slowly, but there was no room for lingering sensuality. At the first stroke of her fingers, sensation shot to her breasts and her womb. She wanted the release as badly as that man on his knees down there. She rubbed herself, harder, faster, in time to the Ghost’s jerking below.

  It didn’t take long for either of them to reach their climax. She bit her lips against her convulsive cry, even as his groan floated up from the garden. His semen spurted into the grass in long jets. Her orgasm went on and on. So did his. She didn’t close her eyes. She couldn’t look away from the man whose hips jerked and strained below her. Her knees went weak though and she leaned against the unopened side of the window, the drapes falling behind her.

  When it was finally over, she sagged, gasping, and grabbed the draperies for support. He leaned over, heaving as he gasped for breath. He stayed bent, staring at the grass beneath his knees, his hair a curtain for his face. Greta had never felt so drained in her life. Thank God he hadn’t seen her. No one had to know she’d done something so shameful.

  Then his body went still. With aching slowness, he turned his head. She should have moved, but she didn’t. Maybe she couldn’t. His face turned toward the house, then looked up, until he was staring right at her; and she was staring back, unable or unwilling to move. The pain in his expression, the horror at seeing her there, made her clench in defense.

  With a gasp, she turned and fumbled her way through the drapes and back into the dark room.

  What the hell just happened here?

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‡

  She disappeared. Had she been an illusion? Lan shook his head to clear it. The milky skin, slim waist, flaring hips, perfect breasts…those were the stuff of dreams. But she’d been there all right, naked in the window above him.

  And she’d seen what he’d done.

  Fuck. What kind of out-of-control asshole jerks off in his parents’ yard, buck-naked? He glanced around as though others might have seen him too. But the yard was silent, empty, the windows of the house dark. Just like he was.

  He sho
ved himself up. The moon still gleamed as it made its way toward the watery horizon, but it didn’t seem magical anymore. It couldn’t cleanse him. It was a force for chaos in his life, not control. Just like she was.

  Maybe the girl was the reason he was so…not himself. That fit. Because he was pretty sure she was meant for him. She must have the Merlin gene, just like his family. After all these centuries of the magic dispersing until the world had thought it was lost, now for some reason, it had decided to gather again. Whenever two of the genes came into contact, they called to each other, demanding the hosts mate and produce children whose magic would be even stronger.

  He hung his head. It had happened just that way with his siblings and their mates. They hadn’t had any choice about it. They’d gotten magic powers. They’d gotten married. Tris already had babies. Kemble had one on the way. Destiny. Great, right?

  But what if you didn’t want any part of it? What if you didn’t want to be some unwitting cog in the wheel of the universe as it turned back toward magic? What if you didn’t want to fight Morgan Le Fay and her Clan for the stupid Talismans Merlin had created to amplify magic powers?

  What if you just wanted to be left the fuck alone?

  Standing, he staggered back. He turned into the house, his body exhausted. Coming out into the yard naked and jerking off under the moonlight was probably enough to get you a padded cell. He could see that now.

  He had to get out of here. His life was his own, Goddamnit.

  He was too exhausted to slam the French doors. He slid into the Bay of Pigs and shuffled down the hallway, feeling like a husk. He’d go. Now.

  His stomach rolled. Yeah. He knew what that was, too. He’d feel sick when he tried to leave her. It had already started at the club tonight. Tris and Maggie, Drew and Michael had all fought their attractions, and it made them damned sick. Well, he also knew that distance helped. And he was willing to bet a whole heaping bunch of Scotch wouldn’t hurt either. He pulled on his clothes haphazardly and staggered out to the Harley.