WARNING:: This book ends with one girl finding her happily ever after with five handsome guys, opening the endless well of love in her heart to the rock band, Beauty in Lies.
The pages herein contain graphic sex, lovemaking, quickies, romance, world travel, a little guy on guy action, admissions of love, rock 'n' roll music and genuine friendship. This book should only be read by those who've got a little moxie in their step.
Moxie
Moxie © C.M. Stunich 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information address Sarian Royal Indie Publishing, 89365 Old Mohawk Rd, Springfield, OR 97478.
www.sarianroyal.com
Cover art and design © Amanda Carroll and Sarian Royal
"Timeless" Font © Manfred Klein
"Autumn in November" Font © Misti's Fonts
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, businesses, or locales is coincidental and is not intended by the author.
this book is dedicated to Charles.
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Paxton Blackwell is lying across the polished mahogany surface of a bar, a drink clutched in his tattooed right hand, the other tapping a rhythm on the creased leg of his black slacks.
“You can't sit down here all night by yourself,” I say as I slide onto the stool next to him and fold my arms on the bar's surface. With our gazes level, it's hard to miss the beautiful grey-blue color of his eyes—even if the whites of that gaze are currently traced through with threads of red blood vessels.
“I'm not by myself now that you're here, right?” he drawls as he pushes his glass toward me.
I take the tumbler and pull it away, situating it just outside of his reach, but I don't take a drink. No way am I drinking anything on my first official night outside of North America. I'm in Dublin! my mind shouts, but it's hard to enjoy it when my boyfriend is drinking himself into a stupor—while my four other boyfriends hang out upstairs in a hotel room.
“The bar is closing,” I whisper as I reach out and brush some blonde hair from his forehead. Last night, on the plane, Pax was … not himself. It was a six plus hour flight and he barely spoke a word.
“I love you, Pax.”
I bite my lower lip and feel a slight tingle race across my skin.
Yes. Yep. That was me, saying that … to Paxton Charles Blackwell, lead singer of Beauty in Lies, rock god, and distant British royalty. And then I covered his mouth and didn't let him say it back. Now, of course, I can't stop wondering what he would've said if I'd let him.
“This is Ireland,” he slurs, totally and completely drunk. “Pubs don't close in Ireland.”
“They do in Dublin,” I tell him as the bartender gives me a look and the band's manager hovers in the doorway that leads to the hotel's lobby. “And besides, you have a show tomorrow. If you're anything like me, then you're jet-lagged, and you're tired, and you need to come upstairs and get some sleep.”
“I slept on the plane,” he says, sitting up, his suit wrinkled, his tie loose, one of his cuff links missing from his jacket. “I'm fine. I don't need any bloody sleep.”
He moves to stand up, stumbles a little, and then catches himself on the bar. Before I can even register what he's doing, he's grabbed the drink from me and tossed it back.
“Oh, honey, what the fuck?”
Goose bumps break out across my skin at the sound of Ransom's voice, and I turn to find him standing there in a loose tank with a hood. The fabric's thrown up over his chocolate brown hair as he crosses his big, muscular arms over his chest and sighs.
“I'm pissed outta my skull, I think,” Paxton says, turning around and putting his elbows on the bar's surface.
“No shit,” Ransom says with a sigh, walking over and giving me a sly smile before he grabs Pax around the waist and tosses him over his shoulder. “Come on, sweet thing.”
I follow after him, the yellow fabric of my dress swishing around my legs as we pass by Octavia and I give her an apologetic half-smile.
“Sorry,” I mouth as we head across the polished floors of the lobby and into the elevator.
“Not the fucking lift,” Paxton says as Ransom sets him down, and I press the button for our floor. “I might chunder all over the damn place.”
“You're a mess, man,” Ransom says as he tries to steady his friend with a pair of hands on Pax's shoulders. “A fucking mess and all your parents have done is gift us the use of their jet for one day. What are you gonna do when your dad gets in your face and starts talking shit about our music and Lilith and … you know, us kissing? Because he is going to bring that crap up.”
“Sod off, Ransom,” Paxton says, but there's not a lot of weight to his words.
The elevator dings and the doors slide open, letting us out and into a hallway that's as posh and overdone as the jet—plane? jet? what's the difference?—that we flew in on. There are big, white archways, intricate moldings on the walls, and pedestals with statues, plants, and vases that I'm afraid to touch lest I break one.
I'd probably bankrupt Beauty in Lies if I did.
Pax puts his arm around my shoulders, leaning his weight into me.
“You okay, darling?” Ransom asks, his voice a silken kiss against my ears. Our eyes meet and I smile.
“I've got him,” I say as I help Paxton out and into the hall, guiding him to a set of white double doors and waiting while Ran slides a key card into the slot and tugs on the handle.
We slip inside what's supposed to be Muse's room—each one of my guys has his own room, per the record label's rules—but we've been hanging out in here together since we landed this afternoon. I mean, I think we landed this afternoon. Montréal is five hours behind Dublin, and we were traveling for six, and well … my days are a little mixed-up.
“Two hours at the bar and you're already shitfaced, huh?” Muse asks as he stands there with his hands on his hips, looking adorable as hell in those gently worn black sweats of his, dark glasses perched on his nose.
“I was shitfaced after one,” Pax says, climbing onto the bed and curling into a ball.
I sit down next to him and start pulling off his shoes. I have to say, Paxton has great taste in shoes. His black loafers are smooth, sleek black leather with chiseled toes and silver crossbones trim. They're also handmade in England which is fucking cool. If I had a thousand bucks to blow on shoes, I'd probably buy myself a pair, too.
“Just remember when you're onstage tomorrow with a massive migraine, that you brought it down on yourself,” Michael says from the opposite side of the bed, playing with his phone in his lap. “I don't know why you let your family get to you like that. It must be so fucking terrible to have your parents lend you their private jet, right? I mean, travesty amongst travesties.”
“You don't know them like I do,” Pax mumbles, face pressed to the pillow. “You have no clue what they're capable of.” He struggles to sit up as Muse appears with a glass of water and a couple of pills in hand.
“Drink this, take these, please,” he says as the bathroom door opens and Copeland emerges cloaked in steam, towel drying his auburn hair and acting like he has no clue how hot he is with drops of warm liquid sliding over his muscles.
“You found Paxton,” Cope says and I get a little chill down my spine. Those are some of the first words Ransom ever said to me, back in Phoenix. I have to hold back a
small smile.
“Yes, I did,” I say as Pax throws back the handful of pills and downs the glass of water. “Sitting in the pub, drinking himself into a stupor.”
“Yeah, well, once you meet the Blackwells, you'll understand—and then maybe I won't have to get drunk all by my fuckin' lonesome.”
“You're the one that snuck out without telling anyone, sweetheart,” Ransom says, his voice warm molasses over pancakes. Thick, gooey, delicious. I could eat that man's words for breakfast everyday and never go hungry.
Paxton just makes a sound in his throat and turns away from us, effectively ending the conversation. I stare at his back for a moment and wonder if my words made even a small dent in his darkness, a spark of light in his shadows. I told him I loved him … and I meant it.
Wow.
I stand up and sweep my red hair over my shoulder.
“I think I'll take a shower,” I say with a smile as I scoot past Cope and into the still steamy bathroom. I close the door with my foot and then kneel down to dig in the duffel bag sitting against the wall. Technically, this is my room, too. In order for me to travel on the Broken Hearts and Twisted Souls Tour legally, Octavia put me down as Muse's plus-one. I guess each guy is allowed one friend or family member to travel with him on the record label's dime.
Gathering up a set of pink pj's—ones I've had since senior year of high school—I stand up and lay them out across the counter along with a fresh towel.
“I love you, Muse.”
I bite my lower lip and touch a hand to my belly to still the whisper of butterfly wings. Two guys down, three to go.
There's no way you're actually in love with these guys, my logical mind quips, but I shut her down. Logic paired me with Kevin—he was rich, handsome, driven—and logic convinced me to wait the 'appropriate' amount of time before having sex with him—so we could have the most boring sex known to mankind and then he could later cheat on me. It was logic that told me to go to Phoenix to be with Kevin, to marry him and be his arm candy. And finally, it was logic that said not to drop everything and rush home to be with dad when he first got sick, to stay in Arizona and take care of my affairs.
So … fuck logic.
If my heart quivers and aches and thunders each time I kiss these boys, if my lids feel heavy and weighted when they run a thumb over my lip, if my skin gets tight and hot when they look at me just right … then maybe I am in love?
“I'm not on a timeline,” I whisper as I turn the faucet and wait for warm water to cascade over my fingers. “There are no boxes to check off or forms to fill out.”
“Do you talk to yourself a lot when you're alone?” Muse asks, startling me. I glance over my shoulder and find him leaning against the bathroom door. “Sorry, I knocked but I don't think you could hear me. Do you mind if I join you?”
His glasses fog up in the steamy air and he pauses to pull them off his face, setting them on the counter and then sweeping strands of silver-white-black hair off of his forehead.
“As long as you promise that we'll actually get clean during this shower. Usually when I let you guys in, I end up dirtier.”
Derek Muser's mouth curves up at one corner as he reaches down and hooks his thumbs under the waistband of his sweats, my eyes drawn to the fresh tattoo on his hip, the one that matches the design on my left wrist. It's just a circle of bass clefs with small treble clefs in between, but I got it with my boys, all six of us in perfect unity in that moment.
A small smile teases my lips.
“Yeah, I suppose I do talk to myself sometimes,” I reply in latent answer to Muse's question. “Why?”
He shrugs his muscular shoulders and then pushes his sweats over his hips, letting them pool on the floor at his feet before he steps out of them.
“Because I used to do it, too. Still do sometimes.” He cocks his head at me and then takes a step forward, reaching out for my shoulders and turning me in a slow circle. I have to bite my lip as he drags my dress' zipper down in the back, his thumb sliding along my spine and making me shiver. “I think it's a by-product of loneliness,” Muse whispers against my ear, his breath giving me goose bumps as it brushes across my lobe. “You were lonely a long time before Kevin ever broke up with you, weren't you?”
“I was,” I reply carefully as the dress slides over my shoulders and falls in yellow folds on the tiles around my ankles.
“But not anymore?” he asks, voice almost too quiet to hear over the rush of the water.
“Not anymore,” I respond honestly as I close my eyes and savor the feel of his hands on my back, unclasping my bra. I cross my arms over my chest to hold up the weight of my breasts, extracting the lingerie and tossing it aside.
“With you around,” Muse says, his hands sliding down my waist to cup my hips, “neither am I.”
He takes hold of my panties and drags them over the round curve of my ass, pausing to press a kiss to the right cheek before he lets them drop into the heap with my dress.
“You promised I'd get clean during this shower,” I say as Muse stands back up and kisses along the freckles tracing my shoulders.
“Actually, I just smiled at you and said nothing. You assumed that was me agreeing to your proposition.” One of Muse's hands, the one covered in black bat tattoos, slides down my belly and across the neatly groomed patch of red hair above my clit. “When really, I was just sort of being a cheeky asshole.”
“I don't think so,” I whisper back, my lids fluttering as his fingers find the liquid heat between my thighs. “Cope said—” The words trying to escape my lips are obliterated by the careful teasing of Muse's hand, slicking my body's own lube up from my opening and using it to massage my clit.
“Cope said what?” he asks, with a healthy dose of amusement coloring his words, the chuckle that escapes his throat distinctly male, distinctly satisfied with the direction this is going.
“That you're the only nice guy in the group.”
I gasp as Derek parts me with his fingers, dipping in to his knuckles, making those black bats inked into his skin disappear.
He doesn't respond to that statement, working the plush pink folds between my thighs until I'm sagging against his other arm where it's wrapped around my waist. His mouth traces a hot line down the side of my neck, kissing my skin with fevered reverence, marking my flesh with the shape of his mouth.
Standing here like this, it seems impossible that it's only been three days since we walked to the cemetery, since Muse told me part of his story, since I officially said goodbye to my dad, my mom, my sister …
But it's nearly impossible to think about any of that with Derek's hard, hot form pressed against mine, his fingers strumming my body the way he strums his guitar. And just like his instrument, I find myself making sensual music with my lips, gasps and moans and throaty hums that perfume the steamy air around us.
It's not until I'm coming in his arms, hit like a brick with the force of my orgasm, that Derek decides to speak again.
“Maybe I am an okay guy?” he says, nibbling my ear, managing to keep me on my feet with that muscular arm wrapped around my waist. “Because I might just get you dirty, but I'll make sure to clean you up after.”
“How considerate,” I whisper in a breathy, quivering voice. And then I'm squealing because Muse is scooping me up into his arms like a bride and stepping into the shower with me.
Good thing we're at a hotel because no matter how long we stay in there, the water never runs cold.
And trust me—we stay in there a long, long time.
In the morning, I wake up to find Paxton shrugging into a black suit jacket and tucking a cigarette between his lips. For a second there, I almost believe he really is a vampire he's so damn quiet. At the very least he certainly has the cocky swagger becoming a prince of the night.
“Where are you off to?” I ask, sitting up slowly, white sheets tangled around my legs and a man or two on either side of me. Cope and Muse are on my left while Ransom sleeps curled inside his
hoodie on my right. Michael's sprawled across the pull-out sofa bed, but only because there's literally no more room on the one the rest of us are lying on.
I don't know exactly what's going to happen back in Seattle, but I imagine that in my new place, I'll be getting a king size bed.
“To have myself a fag,” Pax says, pulling the smoke from his lips and wiggling it at me.
He gives me a tight smile as I crawl from the covers and grab Michael's black leather jacket, shrugging it over the silky pink fabric of my pj's.
“You're comin' downstairs in that?” Pax asks, giving me a look and then parking the unlit cigarette between his lips. He steps over to me and reaches down, buttoning up the top few buttons on my shirt.
“Seriously?” I respond with a raised brow, but Pax just grins, takes the cigarette from his mouth and then presses a tobacco scented kiss to my lips.
“Come along then,” he says, curling his fingers around mine when I reach to take his hand.
Together, we head out the door and down the hall, taking the elevator to the first floor. Outside, there's a small crowd of people smoking under the awning that shields the hotel's front doors from the rain. Everybody out here is too busy puffing on their cigarettes and staring at the traffic passing by to notice that I'm standing there in slippers and silky pajamas.
“Are you excited for the show tonight?” I ask, thrilled at the idea that I'm standing in a foreign country, that I did it. I made it out of the USA, started on my journey to see the world, something that my mother always wished for but that her fairy godmother … never granted.
I shiver and close my eyes for a moment, tucking myself into Michael's jacket and breathing in the leather and pomegranate spice smell.
“Not particularly,” Pax drawls, his eyes as grey and dreary as the weather battering the city and the patchwork of lush foliage across the street from us. St. Stephen's Green it's called, a city park that I plan on visiting today. And then, I'm climbing on a double-decker bus and taking a tour of the city. We don't have a lot of time here: after the show, we're getting back on the jet and heading straight for Edinburgh, Scotland. Basically, I'm going to cram in as much sightseeing as I can with whatever time I have here.
Moxie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 3) Page 1