Moxie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 3)

by C. M. Stunich

  Besides, Paxton is mine. And that's not something I'm at all worried about.

  But wow, she really does look like she was made for the runway.

  We're complete opposites, me and this girl. Where she's tall, I'm short. My skin is the color of fresh cream and hers, a rich dark mocha. My hair is wavy, long and red as blood while she wears hers in a loose ombre Afro, dark at the roots and lighter at the tips. My body is round, curvy and soft all over, and hers is toned and just muscular enough that I can see her abs when she moves. Most importantly, she has this look to her that says she's never met tragedy face to face, never danced with grief, or kissed melancholy's cold lips. That's the biggest difference between us, the real reason we're true opposites.

  “Amelia Davies,” she says, ignoring Cope and coming straight for me. She extends a hand, taking my measure as I shake it firmly and look up at the pleasantly stoic expression on her face. “And you are?”

  “Lilith Goode,” I say as Paxton saunters over to us and puts his hands on his hips.

  Amelia studies me for a moment and then turns her attention to him. For several long, painful moments the two of them just stare at each other, their faces frozen, lips unmoving, lids barely blinking.

  “Lilith's my girlfriend,” Paxton says and then I watch for a moment as he decides what else he wants to add to that. “We'll probably get hitched once we're back in Seattle.”

  “Whoa,” Cope says from beside me. We exchange a look, and I see I'm not the only one shocked as hell by that statement. I'm sure it's just a bunch of male posturing, but … it makes me really wonder about that, about marriage. I can't legally marry all five of my boys. Does that mean I don't marry any of them? Or do I pick the one that makes the most sense? Fuck, I don't know the answer to that question. I guess it's a little early to even think about it, but I can't help wondering.

  Pax gives Amelia a tight smile, and I notice that he has to look up just a little to meet her eyes. She really is tall as hell.

  “Oh?” she asks, but not like she really cares all that much. “Good. Because I got tired of waiting around for you; I met someone.”

  “Bullshit,” Paxton says with a scowl, still smoking his cigarette and leaving the rest of the boys in this awkward limbo around us. “Your parents know about this special someone yet?”

  “No. But after you tell yours that you fancy Lilith over here, I'll share my news with mine.” Amelia's smile stretches a little wider, and I find the muscles in my face relaxing; I believe her. Some of the tightness goes out of my back and shoulders as Paxton smokes and gives Amelia a skeptical look, his eyes the color of a wild sea in a storm, grey and raging.

  “Hmm.”

  He doesn't say anything, letting that cold, cruel gaze swing my way. I wish I could say it didn't do anything for me, but fuck. I think I might be a sucker for bad boys. Even with his lips downturned in a mean as hell frown, Paxton is hot. Beyond hot. Scorching.

  “Hey, I'm Derek,” Muse says, extending his hand between Pax and me, a smile etched onto his kind face. “You can call me Muse if you want; everyone else does.”

  “Muse,” Amelia says in the dulcet tones of an English accent, “nice to meet you. I take it you're in the band?”

  “Rhythm guitar,” he replies, his smile curving up at one corner. “Since Paxton apparently shed all his fancy boarding school manners at the door, let me introduce the guys. This is Ransom, our bassist.” Ran doesn't bother to move away from his slouched position by the door, raising a single palm in greeting. “We've got Michael on lead guitar and Copeland here is our drummer.”

  Amelia greets the other boys, still smiling that same easy, confident smile. Actually, the longer I look at her, the more I realize it's the same expression that Muse usually wears. It says I get what I want, when I want it. The thing is, hers also says she's fucking positive that she knows what that is. Muse still has no clue, hiding behind a mask of empathy while his past whispers awful things to him from deep inside his soul.

  “If you've found yourself a bloke, then what are you doing here?” Paxton asks, flicking his cigarette out the front door and onto the pristine stone steps. It comes across less as a spoiled, disrespectful gesture and more as a challenge. If I hadn't seen Pax's cool stone facade crack and shift, I might get frustrated with him. Poor little rich kid, right? But that's not it at all. Underneath the cruel, careful fingers of the man is the lonely boy.

  “I wasn't sure why you'd decided to come home; I was worried you might've changed your mind.” Amelia smirks and crosses her arms over her chest, leaning back to study Pax with a knowing look. It's obvious from their interaction that they once knew each other pretty damn well.

  “Please. Last time we saw each other, you spit in my face and threatened to mutilate me if I didn't marry you. I'm supposed to think that you're totally over all this? You've been gunning for me since we were seven.”

  Amelia rolls her brown eyes and shakes her head, giving me a sympathetic sort of look, like Pax is my problem now and she feels sorry for me. I find myself smiling back.

  “I've fallen in love, Pax.” Amelia gestures at me with her chin, her long red nails curled around her biceps, her hips cocked with a bit of attitude. “Looks like you have, too—with more than one person if the internet has anything to say about it.”

  She smirks—not unlike Pax's usual haughty curving of lips—and turns back the way she came.

  The looks on both Paxton's and Ransom's faces are fucking priceless. One part righteous indignation and two parts adorable confusion. Mm. I'm thinking I might actually have to share them with one another which, of course, is more than fine by me.

  “I'm grabbing a snack and hitting the pool. You're all welcome to join me.” She pauses and turns back toward us, walking backward for a few steps. “Oh, and your parents are at some fundraiser luncheon. They'll be back in a couple of hours.”

  Amelia spins back around and disappears through what looks like a fancy living room. Only … when I glance in the opposite direction, I see yet another 'living room' complete with couches, coffee table, and fireplace. In fact, the two rooms are almost mirrors of one another in layout; they just have different furniture and color choices.

  “Of course they bloody are,” Paxton mumbles, looking after Amelia for a second with a slightly baffled expression on his face, like he can't believe how easy that was.

  “She's in love, Pax,” I confirm, drawing his attention back to me.

  “How the hell do you know that?” he drawls, taking a step toward me and putting a hand on my hip, pulling me close like he just can't imagine not touching me right now.

  “One woman in love can recognize another,” I reply, and I can't help but glance at Cope out of the corner of my eye as I say that.

  “Hey, did Lilith say it yet?” I ask, cocking my head to the side as I watch Copeland dig through his overnight bag for some swim trunks. He pauses for a moment to look up at me with blue-green eyes, narrowing them as I stand in the doorway to the swanky guestroom and watch him.

  “Say what?” he asks, ruffling up his auburn hair with one hand, the tattoo on his left forearm obscured by a cluster of black corded bracelets.

  “I love you,” I respond, leaning against the doorjamb in black swim shorts with white skulls all over them. They're a big thing in this band, skulls and crossbones. That, and bats. Gotta love 'em.

  “Yeah, I love you, too,” Cope says sarcastically, finally fishing out a pair of red trunks with a white tie.

  “No, seriously. I was eavesdropping last night, and I heard her tell Ran and Michael. We all heard her tell Pax, and she told me at the cemetery.”

  “She did?” he asks, scrunching up his face for a moment and then shaking his head. The pewter necklaces hanging from his throat clink together. “No, she didn't tell me she loved me.”

  “Did you tell her that you did?”

  “Fucking hell, Derek,” he says, exasperated with me with as usual. Cope's a nice guy, but he's so … tight, like,
he doesn't want to talk about anything real. He's not like me though; he feels everything that goes through him, all of it amplified by his gentle spirit, magnified a hundred times. And he sucks dick at hiding it. But he doesn't repress it like I do. He just refuses to really discuss anything important. In a way, you might say we're opposites of one another. I talk about everything and I feel nothing.

  At least I know there aren't any hummingbirds in the UK.

  My lids flutter closed for a moment and I find myself struggling to take another breath.

  Rough hands, a creaking mattress, too much weight. So much pain. Pain like red splotches against the backs of my eyelids, obscuring the birds, the window, the room.

  “Muse?” Cope's voice shifts, gentles. When I open my eyes, I see him standing just a few inches away from me, one hand on my bat covered shoulder. “Are you sure you're alright?”

  I smile at him.

  “I'm fine. I think … maybe just telling Lilith about the rape is bringing it all up in my head.” I gesture at my skull, like my brain's just tossed up like a salad. Hey, no worries, it'll settle, right? I might've been raped in my childhood bed before I hit double digits, but it's no big thing.

  Jesus. I need to see a psychologist or something. Only, I've fucking tried that and it never goes anywhere. I wonder if it's because I say the words but run from the emotions? Is that it? Do I have to break down this dam and let it all free?

  What happens if I do and I drown? What then? What happens to the man I've tried so hard to turn myself into? If he dies … then I'll have nothing to offer Lilith.

  “It's okay for you to freak out, throw a tantrum like Pax or Michael. You know that, right?”

  “I told her I was named after my uncle,” I say randomly, moving into the room and sitting down on the edge of the enormous four poster bed. Glancing up, I see some crazy splotchy impressionist painting of a forest at twilight. “But I didn't tell her anything else.”

  I lean back onto the bed and close my eyes for a moment.

  Cope climbs up next to me and mimics my pose. When I crack my lids, I find him staring up at the canopy alongside me, our arms touching.

  “How do you tell the girl you love …” I stop because I can't make myself say it.

  I was raped as a kid by my own father. I mean, that's fucking gross. It's gross. And it's awful, and what I am supposed to do with that?

  I put my palms on my face and try to imagine his charred, blackened body. My parents' house—including the room where I used to sit and watch hummingbirds—burned to the ground with them in it. I wish I could say I'd had the balls to take my own revenge, like Ransom, but I didn't. No, my idiot bio dad just scooped hot ashes out of the fireplace and put them in a cardboard box next to the hearth. They lit that place up like the Fourth of July, taking the rapist, his wife, and all their secrets down in flames.

  “How do you tell the girl you love that you love her?” Cope asks with a slight smile, turning on his side to look at me. He props himself up on an elbow, the colorful eighth note star tats on his arm bright in a shaft of yellow sunlight. “You said it back, right?”

  “Nope.” I lace my fingers behind my head and shake it no.

  “Why not?”

  I shrug, but I know why.

  I can't say it back until I empty this shit. It's like my heart is full of pus, oozing and rotten. If I can't squeeze out the infection, I can't give it to Lilith.

  “Don't fret. I bet she's gearing up to tell you next,” I say, not even bothering to answer Copeland's question.

  I sit up suddenly and rise to my feet, heading into the hall and toward the curving sweep of staircase that leads to the foyer. Cope lets me go without a word; he's used to my weirdness.

  “Hey there.”

  Lilith steps into the hallway with a smile, dressed in the bikini we bought her in Jacksonville. She closes the door to Paxton's bedroom carefully and waits for me to walk up to her.

  Pax put the rest of us in separate rooms, but he kept Lilith with him. Nobody argued. Who cares? If this is what he needs us to do while he makes peace with his parents then that's cool with me. We all do what we have to in order to survive.

  “Pax said there was a stairway directly to the pool from Michael's room.” She reaches down and takes my hand, the warmth of her palm pleasant and dry, the tinkling metal sound of her charm bracelet the only noise I can hear. A house this fucking big, this goddamn beautiful, and barely anyone lives in it. What a waste.

  “He freaking out in there?” I ask, pointing over my shoulder at Pax's door.

  “Eh,” she starts, shrugging those beautiful white shoulders of hers. The black and green striped bikini I suggested looks great on her, turning her hair into this flaming waterfall atop her head, making her skin look even paler. Like a pretty little vampire. Or a goddess maybe, like the woman in Botticelli's The Birth of Venus. “I think he kind of wanted to fight with somebody.”

  I can't help but laugh at that, watching as Lilith turns the handle and lets us into the guest room where Michael's staying.

  “Sounds about right,” I say as we step into a white and gold palace. As big as this room is, I could fit three of my childhood homes into it. Not that I'd want to. I never want to see that place again; I'm fucking glad it burned. I'm glad they burned. I hope it hurt like hell. “It's like a frosted cake in here.”

  I run my finger along the edge of a gold table with white roses on it, and follow Lilith to a pair of open French doors. As promised, there's a staircase leading directly to a brick patio and a clear blue swimming pool. It's one of those really fancy ones, the ones that look 'natural', with boulders and waterfalls and carefully manicured plants.

  Michael's already down there with a pair of shades on his face, having a drink in a cabana with Pax's ex-fiancée. White linen curtains blow in the breeze, giving the place a strangely tropical look. We are in the middle of the English countryside, right?

  “A frosted cake,” Lilith repeats with a smile, like she's been thinking about my words. “I like that. You're right—most of the rooms look like a wedding cake threw up all over them. There's a lot of gold, a lot of white, way too many floral motifs.”

  I grin as we move down the steps together and hit the pool deck.

  “You're dating all five of these blokes?” Amelia says to Lilith by way of greeting, shoving her sunglasses off her face and giving my girlfriend a pitying sort of look. “I can hardly handle one. You must have one hell of a sex drive.”

  Lilith just laughs and accepts a glass from Michael, the sides sweating in the heat of the afternoon. At least it's nice and shady in here.

  “You could say that …” Lil hazards carefully, sipping the drink. “Long island?”

  “Made it myself,” Amelia says, gesturing at the tray sitting on the edge of the small bar. “There's one for everybody.”

  “You know, when Pax told me I was going to be meeting his fiancée, I didn't expect to like her so much.”

  Amelia laughs as I take a drink and raise it in salute.

  “Yeah, well, if you'd met me a few years ago, you wouldn't have.” She stares down into her drink and then reaches a hand up to touch her hair. “I guess you could say I was a bit of a shit. But then I went overseas for an internship and I met the most … bloody beautiful man. My parents are bound to hate him, but maybe that's one of the reasons I like him so much?”

  I settle down on the curved white couch—if it's outdoors, is it still a couch?—and smile as Lilith sits down beside me, cuddling her mostly naked body up against my mostly naked body.

  Ah, holy shit.

  I have to focus really hard on the conversation to keep my attention off all the places where our skin slicks together. There's really nothing I can do about the hardness of my cock, is there?

  Copeland joins us a few minutes later, giving me a private look that I return with another smile. I'm okay, really. Or at least I think I will be. Eventually anyway.

  Ransom is right behind him, the sca
rs on his chest covered with a mesh hoodie, disguising the imperfect flesh underneath. He didn't cover up at the beach, but maybe he's bothered more by the intimacy of our little gathering? Instead of strangers walking by, we're hanging out with Pax's childhood friend.

  “You're going to be proud of me,” Ransom says to Lilith, flopping down on the opposite end of the couch, giving me some space to snuggle my girl. “I resisted the urge to have a cigarette.” Ran puts his hands up to his mouth, his face nestled inside the safety of the mesh hood. “But fuck, this blows some serious dick.”

  “You blow some serious dick,” Michael whispers with a wicked hot smirk, glancing over his shoulder as Amelia sits on the edge of the pool and dips the long, dark lines of her legs into the crystal clear water. Paxton pauses for a moment to talk to her, taking up the same position, his legs vibrant twists of colored ink, all the way down to his toes.

  “Guess so,” Ransom says, leaning back and giving Michael a look. “And apparently I'm pretty goddamn good at it. You want me to suck yours next?”

  “I'd rather swallow a bucket of rusty nails, but thanks,” Michael says, the phoenix on his chest glimmering as he takes a step back, out of the shade and into the sun. “God, that feels good.”

  “Not as good as my mouth,” Ransom says, laughing as Michael plucks an ice cube from his glass and tosses it at him.

  “Fucker,” he growls, shaking his head and turning around to face the pool, the fresh tattoo on his back red and irritated at the edges. I take a moment to peak at mine at its place on my hip.

  “I need to do a better job of cleaning this damn thing,” I say as Lilith grabs a bottle of sunscreen from a small shelf near the bar. There are folded white towels on it, along with flip-flops, spare shades, and goggles. This place is stocked like a damn hotel.

  “Here,” Lil says, scooting close to me again and squirting lotion on her hands. My breath catches as she reaches over and rubs her fingers across my hip, covering my ink with slow, sensuous circles of her fingertips. Did I say my dick was hard before? Nah, it's hard now. “Tattoos stay brighter longer if you protect them from the sun—especially when they're this new.”