by Angel Payne
“I only heard Dec use one real name for anyone. Their leader’s name is Menger.”
“Their leader?” My heartbeat thudded in my throat. “What do you mean? Like, they were really some kind of a hit squad?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” Michael scooped up one of my hands. “He owes them money. Lots of it.”
“Them…who?”
“A group called the Principals. I don’t know exactly who they are, but he’s into them deep. Best I can tell, it’s gambling debt. He always did like to play. Whether he racked it up locally at the rez casinos or out in Vegas, he has a weakness for it. And apparently, he’s in some trouble now, at least six figures. Those men came to collect.”
“Okay, so Uncle Dec is a loser to the third degree now. But what does that have to do with you?”
Michael let me go and scooted upright too—though the next moment, his head dropped between his bunched shoulders. As crazy as this ride had been so far, I sensed we were rolling to the worst part now. He growled, also broadcasting that he didn’t want to tell me the rest.
“Baby.” I dove a hand through his thick curls. “Just tell me. We’ve come this far, get it out. There’s no point in keeping any part of it from me now, especially if it’s now going to involve me—which you’ve implied already.”
He gave in to my tug, raising his head again. Expelled a decisive breath. “You’re a damn smart woman, Margaux Asher.”
I raised my brows along with my grin. “Are you trying to flatter your way out of this?”
“No,” he sighed again. “Just stated it as the lead-in. These pieces are going to be easy for you to slide together.”
“Okay…” I drew it out, purposely leaving the end open.
“California is suffering a major drought, right?”
What the state’s water crisis had to do with Declan was a mystery, but I nodded. “Right.”
“Who’s suffering the most from the drought? Farmers, right?”
“Yes.” The smart one was following so far. Good thing, since he took another huge breath and reset his shoulders before going on.
“The farm—my family’s land in Julian—sits on a massive natural underground well. It’s big enough to provide water for us and all of Julian, and could likely be piped to San Diego as a substantial water source for the city.”
My eyes popped wide—before threatening to jump out of my head. “And Declan…”
“Knows about it, too.” He grunted. “For years, the asshole’s been trying to pressure Mom and me into auctioning off the rights to the well to the highest bidder. Oil company, gas company, the City of San Diego, the fucking Republic of Mars…the bastard will talk to anyone offering the highest bid for the water.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. Holy shit.” His glower matched my fury. “Sometimes I can’t believe he comes from the same gene pool as my dad.”
I stared out at the waves, focusing on the liquid layers of gray and blue to calm my thoughts. “Okay, just as devil’s advocate and because I don’t completely understand the situation, why wouldn’t you simply deal with him by sharing the water?”
“Because our land would be destroyed. The methods of tapping into the well would devastate our farm, uprooting most of the orchard.”
“Wow.”
“Those trees have been growing for decades, some for close to a hundred years. Most of our employees would have to be let go. Families would be without incomes. Livelihoods would be decimated. The list of cons is a mile long. We use the water for everything in the orchard, making us one less worry for the San Diego Water District. We’ve been off their grid for close to thirty years.”
“But would that stop the city from claiming eminent domain now and taking your land?” I sounded oppositional, but it seemed like Di and Michael had considered every reality. As long as he was sharing, I was asking.
“They don’t want to go there any more than we do. It would be a public relations nightmare, the big bad politicians destroying the livelihood of local farmers. Right now, Mom and I couldn’t agree more. We want to remain self-sufficient and lie low, business as usual. Pearson’s has been a part of Julian since I was a kid, and if Julian is anything, it’s easy and uncomplicated—the way the locals demand it. We don’t want to be the ones dragging big city government problems to town, destroying the natural charm everyone’s worked for.”
I absorbed all of that through a contemplative pause. The rush of the waves and the murmur of the wind served as perfect filler.
“I hear everything you’re saying, and it all makes perfect sense—but I still don’t see where I figure into all this. Why are you so concerned about my safety? None of this feels dangerous to me personally, Michael.”
He scrubbed a hand across his face then hit me with a wary stare. “The conversation I overheard with Dec and those guys, on the beach…there was more to it.”
“More?” My skin prickled. I didn’t like the harsh glint in his eyes. Not one bit.
“You thought I was mad when I came upon him talking to you in the ballroom. That I’d reached my limit. Right?”
I nodded. With the whole story in place, it didn’t surprise me how the man pressed every button Michael had.
“So this Menger loser started talking about how it’d be so convenient to make it look like I’d pounded on Declan instead of them. My own temper had just given him the perfect alibi.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Oh shit.”
“Damn right, oh shit,” he growled. “But it gets better.” He didn’t let up with the fear-filled stare. “They know who you are, too, sugar—and Menger was making dirtball comments about ‘comforting’ you if I was thrown in jail. It made me see red. I mean, a real red haze slammed over my eyes. I went on autopilot. Outnumbered or not, I didn’t care. I jumped at the bastards from the rocks and was able to take out one of the goons before the others ran off—but before I realized what the hell was going on, the photographers swarmed in again, along with security. And you.”
“So you really never hit Declan?”
“Not once.”
“What did the photographers take pictures of?”
“Shit if I know. It was all a blur, especially after you got there. I was so furious that you didn’t believe me.” His jaw turned to steel again. “Do you have any idea what that felt like?”
“Michael—”
He waved me off. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does matter. Hear me out. And damn it, look at me.”
He stared at the blanket for another thirty seconds. Finally, slowly, lifted his gaze back up.
“Do you realize the difference between then and right now?” I demanded. “How much all of what you just said means? Do you understand that if I’d had all this information on Saturday night, I would’ve known, with every fiber of my instinct, that you were telling me the truth?”
His lips parted on the start of a retort but I stopped him with a sharp wave.
“Instead, I was totally crippled. Fighting blind. I was ordered into battle without a sword. I won’t have to now. Thank you. I’m grateful that you’ve finally opened up and given me the whole story. Your past with this awful man, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, has contributed in a big way to the person you are right now. Our pasts shape our futures—and now that you’ve let me in on your past, we can build our future together. We’ve been working for this, Michael. Now, we just have some really bad people to clear out of the way first.”
His long, unblinking silence would have stretched into unnerving—if not for the soft smile on his lips and the golden fire in his gaze.
Finally, he murmured, “How are you so amazing?”
I shrugged a little, smiling in return—and loving the fresh heat in my heart.
He reached over. Threaded a hand in my hair. Pulled me to him then pressed a long kiss to my lips. It felt like we hadn’t kissed in months, not just one day. His mouth was warm but tender
, a physical plea for forgiveness.
I watched his face while he kissed me, something I didn’t often do. With his eyes closed, I could marvel at his long lashes, the exact honey color of his hair. He breathed air in through his nose, absorbing me through all of his senses. I wanted to do the same…to drown in him completely.
When his mouth parted to deepen our contact, I let my eyes fall closed, too…as my heart and my spirit opened. Finally, I enjoyed it for what it was—the end of a nasty fight and the beginning of new steps into the future.
Together.
Chapter Nine
Michael
Open heat. Soft surrender. Perfect passion. I could’ve added a thousand words to the string, all of them right and real, but none more fitting than the one resounding louder than all others.
Home.
I’d never appreciated the word more.
Never felt it more for anyone in my life.
Never ached more strongly for the chance to show her.
I let a moan vibrate through myself then her, reveling in her immediate, intense response. She arched into me as if lit on fire, fisting my hair, pressing our bodies tighter. In that connection, she gave me the sweetest gift of all. The door to her soul was flung back open, and I knew her thoughts with the clarity of my own. I knew the depth beneath every tremulous shiver, every shuddering sigh, every harsh breath. I knew her again, in every recess of my exploding heart.
A cry escaped her, half breath and half plea, echoing everywhere in our little cove—and all the corners of my senses. “Michael!”
“Margaux.” I grated it into her neck with matching need. “Oh God, sweetheart.” I suckled her skin, trailing my tongue into the crevice between her neck and collarbone. When I added a tiny bite, she issued a full cry, her head falling back.
“Ahhh!” She drove a hand into my hair. “Mmmm…”
“I need you, princess. I need to know we’re okay again. To be a part of you again.”
She didn’t answer in words. Just swiveled her head up and down and as she clutched me tighter, compelling me closer.
“Say it.” I pressed the words into her skin. Added a hard bite into the valley beneath her ear. At the same time, I slid a hand along the sleek line of her hip and the perfect indent of her waist, gliding my touch higher, higher… “Say it to me. Tell me you want it, too.”
“Yes.” She lifted higher, pushing at me like a flower into the sun, opening more with every moment. She was so real about what she wanted…and needed to give in return. “Oh yes, Michael.”
I swallowed hard, humbled in ways I never imagined. I had no right to claim her like this, no right to expect anything from her after the hell of the last two days, followed by the story I’d just dropped on her like a three-ton brick. But here she was, writhing and pulling and biting and kissing as if our passion was her sustenance and she’d been fasting for two days.
I pushed my hand up, toward the perfect promise of her breast. She sighed and shivered as her nipples hardened, visible through her bra and T-shirt.
I bypassed it.
Instead, I reached for the windblown hair across her face. The strands, soft as the lavender they smelled like, were the beginning of the balm I badly needed. Touching her, breathing her, loving her…I suddenly couldn’t get enough. She alone could erase the last twenty-four hours of concrete, steel and iron bars.
“I do love you.” I uttered it only for her, for she was the only thing that mattered. The purest light in my world. The beautiful blade who’d been brought to cut my life wide open…then heal it. “And I promise, I promise, there will never be secrets between us again.”
She grabbed my hand. Pressed it against her cheek. Stared up at me with the smile of an angel but the gaze of a temptress. “I’m going to hold you to that, motherfucker.”
A laugh erupted—the kind of sound only she could pull from me—filling every inch of my body and every fissure in my soul. Only now, the feeling was…more. So much more. Where I’d basked in it before, I drowned now, and never wanted to come back up for air. The truth glared so brightly now. The secrets, my secrets, had barred me from this…walled me off from this tidal wave of joy and freedom and fearlessness.
Why the hell hadn’t I come clean with her sooner?
I curled my fingers against her scalp and lifted her face, kissing her with hunger and desire that climbed by the second. When we dragged apart, our stares were heavier, our breaths harder. “I’m sorry,” I finally uttered. “For everything.”
I didn’t need to elaborate. The fresh light in her eyes told me she’d already been through the list. “Shut up and touch me, stud.”
With my hand still cradling her head, I gently lowered her to the rock floor beneath us. “My princess commands…”
The corners of her lips inched up at the fervent promise in my voice. I kissed them both while skimming my hand beneath her shirt and working my way up to her bra.
Front clasp. Fuck, yes.
After twisting the closure free, I thumbed one of her nipples then the other. Both stiffened at once for me—well, harder than they’d been before. They formed the lushest fruit I’d ever seen, begging to be unwrapped from her delicate white tee, the erect stems nested in areolas the shade of fresh apricots.
I groaned. Margaux whined. Her head snapped back as she lifted her chest higher. “Yessss. Ohhhhh!”
Her needy cry was a siren’s song. My head dipped in its thrall, driving my mouth to one of her breasts. I sucked on her right through the cotton, only adding to the feeling that we were a pair of hormone-crazed kids playing hooky in the middle of a Monday morning. Her nipple strained against the fabric, tempting me to take more. I didn’t hesitate. Her mound consumed my mouth. Her arousal dominated my will.
She was, in every sense of the word, my princess. My goddess. My savior. My strength. I rejoiced in the scent of her desire. Craved her pulse on my tongue. Existed, in this moment, for one sole purpose—to give her the best pleasure of her life.
Lust fed my blood and powered my movements, including the slide of my hand under her skirt. With silken strokes and fervent squeezes, I tracked up her thigh and over her lush hip, where my fingers hit the edge of her panties.
“Fuck—”
“Yes!” she finished for me.
I traced the top edge of the lace. “I need what’s in here.”
“Then take it.”
Normally, that’d be my cue to tear away the lingerie—but if there was any time for leashing the caveman, it had arrived. She came first. Now and always. I’d proved it once by spilling my guts an hour ago. Proving it in this way was going to be a hell of a lot more fun—no matter how vigorously my cock battled the decision.
“Soon, princess.”
The luscious peaks of her breasts instantly betrayed the effect of my hated promise…and how her body had hated our separation as much as mine. I didn’t cloak any of my own arousal while gazing at her erect nipples, parted lips and strained neck, throbbing with the wild cadence of her pulse. She was already a taut, sizzling wire and I couldn’t wait to electrify her even more.
With slow deliberation, I trailed my hand inward, caressing more of that soft French lace until I was hovering over the silk triangle covering her sex. I grazed the fabric with my fingertips. Margaux gasped and grabbed my shoulders with astonishing force. She almost derailed my aim of a steady, sultry seduction. Almost. I recovered composure by digging both knees against the stone and focusing on the pain from it.
A very temporary fix.
As soon as I pressed my thumb to her pussy, my blood turned to fire. My erection surged with agony. My lungs pumped with exertion, fighting the need to lay her flat and bury myself to the balls inside her.
“Michael! Shit!”
I rolled my thumb harder, still using just the pad. “So wet,” I drawled, approving and low. “So succulent.”
Her hips bucked, positioning for deeper contact. “Need…you,” she panted. “Please. Your cock…”
/>
“Not long now, baby. I promise.” I leaned on my free elbow, curving my hand to her forehead, stroking off the dots of sweat. “But first, one for me to watch. Let me see it, Margaux. All of it.”
The skin beneath my hand furrowed. “So good,” she whispered. “So close.”
With her gaze still braced to mine, I pushed her panties aside. Her eyes flared. Her mouth fell open. I surrendered to a groan as my fingers met her soft, slick lips. “You really are my sugar, aren’t you? Spun so sweet for me. So fucking sexy.”
She dug harder into my shoulders. Her lungs pumped faster, pushing husky little sounds up her throat that might as well have been fists around my dick. Goddamn. Purgatory existed after all and this was it. I was enthralled but tormented, ecstatic at her ascent to heaven but burning in a very singular hell.
“I love you,” she rasped.
“I worship you.”
“I’m going to come apart.”
“And I’m going to catch all the pieces.”
The flesh beneath my thumb began to tremble. The center of her desire, at last. I growled, deep and exultant, rolling my touch on the hot little bundle. Margaux panted faster. Writhed harder.
I pressed in once. She hissed.
Twice. She swore.
On the third, she screamed. Pushed up against my hand, all quivering thighs and glistening skin, before her sex clenched in a rhythm as primal and perfect as the beat of the sea on the rocks outside.
I kept stroking, helping her ride out the climax, greedily soaking in the electricity of every convulsion. In the world outside our grotto, gulls danced on the breeze and sunlight dappled on calm waters, but in here, I was the guy who’d belted a home run into the lights, the immortal who’d short-circuited a city with his broadsword. There can be only one.
This woman was my one.
I didn’t let up the pressure. She tremored again, shrieking louder.
“Yeah, sweetheart,” I encouraged. “That’s it.” I dropped my forehead to hers. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Michael.” She sighed then gasped. “Michael.”
“Oh, yeah. So good. Give me another.”
