Moxie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 3)

by C. M. Stunich

  “Good thing I wore my tallest heels today,” she says, bending low and tucking loose strands of hair behind her ear. It's so dark in here that it looks black instead of red.

  Lilith pulls her skirts up, letting them bunch around her hips, and then focuses her fingers on undoing Michael's belt, pulling the silver skull and crossbones buckle apart until she can get to the fly on his black jeans.

  Me, I don't need any instruction to know what my honey wants me to do.

  I step close to her, teasing the plush warmth of her opening with the head of my cock, slicking it against her until I hear a moan slip past her tongue. My fingers curl around her hips, locking her in place just as I notice a flicker of shadow as Michael's head drops back.

  She's got his dick in her fucking mouth.

  My hips are moving before I even register what the hell my body's up to, sliding deep inside Lilith's tight cunt, feeling those slippery muscles lock around me. I pump hard and fast, encouraged by the sounds she makes around my friend's shaft. Even the dark, bestial sounds escaping Michael's throat spur me on.

  She's fucking mine, is what my instincts say, but fuck, he's my friend and the noises he's making … they say she's fucking his.

  So … ours.

  Ours.

  “Goddamn it,” I growl, the ridges of Lilith's body gliding along my own, begging me to finish, to let go and come hard. That beast inside of me rises up, all that old anger and resentment and frustration. I make myself keep going, close my eyes, tilt my own head back.

  Pleasure sweeps over me, washing away those emotions, locking me down as Lil's body gets tighter, tighter, tighter. Her muscles spasm and squeeze me, sooth away the pain and the heartache.

  I know I have a tendency to get lost in love … but this time, it actually feels right. There's no lurking ghost of guilt in my belly, no sick sense of dread when she's alone with my friends, no pang of promised heartache.

  With Lilith, it just feels … easy.

  I fuck my sweetheart until I come, joining the ragged, panting gasps of the other two people in that room, holding her body against mine for several long moments before she finally pulls away and stands up to fix her clothes.

  A knock at the door just about scares the shit out of me.

  “Hey guys,” Muse says, popping his head in the door with a knowing smile. “It's time to head back to the hotel.”

  He smirks at the three of us just before he closes the door again.

  “I hope this doesn't sound trite,” Lilith starts, mesmerizing me with the careful way she tucks her breasts back into her bra, “and I don't want you to think that if I say this, you owe me anything—”

  “I love you, too,” I tell her, because I'm not fucking ashamed of that shit. Who would be? Just like there are all kinds of relationships in this world, so too are there ways to fall in love. Slow burn is nice—for some people. And friendship that morphs into passion is great—for everyone else. This, this instant attraction, this desperate need to fill each other's dark places, this is us. And it's just as fucking valid as anything else.

  “I …”

  “Well, fuck, honey, I've stumped you,” I whisper, kissing her forehead and reaching down to help her tie her dress back up. I do the left shoulder while Michael takes care of the right.

  “You stole my thunder,” she tells me and I do my best not to smile like an idiot. “Well, okay, so I already told Pax and Muse, but … I want you all to know. I'm … shit, I think it happened all at once, when Michael came to me in the kitchen, like you guys were a package deal.”

  Truth be told, I almost expect Michael to get pissed off, to throw some sort of fit like he always does.

  “You don't have to say that to me if you're not ready,” he tells her in this soft, low voice that I haven't heard since the early days of Vanessa. “It's not a checklist. Just because you told Pax and Muse—”

  “I love you, Michael,” Lilith says, also completely unashamed. See. She's my fucking soul twin. “And no, it's not a checklist, but the six of us are becoming something together, something I want to start with nothing but honesty. This is how I feel, and as soon as I said it to one of you, I knew I needed to say it to all of you—because it's true.”

  “Fuck.”

  That's all Michael can manage, but I'm not worried about it. I'm sure he'll get Lilith alone somewhere in the next few days and spill his heart out. He acts like such a badass, but when he looks at her, there's something different in his gaze, something softer that I'm not used to seeing.

  The door opens again and light spills into the room, blinding me for a split second. When I blink through it, the first thing I see is Michael taking Lilith's hand in his and weaving their fingers together so tightly that I can't tell where he ends and she begins.

  My lips curve into a smile, and then I do the same thing on the other side.

  The three of us walk through the backstage area, out the propped open exit in the back, and straight into a torrential downpour.

  I straighten the green and black folds of my skirt, brushing my hand across the tropical leaf print on the fabric and wondering for the fiftieth time since leaving the hotel if I picked the right dress for meeting my boyfriend's parents—his rich, disapproving, distantly-royal parents.

  Ugh.

  I have literally zero experience with this sort of thing. My parents were longtime friends of Kevin's, so when we started dating, there was no awkward meet and greet, no wondering if they approved of me or not. Same thing with my first boyfriend—I actually met his parents before I met him.

  I make myself take a deep breath, adjusting the off the shoulder sleeves, playing with the two shiny black buttons that line the dip of the sweetheart neckline. You'd think after three weeks of hanging out with rockstars—who are almost always more dressed up than I am—and seeing groupies caked in makeup and clothed in sequins and glitter, that I'd have gotten over being self-conscious.

  But holy shit.

  For the first time since I joined the Broken Hearts and Twisted Souls Tour, I'm second-guessing everything: my dress, my shoes, my hair, my makeup. The only things I'm not worried about are my necklaces, my charm bracelet, and my tattoo.

  “You look beautiful,” Copeland whispers as I sigh and lay my head against his shoulder. Glancing down at his book, I happen to catch a few lines of prose that almost perfectly describe what I'm feeling.

  She knew how she felt about him; nothing could change that. But the world was cruel, and the world was awful, and all she wanted was to make things easier for him, better. No, it didn't matter what anyone else thought about them, not really, but if she could ease his torment just a little, why not play along?

  Then I realize that the book's actually about seventeenth century pirates and the main character's referring to her role of pretending to be a hostage … Hmm. Well, I suppose I do feel a little like a hostage, trapped in the back of Paxton's parents' limo. This morning, we took the jet from London to some small airport in Leeds.

  A sleek black stretch limo was crouching in wait for us, like some kind of predator licking its chops and getting ready to swallow us all whole.

  “You think so?” I ask with a small sigh. I'm not fishing for compliments or anything, but I could use some serious moral support. The way Paxton's jaw is wired shut, the muscles in his neck and cheeks twitching with tension, I can tell the next few days aren't exactly going to be a cakewalk. I imagine that he won't be the only person under scrutiny; he's already told me he's going to introduce me as his girlfriend.

  “Prettiest girl I've ever seen,” Copeland says, the expression too serious to question the validity of his words. I return his smile and snuggle a little closer, curling my left arm around his and reaching out my right across his chest. I slide the whorls of a single fingertip against the inside of the tinted glass window as the lush green English countryside rolls by, carrying us toward the Blackwell Estate. Sounds pretty fancy, huh?

  “You're such a flirt,” I say as I watch
Ransom drape himself over the expensive leather seat across from me like he doesn't much care how nice it is. And not like he's used to luxury or expects it, just like it doesn't matter very much to him. I appreciate that, grinning as he lifts a dirty boot to the seat and balances his elbow on his knee. When he sees me staring at him, he raises his brows and gives me a crooked smile.

  Telling Ransom and Michael that I was in love with them felt good. Hell, it felt fucking great. But it also left this big, gaping hole where my confession to Copeland should sit. It's actually bothering the hell out of me that there's just one boy left who holds a piece of my heart, but that I haven't told that to yet.

  Last night, after Ransom, Mikey, and I ran through the rain and climbed into the van with the others, I found my gaze drawn to Cope's, my heart pounding a desperate rhythm inside my chest. The words sat just under my tongue, burning like a red-hot ember. I wanted to spit them out before they burned my mouth, but I never got the chance. We ended up stopping for dinner in the restaurant just off the hotel's lobby. My hair was wet and sticking to my skin, and my panties were in a questionable sort of state, but fuck, it's nice enough to be taken out to a fancy dinner by one man. Five doting boyfriends? I'm pretty sure I pinched myself three times—one for each course—just to make sure I was still firmly entrenched in reality.

  After that, we all headed upstairs to a hotel room together—I think it was Muse's again—and took advantage of the king size bed. When I finally managed to crack my lids open this morning, I found Derek packing our scattered things up and Cope wheeling in our room service cart for breakfast. There wasn't a single opportunity in the whirlwind of eating, changing, changing again, changing yet again (pretty sure I tried on ten different outfits this morning), and getting on the plane for me to have a moment alone with Cope.

  Maybe I'm trying too hard? Maybe I just need to wait and let the moment come to me? If I keep chasing after it, it might not come out right. A rushed little postcoital confession in a stranger's office might've worked for Ransom and Michael, but Copeland is … well, I just want my words to him to sound as genuine as the ones he just gave me. If he can tell me I'm pretty with such undeniable verity, then I owe him the same courtesy.

  “Oh, bleeding fucking hell,” Paxton groans, sliding both palms down his face and leaning over until his elbows touch his knees. His fingertips dig into his dishwater blonde hair as he lets out a small frustrated noise that sounds suspiciously like a growl. “We're here.”

  “We are?” I ask, sitting up as Cope slams his hardcover pirate book closed with a snap.

  I search out the window, looking for some sign of the house, but all I see is green, green, and more green. We are deep in the country now; I haven't seen another place for miles.

  “There it is,” Muse says from his spot on my right, pointing out and up at a bit of chimney rising above the tree line. I scoot over until I'm sitting on his lap, rolling the window down as the car slows and turns right down a private drive.

  The house reveals itself in a slow, dramatic fashion as we roll down the gravel road, lined with perfectly manicured grass and trees, punctuated here and there with exquisite statuary. Up ahead, an elaborate metal gate sits open, waiting for us.

  I barely manage to hold back a gasp as we pass through it and the trees fall away, making room for the circular drive and the smooth lushness of rolling lawns. The house itself is a beast, practically a fucking castle, with walls of cream colored stone and numerous brick chimneys jutting up from the roof. Several outbuildings dot the landscape, made from the same stone as the main house. Even those are bigger and fancier than my childhood home.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Michael curses, sitting on Pax's left and gaping out the window with me and Muse. “Is that … is that a fucking castle turret or something?” He points out a round stone tower, artfully crumbling at the end of a cobblestone path.

  “It's a Victorian folly,” Pax says with absolutely zero emotion, still leaning over with this head in his hands.

  “What the hell is a Victorian folly?” Michael asks as the limo eases around the circular drive and comes to a stop next to the front steps. “Come on, man,” he says when Pax doesn't answer, reaching out and giving his shoulder a small shake. “Wake the fuck up.”

  “A folly is a decorative building erected for the simple pleasure of suiting an extravagant taste,” Paxton says, sounding the part of a highborn British royal. When he lifts his chin, his expression is dripping disdain. But … I don't think that contempt in his grey eyes is for Michael. I think it's for the folly itself, the house, his parents, their lifestyle. “That's a replica of a medieval tower built by my idiot ancestors during the Victorian era.”

  “The Victorian era?” Michael asks, scrubbing his hand through his long, dark hair. “Fuckin' A, man. When was the damn house built?”

  “In 1681,” Paxton says with a voice entirely devoid of emotion. He smirks at us, but that, that is definitely just his mask. “A century before your country was even born, yes.”

  And then he reaches across his friend's lap to open the door, just seconds before the driver does it for him. It swings wide, letting sunshine into the dark interior of the limo.

  “After you,” Paxton says, gesturing for Michael to get out of his way. The two of them exchange a long, tense look before Mikey sighs and shakes his head, climbing out onto the white rock drive with a long sigh.

  “Here we go,” Ran whispers, sliding across the leather seats in holey black skinny jeans and an unzipped grey hoodie, following Pax out the door. Muse goes next, holding out his hand to help me from the car. He does the same for Cope which I find completely fucking adorable.

  I look up at the massive double doors before us, waiting for someone to come out and greet us, pull Paxton in for a hug or a handshake, a nice to see you, son. But there's nothing and nobody here.

  “Don't worry about your luggage; the driver will take it to your rooms,” Paxton says as he climbs the steps in his chocolate brown loafers, opening the door to the foyer with the comfortable ease of someone that knows his way around. The thing is, that, too, is an act. I can see it in the tightness of his shoulders, the strange shuttering rise and fall of his chest, that he doesn't really feel comfortable here at all.

  “This is fucking gorgeous,” Muse says with a wistful note in his voice, looking up at the sprawling house with awe. “Maybe I should join you and Ran and start dating Pax, too? Then one day we could all move in here together.”

  Derek grins at me and tosses a wink my direction before heading up the steps next, looking more at ease than the boy that grew up here. If there's one person among us that truly doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks about him, it's Muse.

  “Shall we?” I ask, taking Cope's arm on my left and Ransom's on my right. I notice then that he's shaking a little. “Are you alright?” I whisper as we follow behind Michael.

  “Just a little nervous, baby girl,” he admits, biting his lower lip for a moment. “Pax's parents and I don't exactly have the best relationship. We've only met a few times, and each second I spent with them was like a little slice of hell. They're fucking awful people to be around.”

  “You're the only one that's met them in person?” I ask and he nods, his expression almost as tense as Pax's. I bet he's thinking about their make out session onstage, the one that's already gone viral. I can't start searching anything about Beauty in Lies on my phone without bumping into it. While it seems like the majority of their fans ate this new development up with a spoon, I have a feeling Paxton's parents might feel a little differently.

  “Come on in,” Pax says, gesturing us into a massive foyer with white and black marble floors, a grand staircase, and a fireplace. All of this in the entryway. My parents' entryway had barely enough room to hang a coatrack.

  “Fuck, this is great,” Muse is saying as he looks up at the soaring ceilings, the chandelier, and the fabulous artwork lining the walls. I try not to drool at the canvases, my mouth falling open
as I recognize several pieces at first glance. Whoa. Just one of those paintings is worth enough to buy a house in Seattle several times over.

  I feel suddenly uncomfortable, goose bumps chasing all across my skin.

  “Welcome to Blackwell Manor,” Pax says, adjusting his cuff links. The pair he's got on today are fashioned to look like little red dahlias—the flower of betrayal and dishonesty. Uh-oh. I sense a charge filling the room as he looks around with a wry smirk, one that's edging closer and closer to a sneer as he takes in the grandeur of his parents' estate. “Sorry it's such a right shithole. This is just one of my parents' many holiday homes. It used to be the seat of the Blackwell family's estate, back when it was first built. But now, eh, it's just a shitty little throwaway, kept mostly for nostalgia than anything else. It's not worth half as much as the jet.”

  “If this is your parents' uh, cabin in the woods so to speak,” Muse starts, smoothing his palm over the curved silver-black ombre of his mohawk, “then what the fuck does their real house look like?”

  Paxton shrugs and lights up a cigarette, his hands quivering with adrenaline.

  “Eh. It's just some pretentious overpriced nightmare in London, near Buckingham Palace. Usually they don't bother to come out here until late June, but I imagine they didn't want me to embarrass them in front of their friends.”

  “Paxton Charles,” a voice says from my left, drawing my attention over to a girl in sunglasses and a lavender bikini, a white sarong wrapped around her slim hips. “There you are. I was wondering where you'd gone off to; I've been waiting all day.”

  Without even having to ask, I know this is Amelia Davies, the fiancée.

  She pulls her sunglasses off her face, revealing caramel brown eyes and long curved lashes.

  I feel my heart rate pick up dramatically as she pads toward us in bare feet with perfectly manicured red toenails and a swagger that says she knows she's gorgeous as hell. Fuck. I blow out a long, deep breath and make myself smile. I cannot fucking stand it when women go after each other out of some sense of jealousy or competition over a man. Just because she's pretty, that doesn't make her my enemy, doesn't mean she's a bitch.