Moxie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 3)

by C. M. Stunich

  I pull Michael into my mouth as deeply as I can, sucking hard and listening to him groan against Copeland's lips, working his body with a hand around the base of his shaft. I time my movements with Ransom's, effectively giving him the responsibility of fucking both me and Michael.

  A few seconds later, Muse and Paxton are dropping down on the bed next to us, and Ransom is slowing, slowing … stopping. He pauses inside of me, watching Muse and Paxton kiss each other, their hands both down below the belt.

  I wish I could explain what was happening in that moment, the colorful swirls of emotions collecting above our heads like a rainstorm. The thing is, with these sorts of storms, there's always a rainbow. With the first drops begin to fall, it's like Muse can sense them the way he always does, pulling back from Paxton's tattooed form.

  He exchanges a look with Ransom as Pax growls some ridiculous British sounding curse words under his breath and rakes a tattooed hand through his hair.

  Ransom starts to move again, filling me up with the glorious thickness of his body, the transcendent glory of his soul. As corny as that sounds, it's true. I can feel it; I can feel him. We meld our bodies together as I drag Michael to the edge of his sanity, spilling him into my mouth at the same moment Muse digs a condom from his pocket.

  I have no clue what that's for at first, swallowing and teasing my way up Michael's hard belly. He pushes Copeland aside and sits up, bringing my chin up with his fingers and kissing the taste of his own seed from my lips, my body moving gently with each one of Ransom's thrusts.

  We kiss for several long moments before Michael moves away, excusing himself to the far side of the bed and tossing his arm over his forehead to take a breath.

  And then I invite Copeland into his place, encouraging him to lay back into the pillows so I can open his slacks. He watches me with a genuinely affectionate expression, some of that worry leaking away as I touch him. I'm going to show him with my lips that even if he's scared, I'm not.

  In fact, I almost wish the tour was over so we could go straight back to Seattle.

  I'm ready to see what real life is like with these guys, what trips to the grocery store or the movies or the bowling alley will feel like. I want them to help me plant flowers in my yard and stay over at my place, pick up Chinese food on their way over and talk absently about what our future might hold. I want to have five babies—one of each of theirs—and I want to raise them together in a place that's as bright and cheerful and welcoming as my childhood home was.

  Fuck.

  But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself …

  I blame the rainbow, casting her colorful rays across Cope's pale skin, much the same color as my own, his sad little broken heart in desperate need of that beauty. He doesn't want to have children because he thinks his genes are tainted, but knowing him, I know that's not true. Whatever happened to his family members to fuck them up, there's no way it's a genetic inevitability. If it were, this man sitting in front of me wouldn't be such a perfect sweetheart.

  I free the curved alabaster perfection of his cock from his black slacks, teasing and licking and kissing him with more than just my tongue. I murmur words against his body that get lost in the groans from his throat, my throat, Ransom's.

  My eyes flutter like they want to close, heavy and shrouded with the bright beauty of euphoria

  Instead, I glance over and notice that Pax is sitting up slightly, having a hushed conversation with Muse. As I watch, they both look over at Ransom and then at me, holding my gaze with questions in their eyes. Whatever it is that they're asking, they already have my answer.

  When we made this agreement, I said they could do whatever they wanted with each other—and I meant it.

  My mouth twitches into an almost smile, but I manage to hold it back. I'm not exactly sure what Muse is up to, but whatever it is, I don't want to disturb it, especially since they're both still looking at me like they're waiting for permission.

  I flick my tongue against the tip of Cope's cock, teasing it with these featherlight touches that make him gasp and dig his long fingers into the pillows on either side of his head. His cheeks inflate with a massive breath, one that he lets out slowly as I swing my gaze from Muse and Pax and back to him. Our eyes locked, I continue with the slow, simple motion, letting it wind the pleasure inside of him to a fine point, sweat slicking down the front of his body, across the surface of my own.

  It feels hot in here all of a sudden, and I know it's not. It's just … everything gets so heightened when we come together in a group like this, the flames of our desire mingling into a bonfire. It scorches, sears, tears through the room like it's on a mission to cleanse us of all our problems.

  The strangest part of it all is that it feels like it works.

  “Jesus Christ,” I hear Michael mumble from his side of the bed, the comment drawing my attention to … whatever the hell is happening Paxton and Muse. I think … I think they're fucking each other. Well, one of them is fucking the other anyway.

  “Fuck.” This from Ransom, although he doesn't stop what he's doing. If anything, he speeds up, his hips pushing into me hard enough to make me gasp, the rush of breath from my lips teasing Cope's shaft, drawing his pelvis up off the bed and toward my mouth. I don't change what I'm doing, flicking the tip of my tongue against the head of his cock, the frustratingly slow build making him bite his lip, teasing the ring pierced through it with his tongue.

  His orgasm comes with a sigh of relief, this shuddering, panting sound that makes me feel triumphant satisfaction, like I've dominated, claimed, and marked him all at the same time. I press a last kiss to Cope's belly button and stretch back into Ransom, like a fucking cat.

  Meanwhile, I see that it's actually Pax that's fucking Muse, and holy shit. Those black painted fingernails are curled into Paxton's arms, digging hard enough to make him bleed, Muse's chest rising and falling with wild breaths, his pupils dilated.

  The sight's enough to make my heart race, my body contract around Ran's. I drag him with me, right over the edge of that cliff where the end of the rainbow is waiting for fucking both of us. Our moans mingle together, my nails digging into the bed as I collapse on top of Cope, taking panting gasps to fill my lungs with air. Immediately, he puts those hard, sexy arms of his around me, holding me close.

  Ransom falls onto the bed next to us, breathing just as hard, his attention focused on the boys on the other side of me. We all watch as Paxton drives himself to orgasm with Muse as his partner, this totally surreal feeling settling around me as I curl up on Cope's side, taking in the sight with parted lips and rapid breaths.

  Pax finishes with this hair-raising little sound, falling on top of Muse as they both struggle to catch their breath.

  “Bleeding hell …” he says, but then Muse is pushing at him with frantic hands.

  “Get off of me,” he whispers, voice ragged as Pax scrambles to move, looking just as surprised as I feel. “Just get the fuck away from me.”

  Muse stands up and grabs his pants from the floor, shoving his feet into them and snatching his boots on his way toward the bedroom door.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Pax snaps, looking a little confused.

  I struggle off the bed, too.

  “Muse!” I call out, but he only pauses a second to glance back at me. In his eyes, I can see that he's fucking terrified, that some dark shadow from his past is overwhelming him, choking the life from him. “Wait, please.”

  “I'm sorry,” he whispers, voice hoarse and rough. “I just need … I just need to go.”

  He leaves the room, slamming the door closed behind him.

  “What the fuck?” Pax asks, looking guilty as hell although I know this doesn't really have anything to do with him. I get it now, why this seemed so out of the blue. It wasn't. Muse made the decision to confront his past—and he used Paxton to do it. “What'd I do now?”

  “Nothing,” I promise him, yanking my dress over my head. I don't bother with silly things like under
garments or shoes … until I feel that warm trickle down the inside of my thigh and curse under my breath. I head into the bathroom to clean up as quick as I can, listening to the boys gossiping under their breath.

  “This is about … shit, it's about all of that, isn't it?” Paxton.

  “I think so.” That's Cope. A moment later, he's off the bed, too, trying to pull himself together.

  “Should we go after him?” Ransom—there's no mistaking that voice.

  “Leave him alone for fuck's sake, give the man a minute.” And that's very clearly Michael. “Let Lilith handle this.”

  “I'll be right back,” I tell them, padding past Copeland on bare feet. Just before I go out the door … I see all four of them looking at me like they feel sorry for me, like they know whatever it is that I'm about to learn.

  I won't lie. Those looks … they scare the shit out of me.

  It's hard enough to find someone that doesn't want to be found, harder still if the person looking gets lost five minutes into their own search. I manage to find my way back to the room where Pax is smoking like a chimney, Ransom snubbing a cigarette out in an ashtray with a guilty look on his face. Michael sits resolutely in a chair with his arms folded across his chest, sweating rather profusely but managing to keep his fingers curled around his biceps, denying that cigarette with sheer bullheadedness.

  “You didn't find him?” Cope asks, and I shake my head.

  “I tried all of the guest rooms and the pool, but … I don't really know my way around this place,” I say hesitantly, watching Paxton's hurricane grey gaze swing my way. He looks a little chagrined, like he thinks he's done something wrong. I don't think he has at all. In fact, I feel a little sorry for him. He might've been the one doing the fucking, but Muse was clearly using him. “Maybe we can look for him after dinner,” I say, hating to leave Derek alone in an unfamiliar place, but not wanting to drag Pax after him. I felt like it was okay for me to look for him, but I don't want to impose one of the guys on him. I am afraid of men, he said.

  Poor little Derek.

  Fuck.

  “There's a lot of activity downstairs; I think your parents' friends are here.”

  “Eh, most likely,” Pax says distractedly. He stabs the cigarette into the ashtray with a sigh. “Best to just get this over with. Maybe we'll leave early? I have no idea why I thought I'd need three bloody nights in this hellhole. Must be mad as a hatter.”

  “Nobody's arguing that,” Michael says as he stands up with a sigh and puts his hands on his hips. “Goddamn it. What a night. What a fucking night.”

  He shakes his head and combs his fingers through his dark hair, like he's trying to fix it. Looks perfect to me. In fact, all the boys look as polished and ethereal as they always do, like maybe I lost the humans I went to Ireland with, had them replaced with dark faeries capable of casting the most perfect glamours.

  I shiver.

  The only thing wrong with that argument is … they've looked this beautiful from day one. Unless there are faerie mounds in Phoenix, Arizona, I think it's safe to say they're all human. Maybe.

  “Poor Derek,” Michael adds as I fish around for my bra and turn away from the boys to put it on. Doesn't stop Mikey from coming up behind me to 'help'. His fingers tickle across my rib cage and steal my breath away. “Couldn't you have just stuck to Ransom and not traumatized the poor kid?”

  “You shut your fucking trap, Mikey,” Paxton snarls, his voice a deadly curl that only makes Michael smirk. I see the expression steal across his face when I glance over my shoulder. “It was him that asked me to do that, alright? For fuck's sake.”

  “He asked you?” Ransom echoes, sounding slightly confused. I notice that he's buried inside his hood again. Whether that's because he's terrified of this impending dinner or just worried about Muse, I'm not sure. “Why would he do that?”

  “Clearly he's trying to, you know, work through … all of that,” Cope says with a small sigh. “Just leave him alone and let him do his thing. It's long overdue anyway.”

  “Yeah, well,” Paxton says with a sigh, and I feel bad that he doesn't get to enjoy his first, um, home run with a guy. It seemed to me that he liked it. Now, I don't know about Muse or Ransom, but I'm pretty sure that Paxton is officially bi. I find that to be incredibly sexy.

  Michael hooks my bra in the back and helps me fix my dress.

  I make one last trip to the bathroom to tidy up my hair and makeup, change my panties.

  I slip back into my heels and check myself in an oversized mirror leaning artfully against the wall near the bathroom door, my palms sliding down the black and green patterned fabric of my skirt.

  “You look perfect,” Cope promises me, yet again speaking to me with such sincerity that I remember that I need to do it, to confess to him. Shit. There's this thing with Muse … I just can't do it now. Instead, I smile and I hope he can read the affection in my face.

  A minute later, the door opens and there Derek is, smiling like not a damn thing happened in this room, like he doesn't have a care in the world. He props it open with his boot and crosses his arms over his chest, looking like he's freshened up some. I checked his room, but he definitely wasn't there. Maybe he popped in after I left?

  “Hey. I just met your parents, Pax, and you're right—they are dicks.”

  “Where the fuck did you run off to?” Paxton snaps at him, slicking his fingers through his hair, giving the other man a look, like he expects something to happen between them. I try to imagine how weird that must be, to have fucked your buddy after so many years of platonic friendship. But Derek just acts like he always does, shrugging his shoulders and putting his palms flat on the surface of the door, tapping his fingernails against it.

  “Washed my face, combed my hair, introduced myself to Mr. and Mrs. Blackwell.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Pax says, looking up at the ceiling like he's really regretting coming out here. “As what, the guy I just fucked?”

  Paxton drops his gaze, crossing his own arms and tilting his head to the side, challenging Muse with his expression.

  Derek's hands start to shake, but he blinks past the tumultuous sky in his eyes. When that kind of awful dread sweeps over Ransom, he lets himself wallow in it, tilts his head back and lets the raindrops fill his mouth until he drowns. Muse … he just puts up an umbrella and ignores the storm.

  “Don't forget our game,” he says, looking first at Ransom and then at me.

  “What game?” Pax asks as we make our way into the hall, closing the massive door to the bedroom behind us.

  “No matter what your parents say, we're going to be polite and jovial and pleasant.”

  Michael snorts derisively.

  “Have fun with that. I'm not playing. If something needs to be said, I'm gonna say it.”

  “There are you!” a voice calls from the bottom of the stairs and I look down to see Amelia.

  She's got a cluster of flowers tucked behind one ear—I think they're real—and lipstick the color of primroses. Her dress is a soft pink ombre, almost red at the bottom and white at the top. Layered over the rich dark color of her skin tone, the outfit really pops. She looks as good in pink as I do in green. I wish suddenly that my dress were a little more … formal? I'm wearing a cotton a-line summer dress that cost maybe eighty bucks at a shop in Jacksonville. Amelia is clearly swathed in some serious designer labels.

  “I was starting to worry you weren't coming, darling,” she drawls in her crisp English accent, hooking her elbow through mine and dragging me away from the boys. She sounds like Paxton, but not quite. Either she's been influenced by her travels or he has. I guess living in the States since age sixteen would probably do the trick, right? “If I were you, I wouldn't have,” she continues before I get a chance to speak. “Although I suppose you probably want to claim your bloke in front of the family.”

  Amelia leads me through the foyer, into a … I guess a sitting room would be the proper name, her dress swishing around her calves. I
get the weirdest feeling, like I've just been transported to some eighteenth century dinner party or something.

  Now my dress feels even more out of place.

  “Are you harassing my Lily, Miss Davies?” Paxton asks, catching up to us.

  “Hardly,” Amelia says, studying her childhood friend/ex-fiancé with a critical eye, taking in his suit and tie, his tattoos, with a neutral expression. I see the slightest tinge of regret in her caramel brown eyes, but it only lasts for a second. Whoever this guy is that she's met, I think she really must be in love with him. She'd have to be, to let go of the possibility of Paxton, wouldn't she? I don't know if I could separate myself from the idea of being with him. “I was just about to warn her—my parents are here tonight, too. Things might get ugly.”

  Paxton groans and puts his hands over his face for a moment, sliding his palms down with a long, drawn-out sigh.

  “Did I mention that I am going to get utterly sozzled tonight?” he asks, stepping up to the double doors of the dining room and sauntering through like he owns the place. Which, I guess, he kind of does.

  I feel my throat get dry and tight just before Amelia and I follow him in, the rest of the boys trailing behind us.

  Oh my God, it is an eighteenth century dinner party, I think as I stare at the long table, the immaculately coiffed women, the rigid looking men, the fancy centerpieces, and the roaring fireplace. Or since my history isn't quite up to snuff—a sixteenth or seventeenth century dinner party. Oh, screw facts. This is just weird.

  I smooth my hands down my skirt as a man and woman near the head of the table rise to their feet, a uniformed staff member moving down the table to pour wine. Uniformed staff. In somebody's house. Mmm. Maybe not eighteenth century but … medieval. I feel distinctly uncomfortable in that moment.