No Perfect Princess (19 page)

Her gaze darkened in all the right ways. “I’m going to wear something you can take off with your teeth, and let you remind me why ‘scary’ isn’t part of our conversations anymore.”

I kissed her hard, glad for the excuse to disguise how her trusting words blasted open more doors inside me. Doors I hadn’t opened in a long damn time…

No time traveling today, man. Especially not to the god-forsaken Valley of Laci Gold
.

“You have a deal, sugar,” I whispered against her lips. “I’ll bring dinner.”

“
I’ll
handle dinner.” She bit into my lower lip. “You just bring your teeth. And your lips. And…other useful body parts.”

A moan echoed through me, and I swore it started from my balls. At the same moment, her phone binged.
Saved by the bing.
Or doomed. I wasn’t sure which.

She laughed, opening the device to display Andre’s text for me, too.

:: Should I come back later? ::

I chuckled, then called out, “Miss Asher is on her way.” After lifting her off by her waist and making sure her footing was steady, I rose, as well. She didn’t let me get very far, already popping on tiptoes to get in another kiss. Though I allowed her the clinch, I ended it with a firm smack on her gorgeous bottom. “Be good, dammit. Go work hard.”

“So I can ‘play hard’ later?”

Jesus Christ. The woman could flip any statement into verbal sex. And I fucking worshipped her for it.

“Something like that,” I laughed out.

“And what’s on Mr. Pearson’s calendar for the day?” She wrapped her arms around my waist, gazing up with sincere interest.

“Long, cold shower. Workout. Lunch. Another cold shower. A few rounds with the bloodiest game I can find on my system. Probably another cold shower.”

She laughed louder before untangling herself, turning, and dashing down the path toward the gate. I watched every move, letting her believe I’d been joking about the words. But every syllable was true, along with a few others I hadn’t thrown in. No coping mechanism was off the table today.
Nothing.
Anything was a possibility, if it helped me forget the endless countdown to tonight—and finally getting to speak the truth I’d kept shoved in my shadows for too damn long.

Margaux Asher, you have invaded every other thought in my head, every cell beneath my skin, every dream in my nights
.

No more dreams. Tonight, she’d be reality.

Maybe I’d just spend the whole damn day in that cold shower.

Margaux

S
top. Do not
pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars
.

Michael Pearson was invading every single cell in my body.

And I loved it.

Which meant this whole mess needed to stop.

But it felt so right. So amazingly, incredibly…right. And I had no freaking idea how to handle it.

When the upper hand slipped from me in a relationship, Starship Margaux hit the red emergency button. Mission aborted; pop the parachute and dive beneath the hard deck. But right now, all I wanted to do was hit the thrusters and scream to mach five with Captain America—even after spewing all that shit about Caroline last night.

As I walked toward the car, I fingered my ring and twirled it. Fast.

I could keep blaming everything on the alcohol but deep down inside, I knew why I’d spilled. Michael was more than my safe haven. He was, in so many ways, a match for my soul, confirmed when he’d revealed the decadent, nasty mind behind that boxer-straining bulge. Just the recall of what he’d done last night…how he’d commanded me…the words he’d done it with…

Wow.

“Inner goddess”? Screw that. I had an inner fuck bunny, and that man had blazed right into her garden. Once he’d burned away all the bullshit, I’d been eager to run in and play, letting one of my deepest secrets tumble out during the sprint. I hadn’t regretted it. Still didn’t. I trusted him without question, a truth my heart bestowed on someone for the very first time in my life.

So, yeah…maybe it was time to let the freak-out begin.

Andre seemed to sense as much as well. As he held the car door open, he stared at me with open curiosity. I flashed up my hand—
do not even go there
—before climbing in. He reached in after me to take the dress and the rest of my shit, stowing it in the trunk before lumbering in behind the wheel.

He didn’t speak until we were cruising down the freeway toward downtown.

“You know that boy has it bad for you.”

I glanced up in time to confront his soulful eyes, examining me from the rearview mirror.

“Concentrate on the road, big guy. Especially in heavy traffic.”

“Right. Because I’m
so
busy fighting off all these church ladies. And the other early morning escapees.”

Ugh
! “Quit while you’re ahead.”

“Yes, ma’am.” His gaze betrayed his cheeky grin. Dammit. Wanker with dreadlocks. He took advantage of limits I’d let slide for too damn long, though was smart enough to let it rest for now, leaving me to navel gazing for the rest of the ride.

With my wince-worthy second thoughts.

And my too-damn-deep-for-a-Sunday contemplations.

Like the universe cared.

As it tormented me with more memories of the best guy I’d met in a long—
long
—time.

Shit on a shattered platter.

So what now? Ten minutes into the ride home, and I already missed Michael. Intensely. But the secrets in my head alone would blow
his
off its oh-so-amazing shoulders. In what world would it be fair to tangle him in them? My family shit alone was insane. Okay, Andrea and I had played nice in the sandbox for Kil and Claire’s big day but that healed nothing for me—and she showed no signs of wanting to reach out in understanding, either. That didn’t even touch the bigger issue. What the hell would Michael Pearson, as up-front and real as they came, think about suddenly calling me
Mary Stone
—with all the drama, notoriety, and closet skeletons that came with? The man
knew
skeletons. Had helped hide them, re-shape them, even turn them into something else. He knew their time, their trouble, their legal ramifications, and their damage to people.

Michael Pearson didn’t need or deserve a woman with skeletons.

Trouble was, his magical hands—and lips—didn’t know that part yet. The man could…work things…out of me without even trying. Okay, so he wasn’t intentionally trying to “find out” anything about me, let alone the complicated drama about my birth father and mother, but simply being with him made me crave to tell him.

What would happen…if I did? If I had a weak moment and unloaded everything to him?
On
him?

All
of it?

I let out a long sigh. Andre impaled me again with his stare. I chose to ignore him, still battling to work things out in my mind.

Dammit, why did it have to be so hard?

I’d finally found someone I enjoyed being with.
Enjoyed
? Well, that was phrasing it all nice and Miss Manners-like, wasn’t it? Being near him, with him…I fucking reveled in it. In some ways, he was more than safety. He was home.

Hold up, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Like you even know the meaning of the word.

Evoking it brought more memories of Caroline. If she were still around, she’d have pulled out several of her favorite colloquialisms by now, calling Michael something like “quite a catch” or “yummiest dish in town”. And she’d be right. He was smart, sexy as hell, and funny. He adored me but didn’t take my crap. Respected me as a person but made me feel every inch a sensual, desirable creature. He turned my pussy to mush like the world’s hugest Galahad—but was the most decent, dependable man—hell, human being—I’d ever met.

Which made it even worse to think of dragging him into my mess of a life. Because even if he hated the tangle, he’d stick around just to try and help fix it. And dammit, I didn’t need fixing. I just needed…time. Space. A chance to figure out who the hell I was now, and what to do with that knowledge once I was solid with it.

If Michael stuck, I’d get stuck right back. I wasn’t sure we hadn’t already slathered a little sample packet of glue on each other already.

Not good.
So
not good.

If he’d been any other guy, I would’ve screwed him and left him a long, long time ago.

His check-out time was way overdue. The front desk of this joint was getting antsy about the issue.

Maybe after tonight
.

Yes. Good plan. Just one last sampling. One taste of the candy to satisfy the sweet tooth, then cut him loose. A night of decadence I could remember him by forever.

The one that got away…

Andre dropped me off at the front entrance of the El Cortez, promising to get my dress to the dry cleaners on Monday morning, saving me the humiliation of carrying it under my arm as I crossed the lobby to the elevators. Fine, fine, so I was irony’s bitch anyway, being noticed by a couple of church-bound neighbors while in sweatpants and a T-shirt that had clearly been pilfered from someone twice my size.
Go ahead and wonder, bitches—but FYI, he was worth it.
Not that I cared what they or anyone else thought, so why start now? I pumped my head up and jutted my chin out as I waved the key fob to unlock the elevator for my floor.

With a long sigh, I stepped off on the top floor and made my way toward my little piece of San Diego’s skyline. The El Cortez was an icon, constructed in 1927, though the historic charm ended at my front door, giving way to the modern lines of my two-floor unit. Instantly, the cathedral ceilings and bright-on-white color scheme were a mini-vacay on the chaos of my thoughts. Once I added a long soak beneath the rainforest spout of my enormous shower, I’d be even better.

I frowned after stepping inside the door, when I wasn’t greeted by my security alarm, which normally begged me to enter my code to silence it. Maybe I forgot to set it yesterday morning when I left for the bridal salon. Claire—correction, little Ginny Foo-Foo—had insisted on hitting the road early, meaning I’d only had one cup of coffee before Andre called up to order my ass to get into gear.

A glance to the entryway table provided another explanation. Sorrelle had clearly been by because my mail sat on the surface, neatly sorted into three priority piles.

Urgent

Peruse Me Later

Bitch, Please—Circular or Bust

His categories, not mine—though I adored the hell out of that handsome boy, and had been thrilled when he started dropping hints about staying on with me after he’d been of service in Chicago. Good PAs were hard as hell to find. I’d even paid his moving expenses.

I turned for the kitchen. After grabbing a bottle of water, I’d hit the shower. I could feel the heaven of it already…

Until hell took over my world anew.

Revision. It sat on a stool next to my kitchen island, grinning like a hound of hell turned into one of the earth’s shittiest human beings. In case I didn’t get the message from the bloodshot eyes, rusty blade shave, and greasy skin, there was a fashion note, too: last year’s jeans and a threadbare polo were the perfect touches of dystopian chic.

I stopped so hard my bare feet squeaked against the floor. “How the hell did you get in here?”

His soft chortle bounced off the walls—then hit my stomach like bullets.
Shit.

“Now is that any sort of greeting for your brother?”

“Fuck off, Trey. How’s
that
for a greeting?”

“Tsk, tsk…Mary.”

“Shut up.”

“But Mary is such a pretty—”

“I suggest you stop before I cut out your balls, drizzle them in expired tartar sauce then feed them back to you, asshole.”

The bastard snickered. “Tartar sauce. How perfectly
bourgeois
of you, m’lady.”

“I’m calling security.”

“Good luck with that, too.” His words stopped me halfway down the hall to the VIP service phone. As I whirled back around, he laughed before flipping everything on a one-eighty, snarling with bared teeth. “Ridiculous bitch. Who do you think let me in here? Guess it’s true what they say, about blondes and the gray matter. Or lack of it.”

God, how I longed to park my fingernails in his eyes. But maiming him wouldn’t lead to the information I needed. “What the hell do you want? Why are you here—aside from that adorable little stalker fantasy you keep entertaining?”

It wasn’t that impossible. Not where Trey Stone was concerned. I was starting to get nervous but predators like Trey fed on fear. Having the man as an on-again, off-again client for a year had proved at least that much.

At one time, the guy had been okay as a client.
Just
okay. He’d tried cleaning up his act but took a dive back into the filth right before the shit about Killian’s true identity hit the fan last year. In the end, nobody had cared whether Kil was a biological Stone or not—but that was after Trey had time to swoop in and damn near destroy the company from within.

After Killian reassumed the SGC helm, Trey had disappeared. We all assumed he’d slithered under his favorite rock for good, never to surface again.

Assumptions. This moment sure as hell proved what dangerous shit they could be.

I silently swore at my hammering heart and locked my legs, holding my ground—even after he rose from the stool and prowled toward my position. Okay, screw the locked legs. An instinctual step back. Another. But then, dammit, my back slammed the wall. There was literally nowhere to run or hide.

“Uh oh, Mary-Mary-quite-contrary. Looks like I have you…right where I want you.” He pressed in, trapping me with his huge frame. Killian may have been taller, but Trey was the width of a linebacker.

“Back off.” I steeled my jaw but had to force out the next word. “P-please. Whatever you want—I’m sure we can discuss it like rational adults.”
Keep the bad guys talking
. Wasn’t that what the experts always said? Dammit, I’d never paid much attention. In my world, “bad guys” were nothing worse than asshat paparazzi and journalists who tossed out the talking points during interviews. Nothing like a washed-up rich boy with a brilliant mind that had gone to waste thanks to his entitlement issues and victim complex.