No Magic Moment (Secrets of Stone Book 4) by Angel Payne, Victoria Blue Read Free Book Online

engagement rings.
    “But what?” Margaux sat up, pulling the blanket over her cleavage. The demure move was surprising, considering how I’d just had my wicked way with her breasts and nipples—which made it arousing as hell, too. Great. “You really don’t see the dozen ways an engagement would be a shitty idea right now?”
    So much for arousal.
    I rose and refastened my pants. “So your idea’s the highlight of the night, and mine’s the ‘shitty’ stuff.”
    “Excuse the hell out of me?”
    “You heard me.”
    “Wait. Whoa. Hold on there, cowboy.”
    Hold on. That had been my plan, hadn’t it? I’d wanted to hold on for the rest of my damn life. I’d never laid myself barer for a woman—which apparently, had been a “shitty idea.”
    I stomped across the room, looking for my keys. Another tangle of feeling rolled across my chest, tight but filthy, like a tumbleweed hitting a swamp. Clashing ecosystems aside, the ball collected what it had to off my soul—the acceptance of why she’d really turned me down.
    “So, no harm, no foul,” I muttered. “I get it, okay? Dressing up the guy from the apple farm doesn’t make him any less the guy from the apple farm. If I’m Mr. Right Now instead of Mr. Right, then so be it.”
    My keys were on the floor, near the school desk, where they must have fallen from my pants when—
    Of course.
    Fuck.
    I avoided looking at the cuffs still attached to the furniture, afraid of what I’d remember now…of what I’d feel now. All the ways she’d captured my heart, multiplied deeper. That she’d trusted me enough to give herself to me like that…it had gutted me then filled me right back up. Humbled me but made me soar to the fucking stratosphere. But clicking sexually didn’t mean matching in other areas. Not the important ones. And now, I had to be okay with that. She hadn’t given me a choice.
    “So be it?” She stood as she bit out each word, wearing an expression I couldn’t decipher. On one hand, she’d never looked more an incensed princess, though her gaze bore the pain of a lost little girl. I blinked back, confused—until she shot out a fist, brutally clipping my shoulder.
    “Hey. Ow! What the—”
    “You are such an idiot.”
    “ I’m an—” I rubbed my arm but froze as she let the blanket fall. Nothing like this woman, pissed off and naked, to strip me of coherent thought. “I’m not the one who said no,” I growled, shoving back the arousal.
    “Did you hear me say no?” Margaux snapped. “Ever?” She stepped around me and marched to the kitchen, reaching for the bottle of wine we’d started last night after capping off our passion in the car with another round on the counter in here. She recorked the Cabernet, reaching for the Scotch instead.
    “Pardon me for splitting hairs. Where I come from, ‘a shitty idea’ translates to the same thing.”
    “A shitty idea right now .” She dumped the amber liquid into a highball then shoved it at me. “Drink. That’s not a request. You have to calm the hell down.”
    “I am calm.”
    “Not working, buddy. Not with me.” She tossed back half the liquor in her own glass. Was anything more erotic than this woman, still spilling from her schoolgirl threads, downing Scotch like a Highlander? “Just because you’re not punching the wall doesn’t mean you don’t want to.”
    I shot out a huff. Downed the damn Aberlour. At least it would take the edge off my growing fantasy to fuck her again—a fact my bedraggled suit would be shit for disguising in a minute.
    “You ready to listen now?” she prompted. I replied by nudging my empty glass forward, demanding another round. She obliged, though kept her stare locked on me as she tipped the bottle. “Tell me something,” she murmured. “Why do you think I’m such a freak about keeping this ring?”
    I waited a second to respond. Was she serious? Did she think I didn’t know that answer? No. That wasn’t the case. But she wasn’t