Moxie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 3) Read online

  As if he can sense the direction of my thoughts, Pax softens his smile.

  “Don't look so desperate, love.” He puts a hand on the top of my head and ruffles up my red hair with his fingertips. “This isn't your first, last, and only chance for travel.”

  “Says who?” I ask as I lean in close to Pax's chest and feel his right arm slide around my waist. “Life likes to throw curveballs; I just want to enjoy every moment like it is my last.”

  “Well, that's bloody morbid. I say, grab life by the bollocks but try not to be so damn dreary.”

  Paxton drops his cigarette in the silver ashtray behind his back and then wraps his other arm around me, pressing a distracted kiss to my forehead, the expression on his face tightening as he stares at the passing traffic.

  “Speaking of dreary …” I start and his mouth twitches, his eyes dropping down to my face. “Can't say I have sole claim on that emotion. Tell me what's going on with your parents, Pax.”

  “You should head upstairs and get dressed, wake those other arseholes up. Takes them longer to get ready than it does you.”

  “You're avoiding the question,” I say, but Pax is already slipping away from me, pulling his arms out from underneath Michael's leather jacket and stepping back. The expression on his mouth is sly, but the cockiness doesn't reach his eyes. Still, the swagger is there in his step, in the way he lifts his palm and smoothes it down the shimmery hunter green of his tie. “I meant what I said,” I call out as he walks away and then pauses, holding a side door open for me. People brush past us, in and out of the revolving glass doors as I stand there with a resolute expression on my face.

  “Are you coming or not?” Pax drawls, leaning across the door and waiting for me, one arm outstretched.

  I march right up to him and grab the zipper on Michael's jacket, dragging the pull slowly up the metal teeth.

  “I meant what I said,” I repeat, noticing that Pax doesn't look away from me, keeping his gaze locked on my face, almost like he's daring me to say it again. I have no problem with that. “I love you, Paxton Blackwell.”

  I slide by him and into the warm lobby, my borrowed slippers scuffing against the marble floor.

  He catches up to me quick, the distinctive sound of his Barker Blacks closing the distance between us in an instant. Those cruel fingers of his wrap around my leather clad bicep with a surprising amount of gentleness.

  “Why did you stop me from replying on the jet?” he asks, pausing us in the middle of the buzzing lobby. “Because you were afraid of what I might say?” I suck on my lower lip for a moment; Paxton continues before I get a chance to respond. “You shouldn't be.”

  Knowing I'm being escorted around Ireland's capital by a famous rock band makes the day just that much more interesting. Beauty in Lies seems to have as many fans over here as they do back in the States, and watching my boys take pictures and sign autographs gives me this pervasive thrill of pleasure.

  They're all mine, I think, even as I'm wondering how to pick apart this enigma that Paxton's presenting me. From day one, he's been open, blatant even, revealing the tragedies of his past—and his bandmates' pasts—without a hint of hesitation.

  “You okay there, beautiful?” Ransom asks, reaching up to adjust the red hood resting on the wavy mess of chocolate brown hair beneath it. “You were smiling and then,” he drags his hand down his face and frowns dramatically, “the expression just fell away.”

  “I'm great,” I tell him, resting a hand on the delicious curve of his bicep, my fingers brushing across the black and grey portrait of his mother. She smiles back at me with lips that are as full and beautiful as her son's. “I was just thinking about Pax …”

  Ransom snorts and rubs his hand over the fresh smoothness of his chin and jaw. When I got back upstairs this morning and found him shaving, I wasn't sure if I was excited or disappointed. I guess I just like all his looks.

  “When it comes to his parents, Pax clams up, always has.” Ransom pauses, looking so out of place standing in the middle of Trinity College in his sleeveless red tank top with the hood, his holey as hell jeans, and his boots. The buildings around us are so majestic, so grand, and Ran … well, he looks every bit the part of the modern rock star.

  I made the guys get off the double-decker tour bus we were riding to stop here because I wanted to see the Book of Kells, but now I feel bad because they're being barraged by college students.

  A cold drop of water spatters on the tip of my nose, and I glance up to see that the sky has opened up again. I raise my new green umbrella over my head as Ransom reaches up and pulls the black knitted scarf from around his neck, tucked underneath his hood.

  He wraps it around my throat with a small, dangerous sort of half-smile. It's an expression rife with guilt, weighted and desperate.

  “Pax's parents weren't big fans of his life choices before … well, before Harper died.” Ransom takes a deep breath, the scar on his left cheek pulling at his lips as he looks over at the other four boys, still wrapped up in the small crowd around them. I'm not sure how Ransom managed to get away. Maybe it's because he's gotten so used to trying to make himself invisible? “But after, they blamed Pax. Cut him off financially. Hell, they pretty much stopped talking to him altogether.”

  Ransom tilts his head back to look up at the grey skies above us, tiny droplets of water collecting on his lips. His hood falls back and reveals that beautiful face, that mess of gorgeous chocolate dark hair.

  “I have no idea why they'd—” he begins and cuts off abruptly as Paxton approaches us and claps him on the back. Ran drops his chin and takes a moment to fix his hood.

  “The fuck are you two talking about over here?” Pax asks, adjusting his tie, running his tongue across his lower lip, his face as cold and stoic as stone, as flawless as a statue.

  “Just sayin' that when it comes to your parents, you're locked as tight as a fucking mollusk.”

  Ransom slides a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and glances around like he expects to be tackled at any moment. He doesn't skip a beat, lighting up and then curling his lip at Michael when he snatches the smoke away.

  “The hell is a bloody mollusk?” Pax asks as Mikey drops the cigarette to the pavement and steps on it before an overanxious security guard can finish jogging his way toward us.

  “Snails, slugs, clams, octopi …” Muse starts, getting cut off before he can finish inserting that random bit of trivia into the conversation. At least he puts a smile on my face.

  “What the hell, honey?” Ransom asks as Michael steps over to me and takes hold of the umbrella, hefting it above both our heads. Cope has a black umbrella in his hand that he pops open and lifts over him and Muse.

  “We're all going to make an effort to quit,” Michael announces with a tight smile that he directs at his friends. I feel my heart skip a beat. He might play the angry bad boy card well, but Mikey genuinely listens when I talk; I appreciate that. I mentioned both my parents having cancer, and now he's ready to get all the guys to quit smoking. “Now let's get the fuck out of here before we get ambushed again.”

  “To the library?” Copeland asks, his hair styled into a perfect faux hawk, the red-auburn color extra bright against the grey stone of the college's buildings, the stormy color of the sky. “That's where the Book of Kells is, right?”

  “Can't believe we came all this bloody way to see some monks' old coloring book,” Pax mumbles, leading the way through the rain, not caring that droplets are spattering his jet-black suit.

  “He's come here three times before,” Cope whispers, lifting his hand and holding up three fingers, his eyes as beautiful and bright as the Mediterranean Sea.

  “To Dublin?” I ask and Copeland shakes his head, our umbrellas bumping together as we stroll down the brick walkway toward the library.

  “To see the Book of Kells,” Cope answers with a grin and a wink, reaching down to curl his fingers through mine. He hands his umbrella off to Ransom and joins me underneath my own as
we watch Pax meander through the steadily increasing downpour like he doesn't have a care in the world. “I think he even considered going to school here once upon a time.”

  “Yeah,” Ran says with a laugh, his fingers playing at the edge of his pocket, like he wants to go for a smoke again, but ends up deciding against it. “Threatening to attend Trinity College was Pax's idea of rebelling until he met me. His parents wanted him to go to Cambridge or Oxford. Those are his mom's and his dad's alma maters, respectively.”

  “But then you came along and corrupted him and all that shit,” Michael says, waving his hand dismissively. “We've all heard the damn story. Now, tell me, how the fuck are you going to survive those assholes for three days? They might already have a paid assassin waiting to take you out when you get there.”

  “If I'm lucky,” Ransom says with a grin, glancing past Cope and over at me, Muse on his other side, “they'll take Lilith out, too, and we can move onto our next life together, just the two of us.”

  “I think you'd miss Paxton too much,” I say, putting a palm on my chest as he laughs, the sound as pure and carefree as I've heard it since I met him. He's still a walking, talking twist of shadow, as dark and mysterious as the navy depths of the sea, but … he's getting better. I like that, watching him progress. I like it even better that we can make this journey together. The past isn't something you run from; it's something you walk slowly past, taking pictures, making memories. You learn from the bad times and treasure the good ones, but you leave that view firmly entrenched in the rearview mirror.

  All I want to see out the windshield is my future.

  Beauty in Lies puts on one of their best shows yet, lighting up the audience in waves of brilliant color, reminding me of the rainbow arches of my recent orgasms. All of that wild, shimmering energy that the boys summon up in me with their fingers, their mouths, their cocks, they stir up in the crowd with their guitars, drums, bass, voice.

  I watch them with breathless agony tracing through my fingertips, sketching the scene before me in waves of color and frenetic black lines that kiss the edges of my canvas and dance away towards the far reaches of my creativity.

  Once I'm seated on one of the sumptuous leather seats in the Blackwell's jet, I show my work to Copeland, trying not to stress over Paxton's drinking. He seemed to recover some today, punctuating my journey around Dublin with snarky commentary and wickedly curved smirks of his lips. And fuck, he trashed that stage tonight, dressed in a sharp, sexy suit and a layer of wild tattoos to protect against the world.

  But now that we're back on his parents' plane … he seems to be regressing.

  “You paint with more than just lines and color,” Copeland says, drawing my attention down to his hands as they move across the shiny surface of my digital tablet, skimming across my rendition of the crowd. It's just faceless faces in a sea of splashy color, but the way Cope stares at it, I think I'm headed in the right direction. “There's energy here,” he promises. “You'll have no trouble finding a gallery to show your stuff.”

  “When I get back,” I start as Paxton takes a seat between Michael and Ransom, Muse sitting down on my other side. Once the jet's in the air, we can do whatever we want: shower, watch TV, nap on the queen size bed in the small bedroom. But during takeoffs and landings, we all have to be strapped in. “I'm going to get a bunch of giant canvases and paint with oils, like my mother used to.”

  “I can't even imagine how spectacular this'll be once it's life-size,” Cope says, still reverently touching the smooth surface of my artwork. As soon as I give it some texture, that's when it'll really sing. I remember what he said when I asked him why he liked to read paperback books. Tactile experience. I want to make my painting more than just pixels on a screen; I want to be able to run my fingers across the surface of the canvas and feel it all, every emotion, every moment.

  “Whoa, is this from tonight?” Muse asks, leaning over and taking the tablet from my hands. His hair is pretty spectacular right now, gelled up into sharp points down the center of his scalp, like the metal spikes on his belt. Good thing we don't have to go through regular airport security. The way he's dressed tonight, I think Muse would set off a metal detector from a hundred feet away.

  “That's how inspiring you guys were,” I say as Copeland curls his long fingers around the book in his lap, and Octavia finally settles into one of the more traditional looking airplane seats near the cockpit. There are four creamy white leather seats arranged facing forward where the few staff members sit. The crew sits in the back, and the six of us have taken to sitting in the 'living room' area, arranged on a half-circle sectional with seat belts buried in the cushions. Cope, Muse, and I are facing Michael, Pax, and Ransom, staring at them across the polished glossy surface of a coffee table. “Your art gave birth to my own.”

  “That's fucking great, honey,” Ransom says, his voice like a warm nighttime breeze, brushing across my skin and making me shiver. “I guess you found your muses?”

  “I guess so,” I say, exchanging a smile with him and then reaching down to take Derek's hand for takeoff. As I look back over at him, I notice that he's scrolled through several of the other sketches I've been working on, pausing on one with a flock of green and red hummingbirds coming out of his guitar. As he stares at it, his face darkens and his lips get tight. “Are you okay?” I ask, lowering my voice as the captain makes an announcement over the speaker system.

  “Not really,” he whispers back, drawing a line through the hummingbirds with the tip of one finger. “I just …” Muse stops talking, closing the file and browsing through more of the thumbnails on the screen, all the way back to a sea of gravestones, an urn, and … a champion oak tree with the small huddled form of a boy beneath it.

  “Muse—” I start, but he reaches up and puts a hand over my lips, setting his own against my ear as the jet roars to life around us and the crew prepares for takeoff.

  “Don't explain or apologize. The human experience belongs to all of us. As soon as those words left my mouth, they became yours. However you need to deal with it, do it. Draw it. Paint it. Put it in a gallery.”

  He releases me, his gaze like the glossy surface of a bubble, a million different colors when the sun hits it just right. Derek's eyes shimmer with flecks of gold and bronze, emerald and sapphire, all of those colors layered on a multifaceted grey background. God's painting. That's what it feels like I'm looking at, art penned by the skilled fingers of an infallible hand.

  Derek drops his head onto my shoulder and closes his eyes as my heart beats in a sympathetic staccato rhythm, aching for him, wishing I could go back in time and erase his pain. Instead, all I can do is paint it and wait to see if he decides to open up again, tell me more of his story. Either way, I want to help him unload his baggage and leave it on the side of the road, focus on his future out the windshield, leave his history firmly in the rearview.

  Right now, that's the goal for all six of us.

  “God, I hate flying,” Muse murmurs, eyes still closed, breathing out with a low, deep sigh as we lift off the ground and my stomach hops up into my throat. I squeeze his hand nice and tight, pink painted fingernails digging into his palm as the darkness outside the oval windows shifts to twinkling city lights and then to the thin haze of clouds, tinted silver by the moon.

  Paxton doesn't even wait for the all clear from the crew before he takes his seat belt off, standing up and revisiting the bar as I tighten my mouth and watch him shrug out of his suit jacket. I'm not sure that I'd say Pax is a full-blown alcoholic, but he definitely has a slight drinking problem.

  I exchange glances with Michael and Ransom, glad to see that they're both watching him with the same worried expressions on their faces. See, that's one of the things I like about this unconventional little relationship of ours—I've got backup.

  “Let's just get through this and get back to Seattle; he'll be okay,” Michael says, but almost like he's trying to convince himself as much as he is me. We exchange a loo
k, the purple color of his eyes blooming beautiful beneath long dark lashes. “Have you put anymore thought into your living situation?”

  “I want my own place,” I say firmly, realizing that Muse has already fallen asleep on my shoulder. I release his hand and unbuckle my seat belt, gently adjusting him so that he flops down on the pillows to his left. “I spent years making Kevin's place just right, putting all my love and effort into somebody else's space. I want to make a go of it on my own.” I toss the black afghan we stole off the bus over the gentle rise and fall of Muse's chest, standing up straight and slicking the rich purple-red strands of my hair into a ponytail. “The months I lived alone after we broke up were pretty bleak, so those hardly count. And anyway, Phoenix never felt like home.”

  “How do you know Seattle will?” Cope asks, letting the pages of his book flutter closed as he looks up at me.

  “Because you guys will be there,” I say and receive a smile in return, the movement of Copeland's lips accented by the single silver ring pierced through the bottom. “I want to dig in, put down roots, make a fresh start. With the sale of the Matador, I'll have plenty of cash to rent something nice.”

  Michael makes a sound under his breath, standing up and grabbing me by the hips, putting his mouth to my neck and conjuring up all sorts of ideas about what we could be doing in the small bedroom at the back of the plane.

  “Eh, in the Seattle Metro Area, that money might get you the first month's rent and security deposit for some shithole in a questionable neighborhood.” Michael reaches up and tucks an errant strand of hair behind my ear, pressing the warmth of his body against me, wrapping me up in his smell the same way his jacket did this morning. Only … this is so much better. “Let us buy you something; you can even pay rent if you want.”