Magic Mansion by Jordan Price (best fiction books to read .txt) 📕

him over to the standby medics, ordering up a specialist on her phone by the time they were across the lawn. No less than three handhelds jockeyed for position as the medical technician flooded the small wound with a sterile solution and began cleaning off the blood.

Maybe Kevin’s bats wouldn’t be the headlining melodramatic commercial bumper after all.

The plastic surgeon was there within fifteen minutes—this was L.A., after all—and he took a good look at the injury with a magnifying light that made sparkles dance in John’s peripheral vision. “You’re dark-complected. Do you scar easily?”

“No.”

“Any keloids?”

“No.”

“Prior surgeries? Anything I can look at to get a sense of…?”

“None.”

The surgeon glanced at John’s forearms as if surely there would be a scar or two present to give him away—after all, one didn’t spend as many years on the planet as John had without picking up a souvenir or two—but there were none there for him to see. The worst damage was on John’s lower legs. Coral. Driftwood. A broken bottle buried in the sand that nearly cost him his small toe. But those scars were not only ancient, they’d been the results of injuries that were a heck of a lot more severe than this new scratch on his cheek.

Marlene, who had been wrangling the rest of the magicians, rematerialized in John’s spotty vision once the magnifying light just under his eye was switched off. “Does he need stitches?”

“No. I put a clear sealant over the wound—”

“How about one of those butterfly bandages? That would look kind of tough.”

John almost laughed at the notion of being called “tough,” though he supposed he was still too dazed to properly react.

The doctor said, “It’s really not deep enough to warrant—”

“But it wouldn’t hurt anything,” Marlene said. “Right?”

“Of course not.” The surgeon gave a you’re-the-boss nod and pulled a butterfly suture from his kit. He applied it just below John’s eye without shrugging or apologizing in any way. Though John suspected he might have wanted to.

Chapter 17

RED TEAM ELIMINATION

An unmanned camera on a tripod was in the ballroom with John where he rested up from his big injury and attempted to pass the time by reading a magazine. He could have gone back to his room, but the dorm-style 4-bed layout reminded him too much of his college days. Not that those were bad days. Many of them, in fact, were rather good. Just that they were so long past, it seemed disingenuous to go through the motions now.

It felt strange to sit outside the action, with the sounds of the outdoor filming carrying on just beyond the window. He supposed, were he a heavier drinker (like a certain member of the Red Team) he might be tempted by the proximity of the decently-stocked bar. But John had always preferred to have company and conversation with his liquor.

As well as…other things.

As John realized he’d just entertained a notion which, while perfectly natural, had been scarce in his repertoire of thoughts lately, he marveled at the idea that Ricardo hadn’t even needed to be present to elicit the unexpected flush of desire. The mere thought of him could start John’s pulse pounding as surely as a sharp implement swung at his head.

“Professor Topaz?”

John looked up from the tedious issue of People and found the object of his fantasies there, framed in the archway as surely as if he’d just been summoned, clutching shopping bags in both hands. He wore black trousers, a gold vest and a rose-colored silk shirt with billowy sleeves, and his Gold Team medallion glinted as if a lighting team had arranged for a spotlight to hit it just so. His posture was straight and tall, like he was about to use the bags for balance while he strode across a tightrope, head high, and smiling.

He looked absolutely radiant.

“Oh my God…what happened to your face?” Ricardo’s smile vanished; he dropped the bags and sprinted across the room. The soles of his dress shoes slid the last few feet across the polished marble. “Are you okay?”

John stood, and mouthed the word “camera.” Once Ricardo nodded to show he’d understood, John said, “It’s just a scratch.”

Ricardo planted his hands on his hips. His hair—the makeover team had done something to his hair, something subtle, but even more flattering…which John wouldn’t have even thought possible. John stared at Ricardo’s hair. Ricardo stared at the butterfly suture. And when the pull between them reared up, it was heady and strong, overwhelmingly strong—so strong that John repeated, “Camera,” this time nearly aloud.

Ricardo narrowed his eyes. The late afternoon light hit them just so and lit his irises the color of the stormy Pacific, and the undertow of his nearness began dragging at John yet again—this time so intensely it pulled him forward a full step.

Ricardo took a step forward too, and now their chests would be touching, if either of them leaned in…and it was taking all of John’s focus to resist doing just that.

Ricardo parted his lips, and wet them with the tip of his tongue. John felt himself groan. “Camera,” he said—aloud now—and a heated look flashed in Ricardo’s eyes… just before the Mansion trembled.

Not a quake, nothing quite so obvious. A mere flicker. A twitch.

Above the camera rig, rotten lath in the ceiling gave way with a creak and a sigh, and plaster hunks rained down upon the equipment as surely as if the building itself had aimed them there.

The corner of Ricardo’s mouth quirked.

“Control yourself,” John forced himself to say. Because if anyone were to ask him in that moment what he actually wanted, it would have been to see Ricardo, beautiful Ricardo, saying To hell with it all! and letting the dams burst wide, and allowing the full force of his True power to surge forth.

But instead, Ricardo merely touched his fingertips to John’s wound, and cocked his head, and said, “Do you realize how close this came to your eye?”

With Ricardo’s nearness singing through his veins, John managed to utter, “It’s