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

the next round.” That was it. That was all the guy’d had to say—with no inflection whatsoever. And Ricardo knew that jerk was capable of speaking with inflection. He’d overheard it loud and clear through the stage curtain.

Strangely enough, he didn’t even care whether he got into Magic Mansion or not. Offstage, in the commotion of both Mordo the Great and Fabian Swan trying to hustle past with their prop-laden acts, Professor Topaz had managed to simply disappear.

Ricardo’s stupefied glee over sharing the stage with a living legend warred with his dismay at letting the Professor slip away without even swapping a few stories. Or phone numbers.

The bus shelter, though it smelled like day-old takeout, at least shielded him from the murky sun. Ricardo checked the schedule. He’d just missed the bus. Magnificent.

Though the walls were plexi, Ricardo couldn’t quite see through them. They were covered with a dozen generations of brightly colored flyers advertising work-from-home opportunities, some pyramid schemes, and a lost dog. He peeled back a flyer from a band he’d never even heard of, but even when he dug deep, he couldn’t find a single magician among all the ads. Not one.

Exhaustion settled in his bones, and a deep, cold sadness…not over the way the casting call had turned out—because, to be honest, he suspected the primary motivation to put twelve magicians in a Hollywood mansion was not actually to award one of them a quarter-million dollars, but rather to mock the other eleven. And to encourage the rest of the world to do the same. No, Ricardo’s sadness was for the slow and inevitable death of magic itself.

Just as he was feeling maudlin enough to relax his perfect posture and allow his shoulders to slump, a looming shadow dwarfed his own silhouette on the riotous colors of the layers and layers of flyers that papered the bus shelter wall. Before Ricardo could weigh giving his assailant the five bucks in his wallet against flattening the guy with a kick to the side of his knee, a velvety, low voice said in his ear, “Are you always so obvious?”

Ricardo scrabbled at the flyers, tearing them, but no matter how many fell, there were more beneath to shield him from the prying eyes of anyone who might pass by. “What’re you talking about?”

Fingers sank into his shoulders and spun him around, and there, blocking him from the street, was none other than Professor Topaz. “You know exactly what I mean.”

Ricardo squinched his eyes mostly shut, but even so, Professor Topaz remained backlit, all but the glint of light playing over the whites of his eyes. And it seemed to Ricardo that he should probably answer, but all he could think was, So much hotter up close than I’d ever dreamed.

The Professor relaxed his grip on Ricardo’s shoulder. Slightly. “You do realize what you did…don’t you?”

Ricardo nodded, dazed.

Topaz rallied his anger, though it was dissipating fast against Ricardo’s unwillingness to fight back. “Then what were you thinking? Never perform True magic when the audience is close enough to see it’s no trick. Never.”

Ricardo grasped Topaz’s hand where it bit into his shoulder. Such big hands. Such strong fingers. Topaz shifted and brushed against a telltale bulge—the same bulge that had seemed to disappear during the audition, but evidently had only been hiding, like an assistant in a secret compartment, to emerge proudly at the climax of the act. And he didn’t react to its presence like a straight man would have. Of course, in Ricardo’s fantasies, Topaz was gay, and willing, and eager. He’d never dreamed it might be the reality. “I’m sorry.” Ricardo’s voice, again, had grown husky. He dry-swallowed. “I couldn’t help myself.”

“You’re still young, but believe me. It will catch up to you someday. The malice. The spite.” Professor Topaz, confronted by the unmistakable evidence of Ricardo’s devotion pressing against his thigh, held very still. “You need to be caref—”

Ricardo flung himself against Topaz. Lips, teeth, tongue, everything clashed, prodded, and finally found a place where it fit together perfectly. Everything about Topaz felt big, and firm, and powerful—and the air around him fairly crackled with magical energy.

They kissed hard and deep, until finally it seemed as if there was no breath left between them. When Topaz reluctantly came up for air, he touched Ricardo’s cheek as lightly as a floating silk. “You move…beautifully.”

The idea that Professor Topaz had even noticed his act made it difficult for Ricardo to catch his breath.

Topaz leaned in to murmur in Ricardo’s ear. “You keep your shoulders high without holding them stiffly. Your spine is straight, but flexible. And your hips…the way you only hinted at what your hips might do…” he slid his long, strong fingers underneath the waistband of Ricardo’s clingy slacks, “that was so much more provocative than all the ridiculous thrusting the other contestants were doing.”

Ricardo let out a shaky breath as Topaz delved deeper down his pants—and could barely restrain himself from demonstrating how naturally that “ridiculous thrusting” came to him. When Topaz finally touched him, there, skin to skin, Ricardo let out a small gasp, part submission, part sheer joy.

“Never show them your power,” Topaz breathed in Ricardo’s ear, while his fingers wrapped around the hard-on that seemed as if it had been waiting for him all day. Or maybe Ricardo’s entire life. “Power makes men jealous, and jealousy makes them dangerous. True magic is a subtle thing. Use it when you must, but never take it for granted—and stop tempting fate.”

Ricardo draped his forearms over Topaz’s broad shoulders and pressed his cheek against the velvety black cape. Up close, it smelled like the inside of a consignment store—rosin and candle wax and antique maple. Topaz handled Ricardo’s cock with the same authority with which he seemed to handle everything. Unhurried, utterly sure, and, of course, solemn. No time for tempting and teasing—but who needed seduction, when every moment, from the first time Ricardo had seen him brandish his cape, had led up to