Stellan held her gaze but said no more.
“As I was going to say. It was a job. A good one. An important one. One I had to take. The situation in question was happening at the Bolt. I went there last night for reconnaissance purposes. I have a paying job. Responsibilities to my employer and this was outside that. I couldn’t give all my attention to it, but it was important, and with what was happening in that club, it was pressing. What was happening there could not stand. I recruited informants, but that’s never the best scenario when you’re gathering information, especially when you need solid evidence. I had to go in. I had utterly no intention of observing any scene outside perhaps strolling past one.”
When she paused and he didn’t speak, she was relieved to learn he was the kind of man he had proved himself to be in the past, even if they hadn’t exactly had a situation quite like this.
In other words, a man who would listen to what she had to say.
She carried on.
“You did not get to meet them before you left, Molly, Diesel and Maddox. But I’ve known Molly for some time. She’s sweet and friendly and has her head together. I recruited her. Her two Doms, Diesel and Maddox, had noticed what was going down and offered to assist, at first, mostly to take my back because as you could see, they’re skilled at that. In the natural course of things, it became clear that going undercover as an observer of one of their scenes would put me in a better position to be at the Bolt for reasons that wouldn’t be questioned, place me there for longer when I was not going to play and allow me to keep a much closer eye on things.”
Regrettably, Stellan had something to say to that.
“You watched two of their scenes, Simone. You sat and watched the big one work the dark one on all fours on the platform last night,” he pointed out.
He’d been there last night.
She took up her drink again, staring into it as she calmed herself before she took another sip.
She set it down and noted, “So that was why I beat you to the Honey last night.”
“Yes,” he confirmed immediately.
“You’re right. I misspoke. I watched two of their scenes,” she said tightly. “Last night was supposed to look like a tryout.”
“It succeeded,” Stellan shared. “And the only reason I wasn’t infuriated last night was because you were obviously not moved by their performance because you didn’t want me to service you at Naya and Ami’s scene until their display, witnessed with me, moved you to have that need. For you, what Diesel was doing to Maddox, or whichever one is which, would normally be quite affecting. Last night, it did not seem to have that effect.”
“That happens when I’m working,” she stressed. “And I’ll add, when you’re not there.”
He took a sip of his drink but said nothing.
“I was not there to get my rocks off, Stellan. I wasn’t there to get my Mistress on. I would never do either of those without you with me. Not ever. I did not participate. I did not touch. I did not command. I used their scene to keep an eye on the stations Beardsley was utilizing and to get a take on the DMs that were in his pocket. That said, with full disclosure, which I would have told you regardless because I’d very much like you to meet all three, but also what I learned of them is troubling me and I’d want to talk it out with you. Molly is incredibly lovely and there’s a deep, emotional issue the trio is enduring with Diesel. So I cannot tell you I was not moved when that came out in their scene. Diesel isn’t comfortable with one side of his bi nature, and it doesn’t often get to where Maddox was able to take him tonight. It was an honor to witness that, even as Molly explained what was happening, so it also felt like watching something tragic. But the bottom line is, Stellan, as important as that is to those three, all of that is an aside to what I was doing there. This is my job. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at. And you have to trust me to do it without intervening.”
He opened his mouth, but she lifted her hand.
“Please, let me finish,” she requested.
He inclined his head.
“You may choose not to believe me,” she continued. “But as I was driving there tonight, I made the decision that if this investigation went further than tonight, I would share it with you and invite you to be a part of it in terms of being with me at the Bolt. Molly, Diesel and Maddox don’t do other Doms, but they were impatient for something to be done about the situation, so they might have allowed you to observe as well if it facilitated that. They might not have, and I could have figured something else out. But I was going to give you that choice. Now as you decide whether or not to believe me, I’ll point out, if I had not had you on my mind, if I did not want to have you there with me in the way I could, I would not have worn your collar.”
“Point taken, Simone,” he said quietly.
Good.
But they weren’t done.
“As for Carvelo, Rodrigo, and the rest, you may also choose not to believe me, but I’d also decided, although I’d done it very recently, I still had made the decision that they no longer had a part in my life. It’s mostly due to you. I want a future with you, and they don’t belong in a life that includes something as beautiful as you.”
His face began to shift to warm as he started, “Simone—”
“But,” she said forcefully, cutting him off, “it also has to do with me. It’s been pointed out to me, also very recently, that the reasons I did all of that at all no longer factor. I don’t need to best my mother. I don’t need to survive in that world when she did not. I don’t need to inhabit that world at all. So I was going to scrape it off.”
“I’m delighted to hear that, sweetheart.”
She was glad he was.
They still weren’t done.
“What is not okay, Stellan, is having my boyfriend phone around town and warn assholes off me. That’s archaic and frankly ridiculous.”
“I did it at a time when you weren’t letting me in, Simone,” he explained. “You weren’t taking care of yourself. You weren’t opening up to me, to the people who care about you, definitely not to yourself.”
“Stellan, I absolutely understand the impetus. It’s still not acceptable. If you had issues, you should have talked to me about them.”
“Darling, if you’ll remember, I tried. That wasn’t somewhere you would go. We had a deal. A month for me to try to break through. And I made moves I don’t regret to make sure you came home to me every night of that month, and then on, so I could break through and, when I did, have a future with you.”
“Okay. I get that. But are you getting me?” she pushed.
“I am,” he replied.
“So, we’re understood. This is my work. I can assure you that I’m limiting it to legal activities, of a sort, but I think you understand me. But the concerns you have you need have no more. You can also not intervene.”
“I love that you would commit so fully to the mission you had these past few days because of what that mission was,” he returned. “For, as I hope you know, I very much agree what was happening at the Bolt was deeply offensive and had to be stopped. That said, I hesitate to inform you of this, my darling, but I feel it’s vital that it’s said. You are not a superhero.”
She stared at him.
Stellan kept talking.
“You cannot always save the day, the terrified, broken child inside. The junkie prostitutes having their bodies abused. The lonely sub who’s looking for a Mistress who can meet his needs who is also a woman with whom he can share his life. The rich, successful, but stupidly stubborn Dom who’s fallen in love with a remarkable woman that for some reason he will not allow himself to have.”
Sixx couldn’t stop staring at him.
“You are flesh and blood,” he whispered. “Capable of being harmed and hurt and worse. I love you, Simone. I want a future with you. I want to live my life beside you. I want to make children with you. What I don’t want to do is live that life terrified of losing you.”