“How do you know this?” she asked, the words coming out breathy.
“Because I had Branch Dillinger investigate you, and he’s thorough.”
Worse!
Her stomach dropped to her feet, and her voice pitched high and panicked.
“Dillinger knows?”
Stellan slid his hand back to cup her nape, and with his other arm, which was latched around her waist, he pulled her closer into his body.
“He will say nothing.”
“No one gets to know me.”
“He’ll say nothing, sweetheart.”
“They can’t know me.”
“Because you don’t want them to know you?”
“Because you let people in and they fuck you over, and in terms of the life I lead, that kind of fucking over gets you dead.”
Those words set his face to stone.
“You don’t live that life anymore, Simone.”
“I was born to that life, Stellan, and when that’s the case, that kind of slime never washes away, and more fool the person who tries to pretend it does.”
“That’s not true,” he returned.
“And how would you know?”
“Because I was born to slime too, darling, the designer kind. And it took a sandblaster, but I washed that fucking shit away, and I will never tolerate it coming back and infesting the life I built without that slime in it.”
She shut up.
He stared at her.
And it was then he knew.
He knew that she knew about him too.
So he asked after that.
“Do you know as a matter of course, since it plays out in the press, or did you look into me?”
Sixx said nothing.
He still got his answer.
“Was it after what happened Tuesday night or before?” he asked.
She kept her mouth shut.
“Before,” he murmured, studying her closely. “How long have you wanted me, honey?”
Her eyes slid away.
This giving him another silent answer.
His fingers gripped her scalp. “Look at me.”
Her eyes slid back.
“What did Leigh say?” he demanded.
“That she’s happy for us. That we’re not two halves that make a whole. We’re two souls who share a vital understanding. She said we were meant for each other.”
His gaze softened and warmed, and watching the beauty of that set a panic in her that was so extreme, it made Sixx prepare to fight in order to get free.
“What did I say about you pulling away?” he murmured.
She calmed.
Instantly.
God!
With no other direction to go, she fell forward, planting her face in his chest.
His hand slid up to cup the back of her head, his arm around her closed tighter, and she felt his lips hit her hair.
God.
“She was beautiful,” he murmured.
“Who?”
“Silie.”
Lord.
She closed her eyes.
His sister.
His sister who committed suicide.
Because of his father—among other, more terrible reasons.
Yes, he knew she knew.
And yes, he’d grown up with slime too.
“We have a lot to learn about each other, Simone. All I ask for in the present, until we can start to do that in a meaningful way, is that you please just be you.”
She opened her eyes and saw white linen.
But she felt strength.
Power.
Warmth.
And it was then she realized she’d never been held this way.
Not once.
In her life.
Fuck.
Were those tears in her eyes?
“Be me?” she asked, her words muffled by his chest, which she hoped hid the throaty that came from the effort of her trying to get her shit together.
“Strong. A survivor. A winner. Come back downstairs with me. Eat. Drink. Enjoy your friends. Stay close to me this time so I can look after you. And when they’re gone, we’ll make our deal and take it from there.”
“Stellan, really, I don’t belo—”
“If you say you don’t belong here one more time, I swear to fuck, darling, I’ll lash you naked to my bed, gagged and blindfolded, and spank you so long and so hard, you’ll be glad I’ve left you on your belly. But your fine ass will sting so badly, just the air in the room will be torture. And I’ll go down, eat, drink, enjoy my friends, and return to play with you for as long as it takes to make you beg for release. Something you won’t get until you apologize for being so immensely insulting … to yourself. Then and only then will I let you come.”
Sixx pressed her lips together to stop herself from talking.
Or maybe moaning.
“Are these words heard?” he prompted.
She stared at his linen-covered chest trying to figure out if she should say what he’d told her not to say just to see if he’d do what he promised or if she just wanted to ask him to do it.
“Say, ‘Yes, Stellan,’” he ordered.
“Yes, Stellan,” she echoed.
Her cheek moved with the huge breath he took in, and it moved again when he let it out.
“Though I’m not sure I’m good with going back down there,” she shared. “I took off, acting like a frigging idiot.”
He pulled her head out of his chest, tilting it back to look up at him as he looked down at her.
“Do you really give a fuck?” he asked, brows raised.
Thinking about it, she kind of didn’t.
It was Leigh. And Leenie. And the rest.
They were cool.
“No,” she answered.
He smiled, and the miracle happened again.
He got freakishly more handsome.
“Do you think they care?” he asked.
“Yes. I’ve never done anything like that. They’re probably worried about me.”
“About the acting-like-an-idiot part,” he amended. “Considering the fact you didn’t, they wouldn’t think that. They’ll just be worried about you.”
“What do I say to them?” she asked, because she didn’t know.
She always had it together. It was imperative in her line of work, for one. But also to keep her shit tight so it didn’t blow apart, for another.
“It’s none of their business?” he asked back in answer.
“Uh … well, I’ve never really been just one of the girls, but I’ve been around them enough to know that doesn’t work.”
He started chuckling and through it said, “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Her gaze drifted away as she nodded.
“Right, darling, let’s head back down so they can stop worrying about you.”
He started to make a move, but it was then she realized she had her hands fisted in his shirt at his sides and she didn’t let go.
In fact, she pressed those fists in and called, “Hey.”
He stopped moving and looked down at her, brows again raised.
He looked hot like that too.
Lord.
She totally belonged to him.
And it felt good.
Damn.
“Are you cool with me and Ami? I mean, I—” she started.
“Did you enjoy watching him perform for you?”
She nodded.
“Then yes, I’m cool.”
“You’re not … you don’t have…”
“I have you.”
“Not down there.”
“I still have you.”
“But we haven’t really—”
“We will.”
“But—”
“You’re a Domme, Simone,” he stated firmly.
She didn’t reply.
“A specific kind of Domme, actually,” he continued. “You know precisely how gratifying it is to give someone something they need without getting anything in return. It remains to be seen, though I doubt it’ll be better than the orgasms you’ll be giving me. But it’s still a beautiful thing that means a good deal to me, giving you something you need, watching you while you have it, seeing how much you enjoy it. But I’d prefer it if you just had it without worrying about it because that worry pollutes the beauty it gives to me.”
“Okay then, hot stuff, I’ll play with that meat guilt-free,” she muttered.
She was about to look away at the same time break away when her body arrested totally.
This was because his expression changed totally.
She stood in his hold, staring into his eyes, suspended in time, simply taking in his sheer male beauty, which was excruciatingly more beautiful with that look on his face.
Eventually, as ever with Stellan, she could take no more.
“What?” she whispered.
“Hot stuff?” he whispered back.
Was that offensive? Coarse?
Common?
“I—”
“Fuck,” he growled.
And then …
He kissed her.