At first, Sixx stood still in his hold under the gentle assault of his mouth.
It didn’t take long before his taste and touch and smell and feel permeated, making her melt into him, slide her arms along his trim waist, press close, tip her head further back, and open herself for more.
It was like she’d never been kissed.
But she had never been kissed like this. With that wonderful, wet, tender attentiveness that was all about giving, making her feel warm, wanted, safe.
Tingly.
He broke the kiss, and she almost whimpered at the loss.
Instead she stayed pressed to him, open to him and the experience as he touched his forehead affectionately to hers for a far-too-brief moment, the fingers of one of his hands stroking her spine, and murmured, “We should return.”
She didn’t want to return.
She wanted to live in his room in this moment with him until she was no longer breathing.
Warm.
Wanted.
Safe.
“All right,” she replied.
He let her body go but took her hand and led her back down the stairs.
As they went, Sixx didn’t look at the paintings on the walls or feel the thick carpet runner under her slides or the cool of the air-conditioning that had to be a bitch of a bill for a place that size.
She just followed where Stellan was leading.
And headed back to the pool party.
six
Bullshit and Bravado
STELLAN
Stellan stood in the opened French doors, looking out at his lit pool, beside which Simone was standing with Talia, Mira, Belle and Leigh, chatting.
He was trying to understand how she could make him like what she was wearing now better than her plunge-front, scarlet-red bathing suit with the graphic print sarong tied around her hips and the gold tangled in her cleavage.
Totally unconsciously, she looked like a woman who belonged on a beach on the French Riviera or a yacht off Capri, not poolside in Phoenix.
Both when she was in her swimsuit …
And now.
It didn’t take long to for him to understand.
She’d collared herself for him.
In her state, she might not have realized what she’d unintentionally done.
But as a Domme, she absolutely fucking knew.
This meant he was fighting going hard, seeing the Evening Simone that had replaced Daytime Sixx, the woman who had graced the foot of his table at dinner and was now standing, holding a martini glass in her hand with the gin martini he’d made her in it, talking to her friends.
After her shower, she’d done up her face in a shimmering palette of peaches and pinks that highlighted and defined and made her natural appeal intensely alluring.
On her body was a strapless sheath made of supple cream leather that was not skintight but instead fit her exceptionally, clinging where it should, giving where it should, emphasizing her figure to perfection.
And on her feet were rose gold, high-heeled sandals with two thin straps across the toes that had tiny buckles, and more thin straps around the ankles.
She had long, rose gold hoops in her ears, a sleek, rose gold bangle at her wrist.
And a wide sheet of shining rose gold collared around her neck.
Her short hair and the elegant length of her neck accentuated it perfectly.
And honest to Christ, Stellan had no idea how he wasn’t showing his guests to the door so he could power through their talk and then finally get her in his bed.
“So … she okay?”
Stellan turned and looked at Olly, who’d positioned himself in the other opened door, his eyes aimed at the pool, but not at Olly’s woman, Amélie.
At Simone.
After the pool party, Olly had showered and changed into jeans and a light salmon linen shirt that was quite like Stellan’s.
And the reason why he was standing right there was not a mystery.
“Leigh send you in to get the true story?” Stellan queried.
Olly looked to Stellan, grinning. “You guessed it. Sixx acting all ‘it’s groovy now’ when you guys came back after, uh … whatever went down did not cut it with my Leigh-Leigh.”
Stellan shook his head, his lips twitching, and looked back to Simone. “She’s fine.”
She wasn’t.
However, her panic attack was good. She got some of what was infecting her out.
So she wasn’t fine.
But she was better.
“You pretty much know this is gonna be the talk of the Honey for, oh … I don’t know, maybe the next decade,” Olly noted.
“I do pretty much know that, and I much more than pretty much don’t give a fuck,” Stellan replied and heard Olly chuckle.
“Well, man, we’re gonna take off before you kick our asses out so you can pounce on that, but I’m gonna say what I gotta say before Leigh-Leigh gets up in my shit and makes me have a sit-down with you to say it.”
That had Stellan turning his attention away from Simone and giving it again to Olly.
And Olly looked uncomfortable, which did not bode well. The man had a natural confidence that was so deep-seated it came out even when he was subbing during a scene.
“What’s that?”
Olly seemed to have to rip his eyes from the pool to give them to Stellan.
“You’re gonna hafta give it up, bud.”
Stellan felt his brows snap together. “Sorry?”
“For her,” he went on, tipping his head toward the pool. “That guy you got her, he rocks it. But he’s not you. And she might be okay with that for now, but that’s not gonna last. She’s gonna need it from you.”
Stellan straightened, now feeling his face get hard, and turned to Olly.
“This really has nothing to do with you,” he said low.
“I know,” Olly replied genially, but still uncomfortably. “But I saw it. Leigh saw it. Everyone else was watching her sub. We were watching Sixx. And she was looking at him. But she was thinking of you.”
“You might not understand this, but that’s the point.”
“I do understand it, Stellan, and I’d say I’m in the position to understand it more than you,” he returned quietly.
Stellan made no reply because the friendly, helpful bastard was right.
“She switching for you?” Olly asked.
“If Sixx shares that with Leigh, that’s her prerogative. But no offense, Olly, it’s not mine to share with you.”
“She’s switching for you,” he muttered.
Now Stellan was getting angry.
“We had a rough start,” he reminded Olly. “We smoothed that out. Leigh means a great deal to me, I’d prefer that something didn’t happen to change where you and I are at.”
“I would too, and not just because Leigh thinks the world of you but because you’re a solid guy and I like you. She wants you to be happy, and I’ll give you it honestly, I do too. I don’t know Sixx very well. She’s a pretty closed book. But this is making Leigh happy, and if it does that for her, it does it for me.”
When he said nothing more, Stellan asked, “Why do I think you’re not finished?”
“Because I know you got it in you, man, to go the distance to give the one you’ve obviously decided is the one everything she needs, and we both know how I know that. Whatever Sixx is working through, I’m standing here as your friend telling you, don’t play games. The stakes are too high. I’ve watched her work. Thin stream of seriously fucking chilly that’s not my gig but has most the male subs gagging for it. Today, quick thaw. It was all about heat. But her doin’ that guy, playin’ it like that, and she doesn’t lay a finger on him—my guess, and I’m thinkin’ it’s a pretty fuckin’ accurate one, that no-touch business was at your demand, then clearing out like she did, she’s dealing with something deep. You fuck around when you got a woman whose head is jacked up, she’ll slip through your fingers.”
“I’m not sixteen with my first crush,” Stellan returned.
“I nearly lost her.”
Stellan drew a sharp breath in through his nose at this blunt sharing, but he said nothing.
“I had shit jacking with my head, and I didn’t give it to my Leigh-Leigh. Instead I fucked it all up and nearly lost her.”
“I don’t have shit jacking with my head,” Stellan pointed out.
“I know. You got it goin’ on. What I’m saying is be Leigh.”