“Yes,” he answered.
“Then yes,” she replied.
That made him grin.
“Another martini?” he offered.
She nodded.
He went to the kitchen.
He heard the sounds of her stilettos alternately hitting his tile then disappearing as she moved with him and traversed tile and rugs.
She stopped opposite the island to him, so he moved the bottles and shaker to her.
He made her gin martini first.
Then the same for him with vodka.
He said nothing while he did.
She watched his hands the whole time he did.
He wrapped his fingers around his martini glass, and after he’d taken a chill sip of the sharp drink, he murmured, “Ready?”
Her brown eyes lifted to his. They were clear, not nervous, perhaps somewhat fatigued, which wasn’t surprising considering it was after eleven at night, but that was all.
And that was good. She had no reason to be nervous with him, and she never would.
Not at times like these.
Other times, under his command … she’d relish the nerves, he’d see to it.
Simone nodded.
He took another sip before putting his glass down so that he could take her hand, fit it in the crook of his arm, take up his glass again, and start moving her to the stairs.
“Where are these negotiations happening?” she asked when their direction became clear.
“My bedroom.”
“Hmm…” she hummed noncommittally.
“In front of the fire,” he carried on, starting them moving slowly up the stairs.
“You have a fireplace in your room?” she asked.
“You didn’t see it?”
“Sorry. I was too busy noticing your French count desk. I didn’t notice you had a fireplace too.”
“My French count desk?” he queried.
“You have a desk in your bedroom.”
“I know.”
“Only French counts have desks in their bedrooms.”
“Really?” he murmured, not hiding his amusement.
“French counts, English barons, and you.”
Stellan started chuckling.
“And when you say ‘in front of the fire,’ do you mean an actual fire?” she asked.
“Of course,” he answered.
“No one lights a fire in their bedroom in June in Arizona, Stellan.”
“I do.”
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice now sounding amused, but also soft, pensive, and Stellan had never heard it like that before.
It was beautiful.
“Only you,” she finished.
He said nothing more as he guided her into his room, straight to the couch in front of the fire, and let her go. He opened the drawer in the end table to get the remote that activated the fire, hit the buttons so it was burning as he wanted it, and returned it. He then sat down in the middle of the couch, separated from where she had seated herself tucked tight into the corner.
All right.
Maybe she was nervous, and she was hiding it.
“Did you come up here and turn on the lights?” she asked, glancing around his room, which was lit softly with a few lamps.
“They’re on timers,” he answered.
She looked to him. “Are they timed to turn off too?”
“Only if I don’t turn them off before they’re timed to go off.”
“So, essentially, even your bedroom is wired to welcome you.”
He raised his brows. “Even my bedroom?”
She shrugged, looked to the fire, took a sip of her drink, and said, “You’re rich. It shows. Like in your face, it shows. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t nice. Gracious.” Her gaze came back to him. “When I walked in earlier, I thought it looked like your house was decorated in, ‘Relax, I got you.’”
That made Stellan burst out laughing.
He was down to chuckling when he saw her again sipping her martini, watching him laugh from under her lashes, and he replied with feeling, “I’m delighted you think that.”
She swallowed her sip, took her glass from her lips, looked him in the eye and declared, “We need to discuss Ami.”
Stellan felt a clutch of something unpleasant in his chest, a sour taste at the back of his tongue and a low roar in his head.
Earlier, he actually had been good watching Simone enjoy the toy that he himself had provided her.
This was because he’d had practice.
For months he’d watched her playing with her toys, biding his time, preparing, only going in when he was ready for the win.
After she invited Ami to stay, and he saw them exchange a number of words over dinner, at the time, that had not affected him overly much.
But after Ami’s hesitancy even to say goodbye to the Domme who’d worked him in a way that had moved him, which was not Simone’s normal technique, Stellan wasn’t feeling as at ease about the situation.
“I asked him to stay for dinner because he seems freaking cool, when he’s naked and hard, and when he’s not,” she went on, these words not making Stellan any more at ease.
Especially since she was finally right there. Up in his room in front of a fire, looking exquisitely tempting, wearing what amounted to a collar, with a drink in her hand, him at her side and their negotiation imminent. The negotiation of what could be the most important deal he’d brokered in his life.
But she was talking about another man.
“So I needed to get a sense of him when he’s not in a scene,” she continued. “In order that we can figure out who to set him up with.”
Who to set him up with?
Stellan’s head twitched. “Sorry?”
“A Mistress,” she explained. “I’m sensing he wants something long term. Someone in the life and his life. But I don’t want to fix him up with someone who does his head in. So we have to vet them carefully, and I’m totally drawing a blank. I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to the new players at the Honey who came in since I was away. So we need to go to the club so you can give me the lowdown on them, and I can look them over. If there’s no one that works, we might have to go to the Bolt to get a sense of things. No stone unturned, as it were.”
“You want to find a Domme for Ami.” The words were expressed as a statement even if they were a request for a confirmation.
“Well … yeah. I mean, it’ll suck, he gets claimed and won’t be battling in the pit for me. So it’d be good we find one who’s loaded so she can pay for her throne and keep him down there because I think he gets off on that. Or,” her lips turned up slightly, “since you’re the big man there, maybe you can pull some strings. But she has to be right. I think some of the Mistresses he’s found haven’t been good with him. So we have to find that perfect balance. Good for him in the scene, and not crazy-psycho lady outside of it, or vice-versa.”
Stellan regarded her.
She held his regard for some time before she prompted, “You in on doing this with me?”
She was not thinking about Ami and what they’d shared while she was sitting beside Stellan in front of a fire on a couch in his bedroom prior to talking about their future together.
She wanted the man to have a decent woman in his life.
She wanted to do something nice for a new friend.
“Please come here,” he requested quietly.
His request set her head to twitching, but otherwise she didn’t move.
“Please, Simone.”
It took her a moment, but finally she slid to him.
He rounded her waist with an arm and pulled her to him in a way she had no choice but to curl close, even so far as shifting a knee so it was resting on his thigh, at the same time he lifted his feet and put them up on the table in front of the couch with his ankles crossed.
This was much better even though Simone did not relax in his hold, rest her head on his shoulder, cuddle into his side. She held distant and stiff.
He allowed that, took a sip of his martini, and murmured, “We’ll find someone perfect for Ami.”
“Cool,” she muttered.
He decided not to share at that juncture what Ami had shared with him earlier.
Instead, he pointed out, “If we do, you’ll lose him, darling, in more than just the pit.”
“I don’t have him anyway, and he wants someone to have him have him. And he’s a good guy, so he should have what he wants.”
“Then we’ll help him find that.”
“Thanks,” she whispered.
“It’ll be my pleasure,” he replied.