She took a sip of her drink.
Stellan breathed in her perfume. It was all her—complicated, contradictory, full of musk and amber with a hint of pepper. Dark and forbidding at the same time warm.
“Are we finished talking about Ami?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
“So we can now discuss us.”
There was hesitancy before she said, “Okay.”
“Shall I propose my deal?”
Stellan had his eyes on her.
Simone had her glass to her lips, her gaze to the fire, and she murmured, “Knock yourself out.”
Therefore, through a grin, he began.
“Tomorrow, I’d like to take you to your home, pick up enough things that you’ll be fine being here for the next month…”
Her head turned sharply his way so she could stare him in the eyes.
Hers were stunned.
He kept speaking.
“We’ll move you in, and this is where you’ll stay … for a month. You’ll work. I’ll work. If you like, we can go to the club together, but you will not play, nor will I, with each other or anyone else. We can watch. We can have drinks and visit with our friends. But that’s all. In the meantime, we’ll share my home together. Eating. Sleeping. Fucking. Living. Except weekends. Weekends will be spent playing.”
“I—” she got in.
However, that was all he let her get in.
He tightened his hold on her and spoke over her.
“By playing I mean you’ll be my Simone. That is, darling, I’ll play with you any way I please, and you’ll let me.”
“You want me to … move in … for … a month?”
He found it fascinating that she sought confirmation on that point of the deal rather than the last.
“Preliminarily. After that month, we’ll assess and see where we are.”
“You want me to move in for a month,” she stated, not a question this time.
“As you already know, I want to get to know you,” he explained.
Her tone pitched higher, and her body got tighter in his hold. “And you want to do that by having me move in?”
“I could ask you out to dinner,” he pointed out the boring, but obvious. “I could ask you for a weekend away. I could find ways to waste all sorts of time dancing a tired, tedious dance when I already know I want to know more about you, everything, actually, and I want to fuck you, and I want that very badly, I also want to play with you, and I want that very badly as well.”
“I get the getting-to-know-you concept, but Stellan, that’s extreme.”
“How?” he asked, but didn’t give her time to answer. “It isn’t like we’ll be spending every moment of every day together. It also isn’t like we’ll be spending every moment together when we’re both in this house. We’ll sleep together. Wake up together. I’ll come home to you when your day is done before mine. You’ll come home to me when it’s the other way around.”
“And we agree to this month, and I immediately get on your nerves, what happens then? I pack up and head home?” she asked.
“You won’t immediately get on my nerves, Simone.”
“How do you know?”
He gave a slight shrug, took a sip of his martini, looked to the fire and answered, “I just do.”
“What if I pick my teeth after a meal?”
He turned his gaze back to her. “Do you?”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t know all my annoying habits. Annoying habits aren’t annoying to the person doing them, just the person who has to put up with them.”
He smiled at her. “I just had dinner with you, darling. You didn’t pick your teeth.”
“You had guests. Maybe I do that after I eat in front of the TV.”
“I don’t watch much TV,” he told her.
“There you go,” she stated, like that was enough to prove they were incompatible.
“Do you watch TV?” he queried.
She looked to the fire. “Not really.” She looked back to him. “But when I do, I sometimes eat in front of it.”
“To set your mind at ease, I can assure you this doesn’t fill me with revulsion.”
“Okay, Stellan, but that tired and tedious dance people dance they do it for a reason. You can get a sense if you want to have more time with someone by spending small blocks of it with them … first. Anyone will get on your nerves if you go in gung ho right away.”
He tipped his head to the side. “Do you date often?”
She turned again to the fire.
That meant no.
He’d already guessed that.
“Do you date at all?” he inquired, this with a good deal of curiosity.
She took a sip of her drink.
Another no.
Stellan smiled again and gave her a squeeze. “Simone, honey, look at me.”
He felt her take in a large breath before she did as he asked.
“I haven’t finished explaining the deal,” he told her.
She didn’t hide her surprise.
Or her alarm.
“There’s more?”
He nodded.
“God,” she muttered.
“You can’t leave, and I can’t ask you to leave, no matter what.”
Her eyes got big.
He’d never seen that expression on her face.
And seeing it then, he hoped even more that their discussions didn’t drone on so he could get her into bed.
Because Mistress Sixx was cold and removed.
But Simone was incredibly endearing.
“That’s insane, Stellan,” she said quietly.
“Why?” he asked.
“It’s insane you’d even ask why it’s insane,” she informed him.
“How long have you wanted me, sweetheart?” he whispered and had to lock his arm around her because her body jerked like she was going to bolt from the couch.
Anchored to him, she escaped by turning again to the fire.
“Answer me, Simone,” he said to her profile.
She sipped her martini.
“Simone,” he said low. “Answer me.”
“Why does it matter?” she asked the fire. “You know I do, so why does it matter when that started? It doesn’t make what you’re asking any less crazy.”
“Do you want flowers and chocolates and candlelit dinners where you carry an extra pair of panties in your purse with your toothbrush because you know you’ll be sleeping beside me anyway but you go home the next day for unnecessary reasons?”
Her gaze came back to him. “If I said yes, I want flowers and chocolates and candlelit dinners?”
“I’d give them to you, but when we came home after, we’d just be home.”
“We could end up hating each other,” she declared.
“We won’t end up hating each other,” he refuted.
“If we do, what then? If we don’t get along, what, Stellan? I lose you in the way I have you altogether because of this crazy scheme that pushed us too far way, way, way too fast.”
“And what if that doesn’t happen, Simone? What if the exact opposite happens?” he retorted.
That was when it came.
Not nerves.
Not more alarm.
It was like her body petrified in his hold.
It was fear.
“Darling,” he whispered, sliding his arm up her back, curling her in, forcing her chest to his, her face closer to his. “You don’t think this is insane because you think it will fail. You’re saying it’s insane because you fear it will succeed.”
“I’m not a date type of woman,” she whispered back.
“I know,” he replied.
“I’m not flowers or candlelight,” she shared.
“I know that too.”
“I’m not a living-together type of woman either.”
“How about we just see?”
“Maybe we should stop this here and go back to being just friends?” she suggested.
“Because I don’t want to be your friend, Simone,” he told her bluntly and watched her flinch.
But he wasn’t done.
“I want to be your lover. I want to be your Master. I want to know all your secrets. I want to unravel the mystery that’s you and then help you keep it safe. I want you, and the way I want you is beside me, in bed, in play and in life.”
“You can’t know that,” she said softly.
“And this is something you’ll be learning about me. I do know that. I know myself. I know what I want. And when that’s identified, I get it.”