“And can I ask how you identified that in me? Especially since pretty much all you know about me you got from Dillinger and not any of it is pretty.”
“I can get any kind of pretty I desire, Simone,” he said darkly. “I can fuck it in the ass, mouth and pussy. I can bend it to my will with a look. I can whip it. I can bleed it. I can brand it. I can mark it. I can make it do ugly, nasty, repulsive, degrading things. I can get it now and have all that. I can get it when I’m ninety and have all that too. I can open my wallet and get any-fucking-thing I fancy, Simone. Anything.” He paused. “Except you.”
“So I’m a challenge,” she whispered.
“Fuck yes,” he answered.
“And then what?” she asked.
“I best it, it’s mine. But it’s mine in a way I earned it, and that’s the only thing worth having. And before you twist any of this, sweetheart, you’ll also learn I’m a man who does not waste time on anything that does not deserve my time. So if I go after something I mean to have, it’s something worth having.”
“So Leigh is taken, and I’m the next up?”
It was his body that was now tight.
“Tell me,” he growled, “that you did not just say that.”
“You had a thing for her, Stellan.”
“Yes. I did,” he agreed. “I was completely enamored with her. But, you see, as happens in life often, it presented a variety of challenges to me. Amélie did not realize the challenge I was presenting in return for her own reasons, and in the end, that was lost to me because she found someone else. But prior to that, I had two challenging opportunities. It was just that at the time Leigh looked elsewhere, the other challenge was lost to me because she took off to do ridiculously dangerous things in order to … I don’t know. Feel alive. Feel useful. Prove to herself she can. Or finally get herself dead so she can just stop dealing.”
Simone pressed her lips together—not because she was angry but because she knew she’d been appropriately chastised.
Stellan didn’t hone in on that.
He’d deal with that later.
He had to finish his point.
“It is often I go to a restaurant and wonder if I want the steak or the lobster. But when you’re about the business of finding a woman you want in your life, you can’t surf and turf. I lost the lobster, and that was disappointing at the time, but now I don’t give that first fuck. Because I get steak.”
“I’ve made you angry,” she noted quietly.
“You have,” he confirmed.
“I’m sorry, Stellan, but I think this proves—”
“Oh no,” he slid his hand up her spine to wrap his fingers around her nape, feeling the cool of her collar against his skin and unfortunately not at a place where he could exult in that. “Don’t think you can manipulate me, darling. Also don’t think there won’t be times in the next month that you’ll piss me off, or I’ll piss you off. The point of going in full barrel is learning each other, including having each other in the good we’ll share and learning how to get through the bad.”
“Maybe we should start out by taking in a movie,” she suggested.
He stared into her eyes.
Then he whispered with unhidden surprise, “Christ. You’re a coward.”
Her body jolted again, but still no anger came into her face.
The fear was fixed firm in her eyes.
“I just don’t understand—” she started.
Stellan moved suddenly, stretching his arm to put his glass on the end table. He then took hers and put it beside his.
After that, he kept his hand at her nape but placed his other unyielding on her jaw and drew her nearer.
“This is, and you know it, Sixx, the only way I have even the remotest chance to win you,” he stated.
Her eyes narrowed in confusion. “What?”
“I have to go all in because if I don’t, all is lost before it’s even started.”
She stared at him.
“You know I’m right,” he pushed. “You know if I leave any slack, you’ll run. But if I tie you to me, at least I have a chance at proving what you already feel in your heart is true. That you can trust in me, believe in what I’m offering you, and maybe for once in our life allow yourself to experience not just the concept of being happy, but actually being fucking happy.”
Stellan didn’t know what it was that he’d said, but something had forced her to waver.
Therefore, obviously, he took advantage.
“We’re getting your things tomorrow,” he declared. “You’re moving in for a month, committed to a life with me for that time, no excuses, no backing out, no running away, not for any reason. Not any reason, Sixx. Do you understand me?”
“Why are you calling me Sixx?” she whispered.
“Because Sixx is the coward full of bullshit and bravado that hides Simone, who lives down deep. And that’s who I have right now. But Simone is the real survivor. She’s the one who keeps you living and breathing, who you’re fucking terrified to let free, thinking you’re protecting her, not having that first idea you’re suffocating her. And if you don’t stop, and soon, she’ll be lost. Gone for eternity. And you’ll be stuck in this half-life you’re leading, a junkie hooked on adrenaline for the sole purpose of proving to yourself you’re still breathing, but any promise of anything even remotely worth having will be forever dead.”
Her eyes slid away, so he lifted his hand at her jaw and put pressure on her cheek.
“Look at me,” he growled.
Her eyes came back.
“I’m offering you everything,” he stated.
“I know,” she replied heartbreakingly.
She knew.
And she was still intent on denying herself.
He pulled her closer so that he would be all she could see.
“They do not define you,” he bit out.
She swallowed.
“It’s arguable about their end, but you didn’t deserve to die in that room with the vile excuses for parents who were further vile excuses for human beings.”
“Stellan—”
“You didn’t, Simone.”
Her voice was so small, it made his throat get tight when she whispered, “I don’t want to talk about this now.”
“Then agree to be with me,” he pushed.
“Okay,” she said.
Fucking brilliant.
“My home. My bed. My life,” he kept at her.
Her head nodded in his hold, and she repeated, “Okay.”
“Weekends, you submit to me, Simone,” he declared.
“Yes, Stellan.”
“All weekend, darling.”
“All weekend, Stellan.”
Yes.
Fucking.
Brilliant.
But he was still pissed.
“I’m not taking you tonight,” he announced. “Right now I want to strap you, then I’ll want to take you by the hair and force-feed you my cock. Therefore I’m not in the mood for vanilla fucking, and you’re not there in your head to be used in the way you’ve earned.”
She nodded, lips pressed together again, but said nothing.
He took in her chastised look and got angrier.
“I can give you beauty,” he clipped irritably.
“What I don’t understand, baby,” she whispered, “is why you think I deserve it.”
She was lucky she called him baby.
But not that lucky.
“If you ask me that question in a month, darling,” he drawled, “I’ll walk away from you, and you’ll never see me again. That is my vow to you, Simone. By the end of the month, I’ll make you understand. Now I’m done talking. Sit beside me, fucking cuddle into me, and relax in front of the goddamned fire.”
“Okay, Stellan.”
He let her go.
She moved as told.
He reached to her glass, handing it to her.
He then reached to his and threw back half of what was left.
He scowled at the fire.
He’d gotten everything he wanted, including Simone tucked tight to his side, sipping a martini, but not including the night ending with them naked in his bed with him buried inside her.
So it was no wonder he was bloody fucking furious.
But it wasn’t that.
Why you think I deserve it.
It was fucking …
That.
seven
She Made It Until Morning
STELLAN
Stellan woke alone in bed.
This meant he was out of it, reaching for his jeans on the floor, and tugging them on even while striding toward the door.
He only stopped when he saw the Valentino clutch sitting on his desk, now with the flap opened.