He had no idea.
He also had no idea if he could wring the miracle he needed to wring in just a month—finding a way to free Simone Marchesa from the overbearing protection Sixx held her under at the same time allowing Sixx to remain at liberty to be all the glorious parts, with none of the damaging ones, she’d formed herself into being.
But even if he failed in besting the greatest risk he’d ever taken …
She was never moving back here.
“Can you tell me why you live here?” he asked.
“Relatively central,” she stated, throwing open the door to a closet whereupon a foot-high expanse of feminine paraphernalia rolled out onto the floor. “Shit,” she muttered, bending to paw through it and finishing, “And cheap.”
“It’s my understanding you were paid handsomely for the ridiculously foolish things you used to do and still moonlight doing, even if you’re also paid handsomely for the legitimate job you have at Joel’s firm.”
Her back shot straight, and her eyes cut to him.
“Joel?” she asked.
“Your employer is a long-time friend of mine.”
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling, muttering, “Naturally.”
“Simone,” he called.
She again looked to him.
“You live in a twenty-first century hovel in a developed country, and you own McQueen, Valentino, Bendel and were last night wearing a pair of eight-hundred-dollar Giuseppe Zanotti sandals standing by my pool.” He looked pointedly side to side and back at her. “What the bloody fuck?”
“Those Zanotti sandals are life,” she replied.
“Yes, and we’ll be exploring their various functionalities when you’re submitting to me next weekend,” he returned. “But that isn’t an answer to my question.”
“I can’t have those sandals and a go bag in my secret hiding place that’s filled and will get even more filled with cash to get me out of the country and keep me clothed, fed, and safe for an indeterminate amount of time when life turns to shit—as life has a tendency to do if you have the last name Marchesa if I have to pay expensive rent somewhere I’m never going to hang.”
Stellan was again not breathing easy.
“Perhaps we should not talk about this right now,” he suggested.
“Perhaps,” she replied, returning her attention to her closet.
“Pack everything,” he ordered, and she swiveled back to him woodenly, her lips parted. “If you don’t have enough luggage, we’ll go to Scottsdale Fashion Square and pick up some at Louis Vuitton.”
“I’m not taking everything to your house, Stellan,” she declared.
He looked down at the tangle at her feet, and at a glance saw the lipstick-red sole of a Louboutin, the heel of which was twined with the silken ankle wrap of a Birman trapped around the signature chain of a McCartney Baby Bella tote.
He then looked to the door that had a lock on the knob that turned on a pinch and that was it.
There wasn’t even a chain.
His attention went back to Simone.
“Pack everything, Simone.”
“Stellan—”
“It won’t be here when you get back. It’s actually a monumental surprise any of it is here now. And since you risked your ass repeatedly to get it, practically giving it to some meth-addled buffoon is not going to happen. So pack everything, Simone.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Sundays are supposed to be fun days, hot stuff. Here we are on a Sunday, and we’re entering domestic bliss, and you’re all cranky.”
“Darling, I’ve not fucked since well before our affecting night at the gladiator pit, unless you count the multiple handjobs I gave myself as I imagined all the ways I was going to fuck you, play with you, and lately, punish you for not calling as I ordered you to do, which I personally don’t count. I’m afraid that makes a man like me cranky.”
Now her mouth had fallen open.
Adorable.
His patience was draining swiftly.
She shut her mouth only to open it again to ask, “You’ve not fucked for nearly a week?”
“The last slave I was inside was over three months ago, and the last vanilla fuck I had was before that, this after I made the decision that empty fucking was something I’d allow you to do while I was biding my time to make my move with you, but it wasn’t doing a thing for me.”
She seemed to have taken a mental trip to another world before she snapped back, and he realized she’d been harking back to any time she’d seen him at the Honey when she breathed, “My God, that’s true.”
He swung a hand to the mess at her feet.
“So if we can hurry this along,” he prompted.
“I wasn’t empty fucking either, Stellan,” she declared.
And yet again he was fucking fighting fucking clenching his fucking teeth.
“Sweetheart, you’ve had nearly every male sub at the Honey who swings your way, always at least in twos, frequently in threes and fours.”
“I command them to touch each other or fuck each other. I rarely engaged in the first and never the last.”
“But you played.”
“You did too, and you touched.”
Stellan shut his mouth.
“I was trying to get your attention,” she whispered her admission.
“You succeeded,” he whispered his reply. “Now you need to pack, darling, everything, before I throw you to that absurdly small bed with sheets that I can see have polyester fibers and bury myself inside you up to your womb.”
Her eyes heated in a manner that was not helping him control his urge to throw her on the double bed that was taking the major ity of the space in the room before her mouth curled up in her cat’s smile.
“You’re such a snob, baby,” she murmured.
“The first time I have you is not going to be in a hovel on polyester sheets. And just to make things perfectly clear, Simone, I’ll never be having you in anything remotely resembling a slum or on a bed that’s not even as long as me or on sheets that prove all the inadequacies of the world that they’ve touched your skin.”
“I’m beginning to like you,” she stated teasingly.
She was completely in love with him.
She was also even more fuckable when she was teasing.
Thus she was beginning to be a problem he was painfully impatient to solve.
“Simone,” he replied warningly. “Pack.”
She looked down at the mess at her feet, grinning and mumbling, “As you wish.”
She could speak no sweeter words.
Rather than fuck her on a pile of designer gear, he looked around for a suitcase to assist her in hauling that gear out of that hellhole.
In the end, they went back to his house, switched out his Tesla with his Maserati Levante, loaded his suitcases inside, hit Fashion Square, purchased a full set of LV luggage for her, and went back.
It took two trips.
All she owned worth moving were clothes, shoes, handbags, accessories, drawing supplies, sketchpads and mysterious keepsakes she tried to hide, shoving them in her new cruiser bag when she thought he was occupied with something else.
The rest they left behind.
Then Simone wasn’t moved in with enough for a month.
She was just moved in.
And suddenly Stellan wasn’t cranky anymore.
*
That afternoon, Stellan was stretched out on his mahogany leather chesterfield in the lounge area off the dining room with his book when Simone returned from his room where he’d left her to unpack.
He’d done this with two goals.
One, she’d be unpacked, thus moved in, thus at a place where she could start settling into his home and her life as it would be with him.
Two, because it was not lost on him that she was a woman who’d lived a life taking care of herself by herself and it would do him no favors to be constantly invading her space. He needed to show her that she’d have her times where she would be alone with her thoughts or her sketchpads or however she needed to settle her mind and emotions.
He’d blown it that morning.
That was not going to happen again.
Even so, he was immensely glad when she sauntered in and threw herself with one leg tossed over the arm of the armchair at the end of his couch.