“I can’t. That’s me. I’m a badass, a hardass and a smartass. It is what it is and you picked me so get over it.”
Stellan did not waste time marveling over how she could annoy him, frustrate him, amuse him, delight him, electrify him, rouse him and warm him, all at the same time.
He just decided to rejoice in it.
As well as her giving in.
So he rolled off of her only to roll her to her belly and then roll right back on.
While he did this, she cried, “Stellan!”
“Open your legs,” he commanded.
“Stellan,” she whispered breathlessly.
“Do it, Simone.”
She did.
His hips fell through.
“Reach up and grasp the edge of the bed,” he ordered.
“Are you seriously going to fuck me again?” she asked.
“No. I’m seriously going to fuck you again,” he answered, sliding a hand over her ass, and in.
Her body stilled.
Then melted.
His lovely, irritating, endearing, infuriating, enchanting Simone.
He put his lips to her ear as he glided a light caress over her clit, and she started trembling.
“We’re going to celebrate your capitulation, darling.”
“I’m down with that,” she murmured huskily.
“Excellent,” he replied, then nipped her earlobe. Her body jolted before her hips pushed up into his. “Hold onto the edge of the bed and don’t let go,” he repeated.
She did as told, asking, “Are we done talking?”
“If you’d like to share more of your mysteries while I fuck you, be my guest. But as for me, yes. I’m done talking.”
He slid his hand back over her ass, her hip, and went in at the front just as he slid his cock in from behind.
And apparently, except for emitting a delicious sigh when she accepted his cock that heralded other such noises as she took her fucking, Simone was done talking too.
*
“Pardon?” Simone asked in his ear through the phone as Stellan walked down the hall to his office an hour and a half later.
“Dinner,” he started to repeat what he’d inquired about ten seconds earlier. “What are we doing?”
“Uh…”
“Would you like to go out?” he asked.
“Can we talk about this later?’
“Is there something claiming your attention now?”
“Yes, I’m doing my hair.”
He stopped dead outside Susan’s office.
“I beg your pardon?” he queried.
“You called while I was doing my hair,” she reiterated then asked, “Couldn’t we have talked about this before you left?”
“You were in the shower when I left when you should have been in the shower with me, but I allowed you not to be since you passed out for a power nap after I gave you your third orgasm of the morning.”
A member of his staff walked by him, a man who now had wide eyes, eyes that were trained on him but moved away immediately when he caught the look Stellan leveled at him.
“So no,” he kept talking and again walking, “we couldn’t, so now we are, and I’m curious to know why you doing your hair precludes us from making dinner plans.”
“You put product in your hair,” she stated.
“Yes,” he agreed, smiling and tipping up his chin to Susan as he walked by her desk, heading to his office.
“You put it in your hands, whisk it through your hair, and the miracle that is the gloriousness of Stellan Lange takes over and it looks perfect. I was awake for that, so I watched. It was admittedly difficult because you did it standing in the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel, and your chest is hefty competition in the attention stakes, and normally, it would win out to you running your fingers through your hair, but not by much. I’m not so lucky. My situation requires product, roller brushes, hair dryers, more product, a lot of fiddling, a skilled hand at wielding hairspray, and concentration to make it look windswept and blow away and adorably fuckable.”
Standing by his chair, he turned to face his desk, changing hands on his phone as he shrugged off his jacket, and he did all this smiling and replying, “We’ll go out. I’ll ask Susan to make a booking.”
“Susan?”
“My assistant.”
She sounded suspicious when she queried, “Does she look like a Victoria’s Secret model?”
“She’s lovely, married, one child down who I’m godfather to, one child on the way, and her father’s a prick, so I danced the father-daughter dance with her at her wedding.”
Simone said nothing.
“Darling?” he called.
Her voice was soft when she demanded, “Tell me when and where and what to wear and I’ll be there.”
“You’ll be at home. We’re going together.”
“Tell me when and what to wear and I’ll be home to get ready to go together,” she amended.
He laughed quietly.
“Are you done distracting me from killer hair?” she asked.
After throwing his jacket around the back of his chair, Stellan sat in it but did it with his eyes on Susan, who had planted herself standing across from him at his desk with her arms crossed on her chest.
“Yes.”
“Catch ya later, hot stuff.”
“See you tonight, sweetheart.”
He rang off and put his phone on his desk.
“So?” Susan demanded.
He grinned at her.
“You grinning like a lion lounging on the remains of his kill does not answer my question, Stellan,” she pointed out.
“I’m thinking it actually does,” he retorted.
“Stellan,” she said warningly.
“Would you care to use more words to form your question?” he requested.
“You had your new girl who sends flowers and wears leather at your house for a big party with your sex friends, and I’d like to know how that went.”
He often reconsidered the amount of sharing he did with his assistant.
And then he always shared with his assistant.
“She moved in over the weekend.”
Her face grew pale.
Then she nearly screamed, “Say what?”
“It’s fine,” he noted calmly.
She slowly adjusted her body to stand in front of then aim her ass at the chair before his desk, landing with a plop on it.
Then she asked, “Have you lost your mind?”
“No,” he answered.
“Stellan…” She drew in a breath. “Okay. No offense. You know. Okay? So, you know. You’re the most intelligent man I know. By far. And don’t ever tell Harry I said that. If you do, I’ll deny it all the way to my grave. But you know. You know that about yourself, and you know I think that about you. So you also know you’re a whale. A mark. Every female con artist’s dream come true.”
He sat back in his chair, rested his elbows on the arms, and linked his fingers together at his chest as he replied, “She’s not that person, Susie, and I understand why you’d be concerned, but that’s not Simone.”
“You had one date, and she’s moved in.”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“Just saying, honey, no woman in her right mind would do that unless she’s messed up, she wants something or she’s up to something.”
“It was my idea, and I had to talk her into it.”
“I bet you did,” she muttered, her concerned-thus-distracted focus falling to the top of his desk.
“Sue,” he called.
She lifted her gaze to his.
“I know what I’m doing,” he told her.
“But—”
“I want you to meet her. You and Harry and eventually Crosby.”
She closed her mouth.
“She needs time. A week. Two. Then we’ll set something up,” he continued.
“This isn’t you,” she whispered.
She was right.
Then again, he’d never had Simone.
“Yesterday, she woke before me,” he shared. “Went to her car and got a sketchpad. I startled her in the middle of drawing. I only saw seconds of it, but what I saw, she was drawing a graphic novel that seemed to feature a female superhero by the name of Sixx, the name she’s given herself that everyone but me knows her as, who wears leather and looks like her, except scarred, facially, and to extremes.”
“Oh God,” she said softly.
“She became incredibly agitated and secretive, hiding it from me the minute she noticed I was there, and she used anger to conceal fear when I asked to see it and unwisely did not back off when she refused.”