“Yes, Stellan, that wasn’t too bright,” she mumbled.
He smiled softly at her. “I eventually let it go, smoothed things over. But Susie, honey, she’s not using me. She’s terrified of me. And she’s going to try everything she can to drive me away before life how she understands it takes me away or the life she leads takes her away from me.”
“What if the life she leads takes her away from you?” she asked.
“It won’t.”
“What if it does?” she pushed.
“I won’t allow it.”
“You’re pretty powerful, Stell, but you’re not omnipotent. You can’t control everything.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“So … if you lose her?”
He felt his face get hard, and it came out in his voice. “I won’t.”
She studied him closely and for some time until, hesitantly, she suggested, “Maybe there’s a reason she protects people from her.”
“She thinks there is. But I know there’s definitely a reason she needs to stop doing that.”
“We’re all not broken and set on a course of self-destruction like Silie, honey,” she pointed out gently, and cautiously. “But even if some of us are, if we’re set on that course, no one could save us.”
“I’m not saving my sister, Susie. I’m falling in love with the only woman I’ve ever met who fits me.”
Her face turned melancholy. “I hope so.”
“I know so. Meet her and you’ll know too.”
“You know I’ll meet her. I’ll be there with bells on, and I’ll be hilarious and protective, and if she’s falling in love with you too, she won’t be able to stop herself from falling in love with me.”
“She already loves me, Susan. She fell in love with me the minute she met me, probably then thinking I actually am omnipotent and the only person who could withstand the destruction she’s convinced herself she’s had some hand in that’s followed in her wake.” He grinned. “Now she’s doing it because she’s headstrong, smart as hell, and I’m the only person she can’t bulldoze or freeze out with her personality. Not to mention we’re exceptionally sexually compatible.”
She lifted a hand, palm out his way. “TMI, boss man.”
Sensing the course of their conversation had shifted, he took advantage.
“I believe I shocked Frank in the hall when he overheard me speaking to Simone and mentioning the three orgasms I gave her this morning.”
“Please say it isn’t so,” she begged, clasping her hands to her chest to dramatize the words. “I won’t be able to leave my office for a week. They’ll all want the skinny.”
He smiled.
And shrugged.
Eyes on him, suddenly she straightened in her chair.
Then she brightened.
“What?” he asked.
Finally, her expression calmed.
“You’re happy,” she declared.
“I am,” he confirmed.
“Right. Good. Now I’m all set to meet her.”
“We’ll do that, but I need a booking tonight for her and me. Try Buck and Rider first.”
As his cell on his desk rang, she stood, saying, “I’m on it, boss man.”
He took up his phone, shot her a smile, and looked down at the display as Susan turned and moved to leave.
He sighed at what he saw on his phone, took the call, and lifted his eyes, watching Susan go while answering.
“Aryas.”
“Got home yesterday, drove by your house to have a face-to-face, saw Sixx’s Cayenne there, decided against it. So this has to be on the phone,” he stated as the door closed behind Susan. “I hope you know what the fuck you’re doing.”
The news had made the rounds.
Not a surprise.
“Aryas—”
“She’d have my balls, she knew I was givin’ this to you, but this isn’t play, brother. Not for her. I want this, for both of you. I rode her ass to do somethin’ about takin’ it there with you. But you gotta know, it’s not play. Not for Sixx. Are you feelin’ me?”
“If you’ll give me a second to speak, I can assure you I know that.”
“Does Sixx know that?”
“Simone knows everything.”
He heard Aryas pull in a sharp breath, and he knew why considering no one knew who “Simone” was.
Except Dillinger because he’d investigated her.
And, he now knew, Aryas.
Though he wondered if Simone knew that.
He wasn’t going to ask.
“She moved in this weekend,” Stellan shared.
“Oh fuck,” Aryas muttered.
“She won’t be moving out.”
“That went fast,” Aryas noted.
It didn’t seem very fast to Stellan.
“Too fast,” Aryas went on.
“It’s as it needs to be,” Stellan replied.
“She’s sub, man,” Aryas said quietly, like he was breaking a confidence.
Which he was.
“Just leave it at that,” Stellan returned. “You go deeper in this conversation, she finds out, it would cause harm, and I’m trying to avoid that.”
“She’s also straight-up Domme.”
“I’m aware of both.”
“Yeah. Took her to the pit. Gave her a warrior. Got her a toy for your party.” There was a pause when Stellan imagined Aryas was shaking his head before he said, “Fuck. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Deciding it was best to change the subject, Stellan did that.
“I need a Mistress.”
“Say again?” Aryas demanded.
“For the warrior I gave Simone. She wants to find someone for him that will work well with him, in a playroom and out. As she describes, someone who’s not psycho-crazy in one zone or the other. My take is it would be something like Leenie gives to Dillinger, perhaps more hardcore, though I can’t know how Dillinger likes it played. Do you have any suggestions?”
“You two are finding another Domme to be with the sub you got for Sixx to work?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he muttered.
“It’s what she wants for him.”
“And who’s she gonna work, brother?” Aryas asked.
Stellan said nothing.
Aryas didn’t let it go. “Those times she needs to work someone over, what’s she gonna do?”
“We’ll sort something out.”
“You do know that we’re talkin’ about her and you. Her and you. How long’s it gonna take before you can’t take it anymore, Stellan, watchin’ her do her thing with another guy?”
“Our thing is not even a week old, Aryas. So I’m a little focused on a number of other variables that take precedence. We’ll deal with that when it happens.”
“You’re sure?”
He was finished with this conversation and thus moved to draw a line under it.
“I’ll do anything to make her happy, so yes, Aryas, fuck yes. I am absolutely sure.”
Aryas fell silent.
He also broke that silence.
“There’s that story, the thorn in the paw,” he began. “It may play that way for you, and I hope it does. But other side of that coin is the beast rips his healer’s throat out. Have a care, my man, and I like you, I respect you, you’re good people. But I love her. If you fuck this up, and she tears into your throat, it’ll hurt like fuck, but you’ll heal and move on. She’ll never forgive herself. She’ll never let anyone close again. And we’ll all lose her forever.”
Yes, Aryas knew far more than Simone thought he knew.
Before Stellan could form a reply, Aryas had dropped the line.
“Sage bastard,” Stellan growled at his phone.
When he did, a beep came with a text that showed a tiny picture on his screen.
At the name, and the picture, he pulled it up.
There he stared at a selfie of Simone winking at the camera cheekily from behind a tempting, windswept hank of hair under which it said, Adorably fuckable.
And the conversations with Susan and Aryas were lost when Stellan burst out laughing.
He was still doing it as his finger moved over his phone.
He texted her back with X.
And then he saved the picture to Simone’s contact and changed the name to “Adorably Fuckable.”
*
That night, walking into Buck &Rider with Sixx wearing a white leather, body-skimming slip dress with a scooped neck, thin straps and a hemline to her knees paired with gray snakeskin pumps, he knew every man whose eyes followed her did not think she was adorably fuckable.
They thought she was just fuckable.
And he had never walked into anywhere with any woman on his arm feeling the way he was feeling escorting Simone to their table.