“He was my uncle, Stellan.”
Abruptly his face got hard, and he leaned toward her, grinding out, “Simone, you weren’t even fucking there. He was known as a charmer. He was good-looking. He’d had two counts of statutory rape dropped on him, according to conjecture by the police, because he’d bought off the parents. He was known to party with young girls, give them drugs, get them hooked as clients and available bodies. Your two friends had been there repeatedly without you being there before he fed them tainted heroin. Repeatedly. Other kids at your school said they were your friends for the sole purpose of spending time with him to get access to his drugs and his attentions. Did you know that when it happened?”
She shook her head. “Of course not.”
“You just had friends over from school like any girl does, not having any clue they were using you.”
“I should have known.”
“How?”
“Because that was my life, Stellan, and it might have been all I knew, but I still knew it was wrong. I just had to pretend. I had to pretend I could be normal and do normal things.”
“And that’s wrong?” he pushed.
“I should have protected them!” she snapped loudly.
“You were no more than a child. It wasn’t your job.”
“I was their friend, so yes, maybe they were using me, but I didn’t know that, and it doesn’t matter. I thought I was their friend, so you are one hundred percent wrong. It was my job.”
“I understand you think that, Simone, but how could you do that when you weren’t even there?”
She looked away.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
“Fuck you,” she spat.
“Darling, look at me,” he called gently.
She looked at him and yelled, “Fuck you!”
“Come here,” he murmured.
She put her glass down and slid off her stool, sneering at him. “No. You can’t be sweet Stellan now. Hold up the mirror and show me how it really is, then pull it away and try to weave your spell to make me think it looks different. It’s never different, Stellan. Never. And this shit…” She twirled her hand in the air. “It’s done. I’m going to take a ride. I’ll come back and get my stuff sometime over the weekend.”
She started to walk away, but of course she didn’t get very far.
Stellan barred her path.
She stopped and looked up at him, her voice vibrating its warning. “I will seriously land you on your ass if you don’t get out of my way.”
“You promised not to leave no matter the reason,” he replied.
Tricky bastard.
With that talk about his family, she’d fallen right into his hands.
She’d even brought it up.
“Apparently I lied,” she retorted.
She went to sidestep him, and he moved in front of her.
Her eyes caught his, she smiled without humor and noted, “Last warning, baby.”
“If you leave me, all will be lost,” he declared.
“No shit?” she asked.
“There isn’t another for me.”
“Oh there is, handsome,” she stated snidely. “Just open up your wallet or waltz into the Honey and they’ll be lining up.”
He lifted his brows again. “Is that what you want for me?”
No.
The thought of Stellan having someone who wasn’t unique. Individual. Exciting. Daring. A force onto him.
No.
She didn’t want that.
It killed her to even think about that.
But she was done with this.
“Get out of my way,” she hissed.
“No.”
“Stellan,” she growled.
“If you’re correct, and you can land me on my ass, that would sting my pride. If you walked out on me, I survived my parents, my sister killing herself, but honest to Christ, Simone, in just one week of having you by my side, I have real fear that would destroy me.”
Sixx went solid.
And Stellan went in for the kill.
“You make me laugh, honey. Even Susan, who was dead set to think you were taking me for a ride, or at the very least would put me through the emotional wringer, got over it when she saw I’d found someone who made me happy. It had not occurred to me in my life of plenty that I was missing anything, but I’ve learned I was. I started this in an attempt to make you happy. What I’m discovering is that it’s happening the other way around.”
His beloved assistant saw it.
She saw that Sixx was making him happy.
She was making him happy.
Sixx looked at his throat.
She looked at the buttons of the shirt on his broad chest.
She looked over his shoulder.
She made a decision.
Then she looked to him.
“I can’t talk about that anymore,” she whispered.
“We’ll leave it for now,” he whispered back.
Still whispering, she said, “I want this. I want us.”
“I know you do.”
“You’re going to have to be patient with me. I’m not used to anyone giving a shit.”
“It breaks me, but I know that too.”
“I also don’t have anyone…” She swallowed. “I don’t have anyone who’s glad I found someone that makes me happy.”
“You do.”
“Just you.”
“That’s not true. There are many of them, Simone. You just haven’t noticed, and you also haven’t let them in.”
She couldn’t do that now either.
“I watched my mother—”
His normally silken voice sounded hoarse in beautiful and terrible ways when he cut her off. “I know.”
“It was my father who got in front of me.”
“Stop it for now and please come here.”
Sixx went there.
Stellan folded her in his arms.
She wrapped hers around him and pressed deep.
He held her tight.
“You’re going to have to give me time,” she said.
“All right, darling.”
“After dinner, I’m going to need—”
“Take your sketchpads wherever you wish. I’ll be somewhere else, and you can come to me when you’re ready.”
She closed her eyes tight.
And he thought she deserved him?
How could that be?
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“Don’t be,” he said into the top of her hair.
“So yes,” she cleared her throat, “there we go. We’re both royally fucked up.”
“Royally,” he agreed.
“You might be gorgeous and rich and able to cook and have a way with hiring household staff that are awesome because Margarita is just awesome, but when she’s tipsy, she’s hilarious-awesome, but in the royally-fucked-up stakes, I totally beat you.”
His body moved with silent laughter.
It was the best feeling in the world.
She tipped her head back, and when she did, she found him looking down at her.
Just amazing.
“Are you going to feed me?” she prompted.
“Whatever you need.”
That was Stellan.
Whatever she needed.
Sixx got up on her toes and pressed her lips to his.
He bent into her, taking her back to the soles of her feet, and took the kiss deep.
When he’d used his mouth to fill her up with all things Stellan Lange, he led her back to the kitchen, made her another drink, and finished cooking their meal.
After they ate, she took her sketchpads to the library and saved the day on paper in ways she could never have done in real life.
When she was ready, she found Stellan.
And he was right where she needed him to be.
ten
Pondering
SIXX
Sixx woke up the next morning to find she was alone in bed.
She sat up, looked around the room, and saw she was just plain alone.
This was a surprise. She and Stellan had had a heavy night the night before, but they’d ended it together, that day heralded them adding a new level to their relationship, and she thought Stellan would want to start that right off the bat.
And she had to admit, she wanted him to start it right off the bat.
She was nervous (her—Sixx—frigging nervous).
But she was also curious … in that sexually-stirred-up-in-a-good-way kind of way.