“You have my attention,” she whispered.
“I have your utter devotion,” he retorted, and she felt her body freeze. “But your devotion is twisted, Simone. In the way Sixx protects you, she’s trying to protect me. Shut me out, force me down. I can break your body. I can earn a ‘Master’ from your lips. But that is what I’m going to break to make you mine. And you can fight it, my sweet darling. Fuck, I want you to. It’ll make the process all the more interesting. But in the end, you’ll bow to your king and then take your place at his side. Trust me.”
“I could disappear tomorrow,” she told him the truth.
“And I would find you,” he told her his.
His was probably more true.
She dropped her head so her forehead rested against his and lifted a hand to stroke his cheek.
“I wish I could give you what you want,” she said quietly.
“You already do,” he replied. “I just have to prove that to you.” He pushed her face away slightly and said, “You’re finished serving, darling. I’ll make us some dinner, and we’ll have a quiet night in front of the fire.”
When he let her jaw go, beginning to move like he was going to pull them from the bed, she caught his jaw tight and he stilled.
“It was him. It wasn’t her,” she whispered huskily. “It was always him.”
Stellan said absolutely nothing. He just stayed perfectly still and stared into her eyes, his having gone so hyper-alert, they felt like a laser burning through her.
“There wasn’t much but he…”
She trailed off.
He stayed silent.
“He loved me,” she pushed out.
When it was Sixx who went silent, he urged gently, “More, honey.”
“The bullets. He took those bullets for me.”
“Okay,” he whispered.
It was nearly guttural when she shared the awful truth.
“It’s not safe to love me.”
Understanding flared in his eyes so bright, it was like a beacon that lit up the room, and a growl so low, so predatory, it scraped against her skin as it rumbled from his chest, and he spoke like he’d spoken earlier, but there was a fiery flint to the steel of the words he gave her.
“By God, Simone, I. Will. Prove. That. Is. Not true.”
“You need to stay safe for me,” she said urgently.
“I will.”
“Always,” she begged.
His arms around her went from strong and firm to gentle and sweet.
“Always, honey.”
“Even if it’s me that has to make you safe.”
He hesitated on that, and she about opened her mouth.
But he spoke first.
“We shall see.”
thirteen
Happily Ever After
STELLAN
The next morning, leaving Simone standing at the bathroom mirror in her underwear making her hair adorably fuckable, with his suit jacket in his hand, Stellan walked down the stairs.
With Simone as she was in their bathroom, he did not want to leave her.
With what he knew was downstairs, he had to leave.
He found what he expected to find after he’d sent the text he’d sent last night, hiding in the bathroom to do it.
He was not annoyed he was reduced to hiding in his own bathroom to do what he had to do.
Any tactic, any ploy, anything … he would do, without embarrassment, without remorse.
M was in his kitchen.
M was usually in his kitchen at this time of day to make him breakfast, but also to keep him company considering she worried about him living in this big house by himself.
He’d asked her to give Sixx and him a couple of weeks to get used to each other before they resumed regularly scheduled activities.
After what Stellan had discovered last night, he wasn’t moving cautiously forward with his Simone.
She thought he was pushing too hard?
She’d learn what that meant.
“Mijo!” M cried in that welcoming way of hers, like it hadn’t been mere days since they’d seen each other last, but years. She was turning from whatever she was doing in the kitchen to him, giving him one of her big, bright smiles. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, M,” he murmured, throwing his jacket over the back of one of the stools at the island.
She frowned at his jacket.
She gathered his clothing from the floor, laundered it, and put it away or took it then picked it up from the dry cleaner’s.
She was always riding his ass to take better care of his things.
And thus would have preferred him draping his jacket around the chair, not tossing it over the back.
Her gaze went from his jacket to his twitching lips to his eyes.
“How is Simone?” she asked.
And there it was.
He’d discovered on Friday that Simone had invited M to call her by her real name.
It had been a surprise at the time, a good one, but nonetheless a surprise. Stellan wasn’t certain anyone but Aryas and Dillinger knew her true name, and neither man used it.
At the time, whatever accord they’d reached that led them to drinking tequila he was delighted with and thought it was progress.
And he felt more progress had been made over the weekend.
But it was time to stop going slowly.
It was time to end Simone’s self-enforced loneliness and show her that being loved and being around the ones who did it was the safest place she could be.
Not the other way around.
Stellan didn’t answer M’s question.
He moved right to her, in her space, toe to toe, and watched her eyebrows arch up as he tipped his head down.
Since it was time to speed things up, there was no time to waste.
“I’m losing her,” he whispered.
Shock and upset hit her gaze.
“What?” she whispered back.
“Her parents were drug dealers.”
M’s eyes became huge.
Stellan continued, “When she was twelve, they were killed when they were meeting their supplier and a rival supplier made a play to claim new territory. She was there when it happened.”
“I-I-I…” She shook her head disconcertedly. “I can’t even comprehend this,” she said softly, her voice filled with horror.
“Her father stepped in front of her to protect her.”
Now her voice was pitched high. “Why was she even there?”
Stellan shook his head as well, doing it with two meanings. One that he didn’t know why such a thing occurred, and the other that it didn’t matter.
“As shocking as this is, sweetheart, that’s a moot point now. She was. And it’s clear she did not have a close relationship with her mother. But there was something between her and her father. What made matters worse in a situation that didn’t seem like it could get worse, when they died, she did not go to a relative who would show her love and care and give her what she needed to deal with what she’d witnessed. She went to her uncle, who is arguably worse than those two.”
“How could he be worse?” she asked incredulously.
“That doesn’t matter,” Stellan answered gently. “What matters is that he clearly did not counsel her or get her the help she’d need to understand what happened in that room when she lost her parents. She’s twisted it, not surprisingly. She thinks it’s not safe to love her.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she snapped, not upset with Simone, upset about the story Stellan was sharing.
“It is to you, to me, to anyone,” Stellan agreed. “To her, perhaps the only person in her life who showed her affection, kindness and his version of love was shot dead stepping in front of her. At twelve, it was all she knew. She was too young to understand what they did to make a living was wrong, that taking a twelve-year-old to a meeting with their supplier was wrong. All she knows is the only person who loved her died saving her.”
“This is … it is…” Tears filling her eyes, M looked away and didn’t finish.
Stellan put a crooked forefinger under her chin and brought her back.
“She’s in love with me, M, and utterly terrified that will in some way harm me.”
“You need to get her into counseling,” she advised shakily.
“I need to be certain she doesn’t disappear off the face of the earth first.”
“How do we…” She cleared her throat. “How do we keep her with us?”
Us.
Stellan almost smiled.