Definitely adorable.
With one hand, Stellan continued to massage her foot while with the other, he grabbed his book to give the impression he’d resumed reading.
He did not.
He fought the urge to crow.
She’d given in.
She could have fought it. She could have refused to do it.
But some part of her wanted to be on his arm as he walked them into the Honey. To be with her friends there. To be in their space.
She could be unconsciously taking everything she could get before she took herself away.
Or she could be learning to enjoy everything she was going to have.
Stellan decided it was the latter.
He also decided to read two more chapters.
After that, he was making love to his Simone, and they were going to sleep.
Tomorrow, they’d battle again.
And he was looking forward to it.
fourteen
Multivitamin
SIXX
Sixx came down the next morning prepared for what she’d face.
She did not have to wait for it.
“Buenos días, Simone!” M greeted in that way Simone was becoming accustomed to, like she hadn’t seen her just yesterday but like Simone had reentered their world from her decade-long sojourn in a parallel universe, and M wasn’t used to having her back.
“Hey, M,” Sixx replied, scanning the area, looking for Stellan.
“He’s in his study,” M told her. “Your vitamins are in that dish on the island. I bought you a woman’s multi and I got pomegranate juice.”
Sixx had never had pomegranate juice and wasn’t sure she wanted pomegranate juice.
She’d also never taken a vitamin in her life before yesterday.
She went right to the island and took her vitamins with pomegranate juice.
She further decided, next time M served that up, she’d find some way to cut it without M knowing. The stuff was bitter … and strong.
Perhaps with the way things were going with Stellan, she’d pick gin.
“Hello, darling.”
She turned her head.
And there he was. The man of her dreams who was currently the orchestrator of her nightmare.
A nightmare that came when you lived a dream you knew was going to die.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
His mouth twitched as he moved her way, right her way, into her space, doing it seemingly to kiss her cheek, but after he did that, he slid his lips to her ear.
“For a woman who came three times last night, begging for that third, you seem in a vile mood,” he murmured there and moved only far enough away to look into her eyes.
She was not going to reply.
She was not going to do anything.
But ride this out.
Two weeks and six days.
Then, even if it killed her (and she already knew it was going to kill her), she was gone.
“Huevos rancheros today,” M stated into their staring contest. “Take seats, mijos, I’m serving.”
“I’ll get your coffee,” Stellan murmured to Sixx, moving away.
She watched him.
Then she sat at the island, and M put a plate of food that looked better than any breakfast she’d had in her life (that was, any of them she’d had before yesterday) in front of her as Stellan slid a mug of coffee just like she liked it by her plate and then sat next to her to be served his own.
They’d eaten like this the day before. Side by side at the island with M chitter-chattering at them, Stellan murmuring fond “mms,” “hmms,” and “ahs” and Sixx struggling with all of it.
The delicious taste of homemade breakfast. The feel of the room, warm and pleasant. The act of starting the day sitting beside the man she slept beside, sharing time with a woman with a kind heart and a way with a spoon.
In all that had happened with Stellan, for some reason that was the toughest to handle.
They felt like …
She didn’t have much experience with it, but it felt like …
A family.
Except for memories of her mother grudgingly pouring sugary cereal in a bowl with some milk or the times when her father would wake up in a good mood and make “my famous French toast for my baby girl!” she’d never sat anywhere for any family meal.
As pathetic as it totally was, that included not a single birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas.
Ever.
If her father remembered, while her mother was out doing business, making buys, soliciting sales, he’d take her out for pizza on her birthday, and if she was lucky, that was followed with an ice cream cone.
She did not consider that a family meal. Since they had pizza delivered for dinner two or three times a week, it was just what it was … except somewhere else.
As it had yesterday, and right then, Stellan’s huge home closed in on her in a way that, having spent the time in it she’d spent, it never had.
She had the urge to look around to see if the walls were moving, but she didn’t.
Even so, it couldn’t be escaped that now that the seal had been torn off, even when they were sharing dinner and sitting by the fire last night, his luxurious, intimidating mansion had ceased being that and instead had become something else.
It was where people slept. And showered. And read books. And made love. And ate side by side.
It was a home.
It was where she slept, showered, read books, made love, ate side by side with the man in her life.
It was her home.
“Not to your liking, querida?” M asked with concern, and Sixx’s head shot up.
She dug in to the food, her voice uncontrollably husky when she replied, “No, M. It’s delicious. Just have a job today that’s on my mind.”
Sixx felt both M’s and Stellan’s eyes on her, but she avoided them, cutting through the egg, gathering it up with the homemade salsa, some Spanish rice and fresh avocado, and putting it between her lips.
It was heaven.
This was heaven.
All of it.
And because it was, Sixx was in hell.
It got worse when Stellan’s hand landed on her back, gliding down light but warm to rest at its small, and she turned her head his way to catch the penetrating, worried look on his handsome face.
“All right?” he murmured low.
“Peachy,” she lied.
Her lie didn’t shift his focus or expression, it just intensified both.
Sixx couldn’t deal.
She turned back to her food.
She’d taken a multivitamin purchased specifically for her.
She was eating breakfast.
Why did that make her want to dissolve into tears?
Some unspoken accord was reached, and M resumed her cheerful chitter-chatter, and after a few loving circles, Stellan removed his hand from her back and returned to his breakfast.
Sixx ate while she pulled her shit together.
Two weeks.
Six days.
She could do it.
She could take it.
She could give the little she had to give.
Then she’d be a memory.
*
That night, Sixx stood at the sinks in the Dom Lounge at the Honey, her lipstick in her raised hand arrested on its way to her face, staring at herself in the mirror.
As they’d walked in, Sixx knowing all eyes in the bar were coming to them—Mistress Sixx and Master Stellan arriving together, a couple, an item, living together—Stellan had murmured in her ear, “I forgot to mention, Susan and Harry will be over for dinner on Thursday. They’re bringing Crosby.”
She honest-to-God almost threw up, right there on the spot.
Instead, before Stellan could seat her in the booth he choose—not one in a corner, not one in a shadow, one right smack at the center of the side wall so everyone in the room could see it … them—she’d said she had to freshen up.
Then she’d escaped.
God, in two days she’d have to meet his precious Susan.
And Crosby!
What the hell was she going to do around a kid?
“Sixx?”
She jumped a mile and turned, feeling her eyes grow big with surprise, her heart beating wild in her chest as she saw Amélie standing there, studying her with some alarm.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Sixx shook herself, cerebrally and literally.
“Yes. Fine. Sorry, you caught me off guard.”
“You … I … you,” Leigh unusually stammered. “I didn’t know you could be caught off guard.”
Sixx didn’t either.
Damn.
“And you can see the door open in the mirror from where you’re standing,” she continued.