“You are scared freakin’ shitless that Stellan’s doing it for you, and it’s not about a cush mansion and taking elegant cock among the strains of Mozart or however that dude keeps it tight when he does vanilla. It’s that you finally got what you want, you have no idea how that feels, it’s blowin’ your badass mind, and instead of womaning up and getting your head straight, you’re gearing up to run as fast as your stiletto boots will get you gone.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Did you not hear me just say I don’t need anyone else to mess with me?”
“You’ve had what you wanted, or more to the point, what you didn’t want at all, and really did not need, for a long time, Sixx. Now it’s time to pull that pretty head right out of that sweet ass and focus on the right goals for a change.”
“If I want a conversation with you about my goals, Aryas, don’t you worry. I’ll seek you out.”
“You wouldn’t do that even if I paid you a million goddamn bucks to do it, and I’ll prove that right now. One million. In cash. By the end of the week. You come to my office right now and open up to me.”
She stood stock-still and stared in his confrontational but warm and uneasy eyes.
She also said nothing.
“I knew it,” he whispered.
“Stop it,” she whispered back.
“Open up, Sixx. To me. To Leigh. To Leenie. Or best of all, to Stellan,” he urged. “But bottom line, just do it with somebody.”
“I need you to stop.”
He was Aryas.
Physically, he was huge.
But he’d have to be to have a body to hold that big of a heart.
“Always here,” he murmured, letting it go.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, moving to pass him.
She had a lot to do in the short time it would take to get from that place in the hall to the booth where Stellan was, considering she was not going to break down and throw a scene, taking off or demanding to leave once she got there.
In other words, that “lot to do” was getting her head together.
So she said nothing else to Aryas as she made her way.
But he called her name.
And again, he was Aryas.
So she stopped and turned back.
“I have no idea what broke you,” he called along the distance between them and managed to do it gently. “So I cannot begin to try to fix you. I just wish like fuck you’d give me or anybody a shot.”
“I’m fine, Ary, promise,” she lied.
“You know, the people who think a great deal about you not knowing shit about you says it all, baby. What they feel from you, when you’re not giving a thing. Can you imagine, if you split open just a crack, what that might bring?”
She could.
And she liked them all enough to save them from it.
I love you, she thought.
“Can I go get a drink now?” she asked.
“From me, Sixx, if I can give it, you can have anything.”
Goddamn shit.
She was going to cry again.
She sucked in breath and did not.
She simply nodded, turned, and walked away.
Two weeks and now five days.
Two weeks.
And five days.
She hit the door to the bar area, and as she walked down the line of booths, she saw Stellan had positioned himself on the side where he’d see her coming.
Therefore, as the gentleman he was, he slid out of the booth prior to her even arriving at it in order that she could slide in immediately, protected from absolutely nothing as he took the seat at the open end, but if they lived in medieval times or some shit like that, he’d have her covered.
Olly was across from her, smiling, and she just could not wait (not) for Amélie to join their happy party.
“Hey,” Olly greeted, still smiling.
“Hey,” she mumbled.
“I didn’t know what you’d want to drink, darling,” Stellan put in. “So I waited to order for both of us.”
Of course he did.
“Gordon’s cup,” she said and watched his head turn immediately, his chin jerking up to call over a server.
“How’s things?” Olly asked as the server came up to the table.
“I woke up breathing,” she replied.
Olly laughed, but he did it with his kind gaze speculative on her.
Stellan ordered, and Olly, obviously waiting with Stellan for her to arrive, ordered for him and Leigh.
Sixx sat there, miserable and wanting to flee.
She needed her sketchbooks.
She needed to sketch her way out of this, only there having control over the entire situation, making it so she could take herself away and do it leaving them happy and whole just … without her.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, Leigh arrived at their table on this thought, and Olly slid out of the booth just as Stellan had so that Leigh could be protected from the nonthreatening bar-at-large by a cocoon of his solid strength.
Leigh had that, finally she had that, a man to have and to hold, to love and to play with, who thought he’d struck the jackpot getting that back from her.
Sixx was thrilled Amélie had that.
But she was terrified that it appeared she had that same thing too.
And a-fucking-gain, Sixx wanted to dissolve into tears.
It only got worse.
It did this when Stellan’s hand found hers resting on her thigh, curled around it in a warm, reassuring grip, and his lips also found her ear.
“We’ll have our drink and go home,” he whispered.
He pulled away and looked into her eyes.
He knew how she was feeling, he knew how deeply it ran, and last, he knew how badly she needed to escape.
And like the gallant knight in the fairy tales, he was going to save her from the burdens that threatened her.
“I’m fine,” she whispered back.
Another lie.
“We’ll see how you feel after your drink,” he returned.
“I’ll feel fine,” she lied again.
He said nothing more, too cultured to continue a discussion that would only turn into an argument about nothing.
“You really must consider not missing the next book club, Sixx,” Leigh said, and Sixx hesitantly turned her attention to her friend, a friend she just had an awkward conversation with in the bathroom. “We’re reading Tiffany Reisz. The Mistress, obviously. It’s excellent. Have you read it?”
Sixx studied Leigh for a moment, seeing she’d completely shut out what had happened in the bathroom. Now, it was just casual conversation among friends in a booth in a sex club.
“Not yet,” Sixx replied, jumping right into that game.
“Best nights are the nights my Leigh-Leigh does some reading for that book club,” Olly muttered.
“One must always keep one’s skills sharp and one’s imagination turning,” Leigh murmured back.
“Like you need books to do that,” Olly returned.
Leigh gave him a slow smile.
Stellan started to stroke the side of Sixx’s palm with his thumb.
It felt wonderful.
Leigh turned her attention to Stellan and declared baldly as well as apropos of nothing, “It’s been some time since we discussed you getting a pet.”
Sixx’s hand convulsed in Stellan’s hold at the very thought of Stellan lounging on his couch reading with a canine’s head on his knee, Stellan’s long fingers buried in fur, or a feline curled up in his lap, purring.
God.
Olly’s eyes went directly to the ceiling. “Here we go again.”
“What?” Amélie asked her man, like she didn’t know.
The woman volunteered at a veterinary clinic that also operated a small, no-kill shelter. She was always on people to adopt pets.
Though not Sixx.
She knew better than to ask Sixx.
“I think I have my hands full with my current new pet,” Stellan replied drolly.
Olly shot them both a big grin.
Leigh kept her mouth shut.
Sixx wondered what was taking so damned long with her drink.
Leigh’s eyes wandered, but they didn’t wander far before they narrowed.
It was like Olly had a sixth sense when it came to his woman. The instant she reacted to whatever she saw, he looked at her and then turned his attention to where she was looking.
He also frowned.
Stellan shifted to peer over his shoulder.
It didn’t take long before he shifted back—this, blessedly, because the drinks had finally arrived but also because he was too classy to be caught staring over his shoulder at anything.
Sixx tried very hard not to snatch her drink out of the server’s hand and down it in one gulp, and she managed to succeed at this endeavor, taking it up only when it was placed in front of her and swallowing back only a healthy sip.
“I’m not sure you should get involved in that, baby,” Olly said low.