The Greatest Risk (Honey #3)

She was over that too.

She wasn’t going to sip from a glass of wine, withholding any personality, any hint of what made her, what defined her, that she might convey through the simple matter of ordering her preferred drink.

“Gordon’s cup. Hendrick’s,” she ordered.

“Gotcha,” the server said then moved away.

She looked to the hunting ground and saw subs avoiding her eyes but still preening in view, hoping she was there to make a selection.

God, she was dried up. Not even a tingle.

The only time she’d felt anything in—Lord, it had been days—was when Stellan’s eyes met hers earlier through the windows to his playroom.

And those days had been the days since she was last at the Honey and Stellan had turned his attention to her.

She looked down to her thigh, flipping open the phone to see no return text, and muttered under her breath, “I’m a fucking mess.”

“Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

Her head snapped up just in time to watch Stellan, back in his suit jacket and definitely out of his playroom, slide in the booth across from her.

God, he was gorgeous.

But …

What the fuck?

“You were saying?” he prompted.

She flipped the phone shut and tucked it against her thigh so she’d feel it vibrate when the text came in.

“I have something on my mind,” she shared, not knowing what to make of this, him in the booth opposite her, making an approach, sitting there looking magnificent but still inaccessible, speaking directly to her with only her there to speak to.

“And that would be?” he asked.

“It’s work,” she told him.

“Ah,” he murmured, glancing to the side and looking up when the server set her drink in front of her. An action he oddly watched with what appeared to be rather avid fascination as the old-fashioned glass came to rest on the burgundy cocktail napkin. “Scotch, please,” he ordered before the guy could ask.

“On it,” the server said and moved away.

Stellan didn’t watch him go and it took a good deal, Sixx didn’t look away when Stellan’s attention came back to her.

“Not in the mood tonight?” he queried.

She shook her head, lifted her drink, and took a sip.

When she put it down, she verbalized that same response. “No.”

“Hmm,” he murmured, and there it was.

God.

There it was.

That “hmm” was almost like a purr, and that purr snaked right up her pussy, an area that instantly got wet.

“You’re finished early,” she noted.

He gave a one shoulder shrug that managed to be masculine and elegant at the same time, something only Stellan could pull off.

“I thought I’d try something new.”

“And?” she asked.

“It wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped.”

“Too bad,” she murmured, taking another sip of her drink.

“Is it?” he returned, and her gaze lifted to his, because he’d asked a question but mostly because that question was strange.

“For you, and them, of course it is,” she replied.

“They got a good deal out of it, I assume, unless she faked it, which is doubtful. He, however, couldn’t fake it as the evidence he left was physical.”

Perhaps she shouldn’t have left so soon. It would undoubtedly have been interesting to watch Stellan orchestrate something like that.

“Unusual for you to choose a male,” she remarked.

He turned his head to the hunting ground and remarked, “An experiment I’m unlikely to repeat.”

She gave it some time, and this was mostly because she was arrested in the act of taking in the beauty of his profile. The cut line of his strong jaw. The angle of his cheekbone. The shadowed hollow under it. The fine lines that fanned from the corner of his eye. The straight slope of his nose. And, Lord God … that remarkable swell of his lower lip.

When she realized another second and she’d start squirming in the booth, she spoke.

“It might be more enjoyable if you went hands on,” she suggested.

He looked back to her and more wet surged between her legs at the expression on his face and what was emanating from his eyes.

“If I fancy ass, it comes with breasts and a vagina or not at all.”

Sixx would take him up her ass, deep, hard, fast, soft, slow, gentle, any way he liked it.

She’d beg him for that.

On that thought, her salivary glands went into overdrive, and she lifted her drink, tipping it to him in salute, before she brought it to her mouth but didn’t take a drink.

“Too bad,” she murmured.

Then she sipped.

His lips, including that luscious bottom one, curled up slightly at the ends.

“Mistress Sixx,” he said softly. “If she had it her way, they’d be lined up by the score and fucked raw, climaxing at her command at the tip of her whip.”

She stared at him, her stomach feeling like it was cramping, but her voice sounded even when she asked, “You say that like there’s something wrong with it.”

“Of course there isn’t,” he drawled, totally and openly lying.

I’d make you like it, she said in her head. I’d make you beg for it. I’d break my back, sell my soul, do anything I’d need to do to make you come harder than you’ve ever come before, tying you to me, connecting you to me, making you never want to leave.

He held her gaze, his face arrogant and knowing.

Or I’d give it to you, her mind whispered. Anything you wanted, anything you’d want to do to me to give you what you needed in a way that need could never be eased and you’d always come back for more.

He kept holding her gaze, but in the dim light of the bar of the Bee’s Honey, she could swear she saw something in his expression grow soft, like he could read her thoughts.

Before she could get a lock on it, or better, turn from him so he couldn’t read anything further, for once he looked away first, but only because the server was there, placing his lowball of Scotch over ice in front of him.

Sixx picked up her drink, looked to the hunting ground, and took a healthy sip.

“Are you staying?”

Stellan’s question brought her attention again to him.

She put her drink down and asked, “Pardon?”

“In Phoenix,” he explained. “I know you travel for work and it takes you away for long periods of time. But this time, you’ve been back for a while, so it seems like you’re staying.”

She had been intending to stay.

Now she didn’t know.

“For a while,” she replied.

He nodded, sipping his drink, and then stated, “I’ve been meaning to invite you, simply haven’t had the chance. But I’m having a party next weekend. We’ve hit June, and the weather hasn’t yet started baking. I’m taking advantage. We’ll start with a pool party, then everyone can change and we’ll move in for dinner. I’d be delighted if you’d come.”

She hid her reaction to that by throwing back more gin.

“Leigh and Olly will be there,” Stellan went on, back to his gaze set unwavering on her. “Mira and Trey. Felicia’s bringing a couple of her toys. Penn and Shane will be there. Victor has a new slave he’s enjoying so he’s bringing her. In other words, it’s a play party, just to make that clear. Though, depending on how it goes, we’ll make things more sociable and less structured for dinner. That will be up to the Dom.”

When he hesitated, she nodded, indicating she’d heard and taken this in, and he kept speaking.

“Belle’s bringing Tiffany. Talia is bringing Bryan. Aryas will be out of town, as will Evangeline’s partner, but Evangeline will be there in her usual capacity. Observation only.”

It was an unwritten rule when referring to the Honey’s Domme Evangeline’s “partner”—who was really her boyfriend who was essentially living with her—at least in the confines of the walls of the club, people did not use his name.