“Stellan, I—”
He lifted his hand with his palm facing her way and shook his head, interrupting her.
“You can speak until you pass out, Simone, but you forget. I know you, and I knew you before I made my move to claim you. Perhaps I didn’t know it in the depth and completeness I know it now, but that makes no difference to me. It’s speculation, but I would wager it’s accurate that you did not wander into Aryas’s life randomly, and he did not offer to train you as a Dominatrix out of the kindness of his heart and his driving bent to offer nurture and care to everyone who partakes of kink. Even though, if he could, he would. He’s just realistic enough to know he can’t, and he does what he can for our kind. But instead, he met you through other means, and he doesn’t give a damn what brought you to him. He’s just glad you came into his life.”
He was right about that and more, she hadn’t thought about it like that.
However.
“But Stellan—”
“I’m in love with you, Simone.”
She clamped her mouth shut, and her body locked.
Stellan kept at her.
“I know myself, and I don’t give a fuck if it sounds full of conceit, it’s the damned truth that I know the kind of woman who would be worthy of me, and she is not simply beautiful. She is not simply intelligent. She is also not simply stylish. Or brave. Or protective. Or amusing. She would not have to be well travelled or well read or have the love and adoration of scores of friends and family. She would have to be all this, perhaps without the scores of friends and family. For her it would be no family and a handful of friends. And I know this is the woman worthy of me because she’s you.”
Sixx didn’t move. She didn’t because she couldn’t.
She also didn’t because she didn’t know what to say, to do, to think.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t know already that Stellan had fallen for her.
It just never occurred to her he’d share that with her in words.
And further, the reasons why.
He carried on, “And if you say you’re not worthy of me, if you say it’s not safe to love you, then right now I’m demanding another month on our deal, and you will give it to me. If it takes longer, I’ll demand another month and another and another. And I will be perfectly fine if you never truly believe, and those months turn to years and those years turn to decades and you die in your sleep at a very old age, but do it lying beside me.”
It was then the first tear slid down her cheek.
It did not go unnoticed.
“Darling,” he whispered.
“I thought you’d read my books and ask me to leave,” she whispered back.
“Sweetheart, reading those books only made me more determined to make you stay. Frankly, your strength and determination and audacity and will to survive and nurturing spirit to the child you’ve kept safe and alive inside made me wonder if I was worthy of you.”
And it was then the second tear fell.
The third followed it, and there was no stopping them, or the sob that tore up her throat and out between her lips.
And then she was up and immediately down, Stellan sitting in the chair where she’d been, Sixx in his lap, curled close in his arms.
“I-I-I’m sorry,” she blubbered, trying and failing to breathe deep, her voice cracking as she continued, “I’ll p-pull it together. P-p-promise.”
“Why?” he asked.
Why?
The hero never falls apart.
The hero always stays together.
Remains strong.
“Because—”
“Be strong for the world, darling, if that’s what you need to be. But here, with me, you can be whatever you care to be.”
That just made her cry harder, shove closer, her body rocking deeper with her sobs.
Stellan held her tight against him, stroking the nape of her neck with his fingers while she did it.
Eventually, the tears subsided, and Sixx just sat there, curled in his arms, sniffling.
“Can I ask you for something, sweetheart?” he requested.
He could ask her for anything, and she’d fight, steal and die to give it to him.
“Sure,” she answered.
When she did, his arms gave her a squeeze, and she knew she’d amused him because she knew he knew the understatement that word represented.
She’d fight, steal and die for an opportunity to keep giving that to him too.
But his tone was grave when he said gently, “I want to take those things to the garbage bin.”
She pulled her face out of his throat and looked at him.
“If you’re not ready,” he continued quickly, “that’s understandable. But I want you to think about it.”
“I only let her out … for you.”
His head twitched.
“She was only safe to come out … for you,” Sixx went on.
His expression changed, growing fierce as his hands moved to frame her face.
“Now she’s me,” she told him. “We’re together. The idea of that petrified me. But she came out, and I didn’t even notice. That’s how safe we were with you.”
A growl rose in his throat, but she didn’t stop speaking.
“I was terrified of you. My dad, I couldn’t keep him safe. I knew I couldn’t look after two people I loved. I’d already learned that. I lost him, but I found a way to survive. I knew the same wouldn’t be true if I lost you.”
Something flickered deep in his eyes, and he began, “Simone—”
“If you want to throw those things away,” she talked over him, “then do it.”
“You have to be ready to let go.”
“I was ready the second you grabbed my chin at the side of the gladiator pit. I just didn’t realize it then, baby.”
His gaze took in her face as his lips rumbled, “Fuck, I need to fuck you.”
She shifted in his lap and whispered, “Do it.”
“Not with that shit in this room.”
She pressed her lips together.
Stellan surged up, taking his feet, putting her on hers.
“Do you want to take them, or shall I?” he asked, staring down at the stuff on the ottoman like someone had smeared his gorgeous piece of furniture with feces.
“Do you actually know where the trash bins are?” she teased.
He turned to her. “Darling, as deeply as I love your sense of humor, I must inform you this moment is one that, although I expect they’ll be very rare, you must know I can’t fully appreciate you being amusing.”
She pressed her lips together.
His eyes narrowed on them.
Okay, her man was not feeling like lightening the mood.
So noted.
But she felt like she could climb Camelback Mountain in a single bound and then leap directly through the sky, straight to the stars.
He bent, grabbed the doll, which he handed to her, the crocodile, something he also handed to her, and the frame, which he kept.
It was lucky she tucked the two things in her arm because he then took her free hand and pulled her out of the room.
It appeared he really didn’t know where the trash bins were, considering they were lined up against the wall in the garage by the door, but he guided her toward the great room.
Through it.
Out the door.
She opened her mouth to share he was going the wrong way, but closed it when he led her to the recessed seating area around which were white-padded, built-in, backed benches. In the middle there was a fire pit.
He took her right down and stopped them at the pit’s side.
“I’ll be back,” he murmured, turned, and strode up the two steps to his built-in barbeque area.
He opened a drawer and came back with a long grill lighter.
He went to the side of the pit, turned a silver key, flicked the lighter, and a wave of heat came with the blaze of fire that shot from the lava rock.
Stellan then tossed the lighter to the pad on a bench and moved back to her side.
“I take it the garbage isn’t a permanent enough solution for you,” she quipped.
He leveled his eyes on her.
Right.
Still not the time to be amusing.
“Go, darling, crocodile first,” he ordered.
Yes.
It wasn’t time to be amusing.
She turned her gaze to the fire.
It was probably over a hundred degrees outside, but somehow the heat of the day mingled with the flame from the fire seemed less like a roasting and more a cleansing.