“Lovely, darling.”
She smiled at him again, and she wondered if she smiled more that night than she had her whole life.
Maybe.
But who cared?
“Now, on to Ami,” he said. “It’s fortunate your caseload lightened because Aryas said this Mistress he has chosen for him is ready to meet us at the Club. Tomorrow. Ami is also keen to meet her, considering she’s a member of the Honey and trained there. He says even if it doesn’t work out for the long term, if she appeals to him, he’ll go forward regardless in the hopes it’ll be an enjoyable scene. His background checks and interview have been approved. So he’s free for tomorrow too. We can ask him to come at a time after we set to meet with her. If you don’t like her, we can approach one of the other Mistresses to work him so he won’t get nothing from the evening. If you like her, and Ami likes her, Aryas wants us to watch her with him. Although she’s working subs with supervision, she hasn’t strictly been let out on her own. Does that work for you?”
She had wanted to hit the Bolt tomorrow to start up that investigation.
But Stellan had arranged this, and Ami was a good guy who needed a good Domme in his life, and a good woman, so although women being victimized at a BDSM club took precedence, she’d allow this to delay it.
Though during the day, she’d spend time hitting up some of the folks she knew who frequented the Bolt and could keep their mouths shut but eyes open so she could start gathering information about what was perceived to be happening there.
“I’m in.”
“Fabulous,” he murmured, unhooking his leg from hers and using their linked arms to pull her float even closer so their heads were lined up.
He leaned in, she leaned in, they touched lips, and it was a testimony to superior floats that both of them didn’t go under.
When he broke contact with her lips, he made contact with her eyes.
“You ready to get out?” he asked.
“Is that code for, ‘Are you ready to go upstairs so I can fuck you senseless?’”
He grinned. “Yes.”
She grinned back. “Then yes.”
She braced to make a move off the float and into the water, but his fingers wrapped firm around her wrist, so she focused on him again.
“I am always here to take the heavy,” he said softly.
“I know, baby,” she replied.
“Never forget,” he ordered.
“I promise. I won’t.”
“Thank you for yesterday.”
Now he was being awesome and making her want to cry.
“Again, handsome, stop being awesome,” she warned instead of deep breathing to control the tears.
“It’s important you know what it meant to me,” he noted.
“Do you know what it meant to me?” she asked.
“You did not hide that.”
“You didn’t hide it either.”
“Simone, understand me, it’s important to me to know you know what it meant, you sharing that with me.”
She didn’t get it.
And as ever, he didn’t miss that she didn’t.
“It was a gift,” he stated. “That’s what’s important that you understand. Yesterday was a gift. A gift of trust. And there are few gifts more important than that. We’ve got this lovely calm after a storm. But life does not stay calm. Whatever happens, understand this. Understand this calm is what defines us. Whatever happens, we’ll find our way to it again. And more, don’t twist what happened yesterday out of what it actually was, how important it was. In other words, never regret giving that to me or question whether you should have shared what you shared. Having you whole means more than my home, my cars, my business, anything. That’s what you need to understand should anything ever threaten to split you apart again. You can and always will be Simone to me, and that, all of it, is the gift you gave me yesterday.”
She sniffled then snapped, “Seriously, lay off the awesome.”
He smiled.
Then he totally laid off the awesome when he lunged from his float into hers.
Obviously, that took them both into the drink, and under.
She came up spluttering … in his arms.
“Right, total jerk move,” she shared, treading water with her hands on his shoulders.
“You love it,” he replied, treading water with his arms around her waist.
“Do you think I could dunk you?” she asked.
“No,” he answered.
She put pressure on to try to dunk him.
He was right. Even treading water, he stayed head and shoulders above it.
Major lower body power.
So she tried a different tact.
One hand went to his head to distract him.
The other hand went somewhere else.
Right into his swim shorts.
They both ended up going under.
She also ended up giving him head while he sat on the side of the pool before they dripped their way up to their bed, where they fucked like teenagers then passed out.
Domestic decadence.
Indeed.
twenty
Never
SIXX
On her way home the next evening, after a busy day of firm work and recruiting informants for the job at the Bolt, with only had fifteen minutes to change and freshen up to go out to dinner with Stellan and then to the Club to meet Mistress Naya before hopefully approving her for a scene with Ami, Sixx was psyching herself up to do something she didn’t want to do.
But she had to do it because she just had to do it.
Also because she was going to be at the Honey later and there was a chance Leigh would be there, so she needed to do it now.
So, stopped at a stoplight, she scrolled down to Leigh’s name, reminded herself that all this sharing and honesty had been good, starting with blurting all she’d blurted out at Susan, and all the dishonesty and denial that had come before it had really not been fun, she hit “go” on her steering wheel to make the call.
It rang three times before she heard, “Sixx, chérie, how are you?”
The light turned green, she hit the gas and replied, “Good, Leigh. You?”
“Excellent,” Amélie answered.
“Listen, do you have a couple of minutes?” Sixx asked.
“Of course.”
“I—”
All right. What did she even say?
Things weren’t weird. Leigh had never let them get to that.
She still had to say something.
“Okay, I don’t know how to start this but I lied in the Dom Lounge the other night. I needed someone to talk to.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Leigh murmured. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing … now. I mean, my head was messed up. With Stellan and well … a lot of stuff. But he and I have … we’ve … gotten a few things straight. So things are better.”
“Stellan is, as you know, a Dom, Sixx, and as far as I know has never switched, so I’ll repeat my offer to introduce you to one who I think might be able to—”
“It’s not the switch part,” Sixx cut her off to say. “I’ve always been a switch. I’ve always known I was a switch. Since training. I just … never found the right guy.”
Leigh sounded amused when she replied, “I can say with relative certainty you’ve found the right guy now.”
Sixx smiled at her windshield.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “That’s another part of me wanting to talk to you. I wasn’t truthful about that either. Stellan and I are together. Very together. And we’re both going to work at it to keep that so.”
“I’m so pleased,” Leigh responded.
“I just … I just…” How lame was she? “I just wanted you to know all that.”
“As pleased as I am that you’ve phoned me, I hope you know you didn’t need to. Your business is your own, Sixx, only unless you want to make it mine. And if you do, it’ll be gladly received.”
“I know that. I just haven’t been very good at taking care of my friends because…” God! Why was this so hard? “Life didn’t start out great for me, Leigh,” she whispered. “Nothing good happened, so when good started happening, finding out who I was and what I liked. Finding Aryas. The Club. The people in it. Stellan. I didn’t understand the concept, and I definitely didn’t trust it.”