“I already know that.”
She blinked.
He grinned.
“I know you know, but I never told you,” she said in an odd voice, like a child’s, weak and wounded.
“You told me Sunday.”
She did?
“I did?”
“When we were in the library. You said, ‘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.’ I took that as an avowal of love, my sweet darling, and obviously, I was correct.”
Holy God.
That might be verbatim.
He remembered it verbatim.
“Is that … verbatim?” she asked for confirmation.
“I have a very good memory, especially when I’m remembering something that means everything to me.”
Lord.
Was this how it was, falling in love when it was safe? When it was real?
Every day, you just dropped deeper?
And the feeling was just …
Splendor.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Then do you know how much?”
“I hope I have a fair idea,” he whispered back.
“It’s a lot,” she said.
“Thank goodness,” he replied.
“You did it,” she told him.
“What?” he asked.
“And I love it.”
“What?” he repeated.
“You’ve made me believe in happy.”
His face clouded with thunder, and his lips rumbled, “Get that skirt up, darling. If you don’t, I’ll do it, and I fear I’ll rip the seams.”
Without delay, taking some effort, stretching the leather probably irreparably, she shimmied the skirt up.
He yanked her panties down, wrapped an arm around her waist, and hauled her up.
He pressed her to the mirror and planted her on his rigid cock.
She framed his beautiful face with her hands and breathed, “Yes.”
“Reach around, darling, turn the vibrations down. I don’t want to come too soon,” he murmured his order.
But her eyes got big at it.
“It’s still inside you?”
“It’s you inside me, and we’re not done, so of course.”
He then started fucking her as she reached around and turned the vibrations down.
“The cameras are on, the staff will have seen what I did to you,” she reminded him warily.
“If you have not learned about me that I do not give a single fuck what anyone thinks of me, you’ll learn it now. But it’s more, darling. We shall play here, Simone, all the beauty we have on display, however that comes about, and I not only don’t care people will see, I want to rub it in their faces.”
Yes.
That was what falling in love with was when it was safe and real.
An endless drop of amazing.
“We should get back to observing,” she whispered.
“I’ll make this quick.”
“Shame,” she said against his lips.
He kissed her.
After a while, she came.
A short while later, he came.
After that, they made out in a little mirrored room that smelled of sex and had cum all over the floor.
It was the most romantic moment of her life.
They disengaged, straightened their clothes, went to the Dom Lounge to clean up and tidy up, and put away the toy and lube.
Then they went back to the observation room.
It was clear Naya was in a certain mood and equally clear Ami had some stamina.
Sixx came two more times that night with Stellan’s hand up her skirt.
He came once more, with his woman curled on the floor between his legs, sucking him off.
It was a long session.
Thank God.
When Naya was curled around Ami (who was seated on a spanking bench), stroking his bald head, his neck, his shoulders, aftercare he didn’t appear to need, but he definitely appeared to like, Stellan texted Aryas to share if Naya and Ami needed observation again, he should call on Stellan and Sixx.
It was not a surprise that they got a return text before they arrived home to be at the Honey for observation the next night.
So Ami might get his own happy.
Naya too.
Since he’d given it to her to read the text, she returned Stellan’s phone to him as he coasted the Tesla into his garage bay while she said, “Sometimes the world does not suck.”
“New goal,” he murmured. “I showed her happy, now to show her a world where most of the time it doesn’t suck.”
As he powered down the car, she turned her head to him and snapped. “Stop making me happier.”
Stellan looked to her, smiling.
And then he replied.
“Never.”
twenty-one
Too Easy
STELLAN
The next morning, Stellan was leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping coffee, listening to M babble, when Simone came down to join them.
He took in her sweet look aimed his way before he turned to pour her a cup of coffee. He then gave her the mug, as well as a quick peck on the lips, before he watched Simone swallow her vitamins with orange juice as she listened to M babble. He continued to observe the two, intermittently interjecting, throughout breakfast.
And through one of these interjections, she promised to go to someplace called Mood during their trip to New York to buy a carrier bag for one of M’s daughters who was a fan of some television show, and while at this place, bewilderingly vowed to pet a dog.
Simone had gone off to gather the things she needed to take on the day, and Stellan was putting his coffee mug into the sink when M sidled close.
“These past few days…” she began, hesitated, and went on, “she seems much changed. We … do we have her?”
Stellan nodded and smiled down at her. “We do. But it wasn’t without a fair amount of difficulty, sweetheart. And that difficulty was all experienced by her. She seems to be coping well. Though I don’t think it’d be good to let down our guard.”
M nodded. “Celebrate victories, large and small, but don’t allow them to fool you into believing you’ve reached the ultimate goal.”
“Precisely.”
She nodded shortly. “We will persevere.”
“I knew I could count on you.”
She gave him a beaming smile.
Some minutes later, when he and Simone were walking down the hall to the garage, she told him, “I’ve got a job on tonight, but since Ami and Naya aren’t set to start until ten thirty, I think I’ll be good. I might have to meet you at the Honey though.”
They’d stopped at the driver’s side door of her Cayenne. “That’ll be fine, darling. Dinner?”
“Can we meet up and grab a quick bite somewhere?”
“Absolutely.”
She grinned up at him, got on her toes, touched her lips to his, and he stepped back as she got in her car.
He was moving to his as she pulled out but looked her way as she tooted her horn in a final farewell.
He was chuckling as he raised his hand in a short wave, and she waited to catch that before she hit the remote to send the garage door going down.
Stellan got in his Tesla, thinking that Simone was giving him every indication she was right there with him. She’d combined her two selves, giving them both not only to him, but as far as he could tell, to everyone. She’d given him her sketchbooks and beyond, she’d given him her past, which offered him her trust. She’d professed her love to him. And once they got through the tough parts, through it all, she seemed … fine. Good. Happy.
Fucking perfect.
He backed out of his garage, and once he cleared it, hit the remote, and watched the door go down, he was thinking that his Simone thought she was strong, invincible, a superhero.
But thought this murmuring, “It was too easy. Way too easy.”
Stellan was a man who didn’t expect the other shoe to drop.
He prepared for it.
And he sensed it would.
Though he couldn’t know that it would happen so quickly.
*
It was late afternoon when the intercom built into Stellan’s desk buzzed.
He hit the button to open communications to Susan, saying, “Yes?”
“There’s a man named Branch Dillinger here to see you.”
Stellan’s eyes went right to his door as a heavy feeling settled low in his gut.
He did not consider the fact Dillinger was in Susan’s office without forewarning, and he didn’t consider this because it was Dillinger. He probably opened the security stanchions with his mind.
“Send him in,” he ordered.