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.
“What?” Sixx asked after she swallowed.
“Talia and Bryan,” Leigh stated immediately. “She’s selected him again. And I fear, with the look on his face, that he might get on bended knee before, or after, she strips him red, takes his ass and drains him dry.”
Damn.
Sixx looked to the side as Talia walked by their booth, sending them a toothy, carefree grin. She was followed closely by Bryan, who was not looking at the ground but at her ass.
He’d pay for that.
Which was the point when Talia noticed him doing it, something he’d make sure she did.
After they disappeared behind the door to the playrooms, and after Sixx took another hefty sip of her drink, she said to Leigh, “I’d been meaning to discuss that with you.”
“And I’ve been meaning to discuss it with Talia … and Aryas,” Leigh replied.
“Don’t go there,” Olly said at the same time Stellan put in, “I would leave that alone, Leigh.”
“She’s in love with Aryas, and Aryas her,” Leigh retorted.
“It’s none of your business, sweetheart,” Olly told her.
“Talia is a new Domme,” Leigh declared. “She might not know what she’s doing.”
“Talia was a new Domme,” Stellan amended smoothly. “She’s also headstrong, and at this point in her experience, she would not welcome your input.”
“Bryan’s heart is involved,” Leigh returned. “Hers is not.”
“I beg to differ,” Stellan stated, and Sixx turned her head to look at him as he continued to speak to Amélie. “You are correct. At first, she was selecting him in order to punish Aryas for his inattention. But Aryas has continued his course of inaction, and now she’s moving on. I can’t say I pay close attention to their play, but the last time I saw them together, it was not about selecting a sub that appeals to her to get them both off as she’s biding her time for Aryas to take notice. The tone had changed. Significantly.”
“I hadn’t noticed that,” Leigh murmured.
“Me either,” Sixx said under her breath, finishing with, “Poor Ary.”
“Indeed,” Leigh said, and Sixx looked at her. “Poor Ary.” Suddenly, a sly smile spread on her face. “We should go watch.”
Yes, the bathroom situation was entirely shut down.
Amélie was letting it go.
She was a good woman, a good friend, and in another life, Sixx would have liked to have gotten to know her better.
She would miss her.
But now she had her.
So she smiled back. “Let’s.”
Without her having to ask, Stellan slid out, as did Olly, but it was only Stellan who said, “Enjoy. The men will keep the booth warm for when you return.”
Sixx exited her seat and saw Leigh already out, reaching a hand toward her.
She took it and refused to look back at the man who slid out of the booth to let her free without her even asking, the man she loved, the man she had sat beside for the first time in their place, and would return to when she and Amélie were done, as Leigh tucked Sixx’s hand in the crook of her arm and headed them toward the playrooms.
As they walked, Leigh leaned her head Sixx’s way and said conspiratorially, “It’s good Olly’s not coming. If Talia does something inspired, later he won’t know I’m copying her.”
“Thank you,” Sixx said in reply.
Amélie stopped with her hand on the door to the playrooms and looked at Sixx, not hiding her confusion. “For what?”
“For being you,” Sixx explained.
The confusion fled, and Leigh gave her a small smile that was both concerned and sad. But she didn’t get into either.
She replied, “I can hardly say ‘you’re welcome’ for that.”
“Then don’t,” Sixx said, put her hand on the door too and pushed through, taking Leigh with her.
They moved through the hallways, connected, two Mistresses, two friends, enjoying a night at their club together.
A memory Sixx would take with her.
A memory Sixx knew she’d be glad she had for the time when she wouldn’t be making memories like this at all.
* * *
The ride home was silent.
Stellan was who he was.
Therefore he knew she needed that.
And he gave her that.
After they walked into the laundry room and he guided her down the hall, Stellan, being who he was, gave her more.
Stopping her outside his study, he looked down at her, lifted a hand to cup her jaw, and she watched his face in the darkened corridor coming close to hers.
When he was a breath away, he said gently, “Go to your sketchbooks, honey. I’ll be waiting for you in bed.”
With nothing more, he touched his mouth to hers, let her go, and she watched his tall, shadowy figure move gracefully away, wondering if she knew him as well as he knew her.
And she realized she did.
For instance, she knew he did not let whatever happened during his days get to him. He talked about it, but even if it frustrated or annoyed him, he shared only that it did. Other than that, he left it at the office when he came home to her. And then he was just home with her, giving her all of him, taking everything she’d give in return.
She further knew he understood his past and how bleak it was, and he’d found a way to live with it, not against it.
And last, she knew, for reasons she did not understand, he was falling in love with her.
On this thought, Sixx moved directly to the library where she’d hidden her current sketchpad and pencils in a place Stellan wouldn’t find (though she’d already learned he wouldn’t look, even if she left them out, but M might).
But when she retrieved them, she didn’t go to a chair or his desk in his study or out by the pool.
She went to a corner of the room, turned, sank to her ass on the floor, held the sketchpad tight against her chest with her thighs, and she stared in the dark.
That day she’d taken a woman’s multivitamin bought specifically for her.
And she’d fall asleep beside Stellan that night.
Alone, solitary, safe, unable to hold them back any longer, the tears came slow at first, one chased leisurely by another.
And then they came faster.
In the end she had to shove her face in her knees and endure the pain it caused as she held back the noises just in case Stellan came looking for her, her shoulders and back and chest and ribs heaving with the effort.
“I wanna be normal,” she whispered brokenly to her knees.
You’ve always wanted to be normal, her mind reminded her. You’ll never be normal. And he doesn’t want normal. He wants you. He’s not normal, not nearly normal, and you want him.
She wanted him.
She wanted him.
And she wanted them.
We’ll have our drink and go home.
Behind her squeezed-shut eyes she saw him there, sitting close to her in a booth at the Honey, her safe place, their place, holding her hand, knowing from the time they walked in to the time she fixed her lipstick and returned to him that something had happened, she needed to leave, and he was going to make that so.
This morning it’s my famous French toast for my baby girl!
Her head shot up, and she pushed herself off the floor. She hurried to her hiding place, stashed the sketchbook and pens, and dashed her hands on her face to clear away the tears as she moved out the door.
She noted Stellan’s timers had lit her way with a lamp at the base of the stairs, which she turned off, and one in the hall, which she also turned off.
She hit the bedroom and saw Stellan in bed, sitting up against the headboard, covers to his waist, chest exposed, book in his hand.
He looked up the minute she entered the room.
She twisted her arms behind her to pull the zipper down on the little red leather mini-dress she was wearing.
He put his book aside on the nightstand and watched her make her way toward him.
She drew the dress off her shoulders at the front, let it drop, and stepped out of it, all with only a moment’s hesitation in stepping over it when it hit the floor as she continued toward him, up the steps, to his side of the bed, wearing nothing but a barely there red bralette made of see-through lace and a pair of black pumps with thin ankle straps.
“Darling,” he said quietly, gaze on her face, not her body.
She didn’t stop moving, even at the side of the bed.
She threw the covers off him and saw he was ready for bed, and also ready for her.
He was naked and hard.
Lord God.
So beautiful.
She put a knee to the bed and swung the other leg around, straddling him.
His hands went to the backs of her thighs.
Her hands went to his wrists, pulling them away, lifting them over his head, pinning them to the headboard, her eyes looking directly into his.
She saw them flash.
“Simone,” he whispered.
She lowered herself on him, rubbing her wetness against the underside of his rigid shaft.
His jaw tightened, his eyes darkened, and his voice roughened when he repeated, “Simone.”
Yes, Sixx knew him.
She also knew his body.
So she bent to it, putting her mouth to him, going to places that she’d learned were responsive.
The skin under his ear, the expanse where his head met his neck.
And down.
His nipples were sensitive. If he was ever at her command, she’d manipulate them for hours, torturing him with it.
She moved to them, pulling his hands down slightly so she could hold them away but pressing her weight into them as she did so he’d get her message.
She felt his fingers ball into fists, but he allowed her to hold him as she worked his nipples, licking, sucking, scraping the edge of her teeth down them, feeling his body respond, hearing the l
ow masculine purrs drift up his throat, his hands tensing and flexing in her hold.
She moved further down, over the ridges of his abs, to where he liked her best, where any man was most sensitive.
“Simone,” he groaned.
She kept going, having to release his hands to do it.
He spread his legs, her body slipped through, his fingers slid into her hair and he whispered, “Darling.”
She took up his shaft then swallowed it deep, thrilling when his resulting grunt drove up her pussy.
Sixx again grasped his hands, pulling his fingers out of her hair and pushing them into the bed by his hips as she sucked him off relentlessly, dragging hard, moving fast, seeing his legs cock up reflexively at her sides, taking his thrusts as his fingers wrapped around her wrists and her work forced him to move.
She let him fuck her face because that was what he wanted, what he needed, and while he had her, she would give him anything, everything, all she had to give.
Sixx did this until it was time to give more.
She drew deep as she pulled him out, then surged up over his body, taking his wrists with her, pinning them again to the headboard.
Catching his heated, frustrated, beautiful blue gaze, she transferred his wrists to one hand, reached between them, wrapped her fingers around his cock, positioned him, and then plunged down on him, fast and hard.
His eyes narrowed dangerously, and he hissed through his teeth.
She started riding him, staring into blue.
Holding her gaze, his wrists moved in her fingers, but Sixx replaced her other hand there, pushing both of his into the headboard with as much of her weight as she could use and all of her strength as she rode him fast, squeezing him with her pussy as she went, her breaths escalating, his going uneven.
“I want to touch you,” he growled.
She said nothing, just kept moving on him, milking him, fucking him, quick and hard.
She felt his hands flex then form into fists again, but he didn’t break her hold as he demanded, “At least kiss me.”
Sixx didn’t.
She held contact with his gaze, riding him rough, merciless.
“Simone,” he warned low.
Her breath was coming with difficulty, her focus shifting from what she was giving him to what she was giving herself. She kept at him but had to drop her forehead to his, their connection there rolling as she drove herself down on him again and again, taking him, refocusing where she needed to be.