The Greatest Risk

  “And no one knows how to be a parent until they become one.”

  That was true and it made sense.

  She nodded.

  “We’ve been together only weeks,” he declared.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t intend to attempt to impregnate you tomorrow.”

  She grinned at him and relaxed in his arms. “I know.”

  “We can work up to that.”

  Well, that was a relief.

  “Is this normal?” she asked.

  Now he looked confused. “Is what normal?”

  “Things like we have getting so deep in only weeks,” she explained.

  The confusion left his handsome face and tenderness entered it. “As you know, honey, I’m not only not terribly concerned with normal, I avoid it vehemently.”

  That almost made her laugh because not only did she know that very well, it was part of why she loved him so much.

  “I do know that,” she confirmed.

  “And we haven’t been together for mere weeks. We’ve been living together for mere weeks. In relationship terms, I would suspect that’s more like being together for three months. In terms of a relationship with you, it’s more like three years.”

  She smiled up at him even as she swatted his shoulder in fake indignation.

  He grinned down at her with humor, but the grin changed to just warm and sweet when he went on, “And you forget, I knew you and you knew me in a variety of ways prior to this starting, darling. I am not a young impetuous man, and you’re not eighteen. We both know at this juncture in our lives what we want and thus knew when we found it. So I wouldn’t concern myself with time, Simone, just feelings.”

  As ever, her wise Stellan had all the answers.

  “So, we’re learning a lot about each other tonight,” she remarked. “You’re even more protective than I knew and have an impressive right hook. We both need to be more forthcoming about our activities. We’re going to have a variety of parties. I’m good at my job but absolutely do not intend to take unnecessary risks while doing it. You want to be a father, and I’m down with that … probably. And when you’re angry with me, you still make me drinks. Did I miss anything?”

  His lips were twitching when he answered, “Not that I can tell.”

  “Do you think Ami and Naya had a good date tonight?” she asked.

  “I think Naya is getting vanilla fucked to within an inch of her life tonight.”

  Her body started shaking with laughter, and her voice was shaking with it when she shared, “When they got home, Maddox was going back at Diesel too.”

  His brows hiked up. “The big one can take more?”

  “Molly says they go all night. But Maddox was turned way the hell on with Diesel beating the crap out of Beardsley, and he’s top Dom, so I’m not sure D has a choice.”

  “He won’t be able to walk tomorrow,” Stellan murmured.

  “I’m not certain he cares.”

  Stellan gave her a certain look. “So everyone we know is fucking … but us.”

  “I’m not sure everyone we know is fucking,” she teased.

  “Darling, excepting M, but including Susan and Harry, who have a very active sex life, and I will not share the excruciatingly painful reasons I know that, or details of the same, everyone we know is likely fucking, or has already gotten fucked.”

  She got up on her toes, sliding her hands up his back.

  “Well, we better catch up,” she muttered, her eyes falling to his beautiful lips.

  “Agreed,” those lips said.

  Then he used them to kiss her.

  And he didn’t stop as he started walking her around the dining room table.

  Sixx broke it off, still walking backward because she was compelled to do so since she was in Stellan’s arms and he was moving forward.

  “Honey,” she whispered.

  “If you intend to say anything that will delay me getting inside you, please save it. We can talk after.”

  “I just wanted to thank you for listening, talking tonight through, being cool, and being so easy to love.”

  Immediately, she was whipped around, lifted up, and found herself planted ass to the dining room table.

  She then found herself gasping when she felt Stellan’s hand up her skirt, and in a blink she was divested of her panties.

  “Okay, you really don’t want to delay, do you?” she breathed.

  His response was to yank up her skirt.

  But he didn’t even have to make that response. His face was dark, and his eyes were burning.

  She read him.

  She lifted a hand, hooked it around the back of his neck and pulled him to her.

  His mouth against hers, his hands spreading her legs, he whispered, “Darling.”

  “If you intend to say anything that will delay you getting inside me, save it.”

  She felt his hand now working his jeans.

  “I just wanted to tell you I hope you know how much I love you.”

  She didn’t smile. She didn’t simper. She didn’t whimper.

  She pulled her man’s mouth to hers and kissed him.

  Hard.

  Stellan slid inside and fucked her.

  Sweet.

  (And hard.)

  And they joined the ranks of the fucking.

  The perfect end to their evening.

  * * *

  And Sixx wouldn’t think about it then, her mind being on other things.

  But she would think about it later.

  And in that later she would realize why she no longer needed to take risks for whatever reasons she’d taken them.

  Because she’d taken the greatest risk of all.

  And bested the fuck out of that bastard.

  epilogue

  The King and His Queen

  SIXX

  Tuesday night, Sixx sat in her throne by the gladiator pit beside Stellan, looking across to the thrones at the curve on the opposite side.

  Naya was sitting there in a bright fuchsia, wraparound dress with a halter bodice made of a delicate ruffle that curved around her neck and flirted at her cleavage. The skirt was opened, showing a goodly amount of beautiful brown skin of shapely legs that shone like they’d been oiled. These legs led down to a pair of utterly stunning, silver, high-heeled sandals that glittered in the overhead lights of the stadium.

  Her head was up, regal, but her eyes were cast down at her feet where her warrior was fucking the gladiator he’d just defeated soundly for his princess. Ami’s ass bunched around the warrior dragon’s tail proudly planted inside that he’d worn strolling in and throughout the bout.

  Their eyes were locked as he fucked for her, and her glossy lips were parted, showing her gladiator how much she enjoyed it.

  Although it was a tremendously entertaining performance, Sixx’s eyes wandered to exactly opposite where she and Stellan were sitting, to where Amélie sat in a throne next to Evangeline.

  They were turned toward the action, Evangeline so far as twisted in her seat and leaning on the arm of her chair to take it in, her face rapt with interest to Leigh’s much more dignified expression. She just wore a cat’s smile.

  Both their men were elsewhere that evening.

  But both the women were clearly enjoying their girls’ night out.

  As if feeling her regard, Leigh looked to her, seeing her beside Stellan, holding hands, and that cat’s smile became a different kind of smile.

  Sixx returned it.

  It was then she saw that Leenie had turned to look at them too, but she was looking at Stellan.

  She suddenly lifted her hand, and Sixx didn’t know much American Sign Language, but she did know the alphabet, and Leenie spelled out the word fool with her hand and pointed at Stellan.

  She was smiling madly.

  But Sixx felt her brows snap together as her hand, which Stellan was holding, got a squeeze.

  She turned to him with her mouth moving. “Why did Leenie just call you a foo
l?”

  “I once accused her of being a fool in love,” he answered unperturbedly. “She’s returning that favor.”

  Well.

  Okay then.

  She smiled at him.

  His eyes dropped to it as his hand brought up hers. He rubbed her knuckles against his lower lip, and she watched that far more avidly than she’d watched any of what she’d been treated to that pleasurable evening.

  “Having a good night?” he asked.

  She studied him. Then she looked between their thrones to the bleachers right behind them that were elevated enough to see over the backs of the chairs to give a full view.

  Sitting right behind them, one, two, three, were Maddox, Molly and Diesel.

  She’d figured out what she could give them to thank them for all they’d done.

  When she’d made the offer, they’d turned it down, but they hadn’t turned down those tickets.

  Sensing her attention, Molly tore her engrossed eyes from Ami and Naya, looked down to Sixx and immediately lifted up both hands formed in thumbs-up positions, pumping them in front of her as a happy smile beamed out of her face.

  Her men, always attuned to their Molly, noted her movements, and both took their absorbed attention from the festivities, gave it to their woman, then transferred it to Sixx.

  D, of course, gave her one of his cheeky grins and added a wink.

  When she took in Maddox, he mouthed the word Nice in a way, even mouthed, she knew was drawled and underlined in spirit with his mini-boom.

  The trio turned their attention back to Ami, and Sixx turned hers back to her man, only then answering his question.

  “I’m happy.”

  At that, his hand snaked out, he caught her head, pulled it to him, and took her mouth, thrusting his tongue inside, powerfully claiming what he had no reason to claim seeing as it was all very much his.

  There was an unmistakable roar right before a roar from the crowd, and Stellan broke their kiss so they could give their attention back to Ami and Naya.

  Ami was arched magnificently into the ass he was climaxing into, his head thrown back, the cords of his muscles popping in his neck.

  His spine had barely relaxed when Naya shouted a majestic, “Come to me!”

  And without delay, Ami pulled out, got to his feet, put a bare one in the back of his opponent, taking him down to his belly (to another cheer from the crowd), but he didn’t stand on him.

  He stood astride him as he bent to his Mistress. Grasping either side of her neck in his hands, he pulled her up from her seat, not fully, but her ass was absolutely no longer to throne, and she was suspended by his hold on her neck and her hands in the arms of the chair.

  In that position, he consumed her mouth in a voracious kiss that had the crowd going wild and proved beyond doubt that their date had gone very, very well.

  “Mistress Sixx saves the day,” Stellan whispered in her ear.

  She turned to him, and he adjusted his head so she could catch his eyes. “I love you.”

  Those eyes went soft. “And I you.”

  “Warning, if you keep it up this way, you’re going to get sick of hearing me say that,” she shared.

  “Never,” he whispered.

  “Kiss me, Master,” she whispered back.

  He did, and he did it for some time.

  When he finally released her, the crowd had calmed down because Ami was gone, Naya was no longer seated on her throne, and the action had lulled, waiting for the next gladiators to duel.

  “Totally getting you a dragon’s tail, bro,” she heard Maddox growl from behind them.

  “Totally getting you one, my man,” D returned.

  “You’re both totally getting one,” Molly declared. “When you play with your pixie at home, you’re now gonna be my dragon warlords.”

  “Word,” D agreed, sounding keen.

  Maddox said nothing.

  Sixx grinned, then turned immediately to Stellan, leaned in, and opened her mouth.

  “Darling, please,” he murmured before she could say anything. “Allow yourself to bask in the glory victorious of your last amazing feat,” he indicated Naya’s empty seat with an inclined head, “before jumping right into another one.”

  Since that night at the Bolt, she’d fully shared about her experience with the trio.

  “They’re so happy, and they’re so good together, but if someone can get through to D, they could be more happy—” she started softly so the trio wouldn’t overhear.

  “Make a deal?” he asked, brows raised.

  She grinned again. “Sure.”

  “One week. Hang up your cape for one week. Then you can dig into fixing all the problems of your precious ménage.”

  “Thanks, baby,” she said to agree. “But I don’t wear a cape. I wear leather.”

  His eyes dropped to the bronze leather under her gold choker at her chest.

  “And I thank the superhero gods for that.”

  She burst out laughing.

  Stellan kissed her lips while she did it.

  Then the next gladiators came in.

  And the king and his queen sat in attendance, holding hands, enjoying their evening.

  STELLAN

  Stellan opened the door to his office and stopped dead.

  His first inclination was to clench his teeth so he wouldn’t say anything he’d regret.

  What happened next made that effort unnecessary.

  The dancing, happy eyes of both the women he loved turned to him amid the laughter they were sharing, and one of them greeted through it, “Yo, boss man,” while the other one greeted, “Hey, baby.”

  He moved to the jamb and leaned a shoulder against it, crossing his arms on his chest, aiming his gaze at Susie sitting behind the desk, not at Simone, who was standing in front of it.

  “Have I not shared the instruction that you were to inform me when Simone was here?”

  “She has her own keycard, Stell. She showed to surprise you to take you out to lunch, the operative word being ‘surprise,’ and I was just telling her you have a lunch meeting, so we decided we’re going to go out together instead.”

  Stellan pushed from the door, ordering, “Cancel my lunch meeting.”

  Susan’s eyes got big. “Stellan, it’s in fifteen minutes.”

  “Cancel it,” he repeated. “I’m having lunch with my assistant and my girlfriend.”

  “You’re negotiating a seven million dollar deal at this meeting,” Susan reminded him.

  At that, Sixx’s eyes got big just as he made it to her and curved an arm around her waist, pulling her body into his.

  But he turned his head to Susan. “The deal will still be there when we reschedule the meeting.”

  “You’re annoying,” she snapped.

  He raised his brows.

  She threw up her hands. “How am I going to get all the juicy tidbits of Stellan Lange as boyfriend from Simone with you sitting there?” she demanded to know.

  “Precisely,” he replied.

  Simone laughed softly, and Stellan looked down to her.

  “Where shall we go to lunch?” he asked.

  “I promise, I would only tell her the parts about such things as you casually throwing thousands of dollars of gold and platinum custom-made jewelry in my lap like you did it every morning before taking your vitamins,” she said instead of answering. “I wouldn’t have gotten into the sex parts.”

  “Good,” Susan said into their exchange. “I can’t handle the sex parts. He already seems like a god. I don’t need proof he is a god.”

  Simone was laughing again, he felt it against his body, and it gave further indication that when he struck their deal weeks ago he was very unusually woefully unprepared for the ramifications of pulling out all the stops to make Simone Marchesa happy.

  In other words, just how doing that would return the feeling.

  “Darling, I asked, where would you like to go to lunch?” he repeated.

  “Where would
you like to go?”

  “I’m in the mood for steak.”

  Her brows rose. “Aren’t you always?”

  It was resolute when he replied, “Absolutely.”

  To that, his Simone just smiled.

  It was warm.

  It was sweet.

  It was happy.

  * * *

  That evening, having turned the page on the sketchbook to where Simone had finished her latest story, studying the image on the page, Stellan had a queer sensation he’d never felt before.

  As queer as it was, he knew instinctively it was one he’d forever treasure.

  The tone of her story had changed significantly.

  Through her new association with a mysterious, shadowy man who possessed great powers, it would seem Superhero Sixx had a lock on a miracle cure that was slowly erasing her scars with each good deed she did.

  So as she fought to find ways to offer love and succor to the brave soldier through the arms of a beautiful princess …

  And as she kept her eye on the beneficent business tycoon who was in love with a protégée, but his hesitation meant he might lose her to another man …

  And as she looked into the demons of a rough but handsome, loving and good-natured man who had the love of a beautiful pixie and the adoration of a powerful warlord …

  Her scars were fading.

  And in that last panel, Superhero Sixx lay naked atop her shadowy savior, her forehead tucked into his neck, her legs straddling his thigh, his face obscured, but her face was not.

  Even still scarred, it was the first time she’d depicted her alter-ego’s expression as soft, unguarded, and filled with beauty.

  Yes, that queer sensation was something he’d forever treasure.

  “So, what do you think?”

  Sixx was reclined beside him on his chesterfield, pressed to the back of the couch and down his side, her eyes on the sketchpad he held up, braced against his stomach.

  His voice was not his own, hoarse and gravelly, this catching her attention as her eyes shot to his when he asked, “Is that how you see us?”

  Gently, she answered, “That’s how we are.”

  Fuck.

  But he loved her.

  “You should publish these, Simone.”

  Her chin jerked into her neck.

  “They’re extraordinary,” he declared.

  “They’re my life. And now, yours too.”