His breath came out in a hiss, his head slammed back, and the muscles and veins in his neck jumped out.
He righted his head and caught her eyes.
“Fuck me,” he growled.
Sixx did—hard, long, deep strokes, reaching around to his front to clamp onto his cock and fist it, pumping brutally.
He moved with her, fucking her hand, fucking his own ass, his noises and hers bouncing around the room, pounding into them, everything she was giving him, he was taking, he was giving, in the mirrors, everywhere she could see.
And through it all, he held her gaze until he couldn’t anymore, his jaw hard, his face set in stone, his head hitched back.
“Come, baby,” she whispered.
He blew, his long, lean body jerking violently, his cum gushing all over the floor.
Yes.
Yes.
Scalp to toe, she quivered in ecstasy.
He was twitching in her hold as she milked the last drops from him.
And then she had no hold on him at all.
She was back against the mirror in front of him, his hand wrapped tight around her throat, his other hand jerking up the body-hugging skirt of the gray leather dress she was wearing.
It didn’t go as far as he needed, but it didn’t matter. In a close squeeze, he dove into her panties at the front and rubbed her clit brutally, pushing back hard, diving two fingers in deep, finger fucking her, pulling out and going back at her clit with his face not an inch from hers, his breaths heavy on her lips, hers on his, as she stared desperately into his eyes.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Please what?” he bit off.
“Please, Master, let me come.”
He shoved his hand between her legs back, fucking her with long, deep strokes of his fingers.
God, she was going to lose it.
“Please,” she begged.
His fingers at her throat slid up to her cheek, pushing her head to the side, his face came down, and he latched onto her neck with his teeth, biting her so hard she was sure he’d broken skin before he clipped, “Come.”
He latched on again with his teeth, and she jerked against his hold as she came viciously into his hand.
The aftershocks were nearly as extreme as the orgasm had been. Which meant by the time she started coming down, she hadn’t felt it that he was stroking her pussy like it was a pet and laving at her neck like it was an ice cream cone.
She lifted her hands and caught his face, pulling it up and away so she could gain his eyes.
He cupped her pussy.
She shared like a chant. “It wasn’t him, baby. It wasn’t him. It was about you.”
“Darling,” he gently squeezed between her legs and lifted a hand to cover his mark at her neck. “Calm.”
Instantly, her racing heart and rasping breath began to settle.
“Didn’t I tell you the other night we were learning this part of our lives?” he asked.
She stared up at him and said nothing.
“Didn’t I?” he pushed.
Sixx nodded, because he had.
“Something I’ve already learned that I’ll share now is that outside of the gladiator pit, if Ami is not claimed tonight by Naya, which I think we can both agree that he has been, I cannot allow your attention to toys.”
“Oh … kay,” she said slowly.
“You’re very much mine, Simone, in all ways, and I thought I could share that way in order to give you something you need, but I was wrong.”
She pressed her lips together.
So Aryas was right.
Damn.
“You can watch,” he told her. “If with me, like tonight. But you cannot touch. And you cannot command. Not ever again.”
Oh …
Shit.
“But you’re my Simone, darling,” he said gently. “Not my slave, my Simone. Even as I’ve already claimed that of you, I didn’t fully understand the difference, but I do now.”
“Can you … will you share that with me?” she requested.
He smiled a soft smile.
Thank God he was smiling.
Then he spoke.
“I will not be your sub, sweetheart. I will not be whipped and fucked with your heel or commanded to suck cock, real or inanimate. I would give that to you if I had it in me, and I must admit, I love you enough, I want you to have everything you desire, so I’ve considered it.”
It was beautiful that he actually considered it.
More beautiful why.
Before she could form that into words to share that with him, he kept going.
“But you can use me, Simone,” he stated, and her belly curled into itself. “I’ll allow you to use your Master to get what you need, but you must understand, once you do, you’ll give him what he needs in return however he takes it from you. I can imagine that’s not entirely understood. We’ll need to keep playing to find where the limits are, for you and for me. We already found one limit for me, though neither of us understood it at the time. That being I have you in our bed, as my lover and as my sub. However, you do not take me there. But what you needed tonight, obviously, I gladly will give. I can imagine being restrained by you would be highly enjoyable. Beyond that, we shall see.”
“Do you know I adore you?” she whispered, thinking that was another huge gift he would treasure more than her trust.
“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.
Her voice dropped. “Do I have to?”
In any other circumstances, this would make him smile. It could not be lost on anyone, no matter their gender, that Branch Dillinger was a superior specimen of male.
And Susan, even happily married and entrenched firmly in building a family, had not lost her skills as a connoisseur in this area.
However, Dillinger might be the Operating Manager of Aryas’s clubs, but he used to be something else entirely. The exact definition of that very few people knew, and Stellan was not one of those people. Further, he suspected even Evangeline, Dillinger’s lover, didn’t fully know.
That was the kind of man Dillinger was.
He was obviously and almost aggressively good-looking.
He was also stone-cold and exuded danger so palpably a normal man might catch himself flinching simply in the man’s presence.
The only warmth Stellan had ever seen from him was toward Evangeline. And it was steady, true, without fail the polar opposite of his normal demeanor.
She was the only one who received that, bar none. He might be able to rein in his menace to show respect or regard, but Evangeline was the only being for which Dillinger showed emotion.
And for her, there was a good deal of it.
Though, rather shockingly, Leenie had shared he was enamored with their little dog.
That Stellan would have to see to believe.
“You do,” he told Susan.
“Damn,” she muttered, and he heard the click that shared she’d closed communications.
Stellan got up from his desk and was halfway across his office when Susan opened his door, ushering Dillinger through.
It was rumored he was good friends with Amélie’s Olly, something else Stellan would have to see to believe.
But
the two men couldn’t be more different.
Olly was enormous, had a football linesman’s body, dark blond hair and a boy-next-door handsomeness.
Dillinger was tall and viciously lean, not to the point he was slim, to the point the definition of the muscles in his body shared he had the power to perpetrate vicious things. He had black hair. And he had ice-blue eyes that Stellan had experienced nothing coming from but chilling cold and even more chillingly astute assessment.
Susan was giving his back view a top-to-toe before she caught Stellan’s gaze—and his look—gave him a cheeky grin, and shut the door.
“Lange,” Dillinger greeted as they stopped at each other.
Stellan offered his hand to the man. “Dillinger.”
They shook and separated.
“Would you like a seat?” he asked.
Dillinger barely spared a glance at the two backless chairs in front of Stellan’s desk before his attention came back to Stellan.
“I’m not sure I’ll be here that long,” he answered.
Interesting response.
“Obviously, this is a surprise,” Stellan noted.
“Yeah,” Dillinger muttered, and Stellan watched with fascination as he lifted his hand, bowed his head, wrapped his fingers around the back of his neck and appeared to give it an uneasy squeeze before he dropped his hand and looked back at Stellan. “I shoulda called. I’ve got your number. But I didn’t know how to play this, so I asked Angie and she said face-to-face was the way to go.”
Angie.
What he called Evangeline.
He was the only one who called her that.
That in and of itself, with the man he gave the world, shared just how deeply his feelings went for his woman.
And their current meeting was full of surprises considering whatever he was there to discuss, he’d first asked Leenie’s advice.
“Perhaps you should just get on with it,” Stellan invited.
Dillinger looked direct into his eyes, and Stellan fought a shiver.
“It’s rampant, you’re with Sixx,” he declared.
“This is true,” Stellan confirmed.
“Right,” he muttered, drew breath in through his nose and kept direct eye contact. “What’s not rampant is that you shut down her extracurricular activities. But that’s been brought to my attention.”
The Greatest Risk Page 43
