The Greatest Risk

by Kristen Ashley

  The crowd roared with him.

  Sixx wanted to roar too.

  Roar and turn and straddle Stellan in his seat, begging him to fuck her harder than they’d just witnessed and not simply as a thank you for her gift.

  Panting, his head righted, and his eyes again locked to hers.

  Stellan’s hand gave hers a squeeze, reminding her he wasn’t gay. He’d fuck male ass on command because he was submissive.

  But the deed was done.

  “You’re relieved, warrior,” she said softly.

  He pulled out by shoving the man to his stomach at her feet.

  “You’ve served me well,” she shared.

  “Thank you, Mistress. It’s been my honor.”

  “You may go.”

  He nodded more than once that time, got up but bent over, pulling the loser by his ankle and sending him crashing back into the pit.

  The crowd loudly shared their approval of this act as Flamma bent again to nab his straps, stood before her and bowed his head, looked to Stellan for another brief bow, then he stalked off. Shifting behind the thrones, he lumbered toward the doorway where he’d entered with his opponent, doing this with an ovation following in his wake but looking like he didn’t give that first shit.

  He’d served his Mistress.

  She’d met his needs by allowing him to serve.

  It was time for a Budweiser.

  “Regardless of the result of our negotiations,” Stellan began, and Sixx looked to him just as he lifted her knuckles to his lips.

  She watched with great fascination as he rubbed them along his lower one once, twice, again, and again.

  Four times before he stopped.

  Four times she wouldn’t forget of that gentle touch, how soft his lip felt, and the different feel she got in her belly that he’d even do it.

  “They know you now,” he continued. “He’s yours. This chair is yours. The first Tuesday every month, you command Flamma from this seat until you release him from his duties.”

  “And I’ll have to do that when?” she asked.

  “When he finds a Mistress who doesn’t like sharing. He’ll inform you if this happens. We’ll discuss your uses for him in alternate ways later. However, this seat is always yours if you have a fighter in the arena or not.”

  She didn’t have the mental capacity at that point to consider Flamma’s alternate uses.

  At that point, she had to stay on target.

  “And your seat?” she queried.

  “Is always mine.”

  She started to pull back, but his hold on her tightened so she stopped.

  But she did begin, “Stellan—”

  “Trust me.”

  She felt her lips part.

  She trusted no one.

  No one but herself.

  And Aryas.

  And sometimes Carlo, but he could be a prankster, and it chapped her ass whenever he was.

  But maybe two hours ago Stellan was a remote Dom who shared an acquaintance with her as well as membership at the same sex club.

  That was all.

  And now he was …

  What?

  Stellan’s face changed.

  And she stopped breathing.

  Good Lord.

  How could he get more handsome?

  She had no idea.

  But she’d just witnessed it happening.

  “Just trust me, Simone,” he urged gently. “And if you do, I swear to fuck I’ll make you happy that you did.”

  The night bore down on her, crushing her, a warm, exciting, welcoming weight the likes she’d never felt, not once.

  She wondered if that feeling was what kids felt the night before Christmas. The day before a trip to Disneyland. Sitting at a dining room table and facing the lit candles on their birthday cake.

  But she wouldn’t know because she’d never had any of that.

  “Did you build this building?” she asked.

  A soft look entered his eyes when he replied, “No. It was owned by an online shopping company who tried to rival Amazon and failed. I just bought it, dug the pit, reconditioned it to serve as an auditorium, and hired a talent recruiter, a promoter and an event manager.”

  “So the building sits vacant when there aren’t gladiators in the pit?”

  “No.”

  He didn’t elaborate.

  “And you did this for me,” she went on.

  “Yes.”

  He did it for her.

  God.

  All of this …

  For her.

  He didn’t say anything more on that either.

  “You’ve barely spoken to me since I came back,” she pointed out.

  “When a man prepares to broker a deal he very much wants to swing his way, he’s certain to prepare thoroughly before discussions begin.”

  God.

  This was unbelievable.

  “Perhaps we should have our talk tonight,” she suggested.

  “Oh no,” he replied. “That wouldn’t be fair, darling. You’ve had no time to prepare. And I might have been thorough, and obviously I’ll be entering the negotiations knowing what I want. But if I come out with the deal I’m hoping for, it won’t be as sweet if I get it taking advantage.”

  “This is a lot,” she admitted.

  Though that was an understatement of epic proportions.

  And Stellan knew it if the amused smile he gave her was any indication.

  “You have four days to become accustomed to it.”

  The sounds of the milling of the crowd filtered through the intensity of their discussion, and she realized Flamma’s victory heralded the end of the night.

  She also had a flash drive to deliver.

  And a mind-boggling number of things to assess and consider.

  You can if you promise to think about it.

  Think about what?

  Being happy.

  Was happiness sitting in a chair right by her side holding her hand?

  Or was it just another path—one that might prove to be far more painful than the not-so-fun ones that came before—leading to everything ending up just plain shit?

  “Sixx?”

  The name she gave herself coming from his lips brought her back into an auditorium retrofitted to offer her something she enjoyed greatly and receiving a gift a woman like her could only cherish.

  It meant everything, and it was then Sixx learned that everything was just that.

  Everything.

  And everything was way too much.

  Suddenly that crushing weight wasn’t warm and welcoming.

  It was just crushing.

  “Sixx,” Stellan whispered, his hold on her hand tightening, again like he sensed the turn of her thoughts.

  “Bait with an exceptionally elaborate switch, and you reeled me right in,” she whispered back.

  “Did I?” he asked.

  She stared into his eyes, and she did it for a beat, two, three, four.

  How about I won’t actively avoid it?

  Damn, she’d promised.

  Sixx was capable of a lot of things.

  Breaking a promise wasn’t one of them.

  Definitely not one she’d made Aryas.

  So she had no choice but to answer, “We’ll see.”

  three

  The Ones I Love

  STELLAN

  Stellan prowled down the hall toward his office in a foul mood.

  He was just back from a lunch meeting that went on far too long, especially for the large amount of nothing that came of it, and he was not a man who appreciated having his time wasted.

  However, this was not why he was in a vile mood.

  It was Friday afternoon.

  The next day, he was having a party. The kind of party he always thoroughly enjoyed.

  However, this particular party was one he’d expended no small degree of effort in making meticulous plans to significantly enjoy.

  And in the early hours of Wednesday morning, whe
n he stood with Simone at the driver’s side door to her Cayenne and handed her his card—a card that had his office phone and address engraved on the front, his cell phone and home address written on the back—he’d ordered her to phone him prior to Saturday to get details of when she was to arrive and what she was to bring with her when she did.

  She had not phoned.

  She’d had some “business” to attend to, and that, as well as all Stellan had bombarded her with that night, was on her mind.

  And although Stellan had contacted Aryas to make certain he’d heard from Sixx (he had), Stellan had decided in future, if she did not cease these antics that were foolish at best, could be deadly at worst, he’d put a man on her to make certain she was safe until he could talk her out of continuing to do the incredibly stupid things she did.

  In the meantime, if she did not arrive at his home the next day like she’d been told to do, it would be the shortest party he’d ever thrown, considering the fact that he’d leave it, find her, and toss all the rest of the meticulous plans he’d made out the window while he communicated to her precisely what he wanted her to know.

  And he’d do this until she submitted to it.

  In fact, the only thing that kept him from taking his mood out on anyone in his path were the new elaborate plans he was making, detailing how he’d be certain to teach Simone some very important lessons.

  They were varied. They were imaginative. And if there came a time when they were carried out, both of them would enjoy them. It was just that Stellan would do this throughout and Simone would only do it eventually.

  He was considering this when he walked into his assistant’s office. An office that was the bastion of defense protecting him from the tedious minutiae of office politics, gossip, petty grievances, weak excuses for poor performance and false claims of illness that people used to get out of the work he paid them to do.

  An office that was outside his own.

  The minute he walked in, her eyes came direct to him.

  They were wary.

  His assistant Susan had been with him for over seven years. Outside of her honeymoon and bi-yearly vacations, during the work week (and the not-rare weekend), she’d only not been at her desk for seven months, six of those being the amount of maternity leave he gave his staff as policy, the last one he gave to her because she was Susan.

  He was godfather to that child.

  And considering Susan’s own father was an extreme asshole, in their time together she’d given Stellan one other honor.

  That being dancing with him, just the two of them, on the dancefloor at her wedding reception to the song that played after the first she’d danced with her then brand-new husband, and before the song that played when her husband danced with his mother.

  Stellan didn’t often take his foul moods out on his team, definitely not Susan, but that didn’t mean they didn’t sense them.

  Especially Susan.

  And the wary in her gaze shared his current mood had been sensed.

  “Stellan, there’s been—” she began.

  “You can brief me later,” he interrupted her, not breaking stride on his way to the gleaming wood double doors to his office, finishing, “I’ve some calls to make.”

  He opened one of the doors, strode inside, swung the door shut behind him and stopped dead when his eyes hit his desk.

  On the corner was a large cream pottery vase, and spiking out of it was a profuse spray of palm fronds mingled with copious dripping orchids the extraordinary color of azure blue.

  From business associates to women in his life, he’d been given bottles of Scotch or vodka, Belgian chocolates, Cuban cigars, Tiffany cufflinks, Robert Talbott ties, and the like.

  Not ever had he been sent flowers.

  He walked to the arrangement, removed the small envelope from what appeared to be a holder made of a notched stick of bamboo, and saw on the outside it had a handwritten “S.”

  He opened it and pulled out the card.

  Inside, also handwritten, and not, he was certain, by a florist, it said:

  S∼

  Flamma is magnificent.

  ∼S

  PS: Spoke with Amélie. See you tomorrow at 1:00.

  Staring at the card, Stellan took in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then for the first time in two and a half days, he allowed his lips to curve up.

  He dropped the card on his blotter and circumnavigated his desk, shrugging off his suit jacket. He took his phone out of the inside pocket before he rounded the jacket to rest on the back of his chair.

  He sat and twisted his chair to the side where there was a wall of windows that ran the length of his office that afforded the entirely not picturesque view of downtown Phoenix.

  That view was one of many things Stellan loved about the city he’d chosen to make his home.

  Phoenicians were living in a modern-day Wild West.

  That was to say they didn’t give a shit about anything but freedom to do and be whatever the fuck they wanted to do and be.

  There were no airs in Arizona, unless you wanted to have them, and if you did and someone didn’t like it, they could go fuck themselves.

  Phoenicians needed no impressive skyscape to stamp their mark on a nation.

  There were Cardinals games to go to.

  Stellan had traveled widely. There were many places he’d been to that he’d enjoyed greatly.

  However there was and always would be only one home.

  He engaged his phone, went to the text screen, and entered a name that was attached to a number he’d acquired months ago but never used.

  He then sent the text, The flowers are beautiful.

  After he sent that to sweep through the global telecommunication system, he typed, But you’ve ignored my instructions, darling.

  He sent that.

  Finally he typed, Consequences.

  And he sent that.

  Knowing he’d receive no reply, he tossed the phone to his desk and looked out the window, his lips still turned up.

  She was intrigued.

  She was also afraid.

  She was further titillated.

  And completely terrified.

  She saw the possibility of a future that included having something.

  Anything.

  A concept that was entirely foreign to her.

  And that made her scared out of her fucking mind.

  Therefore no.

  He’d receive no reply.

  But she would show the next day.

  She might not have anything but a Cayenne and what appeared to be a death wish.

  But she also had her pride.

  It was an understatement to say he’d been stunned that the instant he’d claimed her, she’d orgasmed. Her eyes growing unfocused, her lips parting, she’d climaxed at his first touch as her Master, and she’d done it instantaneously.

  Stellan sat turned from his desk, not seeing the view, allowing himself to start to grow hard remembering it.

  He’d taken a risk, a hefty one, called the shot, took it, and found he’d been right.

  She was a switch.

  She needed power.

  But she craved being powerless.

  Months of precision planning to get her ass where it belonged, in her throne by his side, had culminated in her immediate submission the moment he’d claimed her as her Master.

  It was more than he’d hoped for.

  By far.

  It couldn’t have gone better.

  Flawless.

  “Christ,” he whispered, swiveling in his chair back to his desk, his gaze moving to rest on the flowers.

  Another surprise. That was not Sixx.

  Mistress Sixx did not send flowers. If in the mood, she gave orgasms, but only if extremes were met and they were earned. To friends and acquaintances she gave time and attention, in a remote and seemingly surface-only way, not realizing that she poorly hid the fact that she gave a significant shit under layers of frost that on
ly thawed with those she held in her heart.

  But he’d seen her look at Leigh and Olly. Mira and Trey. Penn and Shane.

  She was thrilled that they’d all found each other, fallen in love.

  And she was envious.

  And he’d seen how she was with Aryas.

  Devoted.

  Now Simone …

  He studied a fragile bowed stem adorned with azure orchid petals.

  Apparently Simone sent flowers.

  This gracious act reminded him that it had taken huge amounts of effort not to follow up on all that had happened on their first night together and do it immediately. From leaving her at the driver’s side door to her Cayenne instead of taking her directly to his home to finding an excuse to seek her out every moment in between.

  But he knew.

  Stellan knew.

  He knew everything.

  It was dangerous what he was doing, and that danger centered entirely on all that could be lost.

  He’d played a game once where the stakes were the highest they could be.

  He hadn’t lost because you couldn’t lose to someone who didn’t know she was in the game.

  He’d still lost.

  With this …

  With Sixx …

  No.

  With Simone …

  It could be nothing but a game.

  A game it was essential that he win.

  Because if he didn’t, it would still be Simone who’d be the loser.

  As promised, when Stellan had asked Branch Dillinger to get him everything on Mistress Sixx, Dillinger had delivered.

  So Stellan knew.

  He knew Simone Marchesa was treading water, failing in her efforts not to go under, and not much caring if the current pulled her away.

  So the game had to be played not only so Stellan could drag her to safety.

  But so he could lift her up.

  Then at his side he’d take her to the highest peak.

  And once he got her there, she’d never, not fucking ever, look back down.

  She’d been held down long enough.

  The door to his office opened, his gaze went there, and he watched Susan walk in.

  Blonde, petite, always impeccably dressed, and even though Crosby was eighteen months, she hadn’t lost all of her baby weight.

  She didn’t care. She’d ended her pregnancy addicted to My Nana’s tortilla chips and Baby Ruth bars, and since she wasn’t finished reproducing, she wasn’t bothering with the effort to kick those habits.