Therefore she was turned in her chair, but braced, and looking at the door when he came through it.
She couldn’t read his expression, but she noted he didn’t have the sketchbooks.
“Please don’t say anything,” she begged quietly.
He stopped just inside the door, opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it before walking to the chair beside hers, sitting, and turning her way.
She took him in, seeing his attention was focused entirely on her, but that was all she got from him.
So very Stellan.
When it happened, it would be quick and clean and as painless as he could make it.
Before then, for him, so he could have it all, she had to get through phase two.
She took a deep breath and turned to the cruiser bag, pulling it off the ottoman and placing it on the floor by her feet.
She opened it, reached in, and found the first of the three things in there she wanted to show him.
She pulled it out and held it up for him.
It was a cheap, plastic, small, tatty, stained baby doll.
“Dad gave me this,” she said, staring at it, remembering it wasn’t in much better condition years ago when her father had given it to her. “I loved it when he first gave it to me. It was the first toy I ever got. The only toy I ever had.”
Her voice faded away as the memories returned, but she put effort into pulling herself back to the present, not getting sucked into and therefore lost to the past.
This effort was easy.
She’d had plenty of practice.
“I played with it all the time.” She turned her gaze to Stellan. “Until Mom was in a bad mood one day when I was playing with it, so she told me Dad had taken it right out of the hands of a little girl whose father owed them money.” She drew in breath, letting it out saying, “I didn’t play with it after that.”
Stellan said nothing, his face was still expressionless, but his gaze never left her.
“I was six,” she whispered, and she watched his tall, lean body jerk.
And there it was.
Stellan never missed anything.
“I had to … I had to…” Sixx swallowed. “I had to create her so she’d protect me. It didn’t start that night they died. I’d been Sixx half my life by then.”
“May I talk?” he requested quietly.
“Can I finish first?” she asked back.
Slowly, he nodded.
Sixx set the doll on the ottoman and reached into the bag.
She pulled out a cheap, stuffed crocodile.
Staring at it, she shared, “My uncle won this for me. At the State Fair. He took me and my friends. The ones he killed. He won it for me before he won ones for them. I knew why, even then. I knew. It made it seem normal, the sweet, handsome, kind uncle taking his niece and her friends to the State Fair, throwing balls into holes to get his niece a stuffed crocodile. Then going the extra mile so they didn’t feel left out and winning ones for them too.”
She looked again to Stellan.
“But it was his excuse. He was trying to impress them. Draw them in. Doing stupid shit, such stupid, stupid shit, a man his age winning prizes at a fair for girls he wanted to fuck. After it happened, I would tell myself he never grew up. He was good-looking and always had been. The girls dripping off him in high school. He talked about it all the time, how he was the big man, about those good old days that were all about parties and pot and pussy. But as you get older, that has to translate to something more, or the girls won’t keep coming around. And he was nothing. He was a loser and a dealer and a cheat, and his life carried on being about parties and pot and pussy, with the addition of more drugs and dealing them, and that was worse. So he had nothing. Was nothing. And he was left to target the girls who could be won over by cheap stuffed animals earned at a carnival game.”
She put the crocodile on the ottoman and again spoke to it.
“That’s just an excuse though, I understand that. An excuse for what he was, what he did. He was just evil. In his early forties, seducing sixteen-and seventeen-year-olds. Getting them high. Hooking them on drugs.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “There were no excuses. He was just a monster, and the only way he was not was that he never touched me. Not even when he was drunk or high. But I almost wish he had. I almost wished he’d gotten from me what the monster in him needed so he wouldn’t have hurt anyone else. But I had to protect Simone. So I was sure to stay well away when the danger lurked. She had to remain safe. It was the only thing I had. The only thing I could do. I sacrificed friends to it, trying to be normal, to give Simone a chance at something good in her life. I sacrificed friends to keep her safe. But at least I did that. At least she was safe from him. He never touched her, and to make that so, he never touched me.”
“Sweetheart—”
He said no more when she reached into the bag and pulled out a folded-over double frame.
She opened it.
“Corny,” she muttered, staring at the pictures. “And sick.”
She took in what she’d seen thousands of times.
One side, a bride and groom. The groom was in clean blue jeans and a crisp, ironed white shirt, his long, dark hair tamed in a ponytail at the back. The bride was wearing a tacky, shiny satin, cheap, white, strapless dress with a peplum and a too-short and too-tight skirt, hair teased out huge, face made up in Vegas-showgirl-with-a-palsy.
They were making out like they really needed to get a room.
The other side of the frame, a picture of two hands together, the woman’s on top of the man’s. It was akin to those traditional photos taken at traditional weddings, but on the ring fingers were bulky silver rings in which were etched in black the word HITCHED.
It might have been cute, if it wasn’t them.
But it was them.
So it wasn’t.
Not looking at him, she handed the frame to Stellan.
“He was a user,” she said when he took it. “Coke mainly. She wasn’t. She was the brains of the operation. He wasn’t her husband, the father of her child. He was her lackey. She used him as an enforcer. A bag man. A delivery boy. An available cock. I was a mistake, and she told me so, more than once. Looking back, I see that I was the only thing she gave him, because when they found out she was pregnant, she wanted to get rid of me, he wanted to keep me, and she wanted to keep him at heel. So she had me so she could use me to keep him where she wanted him.”
She looked up at him, then her eyes again dropped to the frame in Stellan’s hands that he wasn’t looking at because he was looking at her.
And she kept talking.
“I don’t know what went on between the time those pictures were taken and when I came around. He looked happy in that photo. But she always looked like that. Vulgar and common and mean. They’re kissing, but I know them. I can see the looks on their faces and read them. He looked like he had the rest of his life in front of him and was looking forward to facing it with the woman in his arms. She looked like she was ready for him to get on with it and give her an orgasm. It never changed. For the rest of their lives, it never changed. He hoped. He dreamed. She used and schemed.”
She realized she was wringing her hands in her lap and stopped doing that.
But she didn’t stop speaking.
“He loved me. He was a mess and he was an addict and he was under her thumb so he wasn’t good at looking after me.” She closed her eyes tight and turned them back to Stellan, opening them. “So Sixx did her best to look out for him too.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t what you might think. The trauma of what happened in that room didn’t split me in two. I had been that way for a long time. What I couldn’t handle about what happened in that room was that he died for me, instead of the way it was supposed to go for Sixx. That happening the other way around.”
She vaguely noted he looked ill, as he would do with all this filth exposed, when he asked softly, “Can I speak now, sweetheart?”
But
it was like he didn’t say a word.
She kept going.
“I did those things, in the sketchbook, to prove I was better than her. Not much better, but I didn’t ruin lives for a living. I have skills. I’m good at what I do. I was in demand. I had respect. I did them because I had this … this weird sense of invincibility. Like I survived that room, and I had to test life to see if that feeling was real. I did them because that was who I was, that was what they made, and I didn’t think there could be anything else. And if that was the life I was born to lead, I was going to best it, best her. I did those things because it was all I knew, and I was scared of breaking free and how that would affect me, harm me, affect Simone, harm her. I did them because I constantly had to take risks to keep sharp so I could keep Simone safe. I did them because that was just … it was just…” she choked out the last word, “me.”
“And each act you deemed unworthy scarred you,” he noted quietly.
She gave a jerky nod. “You see this Sixx, but she hides the real me. It’s a disguise. The Sixx in my books is the real me.”
He nodded once, but his was firm, not jerky. “And I’m assuming, to escape the anger and blame that dogged you due to your uncle’s activities, you left school the minute you turned eighteen, never earning your diploma or GED. However, you had to survive, feed yourself, and there were a variety of things you could have done, including going into the family business. You did not. You used your network of contacts to hire yourself out for anything but that. Illegal activities to be sure, aiding and abetting in the background, but never committing any felonies you masterminded for your own ends or your own gains.”
“Now it’s you who’s making excuses, Stellan,” she whispered.
“When you speak to me in that tone, darling, especially when we’re talking about something this important, this intense, you call me ‘baby.’”
Sixx sat up straight and blinked.
“And I’m not making excuses,” he went on to declare. “I’m pointing out realities.”
“Did you read my sketchbooks?” she asked dubiously.
“Every page, every word. It was the honor I expected it to be, from the minute I knew they existed. They moved me, they touched me, they filled me with anger as well as fear. But they didn’t surprise me, and they absolutely did not repulse me.”
“That’s impossible to believe,” she breathed.
“How?” he asked, not expecting an answer. He immediately went on, “Do you think I, or anyone else who knows you, would have preferred you were the spunky girl who got your GED, went to beauty school, and set up shop doing hair? No. Because that wasn’t the route you took to the you we all know and want in our lives. Would you be more worthy of the people who care about you if you fought and scratched to get your diploma and then a law degree and worked at that firm where you work now, except doing it as an attorney? No again, for the same reasons.”
“Stellan, I—”
He lifted his hand with his palm facing her way and shook his head, interrupting her.
“You can speak until you pass out, Simone, but you forget. I know you, and I knew you before I made my move to claim you. Perhaps I didn’t know it in the depth and completeness I know it now, but that makes no difference to me. It’s speculation, but I would wager it’s accurate that you did not wander into Aryas’s life randomly, and he did not offer to train you as a Dominatrix out of the kindness of his heart and his driving bent to offer nurture and care to everyone who partakes of kink. Even though, if he could, he would. He’s just realistic enough to know he can’t, and he does what he can for our kind. But instead, he met you through other means, and he doesn’t give a damn what brought you to him. He’s just glad you came into his life.”
He was right about that and more, she hadn’t thought about it like that.
However.
“But Stellan—”
“I’m in love with you, Simone.”
She clamped her mouth shut, and her body locked.
Stellan kept at her.
“I know myself, and I don’t give a fuck if it sounds full of conceit, it’s the damned truth that I know the kind of woman who would be worthy of me, and she is not simply beautiful. She is not simply intelligent. She is also not simply stylish. Or brave. Or protective. Or amusing. She would not have to be well travelled or well read or have the love and adoration of scores of friends and family. She would have to be all this, perhaps without the scores of friends and family. For her it would be no family and a handful of friends. And I know this is the woman worthy of me because she’s you.”
Sixx didn’t move. She didn’t because she couldn’t.
She also didn’t because she didn’t know what to say, to do, to think.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t know already that Stellan had fallen for her.
It just never occurred to her he’d share that with her in words.
And further, the reasons why.
He carried on, “And if you say you’re not worthy of me, if you say it’s not safe to love you, then right now I’m demanding another month on our deal, and you will give it to me. If it takes longer, I’ll demand another month and another and another. And I will be perfectly fine if you never truly believe, and those months turn to years and those years turn to decades and you die in your sleep at a very old age, but do it lying beside me.”
It was then the first tear slid down her cheek.
It did not go unnoticed.
“Darling,” he whispered.
“I thought you’d read my books and ask me to leave,” she whispered back.
“Sweetheart, reading those books only made me more determined to make you stay. Frankly, your strength and determination and audacity and will to survive and nurturing spirit to the child you’ve kept safe and alive inside made me wonder if I was worthy of you.”
And it was then the second tear fell.
The third followed it, and there was no stopping them, or the sob that tore up her throat and out between her lips.
And then she was up and immediately down, Stellan sitting in the chair where she’d been, Sixx in his lap, curled close in his arms.
“I-I-I’m sorry,” she blubbered, trying and failing to breathe deep, her voice cracking as she continued, “I’ll p-pull it together. P-p-promise.”
“Why?” he asked.
Why?
The hero never falls apart.
The hero always stays together.
Remains strong.
“Because—”
“Be strong for the world, darling, if that’s what you need to be. But here, with me, you can be whatever you care to be.”
That just made her cry harder, shove closer, her body rocking deeper with her sobs.
Stellan held her tight against him, stroking the nape of her neck with his fingers while she did it.
Eventually, the tears subsided, and Sixx just sat there, curled in his arms, sniffling.
“Can I ask you for something, sweetheart?” he requested.
He could ask her for anything, and she’d fight, steal and die to give it to him.
“Sure,” she answered.
When she did, his arms gave her a squeeze, and she knew she’d amused him because she knew he knew the understatement that word represented.
She’d fight, steal and die for an opportunity to keep giving that to him too.
But his tone was grave when he said gently, “I want to take those things to the garbage bin.”
She pulled her face out of his throat and looked at him.
“If you’re not ready,” he continued quickly, “that’s understandable. But I want you to think about it.”
“I only let her out … for you.”
His head twitched.
“She was only safe to come out … for you,” Sixx went on.
His expression changed, growing fierce as his hands moved to frame her face.
“Now she’s me,” she told him. “We’re together. The idea of that petri
fied me. But she came out, and I didn’t even notice. That’s how safe we were with you.”
A growl rose in his throat, but she didn’t stop speaking.
“I was terrified of you. My dad, I couldn’t keep him safe. 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.”
Something flickered deep in his eyes, and he began, “Simone—”
“If you want to throw those things away,” she talked over him, “then do it.”
“You have to be ready to let go.”
“I was ready the second you grabbed my chin at the side of the gladiator pit. I just didn’t realize it then, baby.”
His gaze took in her face as his lips rumbled, “Fuck, I need to fuck you.”
She shifted in his lap and whispered, “Do it.”
“Not with that shit in this room.”
She pressed her lips together.
Stellan surged up, taking his feet, putting her on hers.
“Do you want to take them, or shall I?” he asked, staring down at the stuff on the ottoman like someone had smeared his gorgeous piece of furniture with feces.
“Do you actually know where the trash bins are?” she teased.
He turned to her. “Darling, as deeply as I love your sense of humor, I must inform you this moment is one that, although I expect they’ll be very rare, you must know I can’t fully appreciate you being amusing.”
She pressed her lips together.
His eyes narrowed on them.
Okay, her man was not feeling like lightening the mood.
So noted.
But she felt like she could climb Camelback Mountain in a single bound and then leap directly through the sky, straight to the stars.
He bent, grabbed the doll, which he handed to her, the crocodile, something he also handed to her, and the frame, which he kept.
It was lucky she tucked the two things in her arm because he then took her free hand and pulled her out of the room.
The Greatest Risk Page 38