She also did.
“Kind of,” she replied quietly.
“I’m not everyone,” he stated.
No, he wasn’t.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“My win,” he said the same way, and she couldn’t argue it was. Then he said the words she was experiencing. “And it feels shit.”
Damn.
“If you ever knew, which you won’t,” he continued, “just sayin’, you’d wish you didn’t.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” she returned quickly.
“I’m sure for the both of us.”
“Branch—”
“Text me what you need at the store.”
“Honey—”
“Just text me, baby. Yeah?”
She closed her mouth and let the silence linger, but when he didn’t break it, she did.
“I’ll text you.”
“Cool. See you tonight.”
And there was that.
So she’d grab hold.
“Yes, Branch. See you tonight.”
“Later, Angie.”
“Later, honey.”
He disconnected and Evangeline stared at her phone, feeling uneasy regardless of the fact she had the task of writing out a grocery list, texting the damned thing to Branch, meaning he’d be shopping for them and also home for her to cook for him that night.
Still, she had him.
But she didn’t and he was holding huge things back from her.
It was coming clear he could be stubborn too.
She already knew that.
What she was sensing for the first time was that maybe they were evenly matched.
But in any game, someone had to win.
And for the first time since they’d started to play it, Evangeline was worried that she might be the one who would lose.
* * *
That afternoon, Evangeline was walking into the office after she’d been through an inspection with a client, when Mercy, the receptionist/assistant the agents used, greeted her.
“Hey, Evangeline,” she said on a smile, and Evangeline started to smile back and offer her own greeting when Mercy carried on, “a Mr. Lange came in a few minutes ago. Since you were on the board scheduled to return about now, I asked him if he wanted to wait. He said yes so I showed him to your office.”
For a second, she didn’t know who Mr. Lange was.
“Mr. Lange?” she asked.
“Mr. Lange,” Mercy replied, with emphasis, her smile turning huge, her eyes doing the same.
With that, she knew.
Stellan Lange, a Dom at the Honey, actually the Dom at the Honey, since Aryas often traveled the West to oversee all his clubs so he wasn’t in town that much to take that role.
In other words, Amélie was queen, Aryas the king, and Stellan was prince regent, reigning over the club in the king’s absence.
He was also a good guy. She liked him. And if she admitted it, she would have actually liked to have played with him, mostly because he was just that handsome.
In truth, until Branch, she’d actually never met a man as handsome as Stellan. Tall and dark, lean and fierce, Dom of Doms, in some of her fantasies pre- (and in most of them post-) Kevin, she’d imagined having a go at switching him.
And she didn’t mean that in the way she’d use that tool on his ass (though that was part of the fantasy).
She meant convincing him with her awesome Mistress powers to switch sides.
This she didn’t know at the time was foreshadowing of the fact that what she was looking for, but didn’t know it, was an alpha-sub.
As strange as it might seem, however, she’d always thought he’d hook up with Amélie. Why she thought this, since they both were Dominants, she didn’t know. They just suited each other with their mutual sophistication, and any time they spent together, which was often at the club, you could sense the chemistry. And as Evangeline well knew, two Doms could get what they needed, playing together with a sub or subs, ending that play with each other.
Although it was a definite surprise, it wasn’t outlandish that he’d show at her office. When he’d met her, he’d thrown some business her way, friends and associates looking for homes. It was a nice thing to do, considering they all were wealthy so her commissions had been amazing. And he hadn’t stopped doing this.
But she hadn’t found his home for him, though she’d been to it a few of times for parties he’d invited her to, because he was a good guy. They were business networking parties and she’d been able to score some clients.
The other parties were of a different variety.
Stellan liked to play and he took that home with private parties he hosted that he was choosy about who attended.
It was an honor to get the invites, and although she didn’t come to play, she’d definitely gone.
Stellan threw one heck of a party, in a number of ways.
So she’d enjoyed them.
This was mostly watching him work. With his demanding, affectionate style of Domination, she’d gotten a ton of ideas.
But now, smiling at Mercy and mumbling her thanks before heading toward the hall, she thought it would be surprising if he was looking for a new place. His house was close to Amélie’s, though in a basin in Paradise Valley opposite Amélie’s mountain. The streets leading to it were right in the city but they seemed to meander through massive lots that looked more like Southwestern desert ranches and not the veritable mansions they were.
When she’d first gone to his home, she’d pictured him riding up to her on a horse, one of those cool hats on his head that had a wide brim and not much curve, a whip coiled at his hip (of course).
But as far as she could tell, Stellan didn’t even own a pair of jeans. He wore suits to the club, expensive, tailored ones. And when he worked a sub, he wore banded waistband or drawstring, low-slung, loose-fitting men’s lounge pants, his chest and feet bare (if he wasn’t nude).
In fact, remembering how Stellan’s sculpted ass looked in those pants, Evangeline decided she needed to get some of those for Branch because Stellan looked amazing in them, but Branch would rock the heck out of them.
As she walked toward her office, Evangeline turned her mind from those pants and back to Stellan showing out of the blue.
He might be there (she hoped, she wouldn’t refer him to another agent) because he was looking for a new place. His sprawling, ranch-style, Southwestern pueblo mansion with its slanted terra-cotta tile roofs, heavy, carved-wood doors and log-adorned back veranda was spectacular and oddly fit someone who looked more like he worked on Wall Street and owned a penthouse filled with leather and chrome.
But it had to cost millions, and if he was ready to trade up, Evangeline was ready to help him find what was perfect for him.
She turned into her office and saw him sitting in one of her desk chairs, his ankle on his opposite knee, wearing one of his elegant suits that highlighted the broadness of his shoulders (a broadness that had nothing to do with shoulder pads, she very well knew).
His dark head was turned to look over one of those broad shoulders, his hooded, midnight-blue eyes were on her.
Yes, she would have liked to have the opportunity to switch an alpha like him, in a number of ways.
But she had the most magnificent alpha-sub there was, so she’d gotten exactly what she needed.
She just had to find a way to keep him.
“Stellan, this is a surprise,” she said with a smile.
“Close the door,” he replied.
She felt a slither she didn’t know how to read, not simply at what his command could mean but the way he delivered it, the blatant Dom coming from him. And even as a Domme herself, she noted that slither was nice.
It also was ominous.
She closed the door and, gaze to him, walked behind her desk.
She sat.
He didn’t make her wait.
“You were at the club a while ago.”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
“Rumor has it, you spent most of your time there in the booth with Dillinger.”
He knew Branch’s last name?
Which meant he knew Branch?
“You know Branch?” she queried.
“I know a lot of things,” he replied, an answer but also not.
She powered through that because she had to.
Branch wanted things on the down low and she wanted to keep them there for him, and no longer just because she’d signed that document.
“I’d really rather not talk about that, Stellan.”
“Have you turned?”
She wasn’t following.
“Turned?”
“Against your nature,” he explained.
“You mean, away from the life?” she asked.
“Away from you,” he answered. “Who you are and how you like it.”
She shifted in her seat and responded, “Stellan, again, I’d really rather not—”
“There are parts of me that might understand that. He’s good-looking and it wasn’t lost on anyone you had a fascination with Damian. Doms enjoying subordinate positions under the rule of an advanced Dom isn’t unheard of. However, I’ve seen your work, at least what you’d show, and you’re not a sub, Evangeline. So it concerns me you’ve turned from your nature after having Damian.”
“You think Branch is a Dom?” she asked, not entirely surprised about this.
His brows went up briefly before he shifted out of his apparent surprise and returned, “We’ll talk about Dillinger in a second.”
She closed her mouth, knowing how she felt about that, and it wasn’t pleasant.
It was just ominous.
“If you need to break yourself back in, and you’re concerned about working with Damian and the extent you enjoy that, then I’ll take a female and male sub and we’ll work them together,” he offered then shrugged. “If it goes somewhere that we share something together along with our work with our slaves, to be honest, this would please me. I’ve always found you more than attractive, so feeling that, it was regrettable, knowing your leanings. However, although I think you’ve made the right decision to steer clear of Damian as the extremes he needs in play don’t coincide with your style, you’d be safer working with me in an effort to return to finding what you need rather than being with Dillinger.”
“I … this offer is lovely, Stellan,” she said softly, stunned in a nice way to learn he found her “more than attractive” even if that no longer factored in the slightest. “However, without sharing too much because it’s private, I’ll just say you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Just you saying that, Evangeline, means I do. Because you’re a real estate agent with a house in Willo and a talent with a switch. What you’re not is the kind of woman who should be with the kind of man Dillinger is.”
She felt her chest seize so she was forced to wheeze out, “Stellan—”
“He’s not a good man,” he declared.
“How do you know that?” she whispered.
“Because I’m not a good man,” he answered immediately. “And the kind of man I am knows the circles a man like Dillinger doesn’t quite run in because he doesn’t quite exist, which is another reason you should be cautious. But something else I know is the kind of not-good I am is absolutely not the same as the kind of not-good Dillinger is.”
Branch didn’t “quite exist”?
What on earth did that mean?
She didn’t ask.
She started, “I think this is something that we shouldn’t—”
“Aryas sent Dillinger to deal with Kevin,” he shared.
And she relaxed.
“I know that, Stellan,” she informed him. “And I also know how he did that. Not because Aryas shared. Because Branch told me.”
“Has he told you it all?” he asked.
Evangeline tensed again.
“What do you mean when you say, ‘it all’?” she asked back.
“I’ve no idea. But you asking that means he hasn’t shared it.”
Damn it
“That’s not your business,” Evangeline declared.
“He hasn’t,” he again accurately deduced. “And I can’t share because the kind of man Dillinger is, I don’t know the extent of what there is to share. Which is another concern. However, just the not knowing is of greater concern, considering what we both know he’s capable of.”
Even if he was flipping her out, she was beginning to get angry.
“You do know I’m an adult and can make decisions for myself,” she remarked.
He unhooked his ankle from his knee and leaned slightly her way. “What I also know, Leenie,” he started gently, “is that you chose badly with Kevin. And it’s my opinion you chose badly with Damian, even if Kevin explicitly requested him. It’s not that Damian isn’t in your league. It’s just that Damian doesn’t share your style and you should never have had anything to do with him.”
She felt her face turn hard. “So, if you knew all this, maybe you could have shared while I was with Kevin or before we had our scene with Damian.”
His face turned as gentle as his tone had been and it made him so handsome it almost hurt to look at him.
“I don’t want to hurt you, honey. And I’m not saying this to cause harm to you. I’m trying to make a point and I’m using that in an effort to get you to listen to me. Like everyone, I was surprised at what Kevin did. The fact he wasn’t good enough for you, I always knew. What he was hiding, I didn’t. And I’m not saying you should have. What I’m saying is, we all need to learn from our mistakes. Including you.”
“Branch isn’t a mistake,” she retorted.
“You might be right,” he returned. “I don’t know him. I just know of him and in that, I don’t know much. I’m just here because you came to the club. You didn’t partake. Rumor flew you were with one of Aryas’s men. I was there that night so I know which man and what I know of him, and what I feel for you, with you again disappearing from the club and with what had happened to you there, I needed to reach out and urge you to be cautious.”
“Don’t you think I’d be that anyway?” she demanded to know.
“What I think is that Dillinger is a man with a certain manner that reminds me of Damian in the extremes he almost assuredly needs to get off,” he replied.
Damn, he hadn’t read that wrong.
“Branch isn’t Damian,” she asserted.
“No, I sense he’s far more dangerous.”
It was with those words that the memory hit her like a bullet.
The feel of Branch’s strong arms wrapped around her, holding her to his tall, hard, warm body, and the sound of him asking, “What can I do?”
Branch Dillinger was not a bad man.
He was not a dangerous man.
He was a damaged man who lived the life he felt he needed to lead.
What he did to Kevin he did cognizantly, dispensing the justice he felt needed delivered, doing it with no regrets.
And Evangeline was in no position to judge him for that because she wasn’t sure he should regret it and she didn’t care what that said about her. Kevin might not get the help he needed but one thing she was certain about, with the justice Branch described he’d imparted, it was unlikely Kevin would ever harm anyone like he’d harmed her.
Aryas was not a bad man and she knew that to her bones. She also knew, even if he lived in a world where things had to be done she knew nothing about and didn’t want to, he would not work with people he didn’t respect, people who hadn’t earned that respect.
Not to mention Branch called Olly friend. She didn’t know Olly but no way would Amélie have anyone in her life, even through her partner, who hadn’t earned the privilege of belonging there.
She could understand with what Stellan knew about Branch and with what had happened to her that he’d be overly cautious and want to counsel her to be the same. And it was sweet he’d acted on that.
She might
have had the wool pulled over her eyes with Kevin, but so had Aryas, Amélie …
Stellan.
And she’d decided to go all-in with Branch, knowing what he was capable of, he gave that to her himself. She’d done this because she knew he was worth it and he’d done not one thing since to prove her wrong.
In fact, he’d done a great many things to prove her right.
But she’d decided to go all-in.
That was where she was and that was where she was going to remain until one of them won.
She just had to hope it was her.
“I know what I’m doing, honey,” she replied to Stellan.
His blue gaze held hers for some moments before he dipped his chin and sat back in his chair.
“Now that we’ve got that relatively straight,” Evangeline sought to change the subject, “Leigh said something about you two having a thing. Is that all good?”
“I wanted her,” he announced bluntly.
She stared at him.
“Another lesson to learn, Leenie, this one you can learn from me. If you want something, don’t play games, because it hurts like fuck when the person you’re playing doesn’t know how you’re playing it, meaning you have to watch her fall in love with another man.”
She ignored his warning about games because she couldn’t go there.
But regardless, what he’d admitted about Leigh took precedence over all else.
“Oh my God, honey,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
Though, she had.
Just not that the chemistry they had run that deep for Stellan.
“Apparently, neither did Leigh.”
“Oh my God,” she repeated.
He lifted one shoulder in an urbane shrug. “It doesn’t matter now. He makes her happy and doesn’t hide that she does the same for him. I wanted her but I fucked around and didn’t win her. I still want to see her happy. I didn’t like the man when he first came to the club but he’s proved worthy of her in a variety of ways since. And it’d make my feelings for her a lie, not to mention make me the biggest form of asshole, if I wasn’t happy for her once she’d found what she wanted.”
“That’s very sweet,” she told him gently.
“Don’t mistake me for sweet, Evangeline,” he returned. “My subs do that often and they pay for making that mistake.”