Chapter 21 Stella
TWENTY-ONE
STELLA
It was a week later, and Axel was still babying me. At first, it was endearing, and I appreciated it. Now, it was driving me crazy.
Luna and her mother had taken over everything at Scandinavian Sweets for me once we’d left the hospital.
They told me that since the next morning was Saturday, they could gather the troops and handle everything for one day, and I was to just rest. Axel and everyone else in the room had agreed, much to my dissent.
“Plus, we’re closed the next two days anyway, so just take the three-day break, enjoy it, and I’ll see you back at work Tuesday,” Luna had all but demanded.
This was why she was my best friend, though a bossy one.
Since Nell had already been training for the role, we moved her into Milo’s position as the late-shift baker while still allowing her to finish her morning classes. Beverly also worked to find a few employee options to cover Nell’s shifts at the counter.
Milo wouldn’t be coming back. Not just because of what he had done to me, but also because once he was arrested, the cops found out he had two previous instances of stalking women.
In both of those cases, he had broken into the women’s homes and stolen trinkets to remember them by.
One of those trinkets was the victim’s grandmother’s diamond brooch, valued at over five thousand dollars.
Anna had informed me that moved his charged from a small misdemeanor up to a felony which carried a higher jail sentence.
Apparently, Axel’s friends Tex and Kitty, whom I’d never met but had heard about, had played integral roles in finding some of that information about Milo.
Two days after the hospital, two officers had visited me at Axel’s place.
They informed us that Milo had confessed to starting the fire.
He had intentionally shut off the water so the sprinklers wouldn’t activate, hoping the flames would cause as much damage as possible.
I shuddered, remembering what the police had told me.
“Why would he do that?” I asked, not really directing the question at any officer in particular.
“It appears he had hoped it would scare you into staying with him,” the officer said.
“He planned to come see you that night and convince you to stay with him for your safety. However, he suffered minor injuries when the Molotov cocktail ignited prematurely, leaving him with small burns on his hand.”
“He couldn’t chance showing up at the scene with a burned hand,” Axel said quietly beside me.
When his plan failed, Milo had panicked, and he began devising another one—this time intending to kidnap me. Apparently, if he couldn’t have me, then no one could.
There was a part of me that would always feel like I should have caught something in Milo earlier, but then I remembered Ruthie’s quote. With that level of guilt gone, I moved my attention to Axel and me.
I knew he felt guilty about how his mom had lied and manipulated me, but I told him I had already been skeptical and wasn’t upset with him. I was more upset that his mother would do that to her own children.
He had called them the next day, filling them in on what had gone down with Milo, and they hadn’t even asked if I was okay. They only wanted to know if he was coming home to run the company or not. He told me that was it for him and he was officially cutting them off like his sister had.
Again, I felt bad for him, but I told him I would support whatever decision he wanted to make.
Tammy had covered Axel’s shifts at the bar, and Archer told him to take Monday off and help me with anything I needed.
He chose to work from my bakery the rest of the week.
When I was in the kitchen, he worked from my office.
When I was working the register or the front of the store, he sat at a table in front.
Every day while I worked, he typed away on his laptop, chatting away with Kitty and Tex and also running various background checks for Wade and Vince.
Axel slept with me every night and was constantly checking in on me throughout the day, but there was no intimacy. He was around me twenty-four-seven. Never let me out of his sight. But he was also distant.
Whenever I kissed him or tried to set some naked times in motion, he would back away.
“I’ve waited my whole life to find someone like you,” he tried to explain. “I can wait another week until you heal. We’ll get there, ?lskling. I just want you to take the time you need for your arm to get better.”
I understood that, but sometimes I just wanted to snuggle—naked snuggles were even better.
“The doctor didn’t say I couldn’t have sex,” I reminded him. “He said I just had to be careful for seven days. Today is day seven, in case you didn’t remember.”
I decided to get creative. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
We had been staying at his place. He hadn’t said anything, but I thought he was worried I would have trauma being in my own place. I wasn’t sure, since I hadn’t had that opportunity to try staying at my place yet, but I really liked Axel’s loft, so I didn’t mind.
After we got back to his place today, he had gone down to pick up a package at the front desk and get the mail, and I seized my opportunity.
I quickly went to the kitchen, pulled out my supplies, and got ready.
When he returned, it was to find me in the kitchen with a pair of black joggers on and nothing else. There were, however, some strategically placed dollops of pastry cream on my chest and decolletage area.
He froze as he entered the kitchen, staring at me. He stayed liked that for more than a minute, and I realized he was likely torn in his emotions of what to do. So, I would assist him in making that decision.
“If my place hadn’t caught fire and Milo hadn’t tried to hurt me, what would you be doing right now?” I asked.
“Stella, your place did catch fire, and that asshole did hurt you.” He said it softly, but there was definitely anger behind those words.
“Let me ask again,” I said, taking a step closer to him. “If the situation with Milo and the fire at my bakery hadn’t both happened, what would you be doing right now?”
He paused momentarily, glancing over my entire body, fixated on the areas covered by the cream.
“Licking that off your body and enjoying every swipe of my tongue.” His voice was deep and husky as he put that visual in my head.
“Axel, I’m a grown woman who can go through something traumatic, process what happened, and come out better on the other side. I don’t need you to coddle me. What will help is to feel normal. Be treated normal. I want you to treat me like you would if the attack and the fire hadn’t happened.”
I knew the wheels were turning in his head. I knew this was hard for him, but I also needed him to know I wasn’t going to fall apart.
“Axel, I’m not going to break down. I’m upset about what happened, but it’s over now. I want to move on. In order to do that, I need you to move on with me. Be with me.”
He stared into my eyes as if assessing whether or not I was telling the truth.
Then his gaze raked over my body and turned scorching hot.
I saw the turmoil in his head as he wrangled with what to do, but he didn’t take long to make that decision.
In an instant, he crouched down in front of me, his mouth latched on to my cream-covered nipple, and his hands went behind my thighs, lifting me up and placing me on the kitchen counter.
His left arm moved behind my back pulling me close as he licked his way across my chest.
“Mmmm… You have never tasted better,” he growled, causing me to chuckle.
“I’m pretty sure that’s the cream,” I teased and then moaned as he sucked hard.
Yeah, this was a great idea.
“No. It’s all you, ?lskling.”
That nickname was my undoing. When he called me that, I was putty in his hands.
Within seconds, he had whipped all his clothes off and returned to kissing me, spending extra time on each of my nipples.
“Need to make sure I get all the cream so you aren’t sticky,” he mumbled with a smile on his lips.
His need and hunger were high, but his speed slowed as he leisurely removed my sweatpants and underwear. He carried me over to the sofa in the living room, positioning me in his lap so I was sitting on top of him.
I slowly ground my hips into his, feeling his hard length beneath me. He moved his hands to the sides of my face, cupping me appreciatively.
“I love you, Stella,” he said, and my heart squeezed as a smile formed on my face. “I know it’s early, but I don’t give a fuck. I love you, and I want you to know it.”
I also didn’t care that it was early in the relationship. We’d been through a lot together, and when you knew, you just knew.
“I love you too, ?lskling,” I told him, using his Swedish term of endearment in reverse.
He kissed me briefly and then pulled his lips back only a sliver. “You’re sexy when you speak Swedish. It turns me on.”
“Everything turns you on,” I joked to him.
“Mmm…with you…yes. Let me show you how turned on you make me.” He kissed me and then used his hands and mouth all over my body to do just that.
An hour later, sated on top of him in bed, I thought about how much my life had changed over the last two months. The best change in my life was the man I was currently snuggled up against.