17. Alexandra
Monday morning comes too soon.
I’m still wrapped in the warmth of yesterday, in the quiet after, in the way time seemed to bend around us like it wanted to give us space. Lying here now, with the early light slipping through the curtains, it feels dangerously easy to believe this is how it’s supposed to be. Like I found something I wasn’t even brave enough to ask for.
I shift slightly and feel him move with me. Stone stirs behind me, bare skin to bare skin, his arm heavy and possessive around my waist. His breath is warm against my neck. We’re still tangled together, like neither of us bothered to remember the world exists.
And then I do remember.
The thought slips in quietly at first, almost shy—and then it blooms, loud and impossible to ignore.
We didn’t use protection. He came inside me. OH MY GOD! I begged him to come inside me. WHAT THE FUCK, LEX?!
My stomach flips. My mind starts running ahead of me, counting days, consequences, all the practical things I was too lost in him to think about last night. I stare at the pale line of sunlight on the wall and try to slow my breathing so he doesn’t feel the sudden tension in my body.
I should be freaking out more than this. I should be terrified.
But underneath the worry there’s something else—something softer and scarier. The memory of the way he looked at me after, like what we did mattered, like I mattered. The way he held me like he wasn’t planning on letting go.
Still, my brain keeps circling. What if, what if, what if. I’ve never been careless like that. I’ve never trusted anyone enough to be.
And apparently I trusted him. I trust him..
My phone buzzes on the nightstand, too loud in the quiet room, and I flinch like it caught me thinking things I’m not ready to say out loud.
Rasmus: I’ll be there in 30 minutes.
Reality crashes back in.
I put down my phone carefully, but Stone’s grip tightens, pulling me back against him with a low sound in his throat.
“Morning,” he murmurs, voice rough with sleep, his arm tightening around my waist like he’s checking I’m still here. Like he needs to feel it.
“Morning,” I whisper.
I shift slightly, stretching, then sigh. “Rasmus is coming to get me. I have a meeting at the university.”
His body goes still behind me.
“Meeting with who?”
“The Dean,” I say. “And someone from International Programs. Justin won’t be there.”
“And Rasmus,” he repeats, slower now, like he’s weighing the name, measuring it against something internal.
“He’s just helping me,” I add quietly. “And I need to stop by the dorms. I can’t keep stealing Ella’s clothes.”
A soft huff brushes my shoulder, but his arm tightens again — firmer this time, more deliberate.
“I won’t have you out there alone,” he says.
I turn in his arms, eyebrow lifting, pretending I don’t feel the spark that shoots straight through me. “Excuse me?”
His eyes meet mine — dark, intent, unapologetic. “You’re not just some girl passing through here anymore.”
I smile, teasing. “Oh?”
His hand slides to my hip, fingers digging in with a firmness that borders on bruising. Possessive. It isn’t just a hold; it’s an anchor, the kind of touch that wordlessly commands stay where I put you.
“You’re mine. My woman.”
Heat blooms low in my stomach, a thick, honeyed ache that makes my knees weak. “Your woman, huh?”
His mouth curves, slow and dangerous, eyes darkened by a hunger that feels predatory. “Yeah,” he says, his voice a low vibration I feel in my own chest. “That got settled last night.”
He shifts me back until my spine presses into the hard planes of his chest. He feels massive, a wall of heat and muscle surrounding me, sealing off any hope of escape. His hand slips between my thighs—not hesitant, but with the terrifying ease of a man returning to territory he’s already conquered. He knows I’ll open for him. And I do. My pulse thrums against his palm as I yield.
“That’s… a bold interpretation,” I murmur, though the words break as my breath stutters.
“Accurate one,” he counters easily. His teeth graze the sensitive cord of my neck, sending a fresh jolt of electricity through me. “You don’t walk away from me anymore. You don’t disappear into the dark. Not without me knowing exactly where you are.”
Then, quieter—his lips brushing the shell of my ear, his scent filling my senses:
“And I don’t share what’s mine.”
His finger pushes inside me, slow and agonizingly deliberate. He isn’t rushing to find a rhythm; he’s taking inventory. It isn’t just sex. It’s a claiming. “Mmm,” he murmurs against my skin, the sound a dark purr of satisfaction. “Already soaked for me, baby.”
His fingers move in and out, unhurried and arrogant, while his mouth trails a path of fire down my back—my shoulder, the valley of my spine, the shallow dip just above my ass. My body betrays my pride; my hips arch back into his hand without permission, seeking more of that relentless pressure.
He presses me chest-down into the mattress, the cool sheets a sharp contrast to his burning skin. He lifts my hips, sliding a pillow beneath me with practiced efficiency. The position leaves me utterly open, exposed to his gaze, claimed in the most primal sense. He uses his knees to wedge my thighs apart, and then he sinks into me—one smooth, devastating thrust that fills the ache until I can’t breathe.
“Fuck, Stone.”
He stills. He stays deep inside me, a heavy, pulse-pounding weight, holding me there as if he wants me to memorize the exact shape and size of him. He wants me to feel how much of me he’s taken up.
Then he leans over me, his shadow swallowing mine. One hand braces beside my head, his knuckles white against the headboard, his breath ghosting over my damp skin.
“Not that,” he murmurs, his voice a low, rough growl that vibrates through the mattress.
My breath catches, my fingers curling into the sheets.
“I want you screaming my real name when you come.”
He presses in even deeper as he says it, a final, tectonic shift that leaves no room between us. The words aren’t a request; they are the final seal on the contract.
“Not Stone,” he continues, his voice dropping to a jagged whisper, a secret meant only for the woman in his arms. “Cole.”
The name lands heavy — not because it’s unexpected, but because I feel what it costs him to give it.
Stone is armor. Stone is distance. Stone is what the world gets.
Cole is what he wants me to know while he’s inside me, holding me open, trusting me with it in the most intimate way possible.
Names aren’t small things in the club. They’re power. Permission. And he’s giving me his right now, tangled up with desire, with possession, with truth.
“Say it,” he murmurs. It isn’t a command this time; it’s a plea.
“Cole,” I breathe, the name tasting like a secret I was always meant to keep.
The sound of it hits him like a physical blow. His hips jerk forward, a sharp, unguarded motion that lacks his usual calculated precision. It’s like hearing his real name from my lips flips a final switch inside him, shattering the wall he’s kept between us.
“You.” A heavy, soul-deep thrust. “Are.” Another, harder this time, driving the air from my lungs. “Mine.” He bottoms out, his weight pinning me to the bed. “Say it, Lex. Let me hear you say it.”
“Yes,” I gasp, my fingers clawing at the sheets, bunching the fabric until my knuckles ache. “Yours. I’m yours. Please, Cole. More.”
At the sound of his name again, he loses the last of his restraint. His hand reaches beneath me, finding the sensitive heat of my clit, his thumb flicking with a rhythm that knows exactly how to break me. He drives into me from behind, relentless and deep, each stroke a frantic signature on my skin, as if he’s trying to claim every inch of my internal geography.
The pressure builds with terrifying speed, a tide of gold and heat rising behind my eyes.
“Come for me, Lex,” he growls, his voice a gravelly vibration against my spine. “Come knowing exactly who you belong to.”
The world narrows down to the friction of his skin and the sound of his ragged breath. I come. Hard. My body shatters around him, a violent, beautiful undoing. His name tears from my throat, a ragged scream that echoes in the quiet room as the pleasure rips through me in rhythmic waves. He follows me a second later with a low, guttural groan, his body tensing into granite as he spills himself inside me. He doesn’t pull back; he pushes deeper, as if he refuses to leave a single part of me untouched by his mark.
He finally collapses beside me, though he doesn’t let go. He hauls me back against his sweat-slicked chest, his arms wrapping around me in a crushing embrace that says he’s never letting go.
For a long minute, there is no conversation. There is only the frantic, synchronized thud of two hearts trying to find their rhythm again, the heavy sound of breathing, and the messy, beautiful tangle of limbs that no longer know where one ends and the other begins.
His fingers find my temple, brushing a few strands from my face, and he presses the softest kiss there, then another at the curve of my neck. The touch is unhurried, almost protective, so different from the storm we just made.
“I don’t want you walking around without eyes on you,” he says eventually, lips still warm against my skin.
My smile fades just enough to be real. “Cole—”
The way his body responds to hearing it again — softer, closer — tells me everything.
“I’ll have Ink and Neon nearby,” he continues. “Not hovering, just close enough to bleed for you if it comes to that.”
I pull back slightly. “I don’t need bodyguards.”
His thumb presses into my hip, grounding. Certain. “You don’t get to decide that part,” he says calmly. “Because you’re mine, and keeping you safe is my priority.”
I open my mouth to argue — then stop when I really look at him.
He's not controlling or jealous, but protective. Certain.
“This isn’t about Rasmus,” he adds quietly. “Or Justin. It’s about the fact that people already noticed you.”
That gives me pause.
“…Fine,” I say after a beat. “But if they start acting like shadows, I’m complaining.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. “Deal.”
He presses another kiss to my temple.
“I’ll walk you down.”
The possessiveness in his voice sends a familiar, dangerous thrill through me.
We dress reluctantly, like neither of us really wants to be the first one to break the spell. The air between us feels charged, heavy with everything we haven’t figured out how to say yet. Every small movement—buttons, shoes, the rustle of fabric—feels too loud after what we shared.
When we step outside, the morning hits me all at once: cool air, pale sky, the ordinary world waiting like it has no idea what just changed. Rasmus is already there, leaning against his car, phone in his hand, expression bored and watchful at the same time. He straightens the second he sees us.
Stone doesn’t hesitate.
He cups my face and kisses me deeply, thoroughly, like he’s staking a claim with his mouth. There’s nothing rushed about it. Nothing subtle. It’s the kind of kiss that makes a statement without a single word, that tells anyone watching exactly where I belong. His hand slides into my hair, holding me exactly where he wants me, and my knees go a little weak despite myself.
For a second I forget Rasmus, the street, the entire rest of my life. There’s only the warmth of him, the steady certainty in the way he touches me, like he’s not afraid of what this looks like. Like he wants it seen.
When he finally pulls back, his forehead rests against mine, our breaths still tangled together. I can feel my pulse everywhere.
“Text me,” he says quietly. “When you’re done.”
I nod, breathless.