5. Stellan
STELLAN
Isleep.
I sleep for six hours and seventeen minutes by the bedside clock. When I open my eyes there’s morning light low on the ceiling. The river is grey outside. Clementine is asleep on her side with her back against my chest, and my cock is still in her.
I sleep.
I haven’t slept like that in twelve years.
Not one stretch. Not three hours in a row, not four.
I sleep in segments—ninety minutes here, two hours there—broken by the part of my brain that keeps watch even when I’m in my own bed.
I’ve slept badly for so long I forgot what the morning was supposed to feel like.
This is what it feels like.
Every part of me has been resting against another part of me.
The muscles at the back of my neck have gone soft.
The inside of my chest is warmer than the outside, something I don’t think I’ve noticed since I was a kid.
My body is mine again instead of something I’ve spent twelve years just getting by inside.
A woman is asleep on me.
I don’t move.
She’s breathing slow and even. Her hand is on my hand on her belly. She’s fully on me—she hasn’t lifted off my cock since I put her in this bed last night. The place where I’m inside her is warm and wet and home.
I watch the light come up.
Six months watching her in her shop, three days watching her in mine, and I’m done pretending I don’t know what this is.
I’m in love with her. I’m not going to use the word out loud yet—I don’t say words I haven’t earned—but I’m not going to lie to myself about it either.
I’m not going to have her here under any other premise.
I’ve been in love with Clementine Bishop since the morning of the smiley face, and everything I’ve done since then has been the slow careful work of building a life I could ask her into.
I planned for her. I want her to know that. I’m not improvising any of this.
She stirs.
Her hand on my hand tightens. She breathes in. She hums low in her throat—half waking, half stretching, careful not to move her hips. Three days in and her body already knows not to move. It’s one of the most arousing things I’ve ever felt in my life.
“Stellan.”
“Yes.”
“I’m still on you.”
I tighten my arm around her ribs.
She shifts the smallest amount, careful not to lift off me, and the warm clutch of her makes my cock thicken.
“You slept.”
“Yes.”
She’s quiet for a long moment.
“You don’t usually.”
“No.”
Her hand tightens on mine where it rests on her belly, and I feel her go still, listening.
“How long?”
“Twelve years.”
I feel the number settle into her, the slow breath she takes around it where her back rests against my chest.
“You haven’t slept a whole night in twelve years.”
“No. Not one stretch.”
“And tonight you?—“
“Six hours and seventeen minutes.”
She breathes out. The breath leaves her slow and heavy.
“Stellan.”
I tuck my face against the curve of her shoulder.
“I’m going to cry, I think.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me and you said it like it was math.”
“It is math.”
“It’s also?—“
“I know what it also is.”
She doesn’t say love. I don’t either. But the word sits between us, patient.
I move my hand on her belly. I trace with my thumb.
I’m very aware that we haven’t used a condom once in three days and that I told her last night, in plain words, exactly what I was planning to do about that.
She didn’t say no. She hasn’t said no to anything I’ve asked since the bakery.
I’m not going to take silence as a yes—I’m going to keep asking.
“Clementine.”
“Yes.”
“Is what I said last night still yes?”
“Which part?”
My thumb moves over the curve of her belly, where I want everything I’m about to ask for.
“All of it. Every part.”
“I do.”
“The part about a baby.”
“Especially that part.”
I close my eyes. I press my forehead to the back of her hair.
“Why?”
“Because you said it like math.”
I laugh once. Quietly. Into her hair.
“I want to touch you,” she says. “I haven’t been allowed to since the bakery. Can I move?”
“Yes.”
She turns in my arms—slow, careful, keeping me inside her the way I’ve taught her in three days—and rolls to face me. Her body is bare. There are pink marks on her thighs from my hands. A faint hickey low on her throat. Her hair is a mess. Her eyes are dark and steady and absolutely awake.
“Stellan.”
“Mm.”
“I want you to fuck me slow.”
“Yes.”
“Not—you’re not doing anything else. You’re not on the phone and you’re not watching anyone. There’s nothing happening except this.”
I draw my thumb slow along her cheekbone.
“I want you to do it like that’s the only thing in the world.”
“It is.”
I move.
I roll her onto her back. I keep my cock in her—she’s swollen and wet around me, soaked the way she’s been since she woke up on me. I settle between her thighs, full weight on her, my own weight on my forearms, my forehead against hers. And I move.
Slow and long, the way she asked.
The room is still grey. The river is still grey. The radiators have started their morning knock. I can hear a delivery truck down on the street somewhere west of the building, and the slow hum of the city coming awake, and her breath catching at the bottom of every stroke.
I’ve had her hard—the prep counter at her bakery, this kitchen table, the bathroom wall yesterday when she came out of the shower wet and looked at me.
This isn’t that. I’ve never done this, not like this, not with anyone, not in twelve years—just sunk all the way into a woman and stayed, because there’s nowhere I’d rather be than buried in her, feeling her go soft and open around me one slow inch at a time.
“Stellan.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Look at me.”
I look at her. I haven’t looked away. Her eyes are on mine.
Her lips are parted. Her breath catches at the bottom of every thrust. I move slow.
Long. All the way out, almost—until just the head of my cock holds her open—and then all the way back in, slow, until she’s taken the whole length and the breath breaks out of her.
She’s so wet the drag of it is the only loud thing in the room.
I feel every inch of her around me. I watch her face take it.
“Stellan.”
I kiss her jaw.
“You said something to me last night.”
“Yes.”
I draw back almost all the way, then sink home, and her breath breaks at the bottom of it.
“Say it again.”
“You’re mine.”
“After that.”
“You’re going to have my baby.”
“After that.”
I look at her.
She’s quiet. Her eyes don’t leave mine. She’s asking for the thing I haven’t said. I’ll say it. She’s earned it, and saying it is the same as breathing now.
“Clementine.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been mine since April.”
“Mine.”
I keep moving in her, slow, the words coming easier than I expected them to.
“I love you.”
“Stellan.”
“Yes.”
She goes tight around me, a long helpless clutch I feel to the base of my spine.
“Say it again.”
“I love you.”
She makes a sound that isn’t crying and isn’t quite a laugh. Her hand comes up to my jaw. She holds my face. Her thumb traces my cheekbone. I move slow. Long. Her thighs come around me. Her heels press against the back of my thighs. We haven’t stopped looking at each other.
“I love you,” she says.
“Yes.”
I sink in slow on the words, all the way to the root, and watch her lips part around the stretch of me.
“Since the first muffin.”
“I know.”
“You knew.”
“I knew the first morning.”
She closes her eyes for a beat. Opens them again.
“I knew when I drew the smiley face and I had to do it deliberately.”
“I know.”
“You watched me draw it and decided.”
“I did.”
I move once, slow, deeper. She arches.
“Stellan.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to come.”
“On me.”
“Yes.”
She comes on my cock with my forehead on hers and her hand on my jaw and her eyes locked on mine.
Slow. Full-bodied. Her pussy clutching me in long deep waves, wetter with each one.
Almost silent—just the shudder running through her and the small sound she makes at the end.
I’m inside her. I’m moving. I’m watching her.
I’m not, for one second, thinking about anything else.
I come inside her without pulling out, my eyes still on hers, my breath gone ragged across her mouth, and I hold there—buried, stopped, neither of us looking away—until the last of it leaves me.
We don’t speak for a long time after.
She’s on her back under me. I’m still inside her.
The light has come up enough now to make the river fully visible—grey, slow, ice along the edges.
The radiators in the apartment knock once and settle.
Somewhere downstairs a delivery truck reverses.
Her hand stays on my jaw. I trace a slow line across her hip with my thumb.
The sheets smell like her now. They’ve smelled like her for three days.
I want them to smell like her for the next sixty years.
“Stellan.”
“Yes.”
“I have to call the bakery.”
“It’s closed today.”
I press a kiss to her temple, and her breath stutters where she’s still wrapped around me.
“It’s closed yesterday and today already.”
“Three days. I have a sign up. I said you were sick.”
She pulls back enough to look at me. Her eyes narrow.
“Stellan.”
I spread my hand flat on her sternum, over the quick of her heart.
“You’re a control freak.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes are still narrowed at me, but she’s soft and wet around my cock, giving the lie to the look.
“I knew that already.”
“Mm-hm.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I know.”
She drops her forehead back to mine. Her thumb traces the line of my jaw.
“What about Mrs. Petrosyan?”
“Mrs. Petrosyan has been getting deliveries from a courier all three mornings. She thinks it’s lovely. She’s also, I think, suspicious about who’s paying for it. I’m not going to lie to her if she asks me directly.”
“Mrs. Petrosyan?—“
“Likes me. We had coffee Tuesday. She approves.”
She makes a small sound. Half laugh, half disbelief.
“Stellan.”
“Mm.”
“You had coffee with my eighty-one-year-old neighbor.”
“I did.”
She clenches around me when she laughs, helpless, and I feel every flutter of it the length of my cock.
“You had coffee with her while I was asleep on you in your apartment.”
“Mm-hm.”
She laughs into my throat. The laugh dissolves into something almost crying, then back into a quieter laugh. I wrap my arms around her and I don’t move.
“You’re insane,” she says. “I love you.”
“Yes.”
“Stellan.”
I touch my lips to her forehead.
“What happens now?”
“Now you stay. Now we do this. You reopen your shop. I sit in the corner the way I have for six months. You put a smiley face on my cup the way you have for six months. The rest of the world doesn’t know that anything has changed.
And in the meantime I’m closing what I’m closing, I’m stopping what I’m stopping, you’re growing my baby, and I’m taking you to bed every night. ”
“That’s a lot of plan.”
“I’ve had six months.”
“Yes you have.”
She closes her eyes. She breathes against my throat. Her hand finds the spot on my chest above my heart and stays there.
I kiss her.
I haven’t kissed her enough. I’ve fucked her enough—I’ll fuck her more—but I haven’t kissed her the way a man kisses someone he’s decided to keep.
I kiss her now. Slow, deep. My cock still in her.
Her hand still on my jaw. The radiator clanks again.
The river moves outside. Antonin texts the building intercom—I can hear the buzz from the kitchen—to confirm the morning car. He won’t come up. He knows.
“Stellan.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to keep working?”
“I’m going to take a few more contracts that are mine to take. I’m going to pass the rest to Lucas. I’m not going to take any wet contracts again.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
She nods against my chest, slow.
“Stellan.”
I nod against her hair.
“Then let me see your face when you say that to your phone today.”
“What do you mean?”
“The next time you get a call. The next time someone asks you for something you used to say yes to. Let me be on your cock when you tell them no.”
“You want to be on my cock when I close down twelve years of my life.”
“Yes.”
“Good girl.”
She smiles. Quiet smile. The kind of smile I’m going to remember in the dark for the rest of my life.
“Eat something,” I say. “I’ll feed you. Get up.”
“I don’t want to lift off you.”
“You don’t have to.”
I pick her up.
I carry her—still on me, still wet—through the apartment to the kitchen, where I left coffee setup last night for exactly this morning. I pour two cups one-handed. I put bread in the toaster. I sit on the stool at the counter with her in my lap, her cheek on my shoulder, her thighs around my hips.
She looks at the kitchen. She looks at me.
“This is our morning,” she says.
“Mm.”
“For the rest of forever.”
“Yes.”
“Good,” she says. She takes the coffee from my hand. She takes a sip. She leans against my chest. The toaster pops behind us, and I’ve never been less afraid of a morning in my life.