Chapter 9 Stephan
nine
Stephan
A week later, I wake to sunlight streaming through Iris's window and Allie's voice demanding breakfast.
The wounds have started to heal. The settlement has returned to its normal rhythms. And somewhere in the past seven days, this place stopped feeling like a temporary stop and started feeling like home.
Iris is already up, arguing with Allie about whether chocolate, scavenged from a trader last month, counts as a breakfast food.
"It has milk in it," Allie insists. "Milk is breakfast."
"That's not how nutrition works."
"Steph, tell her chocolate is breakfast."
I lean against the doorframe, watching them. Mother and daughter, bickering over nothing, alive and safe and here.
"Chocolate is definitely not breakfast," I say.
Allie's betrayed expression is magnificent. "I trusted you."
"Your mother's right. Eat your oatmeal."
"Oatmeal is gross."
"Life is hard."
She huffs and stomps to the table, shooting me wounded looks the entire time. Iris catches my eye and mouths thank you.
After breakfast, after Allie has been sent off to her lessons, Iris pulls me back into the bedroom. The door clicks shut and she's already working at my shirt buttons.
"Eager?" I catch her wrists, slow her down.
"We have three hours." Her eyes are dark with want. "I plan to use them."
"Is that right?" I back her toward the bed instead, watching her eyes widen. "And here I thought I was in charge. On the bed." I release her wrists. "Now."
She obeys, settling on the mattress, and I take my time stripping off my shirt. Let her watch. Her gaze tracks over my chest, the ink, the scars, before dropping lower to where I'm already half-hard in my jeans.
"Take off your clothes," I tell her.
She pulls her shirt over her head, then reaches back to unhook her bra. The movement makes her breasts lift and I have to adjust myself through my jeans. When she starts on her pants, I stop her.
"Slower."
She does. Unbuttons them one-handed, drags the zipper down with agonizing slowness. Hooks her thumbs in the waistband and pushes them down her hips inch by inch. By the time she's completely naked, I'm rock hard and aching.
I strip off my jeans and join her on the bed, settling between her thighs. The morning light catches on her skin, highlights every curve, and I take a moment just to look. To appreciate what I have.
"I love you," she says softly.
The words hit me square in the chest, like a bullet. We haven't said it yet. Haven't put a name to what this is. But hearing it now, in the morning light, with no adrenaline or fear driving us—it feels real. Permanent.
"Say it again."
"I love you." She reaches up, traces the tattoo over my heart. "I love who you are. Who you're becoming with us."
"I love you too." The words come easier than I expected. "Didn't think I'd get to feel this again."
She pulls me down for a kiss and I take my time with it. Deep and thorough, letting her feel everything I can't quite put into words. When I pull back, her lips are swollen and her eyes are hazy.
I kiss down her throat, her collarbone, the valley between her breasts. Take my time lavishing attention on each nipple until she's squirming beneath me. Then lower, across her stomach, the sharp points of her hips.
When I settle between her thighs, she's already wet. I can see it glistening on her inner thighs, smell her arousal. My mouth waters.
"Stephan, please!"
"We have time." I press a kiss to her inner thigh. "I'm going to take all of it."
I work her slowly. Long, lazy licks that make her gasp. Focused attention on her clit that has her fisting the sheets. When I slide two fingers inside her and curl them just right, her back arches off the bed.
"Oh god!"
I don't let up. Work her steadily higher, watching her face as the pleasure builds. Her head thrashes on the pillow. Her thighs tremble around my ears. When she finally comes, it's with a cry that echoes off the walls.
Before she can recover, I'm kissing my way back up her body. Position myself at her entrance, the head of my cock pressing against her.
"Look at me." I wait until her eyes focus on mine. "Want to see you when I'm inside you."
I push in slowly. So slowly. Watching her face as she stretches around me, as her mouth falls open, as her eyes go dark. The morning light catches on her flushed skin and she's never been more beautiful.
I make love to her with long, deep strokes that make her gasp with each thrust. There's no urgency this time. No desperation. Just the slide of our bodies, the building pleasure, the connection between us.
I shift the angle and she cries out.
"There?" I hit the same spot again. "That's it, isn't it?"
"Yes, right there! Don't stop!"
I don't. Keep hitting that spot with every thrust while her nails dig into my shoulders. Watch her face as the pleasure builds, as she gets closer and closer to the edge.
"Touch yourself," I tell her. "Want to feel you come on my cock."
Her hand slides between us and she circles her clit. The added pressure makes her tighten around me and I groan.
"That's it. Just like that."
She's close. I can feel it in the way her walls flutter around me, the way her breathing gets ragged. I thrust harder, deeper, chasing that edge with her.
"Come for me," I demand. "Let me feel it."
She shatters. Her whole body goes rigid, clenching around me rhythmically, and the sensation drags me over with her. I bury myself deep and pulse inside her, groaning against her throat as I fill her with my load.
We collapse together in the tangle of sheets, both breathing hard. The morning light is warm on our skin. Outside I can hear the settlement coming to life—voices, laughter, the sound of normalcy.
After a long moment, she props herself up on her elbow, looking down at me with soft eyes.
"We should do this every morning," she says. "While Allie's at lessons."
"I'm completely on board with this plan."
She traces patterns on my chest, her touch light. "Do you ever think about having more kids?"
The question catches me off guard. I turn my head to look at her properly.
"You mean?"
"A baby." Her hand moves to rest on my stomach. "Our baby. I know it's crazy. I know the world is…fucked." She gestures vaguely. "But watching you with Allie. The way you are with her. It makes me wonder."
My chest tightens. The image forms before I can stop it—Iris round with my child, a baby with her eyes and my stubbornness. Another chance. Another beginning.
"It's dangerous," I say carefully.
"Everything is dangerous now."
"Pregnancy complications. Childbirth without proper medical care. Keeping an infant quiet when the dead are everywhere."
"I know." She meets my eyes. "I'm not saying now. Maybe not for a while. But someday? If we're still here? Still safe?"
I pull her down against my chest, press my lips to her hair. The thought terrifies me—everything that could go wrong, all the ways I could fail them both. But underneath the fear is something else. Hope. The kind I haven't let myself feel in years.
"Someday," I agree quietly. "If we're still here. Still safe. Then yeah. I'd want that."
She tilts her head up to kiss me. "Good."
"But we're taking every precaution until then."
"I know, I know." She laughs against my mouth. "One crisis at a time. First we survive the zombies, then we worry about making new humans."
I roll her beneath me, already feeling myself stir again. "So we get to practice a lot in the meantime."
"That's the plan."
I kiss her slowly, thoroughly, letting the future settle around us. It's fragile. Uncertain. It could all shatter with the next horde or the next raid.
But it's ours.