13. Esmerelda
ESMERELDA
He's shaking.
We're standing in his room, the door closed behind us, the rest of the compound asleep or on watch, and Stellan Vargas is shaking like a leaf in a storm.
His massive hands hang at his sides, trembling, and his dark eyes are fixed on me with an expression that's equal parts desperate longing and absolute terror.
I've never seen anything more beautiful.
The room is sparse, almost military in its simplicity.
A narrow bed that looks too small for his massive frame, a wooden chest, a single chair.
The only personal touch is a leather bracelet on the nightstand, worn and faded, something I haven't asked about yet.
The walls are bare concrete, utilitarian, the room of a man who's never let himself believe he deserves comfort.
But he invited me here. He opened his door, let me cross the threshold into this carefully controlled sanctuary where he keeps everyone at bay.
"We don't have to," I say softly, taking another step that brings me closer to him, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. "If you're not ready?—"
"I'm ready." His voice cracks on the words, fracturing like glass under pressure. "I've been ready since the first time you smiled at me in the compound courtyard. I just don't know if I should be."
"Why not?"
"Because I could hurt you." The confession tears out of him, raw and aching, like he's ripping open an old wound. "Without meaning to, without wanting to. My strength—if I lost control for even a second?—"
"You won't."
"You don't understand?—"
"I understand you've touched me a dozen times and never once hurt me.
" I close the remaining distance between us, putting my hands on his chest, feeling his heart pound beneath my palms. The cotton of his shirt is soft under my fingers, warmed by his body heat.
"I understand the beast inside you goes quiet when I'm near.
I understand you count your heartbeats to stay in control, and I understand that every time you've touched me, you've been the gentlest person I've ever known. "
His breath shudders out. "Esmerelda?—"
"I trust you, Stellan. The question is whether you're ready to trust yourself."
"I don't." The admission comes out barely above a whisper. "I don't trust myself. I don't know if I ever will."
"Then trust me." I reach up to cup his face, tracing the scars that map his history. "Trust that I know what I want. Trust that I'm not fragile. Trust that if something feels wrong, I'll tell you, and you'll stop, because that's who you are."
He stares at me like I've offered him salvation and damnation in the same breath. His hands rise slowly, trembling, to settle on my waist, the touch so light it's barely there.
"I've never—" He stops, swallows hard. "Not like this. Not with someone who matters."
The confession cracks something open inside me.
This man, this enormous, terrifying, heartbreakingly gentle man, has held himself apart from intimacy for years because he was afraid of what he might do.
Afraid of becoming the monster he thinks he is.
Afraid of seeing fear in the eyes of someone he cared about.
"Then let me show you," I say. "Let me show you what it feels like to be wanted. All of you, including the parts you're afraid of."
I kiss him.
It starts gentle, the way our kisses have been, soft and reverent and careful.
But this time I don't let him stay in that safe place.
I deepen the kiss, pulling him closer, pressing my body against his, showing him with every breath that I'm not going to break.
My hands slide up his chest to his shoulders, feeling the tension coiled in every muscle, the iron control he's maintaining through sheer force of will.
"Let go," I murmur against his mouth. "I've got you."
"I can't?—"
"You can." I take one of his trembling hands and place it more firmly on my hip, encouraging him to hold on. "See? Still here. Still whole."
Something shifts in him. I feel it happen, the moment when trust finally edges out fear, when he lets himself believe, just a little, that this might be okay. His grip on my hip tightens, not painfully but with intention, and when he kisses me back, there's hunger in it that makes my knees go weak.
"Little one," he breathes against my skin, and the endearment is devotion, not diminishment. "I've wanted this. Wanted you. For so long."
"Then have me."
His hands are still shaking as he reaches for the hem of my shirt, his eyes searching my face for any sign of hesitation. "Can I?—"
"Yes."
He undresses me slowly, reverently, like he's unwrapping something sacred.
Every inch of skin revealed becomes a place for his hands to explore, his touch so gentle it makes my heart ache.
He learns me with the kind of focused attention that makes me feel seen in ways I've never experienced before. Not just desired, but treasured.
When his hands shake too badly to continue, I steady them with my own. Press kisses to his scarred knuckles. Show him that his strength isn't something to fear.
"Your turn," I say, reaching for his shirt.
He tenses, and I understand. The scars on his body tell stories worse than the ones on his face. Burns and claw marks and the evidence of violence that's mapped across his skin like a history of pain. He's afraid of my reaction. Afraid I'll finally see something that makes me recoil.
I pull his shirt over his head and let myself look.
He's beautiful. Damaged and scarred and marked by years of fighting, but beautiful.
Every line of his body speaks to strength controlled, power contained, the constant effort of holding himself back.
I trace the worst of the scars with my fingertips, a ragged one across his ribs, claw marks down his back that suggest a fight I don't want to imagine.
"I'm not—" he starts.
"You're perfect." I press a kiss to the scar on his ribs. "Every part of you."
The sound he makes is broken, vulnerable, the kind of noise that comes from having walls torn down that he's spent years building. When I reach for his tusks, tracing the chipped edges with careful fingers, he shudders and closes his eyes.
"No one's ever—" His voice cracks. "That's?—"
"Intimate," I finish. "I know."
I kiss the corner of his mouth, feeling his tusks brush my cheeks. Then I take his hand and lead him toward the bed.
Later, I'll struggle to find words for what happens next.
He touches me like I'm made of something precious, and I pull him closer to show him I'm not. He asks permission for every escalation with his eyes, with soft questions breathed against my skin, and I give him yes after yes after yes until the asking stops and the trust begins.
His hands map my body like he's memorizing every curve, every line, every place where my skin shivers under his touch.
The calluses on his palms are rough but his movements are impossibly gentle, and I realize this is how he does everything, with that same careful, deliberate attention.
The way he counts his steps, the way he measures his words, the way he holds himself back from a world he's afraid of breaking.
The first time he fully relaxes is when I wrap my legs around him and pull him down against me, refusing to let him maintain the careful distance he's been keeping.
The sound he makes then is halfway between a groan and a sob, relief and desire and something that sounds almost like gratitude.
His forehead drops to my shoulder, his breath hot against my skin, and I feel the last of his resistance crumble.
"Esmerelda." My name like a prayer on his lips.
"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
When we finally come together, he's shaking again, but this time it's not fear.
It's awe. Wonder. The overwhelming sensation of being exactly where he's supposed to be after a lifetime of believing he didn't deserve to be anywhere.
I feel his whole body tremble against mine, not with restraint but with emotion too big to contain.
I hold him through it, my hands in his hair, my body welcoming his, whispering reassurances against his skin that he probably can't process but needs to hear anyway.
He moves with a gentleness that seems impossible from someone so large, so strong, so capable of violence.
Every touch is a question and a promise. Every moment is worship made physical.
The climax, when it comes, is emotional as much as physical.
I feel him break against me, shuddering, overwhelmed, fifteen years of loneliness cracking open all at once.
He buries his face in my neck and makes a sound that might be my name or might be something beyond words, and I hold him through it, through all of it, letting him know he's safe.
Letting him know he's loved.
Afterward, he holds me like I might disappear.
His arms are wrapped around me, his body curled protectively around mine, and his breathing is still unsteady. We're tangled together in his narrow bed, skin against skin, and I can feel his heartbeat gradually slowing from its racing pace.
"You're still here," he whispers into my hair, his voice rough and low, like he can barely believe it.
"I told you I wasn't going anywhere."
"I know. I just—" He pulls back slightly to look at me, searching my face with an intensity that steals my breath, and his eyes are damp, vulnerable in a way I've never seen before.
"I kept waiting for you to change your mind.
To realize what I am and run. Every moment we were together, every touch, I was bracing for it.
For you to finally see the monster and leave. "
"And now?"
"Now I'm terrified for different reasons." His thumb traces along my cheekbone with impossible gentleness, the callused pad rough against my skin. "Now I have something precious to lose. Someone who matters more than anything."
I reach up to touch his face, my fingers trailing over the rough, raised texture of his scars, the smooth warmth of his tusks where they curve from his lower jaw.
Every part of him familiar now, beautiful in its uniqueness.
"You're not going to lose me, Stellan. I promise you that. I'm stubborn that way."
"I've noticed." Something that might be a smile—genuine and soft—flickers across his scarred expression, transforming his features. "You're the most stubborn, relentless person I've ever met in my entire life."
"Coming from you, that's quite a statement."
He huffs something that's almost a laugh, rusty and surprised, and I feel a burst of warmth in my chest. I did that. I made this man who never laughs almost laugh, here in this quiet moment after the most vulnerable experience of his life.
"How are you not afraid?" he asks. "After everything you've seen. Everything you know about me."
"Because I see you." I press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "Not the beast. You."
"The beast is part of me."
"I know. And I've seen that too, remember? I saw you covered in blood, lost in violence, killing people to protect me. And you know what I thought?"
"That you should run?"
"That I'd never felt safer in my life." I hold his gaze, letting him see the truth in my eyes.
"You came back for me, Stellan. When you were lost in the rage, my voice reached you.
My touch brought you back. The beast isn't separate from you.
It's part of you. And it chose to protect me, not hurt me. "
He stares at me for a long moment, something shifting behind his eyes. Then he pulls me closer, tucking my head under his chin, wrapping his arms around me like he's trying to memorize the feel of my body against his.
"I don't deserve you," he says into my hair.
"We've talked about this."
"I know. I just don't know if I'll ever believe it."
"Then I'll keep telling you until you do." I press my lips to his chest, right over his heart. "Every day. As many times as it takes."
The quiet settles around us, warm and safe, and I feel his body gradually relax against mine.
For the first time since I've known him, the constant tension that defines him starts to ease.
Not completely, not forever, but enough.
Enough that he can hold me without bracing for disaster.
Enough that he can close his eyes without fearing what he'll see.
"The beast is quiet," he murmurs, and there's wonder in his voice. "Completely quiet. I've never felt it this peaceful."
"It's happy."
"Beasts don't feel happy."
"Yours does. Right now, in this moment, with me." I trace idle patterns on his chest. "Maybe that's what an anchor really means. Not just someone who brings you back from the edge, but someone who makes the edge further away."
He doesn't respond, but his arms tighten around me, and I feel the press of his lips against my hair. Words aren't his strength. They never have been. But his body speaks volumes, and right now it's telling me everything I need to hear.
I'm drifting toward sleep when he speaks again, his voice low and rough with emotion.
"Esmerelda."
"Mmm?"
"Thank you." The words come out halting, uncertain, like he's not sure they're adequate. "For not running. For seeing something worth staying for. For—" He pauses, swallows. "For making me believe, just for tonight, that maybe I deserve this."
"Not just tonight." I lift my head to look at him, letting him see the certainty in my expression. "Every night. Every day. For as long as you'll let me stay."
"Forever," he says, and it sounds like both a hope and a promise.
"Then forever it is."
I settle back against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, and I feel the exact moment when sleep finally takes him. His body goes loose, his breathing deepens, and the arm around me relaxes into genuine rest instead of vigilant protection.
Tomorrow will bring more challenges. The war isn't over. The grief isn't healed. There's still so much broken in both of us that needs time and patience and the slow, careful work of building something real.
But tonight, he's sleeping without nightmares for the first time in months.
And I'm exactly where I belong.