7. Stella
STELLA
The silence of the cabin is heavy, but for the first time in as long as I can remember, it doesn’t feel like a threat.
It feels like a sanctuary. The early morning light filters through the heavy curtains in slivers of grey, and as I blink the sleep from my eyes, I realize I’m not bracing for an exit.
I’m not calculating escape routes or checking for bugs. I’m just… here.
I’m wrapped in Easton’s arms, his solid, heat-radiating body pressed against my back, spooning me in a way that feels like a fortress.
My usual, frantic hyper-vigilance and the hum of static that’s lived in my brain for years has completely vanished.
It’s been replaced by the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart against my shoulder.
I shift, turning carefully in his hold to face him, and find his eyes already open. Dark, intense, and fixed on my face as if studying every pore and blemish.
"Watching me sleep, Easton?" I tease, though my voice comes out breathless. "That’s a little much, even for you."
He doesn’t blink. No humor touches his expression, only a raw, bone-deep sincerity that makes my stomach flip.
"I wasn't watching you sleep. I was watching over you. There’s a difference.
" He pulls me a fraction closer, his hand splayed possessively across my waist. "I’m just trying to wrap my head around the fact that you’re here. With me."
The steady, unwavering truth in his gaze does irreversible damage to the walls I’ve spent years building around my heart. My defenses dissolve into nothingness under that look. I don't reach for my laptop, or my phone, or the truth I've spent years obsessively hunting. I reach for him.
Easton meets me halfway, his lips greedily sipping at mine until he thrusts his tongue inside my mouth. I press my body against his, matching his intensity. One moment, Easton is devouring me, and the next, he’s gone.
I whimper in disappointment and confusion, only to hear the deep, dark chuckle of Easton. He easily flips me on my back and spreads my thighs, staring down at my shamefully wet and aching core.
The sexiest man alive scoots down the bed and spreads my pussy lips with his thumbs. I wiggle and twist beneath his grip when he blows hot air into my opening, but Easton never loosens his hold.
Instead, he guides one leg over his shoulder, and then the other, opening me up even more for him. Then, Easton dives into my soaking wet cunt, making me cry out with the feeling of his hot mouth on my most private place.
He begins slowly, with long waves of his tongue that roll up and down inside my pussy. Just when I need more, his thumb finds my clit and rubs circles around the little ball of nerves while he continues to lick me and suck on my folds.
An index finger slides inside of me with ease, then a middle finger joins as he pistons in and out of me with his muscular arm, fucking me into the bed.
He rotates his fingers and pauses to look up at me, grinning with mischief.
Then he curls his fingers up and finds that secret spot, rubbing his fingers against it and watching me tense and moan as he completely destroys me with his fingers.
“Yes, oh yes,” I cry out, unable to stop myself.
He growls into my pussy, making my clit vibrate with his voice.
Easton slides and twists and rubs the walls of my pussy with his fingers while his tongue does wicked things to my little bundle of nerves.
He licks it, bats it around, and finally sucks it into his mouth and bites down gently, causing my orgasm to rip through me and spill all over his fingers.
I buck my hips as he sticks his tongue in my entrance, lapping up everything I’m giving him.
When I finally come back down to earth, I sink into the mattress.
Easton climbs on top of me, propping himself up on one elbow while his other hand cups my face.
He presses gentle kisses all over with featherlight touches of his lips.
He tickles my forehead, nose, cheeks, and finally, my mouth.
Easton strokes his tongue inside of me slowly, deliberately, while his hand moves from my face and trails down my body, caressing me and setting me on fire.
I spread my legs and welcome more of his skin on my skin, thankful that we’re both still naked from last night.
Groaning, I feel his hot, hard cock rubbing against my pussy, working me up into another orgasm.
I wrap my legs around his hips and try to pull him where I need him most. All of this teasing has me desperate to be filled up by him again.
“Are you sure you’re not too sore?” he asks, pausing just before entering me.
“I’m fine!” I say impatiently, making Easton smirk. “Now fuck me.”
That smirk drops, leaving a hungry, feral look in his deep, dark eyes.
Easton pushes inside of me, slowly, watching my reaction. “Stella,” he groans. “Goddamn. Missed this. Missed being inside of you.” I nod frantically as he pulls out and thrusts into me again.
We both gasp when he hits home over and over. I love feeling the thick veins in his cock sliding against the walls of my pussy as he moves in and out of me.
“So tight, Jesus, you feel so good, Stella.”
“You… too…” I manage to say in between thrusts. I wrap my arms around his back and grip the taut muscles there, clinging to him while he picks up speed.
Easton twists his hips slightly, changing up the angle. He hits that spot inside of me with his dick, making my whole body jerk in his arms.
“Does that feel good?” he asks.
“Y-yes…” I moan.
I dig my nails into his back to spur him on. Easton crashes his mouth down on mine as our bodies come together, again and again, flesh meeting flesh, pleasure meeting pleasure. I squeeze my legs around him and clench my pussy to get him deeper inside of me.
Easton thrusts into me harder, faster, each stroke of his dick pushing me closer, closer, hitting that spot over and over, once, twice, again, again, fuck, one more time, please, please, I need it, my body trembling and aching for more.
He slams into me one last time and I scream, shattering around him. My pussy clamps down on his thick cock as all my muscles tense up tightly and then unwind, the orgasm rolling through me in explosive waves.
“That’s it, sweetheart, that’s so fucking it, do it again, Stella.”
I shake my head, unable to imagine myself coming again. Easton, however, doesn’t take no for an answer. He leans back and sits on his heels, grabbing my hips and fucking himself with my body. The angle is different, deeper, hitting new places that make me shake and moan uncontrollably.
“Oh, God, Easton. This is…”
I gasp and cry out as his fingers blur over my clit. With one pinch, he has me twisting in his arms, but he won’t let me escape the onslaught of sensations as my orgasm claws at me and rips me apart from the inside out. I thrash and scream as Easton continues to fuck me through it.
“Look at us, Stella,” he demands, his voice gravelly and desperate. “Look how your pussy stretches and takes my big cock like a good girl. You’re fucking incredible. Fuck!”
I open my eyes as my orgasm fades and see him sink into me again and again. It’s dirty and hot as hell. His movements become jerky and I feel his dick swell up, growing impossibly larger. He’s throbbing and thrusting and working me up into another orgasm, both of us sweating and shaking.
Then he pulls himself out and strokes himself once before spraying his cum all over my tits and stomach.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, Stella,” he groans. “Mine, fucking mine.”
The next second, Easton is kneeling in between my legs, licking my swollen pussy as he rubs his cum into my skin.
The feeling of his hot seed cooling against my skin, his tongue dipping into my entrance, his teeth scraping against my clit, has me bowing my back off the bed and climaxing so hard I can’t breathe.
Barely giving me any time to recover, Easton flips me on my stomach and plunges his already hard cock inside of me.
Cum coats my thighs as my cunt snaps around his huge dick.
He pounds into me mercilessly, making obscene noises as he fucks me into yet another blinding orgasm, sobbing my release.
This time, I take him with me over the edge.
I feel him shoot his load deep inside of me, rope after rope until he is spent.
I must have passed out there for a second because when I open my eyes, Easton has me wrapped up in his arms and he's pressing soft kisses over my face and neck.
“Are you okay?” He sounds panicked, almost.
“What?” I ask in total confusion. “Easton, that…I don’t even know how to describe it. I didn’t know I could feel so incredible.”
His hands come up to cradle my face as he searches my eyes for truth. When he's satisfied with what he sees, Easton closes his eyes and rests his forehead on mine, breathing in deeply.
“Stella. My perfect Stella,” he whispers more to himself than to me. “I can’t believe you’re real.”
Easton strokes my hair and continues whispering sweet things to me until my breathing evens out and my heart rate slows.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let me wash you up.”
Easton starts to untangle himself from me, but I tighten my hold on him. He chuckles and kisses my forehead.
“I made you all dirty,” he points out. “You gotta let me clean you so I can make you all filthy again.”
I grin at him and loosen my hold. Easton bends down and scoops me up in his arms, kissing me the whole way to the bathroom where he runs a bath for us. He sets me down in the water so gently before climbing in behind me and washing every part of me with such care.
We dry off and he carries me back to bed so we can enjoy the afterglow.
The air is still warm and tangled with the scent of us.
My head rests on Easton’s chest, and as I watch him, the fierce, unyielding man who just claimed me looks…
different. In the soft shadows of the morning, the harsh lines of his cheek bones and the authority he radiates seem to soften, exposing a flicker of vulnerability I’m not sure he ever lets anyone else see.
My fingers, usually so busy clicking keys, analyzing data, and tearing apart encrypted files, move on their own.
They feel almost clumsy, incredibly gentle as I reach up.
I trace the path of the jagged, white scar cutting across his eyebrow and down his cheek.
It’s a map of a war he fought before I ever knew his name.
I lean up, pressing a soft, lingering kiss against his closed eyelid, right over the mark. It’s my way of saying thank you. Of honoring every battle, every scar, and every drop of blood he’s shed to become the man holding me right now.
He goes perfectly still under my touch, then lets out a long, shuddering breath. When he speaks, his voice is rough, stripped of its usual armor.
"I got that when I was a kid, really," he admits, his eyes finding mine again. "Early days. I trusted the wrong person, and they sold me out to a local gang for a payout. It was a lesson, Stella. A brutal one."
I don’t say anything, I simply stroke his beard and chest while he digs up his painful past to share with me.
“I felt weak and helpless,” he says softly, looking at me briefly.
I nod in understanding. “Not just on the streets trying to hustle, but at home as well. My mom had a string of loser boyfriends who drank and got violent with her. As a kid, I couldn’t do anything, and every time I tried, I only made it worse for her.
I was surrounded by so much pain, poverty, abuse, and oppression in the shitty trailer park I grew up in, as well as the under-funded public school I eventually dropped out of. But I had no way to help.”
Easton closes his eyes for a moment. His brow furrows as he remembers the paralysis of staring into the uncaring void of a broken system. I sit with him in silence, both of us reflecting on the moment we decided to break the cycle.
“I hit a growth spurt in ninth grade and started using my strength to protect those I could. I was too late to save my mom, though. By then, she was spending all of her money and time at a drug den, shooting up heroin to forget her life choices. I can punch an abusive boyfriend in the jaw, but I can’t fight her addiction for her.
” He sighs heavily before adding, “She died before I turned eighteen.”
Easton turns his intense gaze toward me and pulls me tight, his grip bordering on desperate.
"That’s why I’m like this. Why I need to lock everything down, why I need to know where you are every second of the day.
I made a vow then. To myself, to the world…
As long as I have breath in my lungs, I will fight for those who can’t fight for themselves.
I will create the safe space I never had growing up. "
Hearing the ache of a boy who just wanted to keep people safe shatters my heart, leaving me terrifyingly exposed.
I don’t just want to be with him; I want to be his.
I realize then, with terrifying, beautiful clarity, that I’ve fallen irrevocably in love with Easton. I’m completely and utterly lost to him.
"You're safe with me," I whisper, pressing my forehead against his. "And I'm safe with you."