25. The Proposal
THE PROPOSAL
Stella
The aftermath is always the best part. That’s when time slows, the world narrows to the radius of a ruined bed, and you can almost believe nothing outside this room has the power to touch you.
We’re in Hunter’s master suite, a windowless cocoon of navy silk and gunmetal glass, the blackout drapes closed tight against the predawn.
The sheets are tangled under and around us, white gone gray where my mascara stains have streaked the pillowcases, and the smell in the air is a warm collision of sex, expensive cologne, and the ozone tang of recently snuffed candles.
Two of them, on the nightstand, gutter in their glass caskets, wax puddling around the blackened wicks.
I lie in the hollow between my men, every nerve ending plush and ringing.
My blonde hair is a fan on the pillow, my thighs slick and sticky with the mixed seed of two men.
My ass is bruised, my wrists still tingling where they tied me with a necktie and a belt in sequence, and the tender spot at the crook of my jaw aches with the echo of a bite.
In my mouth, I taste whiskey, brine, and the faintly salty tang of two men.
Yet this is exactly where I’m meant to be, in the weeks since we decided to move into Hunter’s place as a trio.
It went smoothly, actually, without a lot of fuss, and now it seems like we’ve lived together forever.
Hunter is to my left, an arm behind his head, his chest rising and falling with the unhurried patience of a man who never needs to prove anything.
He’s gorgeous as he relaxes, the lines of his jaw and throat softened by the hour, a cut above beast, a shade below angel.
There’s a constellation of bruises across his ribs, my fingernail signature from half an hour ago.
On my right, Lachlan props himself on one elbow, hair messy and gold, his blue eyes almost neon in the low light.
There’s a scrape on his shoulder, a red half-moon where my teeth broke the skin.
He watches me with the careful intensity of someone who knows he’s only ever one wrong word from losing everything.
The three of us lie like that, catching our breaths, while the room cools and the sweat on my skin dries.
Eventually, it’s Hunter who moves. He sits up, and the motion is so easy, so practiced, it could be mistaken for a stretch if you didn’t know him.
He leans over me, the muscles in his forearm tense as a cable, and opens the drawer on the nightstand.
He pulls out a small rectangle wrapped in blue velvet.
There’s something so un-Hunter about the color—a shade too soft, too ceremonial—but it fits the gravity of the moment.
Lachlan doesn’t move, but his gaze tracks the box the way a wolf tracks a hare.
Hunter lays the object on the sheet next to me.
It’s the kind of jewelry box you get when you pay someone not to embroider their logo on the inside.
He flips it open with his thumb, and the velvet inside is a perfect night sky for what it holds: three rings, bright as moons.
White gold, thick-banded, and each engraved with a gorgeous six-pointed star.
They’re not identical, but they nest together so perfectly that it’s impossible to separate them without first removing the whole.
Hunter looks at me, then at the rings, then back again. “This isn’t a marriage proposal, Stella,” he says, voice low and unhurried. “It’s something better. It’s a promise.”
I watch his fingers—strong, a little battered, yet with the ability to be gentle. He picks up the first ring, holds it out between two fingers. The metal flashes, catching the faintest stray light.
Lachlan shifts closer, his thigh pressing against mine. He shoots a look at Hunter. “Go ahead, my man.”
Hunter clears his throat: “Stella, you’re everything to me.
You have turned my life upside down a hundred and eighty degrees, but it’s what I want.
It’s what I crave, and I didn’t even know it.
Even more, I adore your curves, sweet girl, and I want your pussy and your ass and every other part of you available to me for the rest of my life.
That’s what this is.” He slides the ring onto my left ring finger, and it’s cool at first, then a perfect fit.
The inscription on the inside burns into my skin: SEMPER FIDELIS.
“You belong to me, star girl. And I belong to you.”
He turns to Lachlan. “You’re next.”
Lachlan takes the second ring, his hand trembling slightly.
He doesn’t say anything at first, but then takes a deep breath.
“I’m in love with you, Stella,” he says.
“I didn’t plan it, and I don’t regret it, because life with you completes me.
I can’t imagine how I survived before meeting you, and I never want to go back to that lonely existence.
” Then, he slips the second ring onto my right ring finger, across from Hunter’s.
Inside the band is a string of Latin I can’t read, but I know from his sermons it means something like “All my sins for you.”
They press the third ring into my palm. It’s heavier than I expected. I close my fist around it, the edge biting into the flesh. The engraving here is just a date—today, the day after the world ended and began again.
“What should I do with this third one?” I whisper. “I’m going to wear Hunter’s on my left ring finger, and Lachlan’s on my right. But where does this one go?”
The men exchange a look, and then Lachlan growls. “In your pussy, sweetheart. We want you to have an internal reminder of us at all hours of the day. We’re not saying you have to wear it all the time, but just when you’re feeling naughty. Or when you want to feel our presence, and we’re not there.”
I gasp, cheeks going pink.
“Are you serious?”
Hunter nods, blue eyes flashing.
“And sweetheart, if you like it, we can get you a fourth ring too. To go here,” he rasps, tapping my anus with one big finger.
“This part of you is just as sacred, but we thought it’d be going too far on the first pass.
But you let us know, and we can get a fourth ring made that matches the other three.
That way your ass will be filled with our possession too. ”
I gasp because my men are so dirty, and yet I love it. I want to say something. I want to be witty or biting or sexy even, but my chin trembles, and I let out a laugh that’s more a sob, and I press the back of my wrist to my mouth before the tears can break. “You guys are insane,” I whisper.
Hunter leans in, kisses my wrist, then my forehead, then the corner of my mouth. Lachlan does the same, only he lingers longer, his lips grazing the space behind my ear where I’m always most vulnerable.
“We know,” Hunter says. “You’re the only girl worth losing everything for.”
The three of us lie there, cocooned in the warmth of the sheets, the velvet box at our feet. I turn the rings over in my fingers, feeling the grooves, the weight, the message. Outside, the city is either dead asleep or just beginning to wake, but in here, nothing moves except us.
Hunter traces a line down my spine, slow, with just his index finger, as if he’s memorizing the bumps of each vertebra for later. Lachlan presses his mouth to my temple, his breath slow and even.
In my head, I count the heartbeats. I count the candles, the bites, the kisses. I count the rings, one, two, three, and think: This is what love looks like when you stop pretending it isn’t dangerous.
I hold onto the moment, and to them, for as long as I can.
Because tomorrow, the world will burn again. And when it does, I want to remember exactly how this felt: the weight of the promise, cool and eternal, against my skin.
In the new version of my life, mornings begin with the sound of Hunter’s espresso machine, a beast that could probably run an elevator, and the sight of his kitchen island: a single slab of white marble longer than a mattress, surrounded by stools that cost more than most people’s monthly rent.
The sun comes in at a slant through the wall of windows, illuminating every flaw in my complexion, every sleep-creased groove in my skin.
On mornings like this one, I sit perched on a barstool in one of Hunter’s old T-shirts, hair barely tamed, and stare at my own reflection in the silver of the coffee press while I work down the short list of people in the world who actually matter.
It’s been three days since the ring thing.
Three days since my world ended, or started, depending on who you ask.
The bruises on my thighs have turned a little yellow, and the hickey on my throat is healing, but the feeling in my chest is still new and wondrous.
I have the three rings stacked on the bar in front of me, each catching the light in a different way.
I twist them, arrange them, try to make the patterns align.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
The first call is to my father. Not to the landline because I know he’s already at work.
I call his cell and let it ring, picturing the phone vibrating on the slab of granite that’s his office desk.
He picks up on the sixth ring, his voice a low growl: “This is Moreland.” I imagine he’s staring at the water, not even blinking.
I’m out of small talk, so I go right in. “Hey Dad, it’s me. I need to see you. At Hunter’s. This morning if possible.”
A pause, then: “I’ll be there at ten.” Click.
The second call is to Andie. She answers on the first ring, because she’s a morning person, and because she still lives in a universe where people care about the punctuality of their phone etiquette. “Stella! Is everything okay?”
I let myself smile. “Everything is insane, but yes, we’re okay. We’re planning a…family thing. Next week. Are you free?”
Andie’s voice brightens, the way it always does when she thinks there’s a chance she’ll get to wear a pretty dress. “Of course! Is this a brunch? A party? Should I bring anything?”