Chapter 38
Stella
Idon’t speak. Not for a heartbeat.
Not for three.
Something inside me fractures—not a break, not a fall. A shatter that makes space.
“I’ll carry the weight of never being a father if it means I get to love you this hard.”
The words are still hanging in the air, and I’m suddenly aware I’ve been holding my breath for hours. Maybe days. Possibly since the second they died.
And now—now it’s like I can finally breathe. But the air tastes like him. Like sweat and grief and absolution tinged with dark plum.
And it’s not enough.
It fills my lungs, but not my chest. It doesn’t touch the ache under my skin. Not until I touch him.
I move before I even know what I’m doing. One hand knots into his shirt, the other fisting his hair as I crush my mouth to his—not gentle, not searching. Claiming. Teeth, tongue, and salt.
He groans against my lips, hands twitching at my waist. “Stella—” His voice is low, ragged, and thick with restraint. “You don’t have to—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I whisper, my mouth brushing the corner of his jaw like a promise. My teeth graze his throat. “Let me drop to my knees and remind you exactly who you belong to.”
I grip his shirt and shove him back into the wall, watching the way his eyes darken, his chest rise. I lean in, voice dropping into something sinful.
“Let me get on my knees and worship my husband like he’s the only altar that’s ever mattered.”
His breath stutters. One hand fists the back of my shirt like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. “Fuck, Stella—” It’s barely a sound, more like a gasp dragged from his chest. He’s shaking. Not from fear. From the force of holding himself back.
His head tips back against the wall as I drag my mouth down his throat, slow and open. I press into him, feel the tension coiled tight beneath his suit pants, every inch of him wound and waiting.
“Please,” he breathes, voice wrecked.
“You begging now?” I murmur, fingers brushing his belt. “My poor, sweet husband. You want me to stop?”
“No,” he growls, instantly. Desperate.
I tilt my head and smile. He’s looking at me like I’m the only thing that exists. Like he’d break every vow but this one—me.
Good. Because I’m not stopping.
I push him back—not away. Down. He stumbles, letting me. He lets me pin him against the nearest wall with my hips, my mouth, and my teeth scraping along the stubble on his throat.
Because I am not asking. Not tonight.
Tonight, he gave me the one thing I never thought I could have.
Freedom.
So I take everything else. His body. His breath.
The way he looks at me is like I’m gravity.
I strip him slowly—not to tease, but to own.
Each button is undone like a trigger, every inch of skin a fuse I’m lighting on purpose.
He watches me with eyes that beg and burn.
I don’t rush. I savor. The scrape of my nails down his chest. The way his hips twitch when I push the fabric off his waist. He’s breathing hard now, but he doesn’t move.
Doesn’t dare. Because he knows I’m not just undressing him. I’m unmaking him.
I drag my mouth over his stomach, teeth grazing skin like a warning. He fists his hands at his sides, chest heaving, wrecked and waiting. And when I drop to my knees, it’s not surrender.
It’s worship.
Dark, deliberate, filthy worship. The kind that carves itself into memory. The kind that says mine without ever speaking a word.
He swears when my mouth ghosts lower, the sound breaking from his throat like it’s been torn out. His hands hover at his sides, twitching, aching to touch but not daring to interrupt.
Good.
I want him desperate. Ruined. Reverent.
I kiss the sharp line of his hip, slow and claiming, then trail my tongue along the waistband still clinging to his thighs. His breath catches—ragged, unsteady, everything trembling beneath the surface.
“You’re shaking,” I whisper, dragging my nails back up his ribs, painting goosebumps in my wake. “You like being worshiped, baby?”
He nods, jerks, and clenches his fists like he’s holding on to the last scrap of control. “No,” I purr, biting just above his navel. “I want to hear it.”
His voice breaks. “Yes. Fuck, Stella—yes.” There it is. That unraveling sound. The one I’ll chase to the grave. I taste him like punishment and praise. Like I’ve waited lifetimes to earn this moment, and I’ll die before I waste it.
He moans—loud, hoarse, like it’s dragging sin out of his lungs. “Jesus Christ—”
I smile against his skin, lips brushing his throat. “I’m not your religion,” I whisper. “I’m your reckoning.”
His legs are shaking, his breath hitching every time my fingers graze the edge of him. I take my time—slow, unhurried, and cruel.
Because this is mine.
His body. His devotion. And his trembling restraint.
“You’re holding back,” I murmur, dragging my mouth across his abdomen, teeth grazing skin like a dare. “Why?”
His breath hitches. “Because—” “Because you think I’ll break?” I laugh—low, sharp, and dangerous. “I already shattered.”
I drag my tongue up the length of him—slow, deliberate, like I’m tasting ruin. Like I earned it. Then I look up at him, daring him to move.
“Now put me back together.”
His jaw flexes. Fists clenched. Eyes—wild. Ruined.
He doesn’t ask. Doesn’t speak. Just grabs two fistfuls of my hair like he’s been starving to touch me like this.
And when he slams himself past my lips, it’s not gentle. It’s not careful.
It’s desperate.
The kind of kiss between his cock and my throat that says he’ll die if I don’t let him fall apart in me.
He pounds into my mouth like he’s trying to fuck the grief out of himself—like his only hope of survival is buried in the back of my throat. His rhythm is brutal. Beautiful. His hands fisted in my hair, holding me steady as he drives deeper.
I gag, eyes watering, spit dripping down my chin. But I don’t pull away. I offer. Open wider. I give him control—my mouth, my breath, all of it—because I want him to fall apart on my tongue. I need it. Because this is mine. He is mine.
His moans get rougher, dirtier. Filthy praise spilling from his lips between gasps. “Fuck, baby—look at you.” “Such a good girl like this. So fucking perfect on your knees.” “My goddamn heaven—on your knees for me.”
His thighs tremble. His voice breaks. He’s close. And I feel it—the way he’s unraveling just for me.
Then he jerks back—pulling out of my mouth with a wet pop that echoes through the studio. I’m breathless, soaked, and dizzy. But he’s not done.
Not even close.
He grabs me by the wrist, yanks me to my feet, and spins me around. My chest slams into the table—paint jars tipping, brushes scattering to the floor. His hands are everywhere. Skimming my ribs, shoving up my camisole, and dragging down my thighs, painting his worship straight into my skin.
“I’m gonna ruin you,” he growls, voice low and cracked. “Gonna take you apart piece by piece so you forget your name, forget the grief, forget everything but me.”
He palms a wide streak of crimson from the palette and smears it down my spine. Then violet. Then black.
Paint. Everywhere. His hands. My back. The floor. A mess of color, lust, and noise. And I want it.
The sharp bite of turpentine clings to the air, mixing with sweat and something deeper—like grief turned physical.
He lines himself up, the tip of him nudging against me, slick with need. And then—slow. So fucking slow. He pushes in, inch by inch, like he’s imprinting himself into my soul.
I gasp. Grasp the table. Arch, like, I can take more. But he pulls out—then slams into me.
He pulls out—slams back in—sets a brutal rhythm that has my knuckles whitening on the table edge.
Then his hands are under me, greedy, finding my breasts.
Paint-slick fingers dragging over my nipples, squeezing, shaping me like I’m clay he owns.
“Fuck, look at you,” he breathes, palms cupping and lifting, smearing color across my skin. “My goddamn work of art.”
My hip knocks the easel—the canvas I’d been working on all morning tips, crashes to the floor. I gasp, half in surprise, half in want, but he doesn’t stop. Doesn't even slow.
Instead, he hauls me back against him, feet tangling as he takes us down to the floor.
Paint smears across my back as he rolls me over the fallen canvas, pressing me into it like I’m part of the art.
“Gonna press you into this canvas, make this our masterpiece… so we never forget—so no one ever forgets.”
He thrusts once—hard—then holds me there, my body arched, my chest and hips grinding into the wet color.
The paint is cool where it touches bare skin, hot where his body covers mine.
I feel it coating me, his hips driving me into the canvas, my breasts and pussy imprinting into the work I’ll never finish—a perfect outline of the only thing either of us has left tonight.
He starts to move again, each thrust grinding me harder into the slick mess beneath us. Paint drags over my skin, cold at first, then warmed by the heat between us. My palms slip against the floor, catching on the edge of the canvas as his hips drive into mine.
“Look at you,” he growls, voice frayed to nothing. “Mine”
I brace, pushing back into him, forcing a ragged moan from his throat. He answers by fisting a handful of my hair and bending over me, his chest pressed to my back, breath hot against my ear.
Every shift of his body smears more color across my spine, down my hips, and over the insides of my thighs. I can feel it—the way he’s marking me, not careful, not clean. Just like us.
I twist beneath him, dragging my nails over his forearm until he hisses, then flip us in a messy tangle that smears more paint between us. He lands flat, and I straddle him, grinding down into him until his eyes go black.
“This is ours,” I tell him, my voice nothing but rasp and ruin. “Every inch. Every drop. Every goddamn breath.”
He grabs my hips and drives up into me so hard I cry out, the sound muffled by the kiss he steals at the same time. I taste sweat. I taste turpentine. I taste him.
And we move together—desperate, greedy, relentless—until the canvas beneath us is nothing but a riot of color and skin.
And then I can’t move. My body folds over his, paint-slick and shaking, forehead pressed to his shoulder like I’m bracing for impact. But it’s already here.
The gates rip open. It comes out in a sound I don’t recognize—too loud, too broken, too much. Sobs tear through my chest, every one dragging the loss back to the surface, every one making it harder to breathe.
Donovan doesn’t let go. His arms lock around me, holding me tight enough to keep me from shattering all the way.
His mouth finds my temple, my hair, and my jaw, dropping kisses like they might anchor me.
I feel the smear of paint where his hands grip my back, streaks of crimson and violet marking his skin too—proof of what we made, what we survived.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers, voice rough but steady. “All of it. All of you. I’ve got you.”
And I let him—just this once—hold the weight I can’t.
After lying in our aftermath for what feels like hours, Donovan finally moves. He rolls me off him, careful but wordless, and yanks his suit pants back on. His eyes sweep the mess for his shirt, finding it in a crumpled heap by the table.
He doesn’t say a thing when he crouches to grab my dress. Just slips it over my shoulders and helps me into it, his hands lingering for a beat longer than necessary. Then he lifts me—like I weigh nothing—and carries me out of the studio.
Through the hall, into my parents’ house—my house. Ansel and Theo look up from the couch, eyes full of questions they don’t voice. My head stays tucked into Donovan’s shoulder, not willing to meet their gaze.
His steps are soundless on the carpeted stairs. In my bedroom, he pushes open the bathroom door with his foot and sets me gently on the counter. He turns the tap, lets the tub fill with steaming water, and then sprinkles in my favorite soaking salts.
When he comes back to me, his hands are steady, unhurried, slipping me out of my paint-smeared clothes. I’m glad he does—my limbs feel heavy, useless. He undresses himself next and, without a word, lifts me again.
The heat of the bath wraps around us as he lowers us into the water. His chest is firm against my back, his arms folding around me like a shield. The scent of turpentine still lingers faintly in my hair, mixing with the salt and steam.
The water soothes the sting of dried paint against my skin, the heat loosening the knots in my shoulders. Donovan’s arms never leave me, his chest solid against my back, his fingers tracing idle circles over my forearm beneath the surface.
Neither of us talks. There’s nothing to say that doesn’t feel too small for today.
When the water begins to cool, he stands, wraps me in a thick towel, and then dries himself. He dresses us both in soft cotton—one of his worn shirts for me, boxers for him—then leads me to the bed.
I sink into the mattress, and he follows, pulling the blankets up around us like he’s tucking me away from the world. His arms tighten around me, his breath warm against the back of my neck.
“I love you,” he murmurs, lips brushing my hairline. “I’m here. Always. Whatever you need.”
I don’t answer, but my fingers find his and squeeze. He kisses my temple, my cheek, and the curve of my jaw, each one slower than the last.
“You’re not alone, Stella,” he says, the words low and certain, like a promise he’s sworn a thousand times.
And for tonight, I let myself believe him.