Page 152 of Eternal

DAMIR

“Starlight” by Muse

Present

I never cared about birthdays.

When you grow up without a real one, no date circled on a calendar, no cake, no candles, you stop waiting for it.

She didn’t know I was watching her that night, after she sang it. Her, barefoot in the sand, voice a little breathless from laughing at something I’d said. I let it slip, that it was my birthday, not even the real day, probably, no one ever told me what it was, simply the one on paper.

She didn’t ask why I hadn’t told her. Didn’t say “ Happy Birthday ” with pity in her eyes, she smiled… and started singing.

Happy birthday to you…

Soft, slightly off-key, beautiful, like everything she does. She looked away after a while, out toward the sea, and I did what I always used to do, what I hadn’t done in years.

She didn’t know I was watching her afterward. The way she stared out at the water, hair curling wild in the wind, lost in something private.

And I, like a damn idiot, lifted my hands and framed her with my fingers, like a picture. Like I used to do with the guys.

Roman was the last photo I took. Laughing under streetlights in Belgrade, blood drying on his knuckles. He died three months later.

I loved taking pictures of them.

Before Oleg and Yuri got caught in Slovenia. Before Roman took a bullet to the skull after they tortured him for days, because command forced him into a cover he wasn’t ready for.

Before Vlad got killed.

Everyone was dead, but me.

I left after that. I walked away from the only people I had left. Not because I didn’t care, but because I did. Because grief hollowed me out, and I couldn’t take losing another person.

It was easier to disappear, easier to lose myself.

And then she showed up. Kicking doors, breaking rules, smiling like the sun, comforting like the moon.

And somehow… I’m here now.

She’s laughing again, mouth full of food, head thrown back on my pillow like she belongs there. God, she does. She’s the only thing I’ve ever let belong.

I watch her chew with mock drama, one eye narrowed at me like she knows I’m being ridiculous for feeding her. “I can use a spoon, you know,” she says, mouth still half-full, playful.

I grin. “Not tonight. Birthday girls don’t lift a finger when I’m around.”

She snorts. “That’s a threat.”

“That’s a promise .”

She laughs again and I swear I could bottle the sound.

There’s a song playing faintly from the other room, drifting through the cracked door, one I picked.

“Starlight” by Muse.

Loud enough to fill the background, quiet enough not to interrupt the moment.

Hold you in my arms… I just wanted to hold…You in my arms…

I wipe the last trace of rice from her lip with my thumb, I want to kiss her again, I want to keep kissing her until time forgets us.

But instead I say, “Come with me.”

She eyes me suspiciously, but takes my hand when I offer it. I lead her to my bed, the lights low, her presence louder than anything else in the room.

She looks up and gasps, soft and breathless.

“You… kept them?”

Stars . The ones she painted on the ceiling in glow-in-the-dark ink when she couldn’t sleep one night. Small, imperfect constellations. She used to do that as a kid, she said, to make herself feel safe, to pretend the sky was always watching.

“I did more than keep them,” I say.

I grab the pen from the nightstand. She watches me climb up beside her, both of us lying back against the pillows, and I raise the pen and tap the ceiling once.

“I’m going to draw you in this apartment,” I tell her.

She giggles, wide-eyed. “You’re what?”

I shift onto one elbow, grinning. “You heard me. And then you’re going to draw me.”

“That’s not how this works,” she laughs, warm and bright.

“Let me show you.”

I draw one big star, a little off-center, glowing, above where her head rests.

“That’s you,” I murmur.

She looks at it for a beat, then snatches the pen from my hand and scoots closer, almost on top of me as she reaches up.

“Fine. But then that’s you,” she says, and draws a second star, bigger, right beside the one I made, their edges touching. Glued together.

And underneath it, in her messy, tilted writing, she adds: A + D = ETERNAL

She drops the pen and sinks into my chest, a smile blooming into my shirt like sunlight.

“I’m gonna make you draw the whole damn sky,” I whisper into her hair.

“Good. We’ll live in it.”

The stars are dark on the ceiling, but it feels like they’re glowing.

She’s lying there, laughing softly, arms above her head like she belongs in the sky, and I lean over her, palms bracketing her hips, breath brushing her lips. “You know what the problem is with you, birthday girl?”

She arches a brow, all mock-innocence. “There’s a problem with me?”

“You make it impossible to be good.”

My lips graze her jaw, then down her throat. I kiss her slowly, like I’m spelling out prayers on her skin.

Hold you in my arms… I just wanted to hold…

I press my forehead to hers, whispering, “I’ll take you there tonight.”

“Where?” she breathes.

My hand trails up her thigh, sliding beneath the hem of the soft shirt she stole from me. I kiss her bare knee, her hip, her ribs.

“The sky. The one you drew. That’s my first gift to you.” I look her in the eye. “And I want to ruin you underneath it.”

She shivers, lips parted, pupils wide, she’s so open with me, every part of her begging to be touched, loved, undone.

I tug the shirt over her head slowly, and when she’s bare beneath me, I don’t move for a moment. I just look. Like I’m taking a picture in my head. Framing her again. Immortalizing her.

Because I want to remember it with violent clarity.

And tonight… The sky is ours.

She’s panting beneath me, skin flushed, lashes fluttering like she’s caught between this world and the next. And I don’t want to stop touching her. Ever.

I slide lower, trailing kisses down the valley of her breasts, tasting her skin, until I reach the ink on top of her heart.

The butterfly. The wings stretch delicately across her chest, laced with soft blues and violets, fading into the shape of an iris, her favorite flower.

I press my lips to it, licking slowly and gently across the curve of one wing, and feel her twitch beneath me.

She gasps, chest rising, and I swear the wings move.

They rise with her breath, fall with her sighs. It’s like the butterfly is alive, like it only moves for me. “This one,” I murmur against her skin, voice thick and low, “is my favorite.”

Her fingers thread into my hair. “Why?”

I kiss the other wing, slower this time, teeth grazing slightly. “Every time you breathe… or moan…” I drag my tongue up to her collarbone, feeling her shiver, “…it’s like she’s flying. For me.”

She makes a sound, broken, needy, and arches her chest into my mouth like she’s offering it to the stars.

I take it.

I suck gently at the curve of ink, and when she moans again, breath hitching, thighs tightening around my hips, I feel her heart pounding beneath my lips.

Alive. Wild. Mine.

I look up at her, hair haloed around her face like a storm, eyes wet and glowing. “I could spend the rest of my life kissing this tattoo,” I say.

She laughs, breathless. “Only that one?”

“No. Every parcel of your body actually.”

She’s panting, breath uneven from my kisses, eyes half-closed, totally undone. I yank off my shirt, letting it drop to the floor. She’s sprawled across the bed, breathing heavily, flushed, bare from the waist up, looking like the most dangerous thing I’ve ever survived.

“Hmm,” I murmur, heading to the drawer. My fingers close around two silky ties.

She lifts her head, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Are you really going to tie me up, partner ?”

I grin, already moving toward the bed. “A good girl like you always gets rewarded. You’ve been very good tonight.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Do tell.”

I lean in, capturing her lips in a teasing kiss, then gently press her right wrist to the headboard. “I hope you know,” I say, “your first fuck as a twenty-six-year-old is going to ruin you for any other birthday.”

She snorts, raising one brow like she always does when she’s trying not to smile. “Big talk for a man holding a tie, partner.”

I glance at her, slow and deliberate, and pull out the second tie. “No,” I murmur, turning back to her, “big vow.”

I crawl onto the bed, slow, like a man with time and full intentions. Her eyes follow every inch of me, wide, playful, hungry. I straddle her thighs and take her wrists gently.

“I could break out of this,” she says with a grin.

I tighten the knot enough to make her eyes flutter, that sweet sharp inhale that shoots straight through my spine. My mouth curves. “You won’t,” I say simply.

“Oh, won’t I?”

Another knot. Tighter. Firm. I glance up to meet her gaze, let her see what I mean beneath the words. “Because tonight, I’m in charge,” I say, voice dipping, “And you? You’re gonna let me.”

A firework snaps outside, not the big ones, someone in the neighborhood being a little trigger-happy with the Fourth of July spirit. She flinches slightly, and I smirk.

“Even the sky’s starting to celebrate,” I whisper, kissing her collarbone slowly. Her skin is warm. “Now be good for me and don’t move.”

She lifts her chin, teasing. “What if I do?”

I lean in, lips brushing hers, one hand already grazing her hip.

“Then I’ll really show you what torture means.”

She laughs, a breathy, wicked sound, and I drink it down before she can say anything else. I kiss her slow, deep, tongue teasing hers while my hand slides down her thighs, grazing the inside.

I don’t go where she wants me. Not yet.

I dip lower, fingers trailing above the softest part of her, then back up again and she shifts, breath catching.

I chuckle against her neck. “Don’t get greedy. You’ll earn it.”

She writhes a little. “You’re such a menace.”

“ Shhh. ” My fingers brush the inside of her thighs again barely ghosting over where she’s already soaked and aching.

Then I dip between, only for a second, long enough for her to twitch.

“ Fuck… ”