Stefan and Laura’s Valentine’s Day Story Contest

February 14^th, 1983

A barely 21 year old Laura sat in her pink gown, still for hours while Stavros’s professor artist painted a portrait of her. Not only did the artist look over her like she was a porcelain doll but Stavros gave her a smoldering look, it was as if he was raping her with his eyes. Undressing her with his eyes. She hated that look. She hated being painted with a passion. She’d never tell Stavros that, or why. Even after all this time she hadn’t gotten over it completely. How can anyone get over it? Luke helped her, thank God for Luke, but he was gone, and she was going to force herself to live this life through, though she may go insane if she wasn’t already heading down that path.

The long hours passed as she sat still, like a stone figure. When the painting was finally done, Stavros allowed her to take a walk, for which she was unbelievably grateful for. She ran out towards the beach after she changed into a dress she could actually run in. She ran as fast and as far as she could to release some of the depression and anger and disgust inside her. She ran all the way to Stefan’s hiding place, hoping he wasn’t there, hoping he wouldn’t see her like this…so out of control. She got there and tripped, sliding into the sand, scathing her knees and lower legs slightly. She reached for the bench and pulled herself up onto it, silently crying.

The tears just rolled uncontrollably down her face and she ached for Luke, for Robert, Tiffany, and her mother. She ached for Monica’s maternal, loving arms and Rick’s never ending support. She wept for her husband, her family and her friends. But more than anything else, she wept for her freedom. When a hand came over her shoulder she slapped it away, terrified as she turned.

“Oh God,” she exhaled. “I’m sorry, I thought you were Stavros.”

“He doesn’t know about this place,” Stefan said, sitting down on the bench her.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know, maybe I thought he would’ve followed me.”

“What’s wrong,” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said, wiping the tears from her face. She felt his eyes on her and knew he wasn’t gonna give up. She sighed angrily. “I just hate being drawn or painted. Photographed I can take, sometimes, but I can’t be posing for an artist, it makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped.

She was having a hard enough time letting it go without having to open the wound even further.

“Could you tell Luke?” Stefan asked.

Laura sighed again. “Yes, I could. He made me forgive myself but it’s being dredged up every time your maniac brother puts me in a chair to be drawn.”

She knew she was being cold about this, and she also knew he was just trying to help.

“I don’t know if you’ve researched me Stefan but I killed someone once. Someone who used to draw me, draw sketches of me, occasionally paint me. And I’m not…trying to be an insensitive bitch but it’s very hard for me to talk about it.”

Laura placed a hand on her stomach.

“God I’m nauseas.”

“Is it the baby?” he asked, concerned.

“Maybe, it might also just be Stavros and Helena making me crazy.”

Laura couldn’t keep from crying again as she covered her mouth with her hand.

“His name was David Hamilton and it wasn’t so much what he did as what I allowed him to do to me. And when he told me everything I’d allowed myself to believe was a lie…I killed him,” she said through gritted teeth. “And I never told anyone but Luke but I wanted him dead, I wanted to kill him. I just never thought I would ever kill anyone.”

“And this David Hamilton drew images of you?”

“Yes,” Laura said, wincing. “I was fifteen, he was in his thirties. I was just a stupid little girl caught up in all the…crap of two families claiming their rights to me and demanding loyalty, loyalty I didn’t know how or who to give it to. So I took up any piece of attention I could that was non-confrontational, and I convinced myself I was in love with this…man I thought was so fascinating when in reality he was using me to hurt my mother who was never in love with him. And when I found out I pushed him and he…then he fell and hit his head. And he never took another breath.”

She allowed Stefan to pull her into his arms and when he did, she allowed her soft sobs to exist openly, and she wrapped her arms around him, thriving on his strength. When her sobs finally subsided she sat up, wiped her face and smiled.

“I never told anyone that but Luke, and he held me just like you are now, and he made the pain stop just like you are,” she whispered.

He couldn’t explain how much her words meant to him. That she was telling him she needed him. As the second son, the “worthless” son, the estranged Cassadine, the man whom he’d always envied…he had something that was his. He had Lasha. She was in his arms, confiding in him, telling him she needed him, not Stavros. And he had never felt so complete.

“What made you tell Luke?” he asked gently, holding her against him.

“Actually uh…Alex Quartermaine had murdered a man that I’d briefly known, who looked like David. Reminded me of David. He was the inventor of the formula for your family’s weather machine. I’ll never know what happened but Alex murdered Robert Duvall who I thought was Kurt Wheeler. She murdered him in my apartment. They were in my apartment and she killed him with the Ice Princess. Not only did Duvall look like David to me but he drew sketches of me. I don’t think I’d ever been so weirded out in my life. But he was a kind man, I thought, I don’t know, and when I came home his body was by the fireplace, just like David’s, he was dead just like David and my mind cracked and split. Flashes of murdering David flooded my mind and then I guess I…blacked out because the next thing I remember is crying in Luke’s arms saying I didn’t do it over and over. He and Robert got me upstairs to Luke’s apartment and got O’Reilly to watch over me, whom by the way Victor shot to death and she died in my arms, and Luke, Robert, and Slick got rid of the body somehow so that I couldn’t be blamed. And Luke came upstairs and held me and I still thought it was David. He forced me to see reality and…I had to tell him. I had to tell someone the whole story. I had to finally let it out. And I cried as I told him and he cried because he saw how much pain I was in and he just held me. And all the…stuff that we’d fought about and been angry about went away because he got to see what that event did to me and why I did so many stupid things in our relationship. But I was exhausted and I just slept on his chest and when I woke up the first thing he did was make me laugh.”

There was silence between them for a few seconds, then she pulled back.

“You know today is an American holiday, February 14^th, it’s about love and caring. Robert’s probably giving Tiffany a bouquet of roses and chocolates.”

“Is this a holiday you celebrated?”

“Yes. Everyone pretty much celebrates it. It’s not a religious holiday, it’s just a holiday.”

“I know my brother’s heartless but perhaps you could tell him you hate being-“

“No! I can’t ever let him know any other weakness besides the ones he already knows. I can’t give him any more power over me than he already has or I’ll go crazy.”

God he wished he could take this pain away from her. He wished he could murder his brother and his mother and marry this beautiful woman who might if by some miracle, be carrying his child, and live and die with her.

“I’m sorry, I’m yelling at you when you don’t deserve it. I just…don’t have anyone to yell to. But it’s not you, it is never you I am angry with. I thank God for you, Stefan,” she said, brushing his face with the back of her hand. “Come with me, to the cove.”

“My brother-“

“I don’t care about your brother, if I need to I’ll come up with a logical lie and he’ll believe it anyhow because of how much of an egomaniacal maniac he is. I want to be with you, Stefan, please come with me to the cove.”

Before he knew what she was doing, she was undoing the buttons to his white island shirt. Pushing it away from his body, exposing his chest, she then took her elegant hands to the straps of her dress and slid them off her shoulders, down her arms, waist, to pool at her feet in the floor. In the dim light, he saw her body glistening, her skin glowing from the pregnancy but the baby was so tiny there was no difference in her body other than her breasts swelling slightly.

“Will this hurt the baby?” he asked.

“No. No, this baby’s strong. It survived…well it survived the concussion and the beating so it can survive being touched by you, especially when I want it so much.”

He had moved a bed into this secret place by the cove, deep inside the cave at the base of the shore. There were candles lit, and Laura knew he’d found out about Valentine’s Day and had she not asked him to the cove, he would’ve asked her. Laura took his hand and led him to the bed, sitting down on it, pulling him down and over her. Pushing her lush body back against the sheets, he bent down to take a nipple between his lips and suckle gently now that she was pregnant. Encircling it and pulling it lightly deeper into his mouth, she curled her fingers through his hair as she arched her body against his warm mouth. She dwelled in the ripples of sensation that coursed through her body by his touch. He began to increase the suction, causing Laura to grasp the back of his head for support as he engulfed more of her breast into his hungry mouth. His hands slid beneath her back to pull her torso to him as he nibbled and kissed her thin stomach, the curves of her waist before returning to her breasts, teasing them, and she elicited a moan of pleasure from the way he was and always had touched her.

Perfectly.

Laura could feel him hard and ready against her so she sat up, pushing him off her slightly to undo his pants and then pull his naked, beautiful form over hers. She was already wet and waiting to receive him. She had waited for what seemed like a lifetime to touch him again, to feel him fill her and have him give her a piece of himself.

“If you’re ready, please, now,” she whispered against his ear, her fingernails running against his lean and beautiful back, thrusting her body against his to urge him.

Trying to spread her legs he eventually allowed her to, but only after several long, beautiful minutes of kisses that flushed her lips and left her breathless. Opening herself up to him she felt the jolt slam through her entire body when he entered hers. Stefan’s lips began to move over hers, licking and nipping, then running his strong hand up her neck to push her face upwards so he could march his mouth over the line of her neck, dipping his tongue into the hollow of her throat. His hands then worked to possessively explore the tender and beautiful contours of her stomach as he began to thrust in and out of her very slowly, very gently.

Unable to remain at such a slow and tender pace, she sat up, grinding herself against him, openly kissing his mouth as she dug her nails into his back with each increasing wave of pleasure created by each smooth, thorough thrust. Her lips nipped his, seeking entrance, insisting they part, and when they finally did, her tongue plunged into his recesses and slowly withdrew, then plunged again in blatant imitation of the act she was craving with dangerous determination.

His arms tightened around her as his tongue slid up to her ear, leisurely exploring each curve and crevice, then gently outlining the delicate skin that shaped it. She shuddered with the longing she’d had for him and sighed softly as his hands shifted up and down her back, pushing himself deeper inside her welcoming warmth.

“Stefan,” she whispered against his body, the beautiful body she clung to desperately.

Slamming his body down hard against hers she whimpered slightly inside his mouth, seeking the release, the climax of this beautiful act. Feeding off each other’s strength and love, their hands entwined and they pulled back just enough to look at each other. Keeping her eyes with his he thrust again into, hard, causing her to tilt her head back in ecstasy and pull his body closer to hers. Her body felt slickened as did his as he drove into again and again.

Moving them so she was top, she ran her hands over his shoulders and torso as she took him in deeper, tightening herself ever so slightly, feeling his orgasm begin as did hers. Not willing to reach her climax without him, she ripped her mouth from his and slid down to take his nipple into her mouth, suckling it hard and tightening herself around him as much as she could, sliding three fingers into his mouth to soothe the burning orgasm as he climax with her, filling her with his essence. Reaching her own climax she stopped, her mouth still against his skin, and rested atop him, spent.

“Stavros wants to hang that painting in the main hall. First he’ll have to win Helena’s favor else he’ll take his revenge on her. But now that that painting was painted the day we made love, I can bare to see it. Though I’ll never feel completely comfortable looking at it,” she said afterwards.

“That painting will have a special meaning for me as well, I will always remember this moment when looking at it.”

“I hated the red dress.”

“You hate all the clothing given to you.”

She smiled. “Well, I don’t hate this clothing, but I do now and then ache for a T-Shirt and a pair of jeans.”

“You’re sure the child’s all right?”

Laura’s deep blue eyes met his hazel. “I would feel it if there was anything wrong. And I swear to you, I’ll make sure you’re the godfather. I want you in this child’s life and you know that. You know that’s why I told you with such tears in my eyes.”

Laura would never tell him that that day she’d wished he would’ve reacted differently. That she was looking in his eyes desperately when he kissed her hand, pleading with her eyes for him to just run away with her and their child. But she knew that despite his own hatred for his family, he was in many ways loyal to it.

“Stefan, as long as I have you on this island I’ll be sane, and I’ll be the happiest I’ve ever been when we hold my child.”

The End

Written: January 30^th, 2003