The door shut with a soft click behind me. The sound might as well have been a fucking gavel.
Adrian didn't speak at first. Just moved with that calculated stillness that somehow managed to fill the entire room.
The shadows from his pretentious floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stretched across the space like prison bars, and honestly? The metaphor wasn't lost on me.
He turned slowly, hands sliding into his pockets with the kind of practiced control that probably took years to perfect. His eyes snapped to mine—cold, sharp, dangerous.
I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to look brave but actually hiding my fingers that were shaking with worry. “I’m ready to listen.”
“Straight to the point, huh. Liked the way I command and want to do the same?”
My eyes narrowed. I didn't appreciate his attempt to defuse the situation. Adrian sensed my mood and finally spoke.
"Lisette was my doctoral adviser five years ago. Brilliant, ambitious, and completely obsessed with the idea of being special."
I waited, sensing there was more.
"She pursued me. Relentlessly. Made it clear what she wanted, what she was offering. I told her from the beginning I wasn't capable of love, of commitment, of whatever fairy tale she'd constructed in her head."
"But you were together?"
"We had an arrangement." He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell his cologne. "Physical. Intense. She understood the terms."
"And then you left her?"
"I ended it when she started making demands that went far beyond our agreement." His voice dropped to that dangerous whisper that made my knees go weak. "When she started acting like she owned me instead of the other way around."
I studied his face, looking for tells, for signs of deception. Something about his story felt too clean, too one-sided. "That's really all there was to it? You just... walked away?"
Something flickered across his expression. "What else would there be?"
"I don't know." I paused, trying to find the right words. "It feels like there’s more to the story."
His gaze sharpened. "Are you calling me a liar, Sophie?"
"I'm just saying, maybe..."
"There are no hidden depths to analyze," he said firmly. "Lisette couldn't accept that our arrangement had limits. She became unstable when those limits were enforced. That's the beginning, middle, and end of the story."
I wanted to believe him, but doubt gnawed at me. The certainty in his tone should have been reassuring, but it only made my anxiety spike higher. But something so powerful in him made me believe his words.
"She seemed... unstable. The way she talked about you, about us."
Something flickered across his expression. "I said Lisette has always been brilliant, and I’m not taking my words back. But brilliant doesn't mean stable. And I'm not sure she's completely..." He paused, jaw working like he was deciding something.
"What?" I pressed.
He shook his head. "Never mind."
"Adrian, what aren't you telling me?"
"It doesn't matter." His gaze swept down my body and back up, like he was conducting some kind of inventory. "What matters is that she's going to try to get inside your head. She'll make you doubt everything—me, yourself, what we have."
A chill ran down my spine. "She already started. She said when this gets out, it'll destroy my academic future. That I'll be known as the girl who slept with her professor.”
"You don't have to worry about her. I'll keep you safe." He met my gaze in a flicker of desperation to make me believe as he said them out loud.
The words should have been comforting, but something in his tone made my stomach clench with a different kind of fear. "And what will happen to you?"
The question slipped out before I could stop it, and Adrian's entire posture shifted. His eyes sharpened, studying my face with an intensity that made me feel exposed.
"What did you just ask me?" His voice was quiet, careful.
Heat flooded my cheeks as I realized what I'd said, how it sounded. Like I cared about his welfare more than my own. Like his fate mattered to me in ways that went beyond our arrangement.
"I just... if she reports us, if this becomes public..." My voice trailed off, but the concern in it was unmistakable.
Adrian stared at me for a long moment, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. Then he nodded toward the door.
"Lock it," he said simply.
I blinked. "What?"
"The door, Sophie. Lock it and come back here."
"But I was asking about…"
His voice cut through the room like a blade. "You don't understand my command the first time?"
The shift in his tone was immediate and absolute. Gone was the man explaining his history with Vaughn. This was the dominant who expected immediate obedience, and my body responded before my mind could catch up.
I moved to the door on trembling legs, my hands shaking as I turned the lock. The click seemed to echo through the room, sealing us in together. When I turned back, Adrian was watching me with that predatory focus that made my pulse spike.
"Come here," he commanded, his voice dropping to that register that made my entire nervous system short-circuit.
I walked toward him slowly, hyperaware of every step, every breath. When I reached his desk, he was already moving, hands settling on my waist and lifting me onto the polished surface with effortless strength.
"Spread your legs," he said, stepping between them. "I want to see if worrying about my reputation made you wet."
"Adrian…"
"It did, didn't it?" His hands skimmed up my thighs, pushing my skirt higher. "All that concern, all that fear—it just made you hungrier."
His fingers hooked into my panties, sliding them down my legs with deliberate slowness. The cool air against my heated skin made me gasp. Then I felt fingers sliding through my slick folds.
"I want you to understand something," he said, sliding one finger inside me, making me arch against him. "I'll make sure you stay out of trouble. But my business, my history, my decisions, my consequences—that doesn’t concern you."
"But if something happens—" I started, then gasped as he added another finger.
"Nothing will happen to me that I don't allow to happen," he said, his tone matter-of-fact. "I'm responsible for what I've tamed, Sophie. I protect it. That’s it, nothing more. And I want you to learn that lesson."
The possessive language should have bothered me, but instead it sent heat straight to my core. His fingers curled inside me, hitting that perfect spot that made my vision blur.
I moaned, hips moving against his hand, chasing the pressure he was providing.
"This is what you are now," he continued, his voice clinical even as his fingers worked magic between my legs. "Mine to guide, mine to protect, mine to use as I see fit. And I take care of what belongs to me."
The words should have made me angry, should have triggered some feminist outrage. Instead, they pushed me closer to the edge.
"Say it," he demanded, his thumb finding my clit. "Say what you are."
"I'm yours," I gasped, feeling the familiar tension building low in my belly. "Yours to protect, yours to use."
"Good girl." The praise was delivered with the same detached satisfaction as everything else. "Now show me how well you respond to proper handling."
The orgasm hit me like lightning, and I cried out, my body clenching around his fingers as waves of pleasure crashed through me. He worked me through it with clinical precision, drawing every last tremor from my body.
When I finally stilled, he withdrew his fingers and stepped back, straightening his cuffs with the same calm efficiency he'd used to bring me to climax.
"Remember that moment," he said simply. "And don't let anyone fool you about what's going on between us.”
Adrian made sure I wasn't looking away when he deliberately slowly, looking straight into my eyes, licked his fingers, which not so long ago had been inside me. “Not even yourself."