Sophie’s POV
Bellamy has the night off.
Adrian insisted—even security needs rest, he said, and Sophie isn't going anywhere. I didn't argue. The relief of knowing I wouldn't have those watchful eyes tracking my every movement was too overwhelming to question.
For the first time in weeks, we're truly alone.
The apartment feels different without Bellamy's presence haunting the corners. Larger, somehow, and quieter. Like it's finally exhaling after holding its breath for too long.
I wander through the rooms aimlessly at first, rediscovering spaces I'd started avoiding just to minimize my interactions with my shadow. The balcony. The study. The kitchen—
I stop in the doorway. Adrian is cooking.
It's such a domestic, unexpected image that I pause just to watch, my shoulder resting against the frame. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows, revealing forearms I've always found distracting.
A glass of red wine sits beside the stove, half-empty. Something fragrant simmers in a pan—garlic, herbs, something rich and warm that makes my stomach growl.
He moves with surprising ease, comfortable in a way I've never seen him. The controlled professor, the commanding dominant, the man who orchestrates every aspect of his environment with surgical precision—here, he's just a person making dinner.
Humming quietly under his breath. Tasting a sauce and adding more salt. He looks younger like this, less guarded. Almost... peaceful.
"Are you going to stand there staring, or are you going to help?"
I startle. He hasn't turned around, but somehow he knew I was there. Of course he did.
"I'm a terrible cook," I admit, pushing off the doorframe and moving into the kitchen. "The last time I tried to make pasta, I somehow burned water. Cleo still hasn't let me live it down."
Adrian glances over his shoulder, a hint of amusement playing at the corners of his mouth. "I'm aware of your culinary limitations. But you can pour the wine without setting anything on fire. Probably."
"Your confidence in me is overwhelming."
"I believe in setting realistic expectations."
I laugh—a real laugh, the kind that's been rare lately—and reach for the bottle on the counter. The wine glugs into my glass, deep red and inviting, though I set it aside after a small sip. The baby makes its preferences known with a pointed kick.
"Water for me, apparently," I mutter, rubbing my stomach. "Someone's already developing strong opinions."
"Wonder where they get that from."
We move around each other in the small space, and something shifts. Every accidental brush of arms sends electricity skating across my skin. Every exchanged glance holds a beat too long, charged with unspoken things.
The tension that's lived between us for weeks—sharp-edged with arguments and suspicion and all the things we haven't said—transforms into something else entirely.
Want. Memory. The magnetic pull that brought us together in the first place, back when everything was forbidden and nothing was simple.
Not that anything is simple now. But at least tonight, we can pretend.
Over dinner—pasta with a sauce that tastes like heaven, served at the small table by the window where the city lights glitter like scattered diamonds—we talk. Really talk.
Not about Cassian or the trial or the scandal that's consumed our lives. Not about Bellamy or protection or the paternity results hanging over us like a sword.
About smaller things. Real things.
"What are you reading for your coursework?" Adrian asks, twirling pasta around his fork with practiced elegance.
"Post-colonial literature analysis. Achebe, Rushdie, some contemporary voices." I take a bite, savoring the flavors. "There's a beautiful essay by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie that made me cry in the middle of a video lecture. Very professional."
"Crying over beautiful writing is the most professional response a literature student can have."
"Tell that to my advisor. She looked very concerned."
He laughs, and the sound does something warm to my chest.
"When I was working on my dissertation, I watched a film that completely changed how I thought about storytelling. A French film from the sixties—slow, meditative, nothing like American cinema. I spent three days afterward unable to write a single word because everything I'd believed about narrative structure suddenly felt inadequate."
"What was the film?"
"I'll show you sometime. It requires the right mood." His eyes meet mine across the table. "And the right company."
The conversation meanders through unexpected territory. I learn he played piano as a child—badly, he insists, with a self-deprecating smile that makes him seem almost boyish.
After dinner, Adrian leads me to the couch. He sits beside me, close enough that our thighs press together, and his hands find my growing belly.
The touch is reverent, almost hesitant. His palms spread across the swell where our child grows, and I watch his face as he feels the life beneath my skin.
"I don't know how to do this." The words come out rough, quiet. A confession extracted under cover of darkness. "Any of it—fatherhood, partnership, being what you need me to be."
"Adrian…"
"I had no model for it. My father was... absent, in all the ways that mattered. And then Lolita, and everything after…" He stops, swallows. "I learned how to control, how to command, how to possess. I never learned how to simply... be with someone. To build something that isn't a power exchange."
The vulnerability in his voice breaks something open in my chest. This man—this complicated, maddening, beautiful man—laying himself bare in a way he rarely allows.
I shift closer. Cup his face in my hands. Make him look at me.
"I don't need you to be perfect." The words come from somewhere deep and true. "I don't need you to have all the answers or know exactly what you're doing. None of us know what we're doing—that's the whole terrifying point of being alive."
"Then what do you need?"
"I need you to be present." I brush my thumb across his cheekbone. "Here. With me. Not hiding behind walls or making decisions without me or disappearing into whatever shadows you think will protect us. Just... present. That's all. That's everything."
Adrian’s hands slide over my belly, his fingers trembling just slightly—like he’s afraid I’ll break, like I’m something sacred. But I don’t want reverence. I want his teeth in my skin, his cock buried so deep inside me he forgets his own goddamn name.
I grab his wrist and drag his palm lower, past the swell of my stomach, down to where I’m already wet and aching for him. His breath hitches, rough and ragged, and his dark eyes flick up to mine.
"Sophie…"
"You don’t get to overthink this," I grind against his hand. "You don’t get to hesitate. You just get to own me."
His fingers twitch, then curl, dipping beneath the waistband of my panties. The first brush of his fingertips against my soaked cunt wrings a moan from my throat.
Adrian’s dragging his fingers through my folds, teasing my clit with slow, filthy circles. I arch into his touch, my nipples hard under my dress, my thighs trembling.
His mouth crashes into mine, swallowing my moans as he pushes two fingers inside me, curling them just right, making my back bow off the couch. His thumb keeps working my clit, relentless, and I’m already close, already shaking—
Then he stops.
I whimper, clawing at his shoulders. "You mother—"
He smirks, that infuriating, cocky smirk, and leans in to lick a hot stripe up my neck. "You said you wanted me to fuck you, sweetheart. Not finger you into a quick little orgasm."
I could kill him. I will kill him.
But then he’s yanking my panties down, his hands rough and possessive, and my legs fall open like they were made for him. His belt buckle clinks as he undoes it, his cock springing free—thick, hard, already leaking.
"Tell me," he demands, dragging the head through my slick folds, teasing me. "Tell me how bad you want it."
I grab his ass and yank him forward, impaling myself on him in one brutal thrust. "Like this," I gasp, my walls clenching around him.
He groans, deep and ragged, his hips snapping forward, burying himself to the hilt. "Fuck, you’re tight—so fucking tight—"
I wrap my legs around his waist, locking him inside me as he starts to move, each thrust punching a filthy moan from my lips.
His hands grip my hips, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and I love it—love the way he takes what he wants, love the way his cock stretches me open, love the way he fucks me like he’s starving for it.
"Harder," I demand, nails raking down his back. "Fuck me harder."
He snarls, flipping me onto my hands and knees, and slams back into me from behind, one hand fisted in my hair, the other gripping my hip so hard I’ll feel it tomorrow.
"Mine," he growls, pounding into me like a man possessed. "Say it."
"Yours," I whimper, my tits bouncing with every brutal thrust. "Always yours—fuck—Adrian—"
His pace turns erratic, his cock swelling inside me, and I know he’s close. I reach between my legs, rubbing my clit in frantic circles, and then I’m coming—hard—my cunt clenching around him, milking his cock as he empties himself inside me with a guttural groan.
We collapse in a sweaty, panting heap, his cock still twitching inside me, his lips pressed to my shoulder.
And for one night—just one night—that's enough.