Jasmine
The sheets tangled around me smell like him, like oak and leather and something darker I still can’t name without my body pulling tight in response.
I’m lying half on my stomach, half on my side, one arm draped over his chest. I can feel the slow steady rise and fall of his breathing beneath my cheek, the deep post-violence calm of a man who has done exactly what he set out to do and come back whole.
He’s warm. Solid. Quiet in a way that feels intentional, not distant. And I realise I’ve never lain beside a man in silence before without waiting for the moment he flips, the moment the softness becomes a trap.
But with Adrik, the quiet feels like a shelter. Like the world has finally stopped spinning long enough for me to find my feet.
I lift my head just enough to look at him. The faintest shadow of stubble darkens his jaw. And his impossibly pale eyes are watching me like he’s memorising every version of my face. I don’t know how long he’s been awake.
My voice comes out low and soft. “What you said earlier… was that just heat-of-the-moment stuff? The baby talk? Or did you actually mean it?”
His gaze doesn’t even flicker. Not once. A man who lies would look away. Adrik just looks at me harder.
“I meant every word,” he says, and the calm certainty in his voice sends a slow, heavy roll of warmth through my stomach. “I’ve never felt like that with anyone. Never wanted that with anyone. Certainly never said it during sex before.”
My breath hitches even though I try to keep it steady. He wants that. With me.
He lifts a hand, brushing his fingertips over the back of mine where it rests on his chest. The gesture is soft, but his eyes go darker, hungrier, like he’s remembering the exact moment he lost control with me and isn’t sorry about it.
“When I had you,” he murmurs, “when I felt you squeeze around me… I saw it. Clear as day. You, round with my baby. Carrying my child. Soft and leaking…” His voice dips lower, rougher.
“That was when I knew. It wasn’t just lust. It wasn’t just the moment.
The thought of you pregnant, with my baby under your heart, it tipped me over the edge. ”
The words crash into me with more force than they should. I feel heat flush my cheeks, my throat, the very centre of me.
Because the truth is, I’ve always wanted a family.
Not the picture-perfect kind from magazines, but something simple.
Solid. A home where no one raised their voice in anger.
A kitchen that smelled like cinnamon instead of week old meatloaf.
A life that didn’t feel like walking barefoot over broken glass.
I never told Matthew that. He would’ve used it against me. He would’ve turned it into a threat, or a leash, or a weapon.
But when Adrik says it, when he talks about babies and futures and me belonging here, the most basic human part of me that he awoke, stirs to life.
I swallow, my throat a little tighter than before.
“I used to think about it,” I admit, eyes fixed on the sheets because looking at him might break the courage forming inside me.
“Having a family. Kids. A home that didn’t feel temporary.
A life where I wasn’t constantly bracing for…
everything.” I exhale shakily. “But I thought that dream died the first time Matt hurt me. And then again. And again.”
His thumb strokes over my knuckles, slow and warm.
“It didn’t die,” he says. “It waited.”
I close my eyes for a second because the tenderness in his voice hits too hard. When I open them again, he’s still watching me like I’m the only thing in the world that matters.
“Adrik… it’s crazy,” I whisper. “All of this. You. Me. Tonight. The way I feel. The way you talk about the future like it’s already written. I don’t know what’s trauma bonding, or adrenaline, or actual fate.”
He shifts just enough to bring our foreheads together, the intimate weight of it grounding me.
“I don’t care what you call it,” he says quietly. “I know what I felt. And I know what I want.” His breath brushes my lips. “And I want all of it with you.”
The air thickens again, that familiar pull tightening low in my belly.
There’s no mistaking the sexual tension simmering between us.
It hums beneath every word, every breath, every inch of space between our mouths.
But he doesn’t kiss me. He lets the wanting sit there, heavy and hot, until I feel drunk on it.
“And what do you want, kotyonok?” he asks, voice softer than sin. “What future do you see when you close your eyes?”
My heart stutters. Because I know the answer. I’ve known it since he walked back into the suite at four a.m. in that pale grey suit, eyes blazing like I was the only thing he ever wanted to look at again.
“I picture… safety,” I whisper. “Stability. A home. Someone who actually wants the same things I do. Someone who… who adores me.”
His jaw clenches. His hand cups the back of my neck gently, a contrast that shouldn’t make sense but does.
“Then you’re looking at him,” he says.
The words settle over me like warm water. I let myself sink into his chest, breathing him in, letting the truth of it settle. A future with him isn’t a fantasy. It doesn’t feel like wishful thinking.
It feels possible and real.
After a long moment, he shifts slightly beneath me.
“Jasmine,” he murmurs, voice low and measured, “your money is in the living room.” A beat of silence. “Do you still want to leave?”
The question hangs in the air like a held breath. Quiet but impossibly loud.
Do you still want to leave?
The words settle in my chest like a stone dropped into still water, rippling through everything I thought I understood about my life.
My breath catches, and for a long moment I can’t answer.
I just stare at the ceiling above us and listen to his heartbeat under my cheek, steady and unhurried, as if he’s giving me all the time in the world.
I think about what “leaving” really means. Taking the money. Buying a bus ticket. Starting over again, alone. Another cheap motel or borrowed couch or halfway house. Loneliness.
I think about the cold, the fear, the bruises I still feel when I breathe too deeply. My life before tonight wasn’t living. It was surviving.
And then I think about the alternative. About here. About him.
About the way he touched me like I mattered. About how he looked at me as though he couldn’t believe fate had put me in his path. About how his voice went quiet when he told me he wanted a future with me.
I lift my head slowly, searching his face. His expression doesn’t push or plead. He’s just watching me, the way he always does, as if I’m something fragile and dangerous all at once, something he refuses to mishandle.
“I don’t know,” I whisper honestly. “I’m trying to figure it out. For so long all I’ve done is survive. Choosing anything else feels… huge. Terrifying. Like I’m rewriting my whole life in one night.”
His fingers trace the back of my arm, slow, steady strokes that make warmth spread through my chest.
“You don’t have to decide right now,” he says, voice low. “But I needed to ask, and you deserve the choice.”
Choice. God, I can’t remember the last time anyone gave me one.
I swallow, lifting my eyes fully to his. “If I didn’t leave… if I stayed… what would that even look like?”
His jaw flexes, not with tension, but with certainty. He doesn’t even pause.
“It would look like whatever you want it to,” he says.
“A home. Safety. Stability. A future. A family. Anything. Everything.” He lifts his hand to my cheek and brushes his thumb across my skin.
“If you choose me, you’ll never have to be without again.
Not love. Not protection. Not anything. Whatever you want, whenever you want it, I’ll put it in your hands before you finish asking. ”
My heart stumbles so hard I have to close my eyes for a second just to breathe.
“And if I chose you?” I ask, voice barely above a whisper. “You really think we could have all that?”
“I don’t think,” he murmurs, leaning closer. “I know.”
The air snaps between us, thick with a different kind of tension now, soft, warm, intimate. The kind that curls around my heart and squeezes until I’m dizzy with wanting.
His forehead touches mine again, gentle and grounding, and my voice comes out in a shaky whisper. “You make it sound so easy.”
He huffs a quiet breath, not quite a laugh. “It is easy, kotyonok. For me it is. The moment I saw you, this path became the only one.”
My chest tightens in a way that’s almost painful. I look at him, and part of me still wants to argue that this is impossible, unrealistic, too fast, too crazy. But another part, the part that’s quieter, deeper, whispers that maybe this is what I’ve been waiting for without even knowing it.
I let my fingers trail over his collarbone, tracing the edge of his shirt. “I’m still thinking,” I murmur. “I’m not saying no. I’m just… trying to wrap my head around it.”
He nods like he understands every thought I’m not saying out loud. “Good,” he says softly. “Think. Question. Take your time.”
Then he leans in closer, lips brushing my temple as he adds, “Just don’t overthink everything. Not when the truth is so f—”
His sentence breaks off when his hand slides down my waist and I twitch instinctively, a little jolt running through me. His brows lift, amused. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” I say too quickly, because oh God.
His smirk is slow, dangerous, affectionate all at once. “Nothing,” he repeats, his tone much too innocent.
Before I can protest, he shifts, slides his hand deliberately back to the exact spot, fingers light, teasing.
I gasp and jerk away with a little laugh I don’t even recognise as mine. “Adrik—don’t.”
He chuckles under his breath, a low, warm sound that vibrates through his chest. “Don’t what?”
“You know exactly wh—” Another touch. Another involuntary squirm. My breath catches, and the tension in the room shifts again, this time darker, hotter.
His eyes drag over me slowly, heat rolling under his gaze. “Kotyonok,” he murmurs, voice dropping to that dangerous-soft register that melts through me every time, “I think I do.”
My pulse trips over itself as he leans in, inches from my mouth, that playfully wicked glint still in his eyes. It sends a shiver racing down my spine, pooling hot and insistent between my legs.
I don’t move at first, just let my eyes devour him, tracing the sharp lines of his jaw, the way his muscles flex as he moves accentuating every inch of power and control he carries so effortlessly.
Now I feel something shift inside me, a bold hunger that refuses to wait for him to take the lead. He protected me, ended the nightmare that haunted me, and now I want to claim him back, to show him I am not just the broken girl he saved, but a woman who craves him with a fire that matches his own.
My body aches for it, slick and ready, and as I roll over over him, my legs bracing either side of his hips, I let the sheet slip away to tease him.
I drop my mouth to his, my nipples brushing over his chest, my hands reaching for his hardening cock. I pull back and watch the heat flare in his eyes like a storm building.
He starts to speak, but I press a finger to his lips, silencing him, and the surprise in his expression only fuels my confidence. I move down the bed, keeping him between my legs until I’m low enough to part his and nestle between them. My fingers work the length of him.
His chest rises and falls faster now, and I lean in to kiss the tip of his thick cock, tasting the salt of him, feeling the heat of him as he thickens and throbs in my grasp. A low groan escapes him that makes my core clench with need.
I wrap my lips around the tip, swirling my tongue over the sensitive head, savoring the sticky bead of precum that leaks from him as his hands fist in the sheets. He is huge, stretching my mouth as I take him deeper, sucking with a rhythm that has him cursing under his breath.
His hips buck slightly despite his efforts to stay still. I love this, the power of reducing a man like Adrik to trembling edges, the way his fingers tangle in my hair not to control but to hold on as I bob my head, hollowing my cheeks and taking him as far as I can.
He growls my name, his voice rough and desperate, and it spurs me on, my hand stroking what my mouth can’t reach, twisting and pumping until he is panting.
His thighs tense and quiver under my touch.
But I don’t let him finish, not yet, pulling back with a wet pop and leaning back on my knees, I reposition myself over him.
His eyes darken with raw possession as I straddle him, guiding his cock to my entrance.
I sink down slowly, inch by inch, until he fills me completely.
The stretch is exquisite, a burn that borders on pain but melts into pleasure as I rock my hips, setting the pace, riding him with deliberate rolls that grind my clit against his base.
He grips my hips, but I move his hands to my tits, encouraging him to squeeze and play with my nipples as I move faster, harder, chasing the building heat.
"I want this," I moan, my voice breathy and bold.
"I want you to fill me, Adrik. Breed me.
Fill me with your cum and put your baby inside me.
" The words tumble out, shocking even me, but they feel right, primal, igniting something wild in both of us as his eyes widen and then blaze with unbridled need.
I ride him relentlessly now, my nails digging into his scarred chest as I bounce on his cock, feeling him hit that perfect spot deep inside with every roll of my hips. Sweat slicks our skin, and his groans mix with my moans, the room filled with the slick sounds of our bodies joining.
The breeding fantasy consumes me, the thought of him spilling into me, claiming me in the most permanent way, pushing me closer to the edge.
"Do it," I demand, releasing his hands so he can grip my hips, helping me slam down harder.
"Come inside me, claim me." He thrusts up to meet me, his control shattering, and when I clench around him, my orgasm crashes over me like a tidal wave, ripping a scream from my throat as pleasure explodes through every nerve.
He follows seconds later, roaring my name as he pulses inside me, hot cum filling me completely.
“Don’t move,” he grunts as he shakes with aftershocks. He moves us fluidly until he is on top, his cock twitching against my pussy walls.