Chapter Eighteen
Sophia
The door clicks shut behind us, and the quiet is immediate.
My room has never felt this small.
Log walls. Tiny kitchenette to the left. Table with two hand-hewn wooden chairs. The queen bed tucked under the window, a cozy pastel quilt covering it like it does every day, waiting for me to return alone.
I turn the deadbolt without thinking.
When I spin around, he’s standing only a few feet away, big and solid and suddenly looking uncertain in a way I almost never see.
“This okay?” he asks softly, his gaze sweeping the room, then resting on me. “Me being here?”
His voice is careful, as if he’s testing each word before letting it out.
Emotion squeezes my throat. “Yes. I… yes. I asked you.”
He nods once, like that matters, like the fact I asked is the most important piece.
It is.
I take a step toward him, then another, and now I’m close enough to smell him—soap and sweat and the faint metallic tang that never quite leaves, no matter how many centuries it’s been since the arena.
For a beat, we just stand here, looking at each other.
The day presses in—Blackwell’s paper, my mother’s dismissal, the way my own career feels like it’s hanging from a fraying thread. If I let myself keep thinking about all of it, I’ll disintegrate.
“I keep… replaying it,” I admit. My voice sounds too loud in the small space. “The paper. The submission date. My proposal. Every ‘our framework’ she ever wrote. It’s like a loop I can’t turn off.”
His brow furrows. “Do you want to talk more? Or do you want… quiet?”
The way he says it—offering options, not assuming—eases something tight in my chest.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “Talking helps. Sitting with you helps. Everything else feels like sandpaper on my nerves.”
He glances at the small table, then at the bed, and then hesitates as if both options are suddenly complicated.
I realize I’m just… standing here, unsure of where to put my hands, unsure of where to begin. My body feels caught between wanting to collapse and wanting to reach for him.
“Sit,” I say, gesturing toward the bed before my brain can overthink it. “It’s the only comfortable thing in here. The chairs are terrible.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. “Terrible chairs I understand.”
He moves to the bed and sits on the edge, careful, like he’s trying not to take up too much space, which is ridiculous because he takes up space by existing.
I hover for a second, then sit beside him, leaving a few inches between us. The mattress dips under his weight, tilting me toward him.
My hands immediately start their tapping pattern against my thighs—four fingers, thumb, repeat, repeat. I try to stop. Fail. Try again.
He doesn’t flinch at the stimming. He never does.
Instead, he lets his hand fall palm-up on the bed between us.
“If you want,” he murmurs. “If touch helps.”
I look at his hand as though it’s a test.
It’s not. But my nervous system doesn’t know the difference.
Slowly, I lay my hand in his. His fingers curl around mine, warm and careful, as if he’s holding something precious and breakable.
Some of the buzzing in my head quiets.
“I hate that she can do this to me,” I say. “Not just the paper. The way her voice lives in my head. The way I can’t turn it off.”
“Then let my voice be louder,” he says softly. “For tonight.”
I release a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
We sit in silence for a few breaths. Our joined hands rest on the bed between us. Every few seconds, my thumb twitches, making small abortive taps against his skin. He just holds on.
The quiet stretches, not uncomfortable exactly, just… charged.
“I meant what I said,” I murmur. “I didn’t ask you here for distraction. I didn’t—”
I stop, because there’s a whole other truth under that statement, one I don’t know how to say.
I didn’t ask you here for distraction. But I am very, very aware of your body right now.
His thumb moves once, tracing a small arc over the back of my hand like he’s mapping fault lines.
“I know,” he says. “You asked for company. To not hold this alone.”
He turns his head and looks at me fully. His green eyes are steadier than I feel.
“But wanting two things at same time?” he adds gently. “That is allowed. Company and touch. Safety and heat.” He hesitates. “We just choose which one leads.”
Something low and molten flickers in my belly.
My brain runs triage: exhaustion. A half-fried nervous system. A career on the brink. Parents who think I’m insane. An advisor who thinks I’m a resource to mine.
And sitting right here next to me, warm and solid and willing, is the one person who has consistently believed me, believed in me, and never once asked me to be less.
I swallow. “What if I… want both?”
He inhales slowly. “Then we go slow. And stop if it feels wrong. If we run from what feels bad, instead of choosing what feels good.”
The weight of it settles low and unfamiliar. “You say that like you’ve thought about it.”
“I have,” he says, and that almost-smile is back, small and devastating. “Every night since dance party.”
A laugh slips out of me, startled. “You mean since we tripped over each other like newborn foals?”
His mouth curves, slow, warm, a little wicked.
“No,” he says. “I mean since I held you.”
The words land, stopping me cold.
He goes on, voice dropping into something low and honest: “You are very small. Easy to lift. Easy to carry.” A beat. “Hard not to keep holding you.”
The air between us changes, soft at first, then charged, like the moment before a spark catches.
I realize I haven’t looked away from his mouth in several seconds.
I’m the one who moves first.
I turn on the bed, bringing my knees up so I’m facing him, legs folded, our hands still joined. He mirrors me, twisting to face me fully.
My hands buzz with the force of my heartbeat.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I confess. “The timing. The… signals.”
“Then we say everything out loud,” he suggests. “Make it simple.”
“Simple sex,” I say dryly. “With a two-thousand-year-old gladiator and an autistic academic in the middle of an ethics nightmare.”
His eyes crinkle. “Maybe not simple life. But simple words.”
He lifts our joined hands, brushing his mouth against my knuckles, just once. “I want to kiss you,” he says. “Like in stable, but here. Slower. If you want that. Not because today was bad day. Because you want me.”
My breath stutters.
“I do,” I say, and it feels like stepping off a ledge. “I want you. I’ve wanted you for… a while.”
He searches my face for any hint of hesitation.
“Then I kiss you,” he says.
He leans in slowly, giving me all the time in the world to change my mind.
I don’t.
When his mouth meets mine, it feels like everything else goes slightly out of focus.
The first kiss is gentle. Testing. His lips are soft but firm, his hand still wrapped around mine, anchoring me.
I lean into it, into him, free hand landing on his chest. I can feel his heat through the thin barrier of his shirt.
He pulls back a fraction. “Still okay?” he murmurs.
“More than okay,” I whisper. “Again.”
This time, when he kisses me, it’s deeper.
His free hand comes up to cradle my head, thumb resting just in front of my ear. The angle tilts, and I open for him without thinking.
His tongue brushes mine, and my whole body lights up.
I make a sound I didn’t know I could make—small and helpless and absolutely not academic.
He swallows it like a man dying of thirst.
We move at the same moment, closing the last inches between us. Our mouths meet again, deeper, surer, and I move instinctively—sliding into his lap in one slow, deliberate movement. His hands find my hips immediately, warm and sure, not urging, just holding me steady as I settle against him.
He breaks the kiss with a torn sound, breathing hard.
“Too much?” he asks, voice rough.
“No.” My own breathing is a mess. “Not too much. Just… new.”
“New is okay,” he says. “We can stop any time.”
I nod, though stopping feels like an abstract concept at this point.
I shift closer instead. His hands remain on my hips, strong and warm, not pushing, just holding me there.
His desire is unmistakable. Heat flares low and sharp in response. The force of his desire is impossible to miss.
My body wants; my mind evaluates. The light is soft, the room is quiet, his touch is firm but not overwhelming. A sudden sweep of texture-awareness hits me—even my linen shirt feels wrong now, prickly where it touches my skin. I tug at the neckline in irritation.
He notices immediately. “Bad feel?” he asks.
I exhale a shaky laugh. “You notice everything.”
“Only you,” he says simply.
“Can I…?” I gesture awkwardly at my shirt.
“Whatever you want,” he says.
I pull it off, revealing the camisole beneath. The cool night air against my arms feels like a blessing.
His gaze flicks down, then back up to my face. He doesn’t stare. He doesn’t ogle. He just looks at me like I’m something he’s very, very grateful for.
Some of the tension in my shoulders melts.
“Your turn,” I say. “That shirt looks terrible.”
“It is fine shirt,” he protests.
“It’s in my way,” I counter.
His pupils darken. “Ah. Then is terrible.”
He grips the hem and pulls it over his head in one smooth motion.
And now I can stop pretending I haven’t imagined this.
His chest is broad and scarred, muscle layered over muscle. Old marks run across his ribs and shoulders, pale lines that speak of blades and chains and every cruelty his old life and the arena offered.
I reach out, tracing one of the long scars with my fingertips.
He goes very still.
“Okay?” I ask softly.
“Yes,” he says, breath a little unsteady. “You can touch. Anywhere. Just… tell me if seeing them is too much.”
“It isn’t,” I say. “It’s… proof. That you survived.”
His throat works.
He cups the back of my neck and pulls me into a kiss, and this one doesn’t feel careful.
It feels hungry.