Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 240

Sophie’s POV

I'm doing laundry when I realize I'm out of clean clothes.

It's Sunday afternoon—Noah's back with Marie for the week, Bellamy's in his room doing work. I'm standing in front of the washing machine staring at the problem.

Everything I own is either in the wash or still damp from yesterday's load—my jeans, my comfortable sweaters, even my sleep clothes.

I could wait, sit around in a towel until something dries. Or I could ask Bellamy to go out and buy me something new, which would take time and feel awkward.

Or I could just borrow something of his.

I go to his room and knock. "Bellamy?"

I hear his voice through the door, but he's on the phone. Speaking in rapid, hushed tones about "—need it by tomorrow—"

I knock again, louder. "Just a minute," he calls out, distracted.

I wait, knock a third time—no response.

Fine. I'll just borrow something and explain later.

I slip into his room quietly. He's pacing by the window, phone pressed to his ear, back turned. The dresser is against the far wall. I find t-shirts, all folded precisely. Grab a plain black one that looks soft, then slip back out.

Back in my room, I pull it on. It's huge—falling to mid-thigh, the neck slipping off one shoulder. Comfortable. Soft from years of washing.

And it smells like him. That clean, masculine scent, cedar and something else I can't place.

I breathe it in without meaning to, and something in my chest loosens. It smells like home. Not captivity, not prison—home.

The recognition should disturb me, should make me recoil. Instead, I find myself pulling the collar up, breathing deeper, letting that familiar scent wrap around me like comfort.

This is how far gone I am. My kidnapper's scent reminds me of safety. Of home.

I pull on leggings underneath and go to the living room to fold yesterday's dry clothes.

That's where Bellamy finds me twenty minutes later.

I'm on the couch, folding jeans, when I hear him stop in the doorway. Feel his eyes on me before I even look up.

The air changes, gets heavier.

I look up slowly. His expression has changed completely. Something shifted the moment he saw me, and now he's frozen in the doorway like he's been struck.

His eyes are darker, intense, hungry in a way that makes my breath catch.

He's not just looking, he's consuming. His gaze tracks slowly down my body—the way the oversized shirt falls to my thighs, the way the neckline has slipped off my left shoulder, exposing the collarbone and the thin strap of my bra.

The way the soft black fabric drapes over my curves, clearly showing I'm not wearing much beneath it. The way my bare legs extend from under the hem, crossed at the ankle.

His jaw tightens, his hands clench into fists at his sides.

"You're wearing my clothes." His voice comes out rough, raw. Like the words are being dragged from somewhere deep.

The air between us suddenly feels electric, charged with something dangerous and undeniable.

I become hyperaware of everything.

The way his shirt feels against my skin—soft and warm and intimate. The way my pulse has started racing. The way his eyes have gone from respectful distance to barely restrained want.

The way he's standing there, visibly fighting for control, his body tense like a wire pulled too tight.

I'm in his apartment, wearing his shirt. The fabric carrying his scent, marking me as his in some primal way I don't want to acknowledge.

And he's looking at me like he wants to cross the room, pin me to the couch, and make me forget every reason why he shouldn't.

I should feel threatened, should be afraid of what that look means, what he might do.

Instead, heat floods through me. My body responds before my brain can catch up—heart pounding, breath quickening, skin flushing under his gaze.

This is dangerous. So, so dangerous.

"I tried to ask you but you were on the phone." I say, aiming for casual but my voice comes out breathier than I intend.

Bellamy swallows hard. I watch his throat work, watch the muscle in his jaw tick as he clenches his teeth. His eyes drop to where the shirt has slipped further off my shoulder, revealing more skin.

"I didn't hear you." The words are strained. Barely controlled.

"I know, so I just borrowed it. Is that a problem?"

His hands flex at his sides. Open, close. Like he's physically restraining himself from reaching for me. From closing the distance between us and touching what he's looking at with such naked hunger.

"No." The word comes out almost like a groan. "Keep it. It’s…" He drags his eyes away with visible effort, stares at the wall instead of me. "It looks good on you."

He looks back at me one more time. His eyes meet mine, and I see everything he's not saying, everything he wants, everything he's holding back.

Then he turns and retreats to his room quickly, almost like he's fleeing. Running from temptation before he breaks.

I hear his door close, lock. I stand there in the living room, heart racing, the folded jeans forgotten in my hands.

What the hell was that?

I look down at the shirt I'm wearing. Just a t-shirt. But on me, in his space, it became something else entirely: a claim, an intimacy, a boundary crossed.

And the worst part, the most dangerous part, is that I felt it too.

That charge in the air. That magnetic pull. The way my body responded to the heat in his eyes, the way my pulse quickened not with fear but with something else.

Attraction. Desire, even. For my captor. I'm attracted to him.

The recognition makes me feel sick and confused and terrified all at once.

I sit down on the couch, still holding the jeans, my mind racing. I've been playing a role. Pretending to soften so I can gather information and plan my escape. Using his feelings as a weapon.

But somewhere along the way, the lines blurred. The pretending became less pretend.

And now I'm standing in his living room in his t-shirt, my body reacting to the desire in his eyes, and I don't know where the act ends and the real feelings begin.

I think about Adrian, about the Red Room. About how he used to look at me with that same hunger, that same barely controlled need. About how I'd respond to it, how it made me feel wanted and safe and completely his.

Bellamy looked at me like that just now. And for a second, just a second, I wanted to respond the same way.

The guilt crashes over me. I’m losing my mind.

Adrian is looking for me, Amelia is growing up without her mother. And I'm standing here getting aroused because my kidnapper looked at me like he wants to devour me.

I'm so fucked up. This situation has twisted me so thoroughly that I can't tell what's real anymore. Can't trust my own reactions, can't separate survival strategy from genuine feeling.

But as I sit there in his shirt, his scent surrounding me, my heart still racing from the way he looked at me—I know the territory we're entering is more dangerous than anything that's come before.