Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 180

Sophie’s POV

Dad had driven me home around seven, his car quiet except for Amelia's soft babbling.

“Come visit us more often.” Dad said, hugging me at the door. “Our doors are always open for you.”

“Of course.” I smiled and went back into the house, not before allowing the grandfather to say goodbye to his granddaughter properly.

It was past eight when I finally heard Adrian's key in the lock. I was in the nursery, rocking Amelia to sleep after what felt like hours of fussing. My arms ached, my heart ached more.

I heard him move through the apartment, heard him pause at the nursery door. I didn't turn around, just kept rocking, kept singing the lullaby that was barely holding back my own tears.

"Sophie." His voice was rough, exhausted.

"She's almost asleep," I whispered.

"I'll wait."

I heard him slide down the wall outside the nursery, settling onto the floor just beyond the doorway. For several minutes, the only sounds were Amelia's gradually slowing breaths and the soft creak of the rocking chair.

When Amelia finally went limp in my arms, fully asleep, I carefully transferred her to the crib. Checked the monitor. Adjusted her blanket. Did all the small rituals that gave me an excuse not to face Adrian yet.

But I couldn't avoid him forever.

I stepped out of the nursery, pulling the door almost closed behind me. Adrian was still on the floor, his back against the wall, his head tipped back. He looked utterly defeated—tie loosened, shirt wrinkled, dark circles under his eyes.

"I'm still angry with you," I said quietly, sliding down the opposite wall to mirror his position. We sat across from each other in the narrow hallway, the dim light from the living room barely reaching us.

"I know." He didn't try to defend himself, didn't make excuses. "You have every right to be."

"Then talk to me. No more deflecting, no more half-truths. If you want this to work, if you want us to work, I need the whole truth."

Adrian took a shaky breath, then started talking.

He told me everything. About Lisette's letters—the detailed, damning accounts she'd been writing from inside the psychiatric institution, claiming I'd been groomed, psychologically abused, coerced into a relationship with a predatory professor.

About her lawyer shopping these letters to journalists, looking for the highest bidder. About Lolita intercepting and buying them, but how it was endless, expensive, a problem that wouldn't go away as long as Lisette could write and someone could distribute.

"So you agreed to have her declared incompetent," I said when he paused. "To make her letters legally worthless."

"Yes. It's not ethical. It's probably not even legal, what Lolita's contacts will do to influence those psychiatric evaluations."

His voice was flat.

"But I didn't know what else to do, Sophie. Those letters—if they get published, they'll destroy us. They'll destroy you. Amelia will grow up with those accusations following her everywhere."

"And you didn't think I deserved to be part of that decision?"

"I was trying to protect you," he said, and his voice finally cracked. "I was terrified. I am terrified. Of losing you, of losing Amelia, of everything we're building falling apart because I can't keep you safe from the consequences of my own mistakes."

I watched him across the narrow hallway. Saw his hands shaking slightly where they rested on his knees.

"I know my methods are wrong, I know keeping secrets from you, handling everything alone, trying to control every variable—I know it's toxic."

Adrian continued, the words tumbling out now like he couldn't stop them.

"But it's all I know how to do, Sophie. I'm trying to be better than my father, but I keep using his tactics, control, manipulation. Handling things in the shadows. I don't know how to protect the people I love any other way."

Silence fell between us. I could hear Amelia's soft breathing through the baby monitor clipped to my waist. Could hear the hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen. Could hear Adrian's uneven breathing across from me.

"You have to trust me," I finally said. "Not just trust that I love you or that I'll stay—trust me to be part of these decisions. We're supposed to be partners, Adrian. That means you don't get to decide alone what I can and can't handle."

"I know." He lifted his head to look at me, and his eyes were red. "You're right. About all of it. I'm sorry, Sophie. I'll do better. I'll try to do better."

We stared at each other across that narrow hallway, and I felt something shift inside me. I was exhausted. Exhausted from fighting, from being angry, from carrying the weight of secrets and doubts and guilt about Bellamy. I was so tired of all of it.

I needed to make a choice. Forgive Adrian and really commit to this, or leave him and face whatever came next alone.

And I wasn't ready to leave. Whatever that said about me, whether it was love or fear or just too much inertia, I wasn't ready to walk away.

I stood up, walked across the hallway, and extended my hand to him. "Come with me."

Adrian took my hand, let me pull him to his feet. I led him to our bedroom and closed the door behind us.

For a moment, we just stood there looking at each other. Then Adrian started to speak—probably to apologize again, to promise again, to try to explain again.

I stopped him with a kiss.

Words had failed us so many times. Maybe touch could say what we couldn't articulate.

But this time was different. This time, I wasn't surrendering to his control, wasn't letting him lead, wasn't slipping into the familiar dynamic where he dominated and I submitted.

I pushed Adrian backward toward the bed, my hands already working at the buttons of his shirt. He started to reach for me, to take over, but I caught his wrists.

"No," I said firmly. "Tonight I'm in control. Tonight you let me show you what partnership looks like."

I saw surprise flicker across his face, then something like relief. He nodded, letting his arms drop to his sides.

I finished unbuttoning his shirt, pushed it off his shoulders. Ran my hands over his chest, his shoulders, mapping his body the way he always mapped mine. I felt him shiver under my touch.

"Lie down," I instructed.

He did, settling back against the pillows, watching me with dark eyes as I undressed myself slowly, deliberately. When I was naked, I climbed onto the bed and straddled him.

"You don't get to control everything," I murmured, my lips brushing his ear. "You don't get to decide alone, you don't get to shut me out when things get hard. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he breathed.

I took my time with him. Set the pace. Controlled when and how we touched. For once, Adrian wasn't orchestrating every moment—he was surrendering to mine, letting me show him what I needed, what I wanted.

And he gave himself over to it completely. Let me lead. Let me take what I needed while giving him what he craved. The dynamic between us shifted into something new—not about dominance and submission, but about mutual vulnerability, equal partnership, trust that flowed both ways.

When we finally came together, it felt different than all the times before. More honest. More real.

Afterward, we lay tangled in the sheets, both breathing hard. Adrian pulled me against his chest, his arms wrapping around me like he was afraid I might disappear.

"I love you," he said quietly. "I know I'm terrible at showing it sometimes, but I do. I love you, Sophie."

I pressed my face against his neck, feeling his pulse beneath my lips. "Then prove it. No more secrets. No more decisions made without me. No more trying to protect me by keeping me in the dark."

"I promise," he whispered. "No more secrets."

I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe him so badly.

But even as I lay there in his arms, even as I tried to convince myself this was a turning point, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were building on sand. That the foundation beneath us was still unstable, still cracked in ways we didn't know how to repair.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, Bellamy's words echoed: No wedding ring changes who someone fundamentally is.

I pushed the thought away and held Adrian tighter, trying to believe that this time things would be different.