Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 123

Sophie’s POV

Day five. Adrian left for campus an hour ago—emergency meeting, damage control, the scandal still breathing down their necks even weeks after the rooftop incident.

He kissed my forehead on his way out, a gesture so perfunctory it felt like checking off a box. ‘Mother of my child: kissed. Daughter: glanced at. Conscience: temporarily clear.’

I'm alone with Amelia for the first time since we brought her home.

The realization hits me the moment the door closes behind him. Just me and this tiny, screaming creature who needs things I don't know how to provide.

No Adrian hovering uselessly in doorways. No Bellamy appearing with quiet competence to save me from my own inadequacy. Just us.

I can do this. I'm her mother, this should be instinctive, natural, easy.

The baby won't nurse. My nipples are cracked, bleeding—I can see the small splits in the damaged skin, raw and inflamed from days of improper latching.

Every attempt Amelia makes sends white-hot pain lancing through my chest, radiating outward until my whole body tenses in anticipation of the agony. I grit my teeth and try again, positioning her the way the lactation consultant demonstrated during our brief hospital visit.

Cradle hold. Support her head. Bring her to the breast, not the breast to her. Amelia turns her face away, mouth open in a wail that seems to accuse me of fundamental incompetence.

I try the other side. Same result. The pain is excruciating—worse than the stitches, worse than the contractions, because those ended eventually. This just continues, relentless and unforgiving.

"Please," I hear myself whisper. "Please, baby, just… just latch. Please."

Amelia screams louder. Her face is purple with rage or hunger or both. I don't know. I can't tell the difference between her cries anymore—they all sound the same, all mean I'm failing.

Something inside me breaks.

I scream back—I can't help it, can't stop the sound tearing from my throat as all the exhaustion and pain and terror of the past five days comes pouring out. I'm sitting on the nursery floor now, though I don't remember lowering myself down.

My milk-stained shirt is soaked with sweat and tears and probably blood seeping through the fabric from my damaged nipples. Amelia is in my arms but I'm holding her all wrong, I know I am, everything is wrong and I don't know how to fix it.

The sobs come in great heaving gasps. I'm utterly defeated. Completely demolished. This is what rock bottom looks like—twenty-two years old, sitting on a nursery floor at ten in the morning, screaming at my newborn daughter because I can't figure out how to feed her properly.

Bellamy finds me like that.

I don't hear him approach. One moment I'm alone in my crisis, and the next he's there, crouching beside me with that steady presence I've come to recognize even through my panic.

He doesn't flinch at the sight of me—hair wild, face blotchy, breast partially exposed and bleeding. Doesn't judge. Doesn't offer useless platitudes about how it gets easier or how I'm doing great when clearly I'm not.

He just moves with quiet efficiency, voice steady and calm cutting through the chaos. "You're doing fine. Babies cry. It doesn't mean you're failing."

"I can't… she won't—" I can barely form words around the sobs.

He doesn't take Amelia from my arms. Respects that boundary even now, understands somehow that I need to be the one holding her, the one who figures this out.

Instead, he guides my hands with gentle pressure, repositioning Amelia into what he calls the football hold—tucked under my arm like I'm carrying a football, her body along my side instead of across my chest.

"Pillow," he says, and suddenly there's cushioning supporting my arm, taking the weight. "You're holding too tight. Your whole body is tense—she can feel it. The anxiety transfers straight to the baby."

His voice never wavers. Never carries that edge of frustration or impatience I've heard from Adrian. Just calm instruction, like he's teaching me something practical rather than watching me fall apart.

He fetches water while I adjust my position, returning with a full glass and another pillow for my back. Adjusts the harsh overhead lighting, switching to the softer lamp in the corner.

Small things. Practical things. Things that somehow make the impossible suddenly bearable.

"Try now," he says quietly. "Relaxed. She's not going to starve in the next five minutes."

I take a breath. Let it out slowly. Bring Amelia to my breast with less desperation, more patience. And this time, miracle of miracles, she latches. Properly. The pain is still there but duller somehow, manageable. She's nursing, actually nursing.

The relief crashes over me like a wave.

Bellamy sits nearby, maintaining respectful distance on the floor a few feet away.

He tells me about Noah as Amelia feeds peacefully. The disasters. The fear. How he once put a diaper on backwards and didn't realize until Noah peed all over himself, soaking through to the mattress beneath.

"Two in the morning," he continues, dry humor threading through his voice. "I'm standing there holding this screaming, pee-soaked baby, and I genuinely couldn't figure out what I'd done wrong. Took me fifteen minutes to realize the tabs were on backwards. Olivia would have known immediately."

The mention of his dead wife should make this awkward, but it doesn't. There's something comforting in knowing he struggled too. That competence came from practice, not some innate parenting gene I'm missing.

I laugh despite everything—a weak, broken sound, but genuine. It cracks through my exhaustion like light through storm clouds.

Amelia nurses peacefully. My adrenaline drains away, leaving behind bone-deep exhaustion. The emotional crash after crisis.

My head feels impossibly heavy. Without meaning to, without consciously deciding, I let it drop onto Bellamy's shoulder.

Just for a second. Just to rest. I fall asleep.

***

When I wake, disoriented, the light in the room has shifted. Afternoon sun instead of morning. Amelia is still in my arms, no longer nursing but sleeping contentedly.

And Bellamy hasn't moved—still sitting exactly where he was, my head still resting on his shoulder, his body perfectly still to avoid disturbing us.

"How long—" My voice is rough with sleep.

"Two hours. Maybe three."

I jerk upright, horrified. My neck aches from the awkward angle. "You've been sitting like this for three hours straight?!"

Bellamy shrugs, rolling his shoulders experimentally.

"You needed the sleep." A pause, then dry humor creeps into his voice: "Though I'm not fine, actually. Need to stretch my muscles before they atrophy. Pretty sure my left leg went numb around hour two."

Despite everything—the crisis, the exhaustion, the absurdity of it all—I laugh. Really laugh this time, the sound surprising us both.

Bellamy laughs too, quiet and genuine.

Our eyes meet. The laughter fades slowly, trailing off into something heavier. The air between us shifts—awareness crackling like electricity, dangerous territory neither of us acknowledges but both feel.

His gaze drops to my lips. Once, then twice. A movement so quick I almost convince myself I imagined it.

My breath catches in my throat. The space between us feels charged, impossible to navigate. I can't tell if I'm imagining the tension or if it's real, if he feels it too or if I'm projecting my desperate need for connection onto someone who's just being kind.

The sound of Adrian's car in the driveway shatters the moment like glass.

We break apart instantly. Natural separation and practiced distance. Bellamy stands smoothly, stretching his back, I adjust Amelia in my arms, suddenly very interested in her sleeping face.

By the time Adrian walks through the door, we're just bodyguard and client again. Professional and appropriate. Nothing to see here.

But my heart is still racing.