Please Come Back, My Love Chapter 231

Sophia's POV

The hotel suite hit me like a slap to the face—all dark velvet and mood lighting, a massive waterbed dominating the center like some kind of shrine to excess.

The air was thick with that unmistakable scent: expensive candles, leather, and something else I couldn't quite name but recognized instantly. Sex. This room reeked of it.

He'd chosen this deliberately, of course. Another power play in a game I was learning to manipulate from the inside.

Lucas tossed his jacket over a chair with practiced ease, already loosening his tie as he moved toward the minibar. I stood near the door, fingers clutching my purse while I calculated my next move.

The waterbed rippled slightly, and I studied it with clinical detachment, already planning how to use even this ridiculous prop to my advantage.

"Drink?" Lucas's voice cut through my thoughts, casual as if we were meeting for coffee.

I shook my head, keeping my expression just uncertain enough to seem vulnerable. "No, thank you." My voice came out breathy, hesitant—exactly the tone I'd practiced in the mirror before we left New York.

He poured himself two fingers of something amber and expensive, took a long swallow, then set the glass down with a deliberate click. When he turned to face me, his expression had shifted into that predatory look I'd learned to recognize and exploit.

"Come here, Fia."

The nickname still scraped, but I'd trained myself not to flinch.

I took three steps forward, then stopped just out of arm's reach. Not defiance—strategy. Make him come to me. Make him feel like he's claiming what he wants.

His eyebrow arched, and I saw the flicker of interest. Good. "Don't make me ask twice."

I moved closer, keeping my breathing shallow, my posture submissive but not broken. He needed to believe I was yielding, not performing.

"Still got some fight left in you," he murmured, closing the distance between us in two strides. His hands found my waist, fingers digging in just hard enough to make me gasp. "Good. I'd hate for you to make this too easy."

He kissed me with that brutal authority I'd learned to endure, and I responded exactly as I'd calculated—rigid at first, then softening incrementally, as if he was breaking through my resistance. My hands pressed against his chest, not pushing away but resting there, suggesting surrender.

When he pulled back, I met his eyes with carefully crafted vulnerability. Now. This was the moment.

"Lucas, I—" I let my voice catch, watched his pupils dilate at the sound. A wave of nausea rolled through my stomach, sharp and unmistakable—the eight-week-old secret making its presence known at the worst possible time. I swallowed hard against the bile rising in my throat and forced myself to continue. "I need to tell you something." I dropped my gaze, the picture of feminine embarrassment. "My period isn't actually over yet."

His hands stilled on my hips, and I felt the shift in his attention. This was the critical juncture—the moment that would determine whether my gambit worked or backfired spectacularly.

I looked up through my lashes, biting my lower lip in a gesture I knew drove him crazy. "I'm sorry. I know you wanted—" I let the sentence trail off, heavy with implication.

Another wave of queasiness hit, and I turned it into a delicate shudder that could be read as nervousness. "But I can still... I mean, there are other ways I can make you feel good."

There it was—the flicker in his eyes. Disappointment morphing into dark interest. He was calculating now, just as I'd anticipated.

The "facilities" in this room suddenly had new purpose, and I'd just handed him an alternative that would make him feel clever and in control.

His mouth curved into that smile I'd learned to read like a roadmap. "Oh, that's a shame," he said, voice dripping with mock sympathy as his fingers moved to the buttons of my blouse. "Such a waste of all these... facilities."

I let my hands come up as if to stop him—not too forceful, just enough resistance to feed his need for conquest. He caught my wrists easily, exactly as I'd known he would, transferring both to one hand while the other continued its methodical work on my buttons.

"Lucas, please—" I made my voice small, uncertain. Let him think he's overwhelming me. Let him think this is his idea.

"Shh." He pressed a finger to my lips with that gentle firmness. "You know better than to beg. It never works."

'But it does work,' I thought behind my carefully maintained expression of resignation.

My blouse fell open, and his free hand traced the edge of my bra.

I squeezed my eyes shut—not from fear this time, but to hide the cold calculation behind them.

"Eyes on me, Fia." His grip on my wrists tightened until I gasped and obeyed. "That's better. I want you here for this. All of you."

I am here, I thought, meeting his gaze with manufactured surrender.

He walked me backward toward the bed, each step measured and inevitable. When my calves hit the edge of the mattress, the water beneath the surface sloshed gently, and I let myself stumble slightly—vulnerable, off-balance, exactly what he wanted to see.

Lucas released my wrists only to spin me around, his chest pressing against my back as his hands moved to the waistband of my skirt. I felt his breath hot against my ear, his voice a low rumble.

"Let's get you out of these."

I didn't fight him. Fighting would ruin everything. Instead, I let my hands rest on his forearms as he worked—not resisting, but maintaining just enough contact to suggest reluctant participation. The skirt came off, then my blouse, each piece of clothing a calculated loss in a larger war.

When I stood before him in just my bra and panties, I let myself tremble—from cold, I told myself, though we both knew it was more complicated than that. He circled me slowly, and I kept my breathing steady, my expression somewhere between fear and resignation.

"Perfect," he murmured, stopping behind me. His hands slid up my ribcage, and I forced myself not to tense. "Almost."

The bra came off with practiced efficiency. I crossed my arms over my chest instinctively—a gesture that was half genuine modesty, half calculated appeal to his need to break through my defenses.

He caught my wrists and pulled them behind my back, and I let him, tilting my head forward in a posture of submission that I'd perfected over months of this nightmare.

"Don't hide from me," he said softly, dangerously. "You know I hate that."

He released my wrists, and I let my arms fall to my sides, standing before him with manufactured vulnerability. His gaze raked over my bare breasts, and I felt my nipples harden in the air-conditioned room—biology I couldn't control but could reframe.

"Lie down."

I hesitated—one calculated second—before moving to the waterbed. The mattress dipped and swayed beneath my weight, and I positioned myself in the center, watching him through lowered lashes.

"Good girl," he murmured, and I swallowed the rage that phrase triggered.