"Yes." He pulls out slowly, watches his cum leak out of me with dark satisfaction. "It is."
The penthouse feels different when he's gone.
Quieter. Bigger. But not empty—not anymore. I've filled it with small pieces of myself over the past three weeks. The throw blanket I bought for the couch because his minimalist décor made me cold. The herbs growing in little pots on the windowsill—rosemary, basil, thyme. The stack of cookbooks I've been working through, pages marked with sticky notes.
I strip the bed and start the laundry. Pull on leggings and one of his t-shirts—I have my own clothes now, beautiful things he bought me, but his shirts still feel like home.
My thighs are sticky as I move around the kitchen. He wasn't kidding about wanting me to feel him all day. Every step is a reminder of where he was, what he did, what I let him do.
What I begged him to do.
I make coffee. Drink it standing at the window, watching the harbor. The morning light paints everything gold, and I catch myself smiling for no reason. Just... happy. Content in a way I never knew I could be.
My phone buzzes. Him.
Thinking about you.
Then:About how you looked this morning. About the sounds you made.
Then:I'm supposed to be paying attention to this meeting but all I can think about is your pussy.
My face goes hot. I type back:Behave.
His response is instant:Never.
I'm still smiling when I start cooking.
The stroganoff takes hours. That's the point—I want the apartment to smell like comfort when he walks in the door. Like home. Like someone's been here all day, thinking about him, waiting for him.
I found the recipe online weeks ago and bookmarked it. He mentioned once that his mother used to make it, back before—he never says before what, and I don't ask. But I remembered. I always remember the things he tells me.
The notebook by the stove is getting full. His coffee order. How he likes his eggs. The way he pretends to read when he's actually watching me. That he hates cilantro but won't tell me because he doesn't want to hurt my feelings—I figured that out when I caught him picking it out of the tacos, thinking I wasn't looking.
I was looking. I'm always looking.
I chop onions. Slice mushrooms. Brown the beef in batches because the recipe says not to crowd the pan. The kitchen fills with the smell of seared meat and sautéed aromatics, and something in my chest loosens.
This is mine. This life, this kitchen, this man who looks at me like I'm something precious. Three weeks ago I was standing on an auction block. Now I'm making beef stroganoff because I remembered something he said once about his mother.
I add the broth. Lower the heat. Let it simmer.
Then I curl up on the couch with my phone and open Instagram.
My folders have grown since he first saw them.Dream home. Family. Someday.He knows about them now—caught me scrolling one night, looked through everything without saying much. I'd been mortified, but he just kissed my temple and told me it wasn't silly.
Now I add to them openly. Show him ones I love. Last week I saved a photo of a little girl in a tutu, frosting smeared on her face, laughing at something off-camera. He'd looked at it for a long moment, pulled me into his lap, put his hand on my stomach.
"Soon," he'd said.
I scroll past that photo now and my hand drifts to my stomach. My period is five days late. I haven't told him—don't want to get his hopes up, don't want to getmyhopes up—but I keep thinking about it.
What if.
I hear his key in the lock at 5:52.
My whole body responds—heart racing, skin flushing, that familiar ache building between my legs. Three weeks, and the sound of him coming home still makes me feel like a teenager with a crush.
The door opens. He walks in, and I can see immediately that something's wrong. His jaw is tight. His shoulders are tense. The shadows under his eyes are darker than this morning.
