The penthouse was quiet after midnight, the kind of quiet that only exists forty floors above a city that never sleeps.
I sat cross-legged on the kitchen island in one of Theo's white dress shirts, eating strawberry ice cream straight from the tub. My phone buzzed with a text from Lila:
tell your vampire boyfriend if he knocks you up again before the first one is born I'm cutting his balls off. love you.
I laughed so hard I almost dropped the spoon.
Theo appeared in the doorway, barefoot, wearing only black sweatpants. He leaned against the frame and watched me like he was trying to figure out how I'd become the center of his universe in three weeks.
"You're eating my emergency ice cream," he said.
"You have emergency ice cream?"
"I do now. You bought it yesterday and labeled it 'Theo's – touch and die.'"
I grinned. "Exactly. Emergency."
He crossed the room in three slow strides, took the spoon from my fingers, and ate a bite. His eyes never left mine.
"Thief," I accused.
He licked the spoon clean, deliberately slow. "I take what's mine."
Heat pooled low in my belly. Pregnancy hormones, I told myself. Not the way he was looking at me like he wanted to devour every inch.
I set the tub aside. "We should probably talk about… rules."
His brow arched. "Rules?"
"About this." I gestured between us. "The sex. The living together. The… everything."
He stepped closer, hands settling on either side of my hips, caging me in. "What kind of rules, Nora?"
I swallowed. "Like… this doesn't have to mean anything. We're co-parenting. With benefits. Really, really good benefits. But no feelings. No expectations."
He went very still.
"You want to keep this casual," he said, voice dangerously soft.
"Yes," I lied. "I think that's smartest."
He studied me for a long moment. Then he nodded once, slow.
"Fine. Casual." He leaned in until his lips brushed my ear. "So if I bend you over this counter right now and fuck you until you're dripping down your thighs, that's just… stress relief?"
My breath hitched. "Exactly."
"And if I come so deep inside you that you feel me for days, that's just biology?"
I nodded, throat dry.
He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes.
"Say it," he ordered.
"Say what?"
"Tell me you don't want me to fall in you love with you."
The words stuck in my throat.
He waited.
I couldn't say it.
Because it would have been a lie.
He saw it. Of course he saw it.
His hands slid under the shirt, palms spreading over my bare thighs.
"You're a terrible liar," he murmured.
Then he kissed me.
Not gentle. Not casual.
He kissed me like a man who had already decided I was his forever and was done pretending otherwise.
I kissed him back the same way.
He lifted me off the counter, carried me to the living room, and laid me down on the rug in front of the fireplace. The city glittered behind the glass like a million watching eyes.
He stripped the shirt off me slowly, reverently.
"Look at you," he whispered, voice rough. "Already rounder here." His hand cupped the faint swell of my lower belly. "Already mine."
I arched into his touch. "Theo…"
"No rules," he said against my breast, tongue flicking my nipple until I moaned. "Not tonight."
He spread my legs wide, settled between them, and slid into me in one slow, perfect thrust.
I cried out at how full I felt, how right.
He didn't move at first. Just stayed buried deep, forehead pressed to mine.
"Feel that?" he asked, voice shaking. "That's not casual. That's me inside the woman carrying my child. The woman I think about every second I'm not touching her."
I clenched around him involuntarily.
He groaned.
"Tell me to stop," he said. "Tell me you don't want this to mean everything."
I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him deeper.
"Don't stop," I breathed. "Never stop."
He fucked me slow and deep, every thrust deliberate, every kiss a confession.
When I came the first time, he swallowed my cries with his mouth.
When he came, he buried himself to the hilt and stayed there, pulsing, filling me so completely I felt tears slip down my temples.
He didn't pull out.
He carried me to bed still inside me, laid us down, and held me close.
"Casual," he murmured against my neck, sarcastic and tender. "Right."
I laughed, shaky and wet.
He kissed the tears from my cheeks.
"Sleep," he said. "Tomorrow we'll pretend again. Tonight you're just mine."
I fell asleep with him still inside me, still leaking slow and warm, and thought:
I am so completely screwed.
Because I was already in love with him.
And I was starting to believe he might never leave.