Chapter 3: The Morning Briefing
Eric surfaced from sleep in stages, like a diver coming up too fast. The sheets were warm and smelled like her, and the pillow still held that faint perfume he'd come to associate with the exact shape of Sophia's neck. He rolled onto his back, blinking at the ceiling. Morning light. Too bright. The clock on her bedside table said 9:47.
She wasn't there.
That was fine. Coffee. Bathroom. Maybe she'd let him sleep in. He stretched, groaning, and felt the pleasant ache in his muscles from last night. God, that had been something. Sophia had been... different. More than different. She'd been feral, glowing, like someone had turned up her contrast. The memory of her dragging him into the bedroom, that hungry grin, made him smile into the pillow.
He padded out to the living room. No Sophia. No coffee brewing. No sounds from the bathroom.
Odd.
A note on the kitchen counter, scrawled on the back of a catalogue for a gallery exhibition he didn't recognize: *Gone to gym. Agent V.L. has a reputation to maintain. Be back before you're awake, love.*
He read it twice. Then he laughed, a short burst of genuine confusion. Gym? Sophia? She had a membership somewhere, he knew, but he'd never once seen her use it. She'd joked about it when they first started dating. "I keep paying for it out of spite," she'd said. "It's my monthly donation to the art of self-delusion."
But the note was in her handwriting. And she'd called herself Agent V.L.
So. This was a thing now. The game was still on.
He made coffee, sat on the couch, and tried to read one of her art magazines. Kept glancing at the door. Some part of him, the analyst part, started cataloguing what this meant. The suggestion he'd planted had been specific: *you are Agent Velvet Lullaby, a super spy on a deep cover mission*. He hadn't given her orders to go to the gym. He hadn't suggested anything about fitness or maintenance. Yet here she was, treating her cover identity with the kind of diligence a real operative might.
Which meant the suggestion was ingraining. Building on itself. Creating its own logic.
That was either very good or very bad.
He was on his second cup of coffee, frowning at the implications, when the door swung open.
Sophia stood in the doorway, flushed, lightly sheened with sweat, wearing leggings and a loose tank top. Her dark hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and she looked thoroughly, happily wrecked. She dropped a duffel bag at the door and kicked off her trainers, then straightened and struck a ridiculous pose, hand on her hip, chin lifted.
"Asset secured," she said. "No witnesses."
"You went to the gym." It came out flatter than he intended.
"I did indeed." She walked past him, and he caught the scent of clean sweat and something floral. She grabbed his coffee and took a sip. "Agent Velvet Lullaby has an image to keep up, Eric. The Agency doesn't hire soft operatives."
"Sof- You are not soft. You're gorgeous. You're a curator. You lift art catalogues and heavy opinions."
She raised an eyebrow, still sipping his coffee. "And yet I am now questioning my operational readiness. What if some other super spy comes to take my asset? I need to be ready to defend you, my dear."
He opened his mouth to argue, but she was already moving. Quick, surprisingly quick for someone who'd presumably just spent an hour wrecking herself on machines, she dropped onto the couch and pounced. Her fingers found his ribs before he could react.
"Wait- Sofia-!"
Too late. She went for him with merciless precision, dancing fingertips over his sides, under his arms, along the strip of skin where his shirt had ridden up. Tickling. Mercilessly. He bucked and squirmed, laughing so hard his ribs ached, clutching at the couch cushions.
"Stop! I yield! I yield to the Agency!"
"Do you yield to Agent Velvet Lullaby?" Her voice was light, but there was something underneath it. Something bright.
"Yes! Yes, I yield!"
She stopped, sitting back on her heels, grinning down at him. He was a wreck, gasping, hair mussed, tears at the corners of his eyes. She reached out and ruffled his hair affectionately.
"You're too easy, analyst boy."
"That's not fair. That's torture. That's a violation of the Geneva Convention."
"The Agency has no Geneva Convention." She stood, stretching, and he watched her back arch. She winced slightly. Groaned. "Ow. God. I'm going to feel that tomorrow."
"You'll feel that tomorrow?" He sat up, still catching his breath. "Sophia, you haven't been to a gym in months. You're going to be bedridden."
"Nonsense. Agent Velvet Lullaby is in peak condition." She cracked her neck. "After a shower. And some maintenance."
"Maintenance?"
She was already heading toward the bathroom, and she tossed the words over her shoulder with a wry smile. "A spy has to be ready to seduce at a moment's notice, Eric. That means upkeep. Shave the legs. Trim the... underbrush. Keep the equipment operational."
His mouth went dry.
She laughed, clearly delighted by his reaction. "Oh, don't look at me like that. You're the one who created me. You have to live with the consequences."
The bathroom door clicked shut. He heard the shower start, the water drumming against tile.
He sat on the couch, listening. The morning light was brighter now. He could hear her humming through the door, some pop song she'd half-remember. He thought about the note. About the gym. About the way she'd moved, confident and easy, as if she'd decided to become someone new and was simply... doing it.
The ambiguity was the thing that made his stomach tighten. Was this the real Sophia, playing a game and enjoying the hell out of it? Or was the suggestion still working, layering itself into her thoughts, turning her into someone she wasn't?
He didn't know.
He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
The water stopped. A few minutes later, the door opened and Sophia stepped out, wrapped in a towel, hair damp and curling at the ends. Her legs gleamed, freshly shaved. She smelled like soap and something faintly minty.
She caught him staring. Her smile deepened.
"Admiring the asset?"
"The asset is very well maintained."
"Good. Because the mission continues." She dropped the towel. She was still radiant from the workout, skin flushed in patches, and she walked over to him with the unhurried confidence of a woman who knew exactly what she wanted. "The Agency requires a full debriefing."
"A debriefing?" His voice cracked. It was humiliating. He didn't care.
"Standard procedure." She straddled him on the couch, warm and bare and smelling of fresh soap. Her hands settled on his shoulders. "Agent Velvet Lullaby must ensure her asset is fully... processed. All details confirmed. No ambiguities."
The word hit him harder than it should have.
She leaned in, lips brushing his ear. "Don't overthink it, Eric. Right now, I'm exactly who I want to be."
And then she kissed him.
The kiss lasted longer than either of them intended, and when they finally surfaced, the morning had slid into early afternoon. They made love on the couch, then again in the shower, and Eric left her apartment sometime around two with a grin he couldn't wipe off his face and a vague ache in his lower back that he wore like a badge of honour.
He spent the afternoon at his own flat, pretending to work. He pulled up a dossier on his laptop, stared at it for an hour, and got precisely nothing done. His mind kept drifting back to the way she'd moved, the way she'd laughed, the way she'd called him "asset" with that ridiculous, delighted grin.
At 9:14 that evening, his phone buzzed.
*Eric?*
He picked it up, thumb hovering. "Sophia? Everything okay?"
A pause. Then her voice, strained and small. "I can't move."
"What?"
"I literally cannot move, Eric. My legs. My arms. My everything. I think I broke myself at that gym. I'm on my couch and I can't sit up and I might actually need to be put down, like a horse."
He was already reaching for his keys. "I'm on my way."
"Bring soup. Or something soft. I can't chew."
"What about 'Agent Velvet Lullaby is in peak condition'?"
"Agent Velvet Lullaby was a fool, Eric. She has been retired. You are now speaking to Dr. Sophia Rossi, curator of fine art and certified invalid."
He laughed, and she whimpered a protest, and he told her he'd be there in twenty minutes.
---
He arrived with a container of soup from the deli around the corner, a loaf of crusty bread, and a tube of muscle rub he'd bought on a whim at the chemist. The door to her flat was unlocked, which was its own kind of commentary on her state. He found her on the couch, exactly where she'd said: sprawled flat, one arm draped over her eyes, wearing the same sweatpants and tank top from this morning, hair a tangled mess.
She peeked out from under her arm when he walked in. "You came."
"I came." He set the bag down on the coffee table and crouched beside the couch. "How bad?"
"Bad." She moved her arm to look at him properly, and he winced. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she'd clearly been suffering in quiet dignity for hours. "I did legs. And arms. And I thought, oh, I'll do some abs too. And then I did the stair climber. Eric. The stair climber. What was I thinking?"
"You were thinking you were a super spy."
"Well, the super spy part of me has been relieved of duty. The rest of me has to live with the consequences."
He helped her sit up, gently, and she hissed through her teeth. He settled the soup in front of her, tore the bread into pieces, and watched her eat with the look of a woman who hadn't realised how hungry she was until food appeared. She finished the whole container, then some, and let him rub the salve into her shoulders while she groaned in a way that was only slightly obscene.
"Okay," she said, voice thick with relief. "Okay, that's good. That's really good."
He moved his hands in slow circles over her trapezius, working the knots out of the muscle. She progressively sagged, sinking deeper into his hands with every pass, until she was draped over the arm of the couch like a piece of discarded laundry.
"You know," he said, keeping his tone light, "I've been thinking."
"Dangerous."
"What would happen if some other agent were to swoop in right now? A rival. A rival super spy with designs on me."
She cracked open one eye. "Eric."
"I mean, here I am. Helpless. No Agent Velvet Lullaby to protect me. What if a crimson-clad operative came through that window? I'd be completely at their mercy."
"Shut up."
"I'm just saying. Your asset is undefended. That's a liability in the field, Sophia."
She made a sound of pure irritation and shoved a cushion at him. He caught it, laughing. "I will sit up. I will get off this couch. I will defend your honour."
"You can't sit up. You literally told me you needed to be put down like a horse."
"I will be put down a horse, but I'll do it with dignity."
He eased her back down and resumed the shoulder rub, and she dissolved again. This time he worked deeper, slower, his thumbs tracing the ridge of her spine, knuckles pressing into the muscle that had seized along her shoulder blades. She went boneless under him, a long exhalation escaping her, her head lolling.
"There you go," he murmured.
"Mmm. Don't stop. If you stop I'll die."
"I'm not stopping."
He kept going. Her quadriceps next, through the sweatpants, his palms flattening along the long muscles of her thighs. She gasped, then melted further. Her breathing evened out, deepened. By the time he was done with her calves, she was barely conscious, a slack, satisfied mass of warm woman.
"Okay," she managed. "Okay. I need bed. Actual bed. You're going to have to carry me."
He helped her up. She swayed, then leaned into him, and he guided her to the bedroom. She collapsed onto the mattress, rolled onto her stomach, and made grabby hands at the duvet. He pulled it over her, tucked it around her shoulders, and she looked up at him with hazy, grateful eyes.
"You know," she murmured, "this is all part of my plan."
"What plan?"
"Seduction. It's many fold. I feign helplessness. You pamper me. I get you into my bedroom. And then... you can't resist me." She yawned, enormous. "It's working. Look at you. Helpless."
"Completely helpless," he agreed.
"It's a long game, Eric. You've been played. I'm playing you right now."
"You're playing me into tucking you in and going home."
She blinked at him. "Going home?"
"It's late. You need sleep. Your plan can resume tomorrow when you can walk again."
She made a small, disappointed sound, but she was already half gone, eyelids drooping. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, and she hummed contentedly.
"Goodnight, asset."
"Goodnight, agent."
He turned off the light, pulled the door mostly shut, and stood in the darkened hallway of her flat, listening to her breathing slow. Somewhere in the city, a car horn blared. Above it, he could hear her snoring, faint and peaceful.
He let himself out, walked home through the cool night air, and smiled the whole way.