Chapter 5: Professional Curiosity
The city lay sprawled below Soren’s apartment like a circuit board of light, its electric hum a dull bass note through the triple-glazed windows. Inside, the air was cool and smelled of lemon cleaner and the arid, mineral scent of central air. Aubrey let her backpack slide from her shoulder, the thump on the polished concrete floor unnaturally loud.
“Nice place,” she said, her voice echoing slightly in the minimalist space. It was all sharp angles and monochrome, a stage set for a person who had their life together. A black leather sofa dominated the living area, looking like it had never been lounged on.
“It’s a bit of a showroom,” Soren admitted, running a hand through his hair. The confidence from the library stacks seemed to have leaked out during the walk over, replaced by a familiar, endearing nervous energy. “My dad’s interior designer. Thinks it’ll help me ‘network’ or something.”
He busied himself at a sleek panel on the wall, tapping until a low, throbbing electronic melody filled the room, muting the silence. “Something to… um, study to.”
Aubrey smiled, the familiar dance putting her at ease. She gestured to a hallway. “Bathroom?”
“Down there, last door on the left.”
She walked past a framed abstract painting that probably cost more than her tuition. In the pristine, marble-tiled bathroom, she checked her phone. Three missed calls from her agent, Marco, and a string of texts demanding she confirm a two-day shoot in Vegas. The other life, persistent and pulsing. She silenced the device, dropping it into her small purse. For now, she was just Aubrey. The girl with the macroeconomics textbook.
When she returned, she found him in his bedroom. It was slightly more lived-in: a large, low platform bed with rumpled grey sheets, a physics textbook sprawled open face-down, a single sock on the floor. He’d taken off his shoes and was sitting on the edge of the bed, pretending to look at his phone.
“So,” she said, leaning against the doorframe. “Treaty of Westphalia.”
“Right. The seminal shift in sovereign state legitimacy,” he recited, tossing his phone aside. He patted the space next to him on the bed. “Might as well be comfortable.”
She kicked off her own shoes and joined him, the memory foam mattress sighing under her weight. They sat side-by-side, shoulders touching, textbooks open on their laps. For twenty minutes, they were just two students. He explained the concept of cuius regio, eius religio with a focused intensity that furrowed his brow. She pointed out a flawed graph in his econ chapter, her finger tracing the axis. The proximity was a steady, growing heat.
Her dress, a simple charcoal cotton number, had ridden up her thighs as she’d crossed her legs. She felt his gaze land there, then dart quickly back to his book. A minute later, it happened again. This time, it stayed.
“You’re distracted,” she said softly, not looking up from her page.
“I am.”
His hand settled on her knee, his touch warm through the thin fabric. His thumb began a slow, rhythmic sweep along the inside of her thigh, back and forth, a millimeter higher with each pass. The academic pretense dissolved with every stroke.
“Soren,” she murmured, a warning she didn’t mean.
“I’m studying comparative structures,” he said, his voice rough. His fingers slid further, under the hem of her dress, onto the bare skin of her upper thigh. Her breath hitched. The touch was different from the library—less exploratory, more assured.Purposeful.
He turned his head, his lips finding the sensitive junction of her neck and shoulder. His kiss was open-mouthed, hot. The textbook slid from her lap, thudding to the floor. His other hand came up to cradle her jaw, turning her face to meet his. The kiss was deep, languid, tasting of coffee and intent. His hand on her thigh crept higher, his fingertips brushing the edge of her cotton panties.
A wave of pure, professional instinct hit her. The angle was wrong. The lighting from the single overhead pot light was unflattering, casting harsh shadows. She could guide him, shift him, optimize the shot. It was a visceral, distracting impulse.
Then his finger traced a slow, firm circle over the fabric between her legs, and the impulse shattered. A low moan vibrated in her throat. This wasn’t a scene. This was Soren, his hands slightly calloused from the gym, his breathing uneven against her cheek, his body rigid with the effort of moving slowly.
She broke the kiss, pushing against his chest. For a split second, confusion and hurt flashed in his eyes. Then she swung a leg over him, settling her weight firmly in his lap, straddling him. The move was fluid, decisive.
“My turn to practice,” she whispered, watching his eyes widen.
She could feel him, hard and thick, straining against the confines of his jeans. A dark patch of dampness had already bloomed on the denim where the head of his cock pressed insistently. The sight of it, the tangible evidence of his arousal for her, sent a jolt of pure heat straight to her core. She ground down against him, a slow, deliberate rotation of her hips, and was rewarded by his sharp gasp, his hands flying to her waist to grip her.
“Fuck, Aubrey,” he choked out.
She kissed him again, this time with a possession that made him groan into her mouth. Her hands slid under his shirt, mapping the hard planes of his stomach, the defined ridges of his abdomen. She broke away, pulling the shirt over his head in one quick motion. In the cool room, his skin was hot. She dipped her head, tracing the line of his collarbone with her tongue, then lower, to a tight nipple. She bit down, gently.
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed, his hips bucking up beneath her.
She rocked against the hard ridge of his jeans, her own arousal a slick, aching demand. The thin barrier of her panties and his denim was a maddening friction. She reached between them, her fingers fumbling with the button of his fly. It gave. The zipper hissed down.
She slipped her hand inside, past the waistband of his boxer briefs. Her fingers wrapped around him. He was slick at the tip, velvety and hard. She pumped slowly, once, twice, feeling him swell further in her grip, a strangled sound catching in his throat.
“Tell me what you want,” she said, her voice a husky command she never used in her daily life.“You. I want you. Now.” The words were ragged, stripped bare.
She shifted, lifting herself just enough to hook her thumbs into the sides of her panties. She slid them down, kicking them off somewhere behind her. The cool air whispered over her wet skin. Then her hands were at his waist, pushing his jeans and briefs down over his hips just far enough to free him.
He sprang up, the head flushed a deep, ruddy purple, beaded with moisture. She positioned herself above him, guiding him with her hand. For a suspended moment, she just held the hot, blunt tip of him against her opening, watching his face. His eyes were slammed shut, his teeth bared, every muscle in his neck corded with tension.
Then she sank down.
It was a slow, inexorable take, her body stretching to accommodate him. He was big, and the fullness was breathtaking. A ragged moan tore from her lungs, her head falling back. She took him inch by inch, until he was fully sheathed inside her, their bodies joined completely. She stayed there, achingly still, letting them both feel the shocking, intimate completeness of it.
His eyes flew open, glassy with overwhelmed sensation.“Oh my god. Oh my fucking god, Aubrey.”
She began to move.
It wasn’t the choreographed, camera-aware rhythm of her work. It was a hungry, seeking roll of her hips, a deep, grinding need to feel him everywhere. Her hands braced on his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin. The slap of skin on skin, the wet, filthy sound of their joining, filled the room, syncopated with their harsh breaths.
“Look at me,” she gasped.
He did. His gaze locked onto hers, and the vulnerability she saw there—the awe, the surrender, the pure, unfiltered feeling—unlocked something savage in her. She rode him harder, faster, chasing a climax that was coiling tight and real in her belly, not just a performance. The headboard began a rhythmic knock against the wall, a stark, beating tempo.
“I’m not gonna last,” he warned, his voice strained, his hands gripping her hips like anchors.
“Don’t you dare,” she panted, her movements becoming more erratic. “Not yet. Fuck, Soren, right there…”
He understood. One hand slid from her hip, his fingers finding the swollen, sensitive knot of flesh between her legs. His touch was clumsy, urgent, perfect. The combined sensation of him thrusting up into her and the rough, circular pressure of his thumb shattered her.
Her orgasm crashed through her with a violence that stole her vision. A raw, guttural cry ripped from her throat, her body clamping around him in rhythmic, pulsating waves. She shuddered, collapsing forward onto his chest as the waves slowly receded.
The feel of her climax pulsing around him was his undoing. With a broken groan, his own control vanished. He thrust up into her twice, three times, deep and frantic, before his body went rigid. He came with a helpless, choked-off shout, his release hot and flooding inside her, his arms locking around her back to hold her impossibly close.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing slowing, and the distant thump of the bass from the living room speakers. She lay boneless against him, her face buried in the sweat-damp hollow of his neck, his heart hammering against her own.
Slowly, gently, he softened and slipped from her. A warm trickle followed, a stark reminder of their intimacy. He didn’t let her go. His hand came up, fingers tracing through her damp blonde hair with a tenderness that made her chest ache.
“So,” he finally murmured into the quiet, his voice wrecked. “That… that was part of the curriculum, right?”
A weak laugh bubbled out of her. She lifted her head. His expression was soft, satiated, his eyes crinkled at the corners. In that moment, he looked younger than he ever did in the cafeteria.
“Extra credit,” she whispered, kissing him softly. She shifted, wincing slightly as she moved off him, and curled into his side. His arm wrapped around her, pulling the rumpled duvet over them both.
Lying there in the dark, the city’s glow painting faint lines across the ceiling, Aubrey felt the two halves of her life collide and momentarily fuse. The professionalism, the artifice, it had melted away in the face of his genuine, overwhelmed response. She had given a performance, yes, but the climax had been real. The tenderness was real.
His breathing deepened, evening out towards sleep. Her phone, buried in her purse in the other room, was silent. For now, in the warm, spent dark, there was only this: the salt smell of their skin, the steady beat of his heart under her ear, and the terrifying, thrilling sense that this fiction was becoming the most real thing she’d ever known.