Sequel: Home is You

› Sequel to Childhood Love. This focuses on Jannik and FMC relationship years after confession.

› Pairing → Jannik Sinner x Female Reader.

› Established relationship and unexpected pregnancy

Sequel: Home is You

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 |

Childhood Love

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 |Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 |

Side Stories: Distance (Smut) | Indian Wells (Fluff) | Problem in Paradise (fluff/slight angst) | Problem in Paradise II (tooth rotting fluff)

Part 7

You’d both agreed, quietly and without argument, that you needed sun before anything else.

Before Sexten.
Before family.
Before the questions and the opinions and the careful looks.

“Just a few days,” Jannik had said, fingers laced tightly with yours. He’d sounded almost shy about it, like asking for time alone with you was asking for too much. “Somewhere warm. Just us. No one else.”

You’d squeezed his hand and nodded, because you needed that too—a pocket of time where you weren’t someone’s daughter or miracle girlfriend or headline. Where he wasn’t world No. anything. Where you could both just exist, without an audience.

By the time you reached Mallorca and followed the winding road up the hill, it felt like you’d driven straight off the map and into something separate from your real lives.

The car climbed higher and higher, past terraced fields and old stone walls furred with moss, past flashes of sea that kept appearing and disappearing between the trees. The air smelled different—salt and rosemary and hot dust kicked up from the tires. With every turn, the rest of the world seemed to peel away, until it was just sunlight and the low hum of cicadas pressed against the windows.

The resort wasn’t really a resort at all. It looked like someone had scattered a handful of whitewashed villas across the hillside and then hidden them beneath olive trees and bougainvillea. No towering hotel, no chandeliers, no echoing lobby. Just low buildings with soft, clean lines, warm stone paths, and the occasional gleam where a private pool caught the light.

Your villa was at the very end of the path, slightly higher than the rest, like it had been tucked away on purpose. A private gate, a short run of smooth stone steps, and then a wide terrace that opened out and kept going until it met nothing but sea and sky.

Everything was cool and quiet: pale tiles underfoot, linen curtains breathing lazily in the breeze, a bed big enough that you could both starfished and still not touch—though you knew that was not how it would ever be used. The glass doors were already open, letting in the sound of waves and the faint clink of dishes from somewhere far below, more suggestion than noise.

It was quiet in the way expensive places were quiet; not empty, just carefully softened. No shouting by the pool, no tinny music, no clatter of room-service trays. Just the hush of the sea, the rustle of leaves, the low buzz of insects warming the edges of the afternoon. The nearest neighbors were distant shadows behind trees—a flicker of movement, a stray laugh carried on the wind, a murmur that proved other people existed without disturbing the illusion that you were alone.

You stepped out onto the terrace like you were testing it, like the view might dissolve if you moved too fast. The stone was warm under your bare feet. The infinity pool spilled toward the horizon, its water so still it looked like the sky had dropped down to rest inside it. For a moment it all blurred together—pool, sea, sky—one long, uninterrupted blue.

Your fingers curled around the railing and you exhaled, feeling something tight and coiled inside your chest finally loosen.

“This is…” you started, searching for the right word—safe, maybe, or selfish, or exactly what you needed, even if you weren’t sure you deserved it.

“Perfect,” Jannik finished softly.

You hadn’t heard him come out, but suddenly he was there, close enough that you felt the heat of his body against your back. His arms lifted, bracing on the rail on either side of yours, caging you in without pressure. His chest brushed your shoulder on each slow breath.

“Just us,” he murmured, voice low near your ear.

You closed your eyes for a beat, letting that settle.

//

Inside, the villa felt like it had been built for people who needed to learn how to relax again—calm on purpose, with just enough quiet luxury to make your shoulders drop the second you walked in.

High ceilings, clean lines, sunlight pooling exactly where it should. The wide glass doors opened straight onto your own private pool—an almost too-perfect sheet of blue framed by pale stone and two loungers with cushions so thick they looked like they might swallow you whole. Beyond that, a narrow path slipped down through scrub and olive trees toward the sea, where the sound of the waves grew louder, like the final layer of noise being washed out of you.

“Okay,” you said, turning in a slow circle to take it all in. “This is ridiculous.”

“Mm,” Jannik agreed.

But he wasn’t looking at the high ceilings. Or the pool. Or the view.

You felt his gaze before you met it.

He was standing just inside the doorway, both suitcases abandoned at his feet, shoulders loose from the travel day but eyes anything but relaxed. They were fixed on you—on the way you’d just peeled off your hoodie and tossed it over a chair, leaving you in one of his soft cotton shirts and a pair of loose shorts. At some point you’d shoved the hem up to cool down and forgotten about it; now it sat crooked on your body, rucked just high enough to flash a strip of bare skin above the waistband of your shorts and the faintest curve of your barely-there bump.

Your legs were bare, stretched out on the couch, one knee bent. A bit of sun had already kissed your thighs and shins. The late light caught on your collarbone where the neckline had slipped wide, leaving one bra strap just visible and a triangle of skin exposed.

It wasn’t the quick once-over he gave you when you tried on a new dress, or the warm, fond look he had when you did something that made him laugh. This was heavier. Dark at the edges. Familiar in a way that made your stomach swoop.

Months of seeing you in passing—airport goodbyes, rushed reunions between matches, calls cut off by time zones and physio sessions—condensed into one long, unbroken stare.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” you asked, half teasing, half exposed. Your hand went automatically to your bump, tugging the shirt down a little, like you needed something to hold onto.

He crossed the room in a few unhurried strides, like he had all the time in the world. Which, with a tiny, dizzy lurch, you realized he kind of did. No practice block waiting. No physio. No press. No dinner with his team. Just five days of sun and you, and nowhere else he had to be.

When he stopped in front of you, the air felt suddenly tighter.

“Because,” he murmured, hands finding your waist, fingers curving in like he was finally letting himself take you in, “I finally can.”

Heat climbed up your neck.

“You see me all the time,” you tried, though it sounded flimsy, a half-hearted defense even to your own ears.

“In airports,” he countered, voice low. “In players’ lounges. In cars, with drivers listening. On FaceTime when I know you’re exhausted and pretending not to be.” His thumbs started moving, slow, deliberate strokes over the soft give at your sides, right where your shirt had ridden up—just above your barely-there bump. “It’s not the same.”

His touch drifted, one hand sliding forward, spreading over the curve of your stomach. The gesture was gentle, almost reverent—but the look in his eyes didn’t match the softness of his palm.

His gaze was pure hunger.

Focused. Intent. Darkened at the edges, tracking the path of his own hand like he was memorizing it. You could practically feel him cataloguing every small change in you, every new line and curve, every place he wanted his mouth next. It was the look he got when he knew he’d found the shot he wanted to hit and had all the time in the world to line it up.

You knew that look.

It went straight through you, hot and direct, lighting up nerves that had only just started to remember what it felt like to be wanted like this. It called up every memory of him coming back from night matches wired and restless, all coiled muscle and clenched jaw, pouring all that leftover adrenaline into your skin, your mouth, your body.

“You’re doing the eyes,” you muttered, because your brain refused to offer anything more intelligent.

One corner of his mouth lifted, slow and wicked, like you’d just confirmed something for him.

“Which eyes?” he asked softly, like he didn’t already know, fingers tightening on your waist just enough to drag you a fraction closer.

“The…” You waved a hand, completely unhelpful. “Those eyes.”

“Ah.” His mouth curved, slow, like you’d just confirmed something he’d hoped was obvious. He dipped his head, kissing your cheek—close enough to the corner of your lips that it felt like a promise more than an accident. It was barely a touch, just a warm brush of skin on skin, but your whole body jolted like he’d flipped a switch.

“Good,” he murmured.

You swallowed, pulse thudding in your throat.

Up close, it was impossible to pretend you were imagining it. His pupils were blown, almost swallowing the green. The faint travel slump in his shoulders was gone; his whole body was coiled now, almost thrumming, like the seconds before a return when he’d already guessed the serve. His fingers flexed at your waist, thumbs pressing into the soft give there, like he was physically stopping himself from dragging you in all the way.

This wasn’t him enjoying the villa, or the sea, or the novelty of a holiday.

This was weeks of wanting you with no time. Weeks of hotel doors that were never quite closed enough, of your face on a screen instead of under his hands, of rushed touches before drivers called downstairs and coaches knocked—finally slamming into the reality of a place where there was nothing but time and privacy and you.

The realization knocked the air out of you.

“Come on,” you said, grabbing for something sensible, nudging his chest lightly with your knuckles. “Mr. World No. 1, let’s unpack before I fall asleep on this floor.”

He didn’t move.

If anything, he stepped closer, toes brushing yours. His hands tightened on your waist, dragging you that last fraction so your bodies actually touched, so you could feel the solid heat of him through both your clothes. His gaze dropped, unhurried, to your mouth, lingered there for a beat that made your stomach lurch, then climbed back up.

“We have five days,” he said, voice gone low and rough-edged in a way you felt all the way down. “Unpacking is… not the first thing on my list.”

Your heart flipped over. “Jannik,” you managed, useless.

He hummed, the sound deep and pleased in his chest, and smiled that slow, hungry smile again, the one that usually meant I’ve already decided how this ends.

“All this sun,” he murmured, thumb tracing an idle, possessive line just under your ribs where your shirt had ridden up. “All this time. Finally just us.” He leaned in until his lips barely ghosted along your jaw, talking directly into your skin. “You really think I’m starting with the suitcases?”

Your brain tried to assemble an argument and came up empty.

Because he wasn’t joking.

Now that you were really looking, you could see it clearly: the faint smear of tiredness under his eyes, sure, but layered over with something sharp and intent. A steadiness that felt a lot like a choice already made.

He’d been thinking about this. About you, here, with no one knocking and no clock running.

“Unpacking means clothes,” you said finally, clutching at logic like a lifeline. “Clothes are important.”

His brows lifted, amused. “You plan on wearing them the whole time?”

Heat shot straight to your face. “You’re very confident, Sinner.”

“I flew you to an island and booked us a villa at the end of the world,” he said calmly. “I’m allowed to be a little confident.”

One hand left your waist, sliding slowly up your spine. It was an easy, unhurried stroke, but nothing about it felt accidental. His fingertips followed the line of your spine, then the nape of your neck, brushing the tiny hairs there. Goosebumps broke out down your arms in a wave you couldn’t hide.

His eyes tracked it, dark and satisfied.

“See?” he murmured. “You like when I’m confident.”

You hated that he was right. You loved that he was right.

“Jannik,” you tried again, but it came out softer now, whatever resolve you’d had dissolving under the weight of his hands and the quiet of the villa and the way the world had shrunk to the space between your bodies.

He leaned in, bumping his nose lightly against your temple like he couldn’t quite stop touching you, even for emphasis.

“I missed you,” he said simply.

You scoffed on instinct, but it sounded thin. “We saw each other last week.”

“I saw you next to my physio,” he corrected, voice near your ear, each word a warm scrape. “Next to my coaches. Next to my parents. Next to cameras.” His mouth brushed along your jaw as he spoke, not quite a kiss, just teasing touches. “I haven’t had you like this—just you—for… too long.”

The honesty of it punched straight through your chest.

You could see his side of it now, clear as a diagram: hotel rooms that were never really private, dinners with the team, media blocks, fans, flights. Him carrying this steady, contained wanting around like extra weight in his bag, slotting you into gaps where he could, never able to set it down fully.

And now: no gaps. No schedule. No doorbell. Just open time and the two of you standing in the middle of it.

Something inside you melted and reformed around that.

“Okay,” you whispered, mostly to yourself.

He froze, just a little. “Okay?” he echoed, pulling back enough to search your face, eyes suddenly very, very sober under all that heat, like he needed to see it written there before he believed you.

You held his gaze and let him.

Let him see all of it—the tiredness, the nerves about everything waiting back home, the tug of real life—and the way it all sat behind the simple, solid want: him. This. A few days where you didn’t have to rush.

“Okay,” you said again, steadier this time. “We can… unpack later.”

The smile that broke over his face wasn’t the boyish grin he wore after a win, or the polite press smile, or even the soft one he saved for when you did something that made him proud. This one was slower, thicker, almost disbelieving—like he’d finally been handed something he’d wanted for so long he’d trained himself not to reach for it, and now it was suddenly, undeniably his.

“Later,” he said, and his voice had dropped, sanded rough.

Then he kissed you.

Not a rushed airport kiss, not a distracted hello in a hallway, not a quick goodbye with one eye on the clock. His mouth found yours with a deliberate, focused hunger, like he’d taken both hands off the brakes and decided to see exactly how fast he could go. One hand stayed firm at your waist, anchoring you, protective without being gentle; the other slid up the line of your spine to cradle the back of your head, fingers spreading in your hair, angling you exactly where he wanted you.

The villa vanished. The view, the pool, the soft shush of the sea—all of it blurred to static behind the way he kissed you deeper, tasting you like he’d missed every version of your mouth and was determined to revisit them one by one. There was no rush in him, but there was intent—a slow, unhurried claiming that said I finally have time, and I’m going to use all of it.

Your fingers fisted in the front of his t-shirt, twisting the fabric, holding onto the solid heat of him under the thin cotton. The knot that had been sitting under your ribs for weeks tightened once, sharp and almost painful, then loosened on a long exhale, replaced by something heavier and molten, pooling low and insistent.

He broke the kiss only long enough to rest his forehead against yours, catching his breath, his nose brushing yours.

Then he tipped his head and chased your mouth again—but this time he caught the corner instead, then the hollow just beneath it, his lips lingering there a beat too long. Each soft drag of his mouth scattered your thoughts a little further, fuzzing the edges of everything that wasn’t him.

Before you could regroup, he shifted.

One arm slid under your knees, the other wrapped around your back, and suddenly the floor wasn’t under you anymore. You let out a small, startled gasp, hands flying to his shoulders—meant for balance, turning almost instantly into a cling, fingers digging into warm muscle like letting go wasn’t an option.

“Jannik—”

He glanced down at you, and the look there nearly stopped your heart.

His eyes were dark and blown, but not sharp the way they were on court. They were molten—heat and affection and want all tangled together with no attempt to separate them. It hit you like a weight to the chest: he’s not hiding any of it.

“I brought you here to rest,” he said, carrying you toward the bedroom like it was the most straightforward plan in the world. “And to swim. And to let you sleep as long as you want.” His mouth curved, a slow, knowing thing. “And to enjoy you. Slowly. Without anyone knocking on the door.”

Your stomach swooped at the way he said enjoy you—like it wasn’t just a throwaway line, like he was already mentally ticking through possibilities.

“Very selfless of you,” you managed, aiming for lightness even as your pulse thundered in your ears.

He nudged the bedroom door open with his shoulder. Inside, the room glowed with soft light—white sheets, an absurd number of pillows, open doors framing a strip of sea and sky like a painting. It looked like a brochure. In his arms, it felt like a set.

“I am a giver,” he said gravely.

You snorted, the sound catching in your throat when he lowered you onto the middle of the bed with ridiculous care, like you were something fragile he trusted himself not to drop. The mattress dipped under your weight; he stayed right there with you, one knee coming up onto the bed, crowding into your space without actually pinning you.

His hands lingered at your hips, broad and steady, thumbs smoothing once over the fabric as if he were checking you were really settled, really okay. From this angle, he was all around you—tall frame blocking the light, shoulders braced, one hand still on your waist, the other pressed into the mattress beside your thigh, caging you in without making you feel trapped.

His gaze dipped, just for a moment, to your bump. It was barely there, more suggestion than fact, but his eyes softened like he was seeing the whole future in that faint curve. Something tender and fiercely protective flickered across his face.

Then he looked back up at you.

The tenderness didn’t vanish; it slid into something else—hungrier, deeper—until the two currents ran together. Love and lust, indistinguishable, all of it focused on you.

When he spoke, his voice was quieter, stripped of tease. “Tell me if it’s too much.”

You reached up, sliding your fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, feeling the damp warmth of his skin there, the way his breath stuttered when you tugged. You used that grip to draw him down, closing the last bit of distance until his weight hovered over you, held up on his arms, his face inches from yours.

“I’ll tell you,” you said, your voice somehow steadier than you felt. “But I don’t think it will be.”

His palm skimmed up your side, fingers slipping under the hem of your shirt, finding that warm strip of skin at your waist. He traced it once, slow and sure, then slid higher, his hand flattening over your back to pull you up into him, so your chest brushed his with every breath and you could feel the solid, careful way he held himself above you, surrounding you completely.

He didn’t fumble. He didn’t hesitate like he was trying to figure out who you were now.

He went straight to the places he knew undid you—the soft dip at the base of your spine, the narrow notch just below your ribs, the curve of your hip where his thumb could drag in slow, lazy lines that felt like a private question. Every pass of his hand felt intentional, a quiet, wordless I remember you. I remember what you like.

His fingers curled around the outside of your thigh first, squeezing gently, feeling the muscle there flex under his palm. Then he smoothed his thumb along the seam where your leg met your hip, dragging slow, lazy lines that made your breath catch.

You felt the moment his hand shifted inward.

He drew his knuckles along the inside of your thigh, just above your knee, feather-light at first. Back and forth, a teasing, absent pattern that had your skin prickling, your pulse jumping ahead of the rest of you. Each pass went a little higher, his fingers pressing just enough for you to feel how sure he was of what he was doing.

Your fingers twisted in his shirt, tugging him closer instead, your knee falling open on instinct to give him more room. The little surprised noise he let out at that went straight through you.

By the time his fingers finally slipped higher, to where your core was already warm and aching for him, your head tipped back on a soft, helpless sound you didn’t have time to be embarrassed about.

Your breathing hitched before your brain fully registered why. It always did with him. A certain angle of his thumb circling your clit, the way his fingers slipped in and out your folds when you sighed into his mouth—that was all it took to have your pulse kicking hard, that coil of heat low in your belly waking up properly for the first time in weeks.

He felt it—of course he did. The way your hips gave a tiny, involuntary jerk, the way your fingers clenched and unclenched in his shirt, the way your breath came in sharp, uneven pulls against his mouth.

His answering breath was a soft, disbelieving laugh against your mouth before he kissed you again—slower, deeper, patient and hungry all at once—as the sound of the sea filled the room and the rest of the world stayed exactly where you’d left it: somewhere far below the hill, on the other side of the map.

You curled your fingers tighter in his hair, knuckles brushing his scalp, and tugged—just enough to drag him fully down into you. His body answered, weight settling a little heavier, thigh pressing more firmly between your legs, the hand at your hip tightening until fingers sank in deeper, a hot, unyielding line that made it very clear he knew exactly what he was doing to you.

Whatever careful pace you’d been pretending to keep disintegrated.

Heat rushed up, sudden and overwhelming, stealing the air from your lungs. The kiss stopped being neat and started to unravel; you were clinging now, not meeting him so much as chasing the way his mouth moved over yours, the way his grip on you kept tightening, encouraging every tiny helpless shift of your hips instead of slowing you down.

“Too much?” he managed against your lips, barely pulling back, the question frayed at the edges like he already knew you were right on the edge of something and was half hoping you’d lie.

You shook your head, the smallest, desperate movement, your nose brushing his, your fingers locked at the back of his neck like you’d forgotten there was any world beyond the length of his body on yours.

“No,” you breathed, the word barely more than a tremor. It didn’t sound like reassurance—it sounded like surrender, like you’d just handed him the last bit of control you’d been pretending to have.

He stilled for a beat, like he was committing the sound to memory. Then he kissed you again, slower, deeper, until your lungs forgot how to work properly and your fingers were curled so tight in his hair your knuckles ached.

For a few long, dizzy seconds, everything lined up—his mouth, his hand, the steady climb of heat in your body. You could feel it gathering, rising, that familiar, terrifyingly welcome swell that meant you were actually going to get there, that all the fog and nausea and flatness of the last few weeks had finally given way to something sharp and bright and alive.

And then he stopped.

The kiss stayed the same—slow, deep, unhurried. His weight didn’t shift, still braced over you, careful and solid. But the rhythm of his hand changed. The pressure eased, his touch lightening, fingers sliding down in a slow, lazy stroke along your thigh before drifting away from the place that had you wound so tight you could barely breathe.

His fingers slipped away, out of the heat of you and back to the safer territory of your leg.

The loss was so sharp your body reacted before your brain did.

A small, broken sound escaped you—half whine, half gasp. Your hips twitched up, chasing contact that wasn’t there anymore, your hand fisting in his shirt like you could drag him back into place by sheer stubbornness.

He heard it. Felt it. You felt his mouth curve against yours, that smug little smile you wanted to wipe off his face and kiss at the same time.

“Hey,” he murmured, breaking the kiss just enough to let the word brush over your lips. “Easy.”

You stared up at him, a little wild. “You can’t just—”

“Can’t what?” he asked, maddeningly calm, eyes dark and bright all at once. His hand smoothed up the inside of your thigh, soothing, not quite where you wanted him, thumb stroking slow circles into sensitive skin like he was trying to pet you out of a ledge. “Stop?”

“Yes!” you burst out, more desperate than you meant to sound.

His smile deepened, just a fraction. “Interesting,” he murmured. “I thought you liked when I had self-control.”

Before you could answer, he moved.

The mattress shifted as he rocked back, easing some of his weight off you. His hands slid to your hips, steady and sure, and with a careful twist he rolled onto his side, then onto his back, taking you with him. For a second you were off balance, palms flattening on his chest, then he guided you higher, settling you over him.

“Up,” he coaxed quietly.

You went, knees planting on either side of his thigh as he sat up against the headboard, shoulders braced there, chest pressed to yours. One of his hands stayed at your waist to keep you close; the other dropped lower, adjusting you with ridiculous gentleness until you were exactly where he wanted you—straddling his leg, the thick line of his thigh right beneath the heat you’d been chasing.

You felt the contact like a jolt.

He watched it land in your expression—your sharp inhale, the way your fingers tightened on his shoulders, the way your hips gave a tiny, involuntary shift as you tested how close he’d actually put you.

“Better,” he said softly, more to himself than to you.

His hand smoothed down from your waist to your hip, fingers fitting into the curve there. He didn’t drag you. Didn’t set the rhythm. Just anchored you, thumb resting in the shallow dip like a promise.

“Here,” he murmured, eyes locked on yours, pupils blown wide. “Now you’re in charge.”

His thumb pressed, the lightest encouragement, not quite a push. “Take what you want.”

Your breath left you in a shaky rush.

The first roll of your hips was barely intentional—a tiny, testing shift as you tried to find your balance around him. But the drag of your body over the firm muscle of his thigh lit you up so fast you had to bite down on a sound, your fingers clenching in his shirt.

His jaw clenched. You felt his thigh tense under you, just for a second, like he’d had to stop himself from jerking up into you.

“Yeah,” he breathed, voice roughened and low. “There. Just like that.”

You did it again, this time on purpose.

Slow, cautious, a hesitant grind along the line he’d given you. The friction was maddening—too much and not close enough at the same time—and your body rushed to meet it, every nerve ending focusing on the steady, unyielding press of him between your thighs.

You found a rhythm without even meaning to.

Small, desperate rolls of your hips over the solid line of his thigh, catching the exact place that made heat spark and spread. Every slow drag sent another tremor through you; your fingers were hooked in his shoulders, your forehead tipped against his, breath coming in short, uneven bursts.

For a while you couldn’t see anything but him in fragments—his mouth, his throat, the way his lashes fluttered when you made a sound he liked. Then you blinked, really looked at him, and everything sharpened.

He was wrecked.

His jaw was tight, a muscle ticking there. His pupils were blown, almost swallowing the green. His hands were clamped on your waist, holding you in place but not forcing you—letting you use him, letting you ride out every shuddering pass. And lower, pressed against your hip, there was no mistaking the hard line straining against his shorts, the way his body was reacting just as helplessly as yours.

He wasn’t the only one shaking with restraint.

You rocked against him again—slower this time, savoring the way his eyes fluttered closed, the way his breath stuttered out on a curse in German. You felt yourself climbing, that sharp, bright edge looming closer, your body ready to tip straight over it with one more grind, one more thoughtless drag.

Heat rolled through you in a wave. Your cheeks burned; your chest felt too tight. Some distant, still-rational part of your brain thought, I should be embarrassed, but the rest of you only cared about doing it again.

He held you in place with one hand firm at your waist, thumb pressing in, the other braced by your head, bearing his weight so none of it touched where you were sensitive. He wasn’t moving you. That was the worst, best part: he was just there, letting you decide, letting you use him.

Every time you rocked against him, his breath stuttered. Every tiny, involuntary sound that escaped you seemed to punch straight through his control; you could feel him fighting to stay still for you, to give you the space you clearly weren’t going to ask for.

He tipped his head back against the bed, eyes dragging up your body to your face, and the way he looked up at you—wrecked, awed, a little disbelieving—made your stomach flip.

“Guarda…” he breathed, almost dazed. “Sei bellissima when you can’t help yourself.”

Your fingers slid from his shirt into his hair, needing something to hold on to as you found a rhythm—small, desperate rolls of your hips that dragged you along the hard line of his thigh. The movement wasn’t big, barely anything from the outside, but every pass sent sparks shooting through you, building and layering, each one perched on the last.

You were coming apart slowly, up against him, in waves.

Your thighs started to tremble around him; you felt muscles in your legs clench and quiver, trying to decide if they wanted to close or open more. You chose the latter, letting your knee fall wider, chasing the angle that made something inside you twist and tighten and beg.

His hand on your waist tightened, fingers digging in, holding you right where you’d put yourself. His eyes never left your face.

“That’s it,” he whispered, like encouragement, like prayer. “Use me. I’ve got you.”

There was no teasing in it now. No smugness. Just raw, stunned want and a kind of reverent awe, like watching you take what you wanted from him was doing something to him he hadn’t quite prepared for.

You stopped thinking about what you looked like, what you sounded like, how it would read to anyone else. There was only the glide and drag of your body against his, the solid heat of his thigh, the way his breathing matched yours in short, uneven bursts, as if your pleasure had taken his lungs hostage too.

The villa, the sea, the entire island narrowed to that one point of contact and the man holding you, offering himself up and watching you fall apart on what he’d given you like it was the best thing that had happened to him all year.

You rode the line without meaning to.

Every slow drag of your body against his thigh stacked on the last, tighter and tighter, until the heat in your belly stopped feeling like warmth and started feeling like pressure—sharp, insistent, coiling in on itself. Your breath went thin. Your fingers were buried in his hair, holding him so close you could feel every ragged exhale against your mouth.

He felt it.

You knew he did from the way his hand on your waist went iron-tight, from the way his thigh tensed once beneath you, just short of actually thrusting up. From the way his eyes tipped shut like he could see what was about to happen to you without needing to look.

“That’s it,” he breathed, voice wrecked. “Don’t—”

That was what did it.

The way he said it, like he’d been quietly, carefully working toward this from the moment he walked through the door. Like he’d flown you across a sea and carried your suitcase and played the perfect boyfriend all day just to get you right here, trembling over his leg in a villa where no one could interrupt.

It hit a stubborn, bratty bit of you you hadn’t realized was still intact under the hormones and nausea and relief.

No, something in you thought, sharp and perverse. You don’t get everything. Not that easily.

Something hot and mean and pleased curled through you.

You sucked in a breath that was almost a gasp and forced your hips to slow.

It felt impossible at first, like putting your hand out against a moving train. Your body begged you to chase it, to grind down once more, to let the wave crest and break and take the last of your tension with it. Every instinct you had screamed more.

You locked your thighs instead.

Not enough to push him away—never that—but enough to still yourself, to ease the pressure, to drag yourself back from that thin, glittering edge. You focused on breathing, counting the inhales, letting the air scrape in and out of your lungs while the worst of the urgency ebbed.

Under you, every muscle in him went tight.

“Hey,” he rasped, pulling back just far enough to see your face. His pupils were huge, his cheeks flushed, his hair a mess from your hands. “What are you—?”

You swallowed hard, forcing your expression into something like composure even as your pulse thundered in your throat.

“Nothing,” you said, a little hoarse. “Just… breathing.”

His gaze flicked down—catching the way you’d gone still, the way your fingers still trembled where they clutched his shoulders, the way your chest rose and fell in sharp jerks as you wrestled your own body back under control.

Understanding dawned in stages.

First confusion, then disbelief, then something like outrage that made the corner of his mouth twitch.

“You stopped,” he said slowly, like you’d just violated the laws of physics.

You lifted your chin a fraction, your stubbornness finally catching up with your arousal. “Maybe I did.”

For a second he just stared at you, breathing hard, like he was trying to decide if he’d misread your body for the first time since he was nineteen.

Then he huffed out a breathless, incredulous laugh that sounded half like a groan.

“You are kidding me,” he muttered, eyes dropping to your mouth and back up. “You were right there.”

“I know,” you said, maybe a little too primly for someone whose thighs were still shaking around his leg. “I noticed.”

His grip on your waist tightened. “And you just—what? Decided no?”

You tried for a shrug and almost pulled something. “You’re not the only one who knows how to be responsible,” you managed.

The look he gave you at that was pure murder, wrapped in affection.

“Responsible?” he repeated, voice gone dangerously soft. “You grinding yourself all over me and then slamming the brakes when you’re about to fall apart is not responsible, amore. That’s—”

He cut himself off, jaw working, like he was actually having to swallow down whatever word had just presented itself.

“Is what?” you prodded, a thread of triumph weaving through the leftover frustration in your veins.

His eyes were darker than you’d ever seen them, a little wild, a little stunned.

“Cruel,” he said finally, the word low and honest. “You are so cruel.”

You smiled, small and shaky and very far from innocent. “You like me cruel.”

He dropped his forehead to your shoulder for a second, shoulders shaking with a laugh that sounded strangled.

“This is not fair,” he muttered into your skin. “You know that, right?”

“Why?” you asked, trying for airy and failing. Your hand slid up the back of his neck, fingers threading into his hair again, feeling how hot his skin had gotten there. “You’re the one who’s always stopping when I say no. Thought I’d… return the favor.”

He leaned back enough to look at you, properly, his thigh still slotted between yours, a physical reminder of just how thin the truce was.

“You think this is a favor?” he asked, incredulous. “You shaking on top of me and then looking me in the eye and saying, ‘No, actually, I’m fine’?”

Your cheeks flared, but you held his gaze. “I didn’t say I was fine,” you pointed out. “I said I was breathing.”

He stared at you for another long moment, like he was trying to commit this version of you to memory too—the one who could be this undone and still dig her heels in, who would drag them both back from the edge just to prove she could.

When he spoke again, his voice was low and very, very steady.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. You don’t want to give me the satisfaction.” His hand at your waist flexed, slow and deliberate. “Then I’ll just have to work harder.”

Your answering shiver gave you away.

His mouth curled, that slow, dangerous smile you’d learned to recognize as bad news for your composure and fantastic news for everything else.

“Because, amore,” he murmured, leaning in until his lips brushed the shell of your ear, his thigh still snug between your legs, his hand tightening at your hip, “I’m not leaving this island without seeing you fall apart for me. Not just once.”

You opened your mouth to tell him he was overconfident.

What came out instead was a shaky little breath that sounded a lot like I can’t wait.

A helpless, breathy laugh slipped out of you, half apology, half confession. “If you keep going like that, we’re never leaving this bed.”

For a moment, something wicked flashed in his eyes—want, agreement, and a very clear so what?—before he forced it back down. His throat worked as he swallowed, his thumb flexing once against your hip like his body hadn’t gotten the message, then going still.

You let go of his wrist and smoothed your palm down his forearm, grounding both of you. The air between you was still charged, humming, but you could feel the choice fork here—keep pulling, or step back and make it last.

You tipped your head toward the open terrace, to the strip of glittering blue just beyond the doors.

“Can we go swim?” you asked, voice softer now, a little shy at the edges. “Before we forget there’s an actual island out there and not just… this.”

He blinked, like you’d spoken in another language.

“Swim,” he repeated, slowly.

You nodded, trying not to smile too much. “Yeah. You remember? Big rectangle of water outside. Very pretty. Would be a shame if we never used it because someone got carried away.”

His mouth curved, a reluctant, helpless smile. You could see the battle on his face: every cell in him clearly voting to stay right here, pressed over you, but his better sense—and the part of him that wanted to stretch this out, savor it—reluctantly agreeing with you.

“Are you saying I have no self-control?” he asked, a little hoarse.

You raised your brows pointedly.

He huffed out a laugh, the tension in his shoulders easing. “Fair.”

He leaned in and kissed you once more, quick and soft, like a punctuation mark instead of an invitation, then pushed himself up, hands sliding away from your body with obvious reluctance.

“Swim,” he said again, more decisively now, like he was talking himself into it. “We can be… good. For at least fifteen minutes.”

“Ten,” you corrected under your breath.

He heard you—of course he did. The look he gave you for that nearly undid your resolve all over again.

“You’re not making this easier,” he murmured, but there was a warmth in his eyes now, a spark of playfulness threaded through the hunger. “Come on.”

He offered you his hand.

You took it, letting him pull you gently to your feet. Your legs felt a little shaky, but the open doors, the breeze, the glint of the pool outside tugged your focus outward again, away from the bed and everything you’d almost let happen there right away.

He squeezed your fingers once, thumb brushing over your knuckles, a private little promise.

“Swim first,” he said quietly, eyes still dark, still full of it. “Enjoy later.”

The way he said later made heat bloom in your chest all over again—but you let him lead you toward the terrace, the sound of the sea growing louder with each step, the cool air wrapping around your overheated skin as you both pretended, for now, to be very interested in the view.

//

The first time you stepped out onto the terrace in your swimsuit, you felt ten times more exposed than you had in any stadium box all season.

It wasn’t obscene, but it was definitely… less than you’d normally wear. The bikini you’d thrown in your suitcase on a brave online-shopping night was all soft fabric and thin straps, the top cut a little lower than you were used to, the bottoms sitting just under the small, tentative curve of your lower stomach. At ten, eleven weeks, it was more suggestion than bump—just the slightest rounding—but the suit framed it like a headline.

You hesitated in the doorway, one hand on the frame, suddenly very aware of every inch of bare skin.

Jannik, already outside fiddling with the umbrella, looked up.

The change in his face was immediate.

It was like someone had hit a switch. His hands stilled on the crank; his whole attention snapped to you and stayed there. His gaze moved slowly—over your bare shoulders, the curve of your chest in the small triangles of fabric, the new softness at your waist, the way the bikini bottoms hugged your hips and dipped under that little swell low on your stomach.

For a heartbeat, it felt like there was no one else in the world. Just you, standing there in far too little fabric, and him, looking like he’d forgotten how verbs worked.

You swallowed. “You’re staring,” you said, aiming for dry and landing somewhere closer to breathless.

“Yes,” he said simply.

No apology. No deflection. Just fact.

“Stop,” you muttered, heat crawling up your neck even as something inside you straightened, preened under that look. “You look like you’re about to eat me.”

A quiet laugh slipped out of him, low and unsteady. “That is… not a bad summary,” he admitted.

“Jannik.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, lifting his hands in surrender, though his eyes didn’t go anywhere. They kept dragging back to the line where your top met skin, to the way the sunlight picked out the faint curve of your belly, to your legs, your hips, your everything. “Pool first. I behave.” A beat. “Maybe.”

You rolled your eyes, but your feet suddenly felt lighter as you stepped out fully onto the terrace.

The tiles were warm under your soles, the air soft and sea-salted. The pool lay in front of you like a sheet of glass, cooler blue than the water beyond the edge of the terrace, barely rippling.

“Wait,” he said abruptly.

You stopped mid-step. “What now?”

He crossed the space between you in a few strides and then, without warning, dropped into a crouch in front of you. His hands came up to rest gently on either side of your hips, fingers careful against the thin straps of your bikini bottoms, his face level with the small swell under the fabric.

“What are you—”

“Hello,” he said quietly, to your stomach.

Your throat tightened instantly.

“We go swimming now, okay?” he went on, his accent thicker, softening the words. “I promise I hold your mama very tight, so you don’t worry. And you don’t make her sick when the water is cold. Deal?”

“That’s… not how it works,” you said, but your voice came out thin, watery.

“Shh,” he murmured, like you were interrupting serious business. He leaned in and pressed a quick, warm kiss just above where the fabric ended, his lips brushing skin that suddenly felt too sensitive, too new. “We are negotiating.”

The world did a strange, slow tilt.

When he looked up, his eyes caught yours from below. The angle made everything sharper—the line of his jaw, the stray curl damp at his temple, the way his hands still bracketed your hips like he was unwilling to let go.

Love sat there, plain and steady and terrifyingly easy to read.

Under it, coiled through like a darker thread, was want. Not dulled by the newness in your body, not politely ignoring it. Focused on it. Like every tiny change—the slight roundness, the way the bikini cut across your hips, the hint of softness where there hadn’t been before—was another thing he was quietly, wildly obsessed with.

You were the one who had to look away first, dragging your gaze toward the pool before you forgot how to breathe altogether.

“Get in the pool, Sinner,” you muttered, ears burning.

“Bossy,” he said, pushing to his feet in one easy motion, but there was a grin tugging at his mouth now, something light layered over all that intensity. “Very attractive.”

He brushed his fingers once more over your hip—just a soft, grateful touch on bare skin and thin fabric—before turning toward the steps, doing exactly as he was told.

//

The water was perfect—cool enough to make you gasp when it first lapped over your skin, warm enough that once it settled around you, you knew getting out again was going to be a problem.

You eased down the steps slowly, one hand on the rail, the other resting on the slight swell low on your stomach that barely showed under your swimsuit. It was more the idea of a bump than an actual one, but your palm went there on instinct now, as if your body kept double-checking: still here, still okay.

Jannik stood waist-deep a few feet away, watching you like you were attempting a high-risk maneuver instead of getting into a pool. His hands were already out, palms up.

“I’ve got it,” you said, because you did, and because being fussed over made you feel weird.

“I know you do,” he said easily. “Take my hands anyway.”

You rolled your eyes, but put your hands in his. He didn’t bother hiding the way he smiled when you did. His fingers slid to your waist as you stepped off the last stair, spreading wide, firm and careful. The water took some of your weight; he took the rest like it was nothing.

For a moment, you just stood there, his hands anchoring you, cool water lapping at your ribs.

Then you let yourself float.

You tipped your head back, let your legs drift up a little, trusted his hands hovering just beneath your sides. You didn’t have aches yet, not really, just a constant, humming tiredness and the occasional twinge that sent your brain spiraling. But here, buoyed by the water and his solid presence, your body felt… easier. Less like something you were guarding and more like something you were allowed to be inside.

“This is… amazing,” you sighed, blinking up at the strip of blue sky. “Why didn’t we do this earlier?”

“Because I was busy,” he said, deadpan. “Working.”

“Ugh. Tennis players.”

“Disaster,” he agreed.

When you looked back at him, expecting a smirk, he wasn’t smirking.

He was just watching you.

You felt it before you really saw it—the weight of his gaze tracing the way your hair fanned out on the surface, the way the water curved over the small swell of your lower stomach, the way your chest rose and fell as you finally, finally relaxed. It was the same look you’d felt on you in the villa, on the bed—warm and a little stunned, like he couldn’t believe he’d ended up with front-row seats to this.

You flicked a little water at his shoulder. “Stop.”

“No,” he said, with irritating calm.

“Jannik.”

“I’m serious,” he murmured, voice dipping low in that way that made your pulse jump. “You look…” He paused, brow furrowing like he was actually searching. “You look like you’re made for this.”

You snorted. “For what? Being wet and out of breath?”

His mouth twitched. “That too,” he said, and the way he said it made heat skitter down your spine. His thoughts were clearly elsewhere.

Then his expression softened again, turning almost shy around the edges. “For being happy,” he corrected quietly. “For being… here. With me. Like this.”

The words hit dead center, right where all the what ifs and are you sures had been looping for weeks.

Your chest tightened. You had to glance away, blinking hard at the horizon where the pool blurred into the sea.

“Don’t say things like that,” you muttered. “You’re going to make me emotional and then we’ll have to explain to housekeeping why there’s mascara in the pool filter.”

He huffed out a laugh, low and warm. The water shifted as he drifted closer, hands finding your waist again under the surface, thumbs brushing slow circles just above your hips like he couldn’t not touch you.

“I can say worse things,” he murmured against your temple.

“Please don’t.”

“I can tell you all the places I think about kissing when I look at you in this swimsuit.”

Heat swept over your skin so fast it made you a little lightheaded.

“Watch it,” you warned, though your fingers were already sneaking up to curl in the muscle at his shoulders, like your body hadn’t gotten the memo that you were supposed to be disapproving.

“Why?” he asked, his mouth ghosting along your jaw, voice gone lazy and dangerous. “The resort is very private.” His lips brushed the corner of your mouth, barely there. “And I really love how you look when I say… bad things.”

Your pulse jumped, traitorous. “We are not doing anything in the pool.”

He groaned quietly against your skin, the sound half frustrated, half amused. “You are cruel.”

“You’re the one who booked us into the honeymoon villa or whatever this is,” you pointed out.

“Was good idea,” he said, completely unbothered. “I get to look at you all day. You cannot run away.”

You snorted. “Good idea would’ve been somewhere with terrible lighting and ten screaming children.”

He pulled back just enough to meet your eyes, mischief sparking. “Why would I do that,” he asked, “when I can put you in clear water, with a tiny bikini, very… transparent—”

“Careful,” you cut in.

“—and then discover,” he continued smoothly, “that if we stay in here much longer, we might have to explain a few… unusual things to housekeeping. About what ended up in the filter.”

You choked on a laugh. “Jannik.”

He grinned, thoroughly pleased with himself. “What? Hydration is important. I am only thinking of pool chemistry.”

“You are never allowed to say ‘pool chemistry’ to me again,” you said, face burning. “And we are never, ever testing it.”

He clapped a hand over his heart like you’d shot him. “You wound me.”

“You’ll live,” you said, but your voice had softened. Your hands slid from his shoulders to lace behind his neck, keeping him close. It suddenly felt stupidly precious—the two of you in the water, your not-quite-bump between you, nothing else crowding in.

“Still a good idea,” he murmured, dipping to kiss your forehead, then the tip of your nose. “The villa. The pool. Five days of you where no one can take you away.”

“You really think anyone can just come and take me?” you asked, half teasing, half not.

He met your eyes, all the joking stripped away for a beat. “Not a chance,” he said simply. “That’s why I brought you here.”

There wasn’t a good comeback for that—nothing that didn’t taste like thank you and I love you and you terrify me in the best way. So instead you let yourself drift closer, his hands steady at your waist, the water holding up the rest of you while, for once, the rest of the world stayed outside the edge of the pool

The silence that settled wasn’t awkward. It was full—the steady hush of the sea beyond the glass, the soft lap of water against your skin, the quiet sound of his breathing evening out as he watched you. You let your head tip back, eyes closing for a moment, letting everything unknot a little more.

When you opened them again, he was still there. Closer.

The water is barely up to your waist when his hands find you again.

One settles low at your hip, the other skims up your spine, fingers teasing along the damp edge of your swimsuit as he draws you in. With the sea a blur beyond the glass and the villa at your back, the world narrows to something very small: his body, the water, the heat in his eyes.

“Better?” he murmurs.

You nod, but it’s hard to think when he’s looking at you like that—lashes wet, hair pushed back, gaze fixed on your mouth like he’s been counting the hours until this.

His thumb moves in slow circles at the small of your back, dipping under the fabric. Your breath stutters. He feels it; his lips curve, the hint of a smile, and he leans in.

The first kiss is soft, almost cautious, like he’s checking you’ll let him. When you sigh against his mouth and your fingers curl into his shoulders, something in him loosens.

He deepens it, lazy and thorough, tasting salt and sunscreen, angling you so you’re half-floating against him. His palm spreads over your stomach for a moment, reverent, thumb brushing that almost-bump, then slides back to your waist, pulling you in until there’s no polite distance left—just cool water at your back and the solid heat of him everywhere else.

You feel him smile against your lower lip when you shiver.

“Cold?” he whispers, kissing the corner of your mouth, then the line of your jaw, lingering just long enough to make your knees think about giving up.

“Not even a little,” you manage.

“Good,” he says, voice low, breath warm against your neck. “Then I don’t have to stop.”

His mouth trails lower, a slow path along your throat, each press of his lips a question he already knows the answer to.

You tilt your head without thinking, offering more.

“Jannik…” you murmur, half-warning, half-plea.

He hums against your skin. “Mm?”

“This was supposed to be relaxing,” you say, but your fingers are already tracing his collarbone, soaking up as much warm, wet skin as you can reach.

“I am very relaxed,” he replies, dragging his nose along the curve where your neck meets your shoulder. “You make me very relaxed.”

You huff a shaky laugh. “That’s not the word I’d use.”

He leans back just enough to really see you, hands sliding down to your hips, thumbs finding the dips there like they’ve been waiting. His eyes are darker now, all soft affection wrapped tightly around something much hungrier.

“Tell me what word you’d use,” he says quietly.

You swallow. “Dangerous.”

His mouth quirks. “Only for me,” he says. “You have no idea what you do to me standing here like this.”

One hand drifts, fingers tracing the side seam of your swimsuit, following it up over your waist to the small swell of your stomach. The touch is feather-light but intent, like all of his focus has narrowed to that one line of contact.

“You’re not even really showing,” he murmurs, reverent, a little dazed. “But I see it.” His fingertips map a tiny arc. “Here. I feel it. I think about it all the time.”

Your breath catches. “You do?”

He nods, eyes never leaving yours. “On court. On planes. In the stupid physio room. I picture you like this.” His hand settles, broad and warm, just under your ribcage. “In water. Sun on your skin. Looking at me like I’m… allowed to touch you.”

“You’re very much allowed,” you whisper.

Something flickers across his face—relief, want, love, all tangled into one.

Then he’s kissing you again, properly, deeply. There’s nothing cautious left in it now. He kisses you like he’s been starving, like every rushed goodbye and half-night in a hotel bed has been adding interest and it’s all come due at once.

The water rocks gently as he walks you a step until your back meets the pool’s edge. Your fingers slide into his damp hair, tugging just enough to make him exhale hard against your mouth.

He presses closer, the length of his body flush to yours, his hands firm on your hips, thumbs curving in, anchoring you. Every shift sends tiny sparks racing up your spine.

“Careful,” you breathe, dizzy. “You’ll ruin your off-season training plan.”

He laughs, low and wrecked. “This is my off-season training,” he murmurs, mouth brushing your jaw, that spot just below your ear he knows too well. “You think I don’t need to practice self-control?”

“You’re failing,” you say, but it comes out more sigh than tease.

“Maybe I don’t want to pass,” he answers, teeth scraping lightly over your pulse.

You shiver hard. His hands tighten—one sliding to the small of your back, broad and steady, the other drifting back to your stomach, like he needs that touch to steady himself as much as you.

He rests his forehead against yours, his breath mingling with yours in the cool, chlorinated air.

“I missed this,” he says quietly, like the words slip out before he can stop them. “Being with you when no one is knocking or asking for photos. Just… you. Like we’re the only ones in the world.”

Your chest goes hot. “We kind of are,” you say. “For now.”

His gaze drops to your lips again, then to where your swimsuits cling wet to your bodies. When he looks back up, his eyes are molten.

“Do you have any idea,” he says slowly, “how difficult it is to behave when you’re in my arms, half naked, in our own private pool?”

You try to bite back a smile and fail. “You’re doing okay.”

He arches a brow. “You think so?”

You tip up and press a quick, teasing kiss to the corner of his mouth. “You haven’t ripped anything off me yet. That’s growth.”

He groans, somewhere between amused and wrecked. “You can’t say things like that to me,” he mutters. “You know what I want to do to you.”

Your pulse jumps. “Yeah?” you manage.

“Yeah,” he says simply, and there’s nothing playful in it now.

He kisses you again, slower, like he’s tasting each second. One hand stays cradling your stomach, thumb moving in tiny, soothing strokes; the other slides up your spine, under your strap, drawing you in until the cool water might as well not exist.

When he finally pulls back, it’s because your breathing’s gone uneven. He kisses your forehead, then your nose, smoothing the edges of everything he just lit up.

“Come,” he whispers against your skin. “Before I remember we are not alone in this country.”

“You said the resort is private,” you remind him, dazed.

He chuckles, guiding you toward the steps, his hand steady at your waist. “Private is not the same as soundproof, amore.”

You laugh, breathless, and let him lead you out of the water, his eyes on you the whole time—hot and soft, full of too much.

Lust, definitely.

And love, even more.

//

He doesn’t give you much time to catch your breath once you’re out of the water.

The stone is warm under your feet; the evening air slips over your wet skin and raises goosebumps. You reach for the towel on instinct, but he’s already there, flicking it open with a little snap and stepping into your space to wrap it around your shoulders like a cape.

“Turn,” he murmurs.

You do, and his hands follow the line of the fabric, skimming down your arms, your sides, your waist as he folds it in at the front. Technically he’s just drying you off. In practice, he’s touching everywhere he can get away with.

“Better?” he asks, voice low near your ear.

“You’re just finding new ways to touch me,” you mutter, but it comes out softer than you mean it to.

He smiles, not even bothering to deny it. “Always,” he says.

For a second he just stands there, close enough that you can feel the heat coming off him through the damp towel. Drops cling to his lashes, gather in the hollow of his throat, slide lazily down his chest to disappear into the waistband of his shorts. Your eyes follow one without thinking.

By the time you drag your gaze back up, he’s already watching you, mouth curved, eyes heavy.

“Dangerous,” he says quietly.

“What is?” you ask, even though you know.

“You looking at me like that,” he replies. “You make me feel like—” He huffs a small, breathless laugh. “Like twenty again. Like I have no idea what I’m supposed to do next, only that I want to be closer.”

Your heart tilts.

“You do know what to do,” you say. “That’s half the problem.”

His grin flashes, quick and boyish this time, before softening again. He squeezes your waist gently, then nods his chin toward the side of the terrace, where the outdoor shower waits in a patch of dappled light.

“Come on,” he says. “We wash off the chlorine before you say I am bad for your skin.”

You roll your eyes, but let him steer you across the stone. The shower is simple—just a chrome head fixed above a slatted wooden base, a small shelf with hotel bottles lined up like soldiers. He reaches past you to turn the handle; water bursts out in a clear sheet, then smooths into a steady, warm cascade.

“Go,” he says, stepping back, giving you space. “Ladies first.”

You drop the towel over the nearby hook and step into the spray. The first hit of warm water makes you sigh out loud; it rinses away the sting of chlorine and salt, the sticky layer of sunscreen, the last traces of goosebumps. You tip your head back, let it soak your hair, run down your shoulders.

You feel him before you see him—heat at your back, the faint disturbance of air as he steps in behind you. A second later, his hands slide around your waist, careful and sure, staying high, thumbs rubbing lazy circles just below your ribs as the water drums over both of you.

“I thought ‘ladies first’ meant by yourself,” you say, but your body leans back into his without consulting you.

He makes an unconcerned sound. “Shared resources,” he says, voice echoing slightly off the stone. “Very sustainable.”

You snort, but it breaks on your breath when his fingers splay a little wider, holding you more firmly as the water slips over your skin. You watch his forearms bracketing you, droplets chasing each other down the light dusting of hairs, disappearing into the angle of his wrist.

“Turn,” he says again, gentler this time.

You pivot in the small space, the water now hitting your back, his body in front of you. Up close, he’s a mess in the best way—hair plastered back, lashes spiky with water, mouth flushed, chest rising a little too fast for someone who’s allegedly very relaxed.

He reaches past you for one of the little bottles, flips it open with his thumb, and squeezes some clear gel into his palm. “Close your eyes,” he says.

“Look whose bossy now,” you murmur.

His hands find your shoulders first, lather slick and warm as he works it into your skin with slow, methodical strokes. Over your collarbones, down your arms, careful around the thin straps of your swimsuit. It should feel clinical, impersonal.

It doesn’t.

Every pass of his palm feels like an excuse to touch you, to relearn you. He soaps the inside of your wrists with his thumbs, fingertips circling lightly over your pulse points, then rinses them under the spray, his fingers threading briefly with yours as the suds disappear down the drain.

When he moves in closer, the water runs over both of you at once, a curtain of warmth. You blink your eyes open.

He’s watching you again.

“I could get used to this,” he says quietly.

“The shower?” you ask, trying for light.

He shakes his head once. Water beads at the tip of his nose. “You letting me take care of you,” he says simply.

Your throat goes tight. “You’re very dramatic for someone holding hotel body wash.”

“Is nice body wash,” he says gravely, but there’s a shadow of a smile at the corner of his mouth. His gaze drops for a moment to your stomach, the faint curve almost hidden by the water, and his hands follow, sliding down your sides to rest on your hips, thumbs brushing the edge of your suit. “And very important cargo.”

“Jannik,” you warn, even as your hands find his shoulders again, fingers pressing into warm, slick muscle.

He looks up, all that softness still there, but threaded through with the same hunger that never seems to leave now, not when he looks at you like this.

“Relaxing, remember?” you manage.

He inclines his head, obedient on paper only. “I am relaxed,” he says. “We are washing off the pool. Very safe.”

“Your face says otherwise.”

He leans in, water running over both of you, and presses a quick, soft kiss to your lips. “My face,” he murmurs, “is just honest.”

You want to argue with that. You don’t. You just stand there under the spray with him, letting him rinse the last of the chlorine from your skin, letting your heartbeat slow and then pick up again for entirely different reasons.

By the time he reaches past you to shut off the water, the air feels cooler against your heated skin. He grabs a towel one-handed and wraps it around your shoulders first, tucking it in, then scrubs another roughly over his own hair.

“Better?” he asks again, quieter now.

You meet his eyes, take in his damp, flushed face, the softness sitting right alongside the heat, and nod. “Yeah,” you say. “Better.”

His answering smile is small and satisfied. “Good,” he says. “Now we can go inside and make a new mess.”

You huff out a laugh that comes out more like a breath. “Of course that’s where your mind goes.”

“Where else should it go?” he asks lightly, already reaching for your hand. “I am on vacation.”

You let him lace your fingers together.

The tiles inside are cool under your feet, a contrast to the residual heat in your skin and the towel still wrapped around you. The villa has shifted with the hour—no longer sharp and sunlit, but softened, the last of the light pouring in gold through the sheer curtains, turning edges blurry. It feels quieter somehow, like the whole place is holding its breath with you.

He doesn’t bother with the lamps. He doesn’t need them. The sky outside is doing enough.

Halfway to the bed, he slows, like he’s suddenly conscious of not wanting to rush the distance between the doorway and the sheets. His thumb strokes absently over your knuckles as you walk, a small, grounding touch against the louder pulse in your neck.

Near the bed, he stops completely and turns to you.

Your joined hands hang between you; he lifts yours, bends his head, and presses his mouth to your knuckles. The gesture is almost formal, but the way his lips linger, the way his eyes stay on you as he straightens, makes it feel nothing like a joke.

“You’re sure?” he asks quietly.

The question hits you in a place deeper than the surface.

You know he’s not only asking about sex, or about this room. He’s asking about being here with him like this, about letting yourself want what he’s been offering you all day without taking three steps back out of habit.

Your fingers tighten around his.

“Yeah,” you say, hearing the steadiness in your own voice with a small shock. You lift your chin, meet his gaze head-on. “I’m sure.”

His eyes flare, then soften, like you’ve just taken a weight off his chest he didn’t want you to see him carrying.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”

He reaches up and tucks a damp strand of hair behind your ear, fingertips trailing down the side of your face, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth like he’s making sure you’re real. Then he eases the towel loose from your shoulders, letting it fall in a soft heap at your feet.

His gaze drops.

It travels over your throat, your shoulders, the damp line of your bikini top, then lower, catching on the faint but undeniable curve low on your stomach. He doesn’t look like he’s hunting for things to pick apart; he looks like someone who’s been waiting a very long time to unwrap something and is finally being allowed to take his time.

“Perfetta,” he breathes, almost like he didn’t mean for you to hear it.

His hands come up to your shoulders, fingertips brushing the wet straps, following them in a slow slide toward your collarbones. He traces the line once, like he’s memorizing it, then hooks one finger under the strap on your right side and eases it down your arm. The other follows, just as unhurried, the elastic dragging lightly over your skin.

He pauses, watching your face, giving you plenty of room to say no. When you don’t, his fingers find the fastening at your back, working it open with an ease that tells you he’s been thinking about this longer than he’ll admit. The top loosens; he keeps one hand at your side, steadying you, the other guiding the fabric away, letting it fall aside rather than making a show of it.

Only then does he look again.

His eyes move over you slowly, reverent, like he’s seeing something he’s missed for months instead of a body you’ve had your whole life.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the room. His gaze lifts back to yours, steady and sure. “You know that, right?”

You make a face. “You have to say that. You got me pregnant.”

He huffs a quiet laugh, leaning in to kiss that little crease between your brows. “I do not have to say anything,” he murmurs against your skin. “I say it because it’s the only thought in my head when I look at you.”

Your chest pulls tight.

You open your mouth to argue, to make some joke to diffuse how exposed you feel, but then his hands are sliding down—over the soft curve of your sides, the gentle swell that’s barely there but feels monumental to you.

His touch there is different than it is anywhere else. Slower. More reverent.

He splay his palm flat for a moment, right over that new, subtle fullness.

“Hi,” he whispers, almost to himself. “We keep this one safe, yes?”

The tenderness of it knocks the air out of you.

“Jannik,” you breathe.

He lifts his head, eyes meeting yours. Whatever you’d meant to say melts under that look.

Love, clear and unguarded.

And under it, banked but unmistakable, the heat that’s been simmering since you stepped into the pool.

He leans in and kisses you again.

It’s different from the pool. Less salt, more warmth. Less teasing, more intent.

You feel it in the way his hands curve around you, in the way he walks you backward until the backs of your knees brush the mattress, in the small, involuntary sound he makes when your fingers slide up under the hem of his shirt and find skin.

“Careful,” he murmurs, lips barely leaving yours. “You start that, I won’t want to stop.”

“I don’t want you to,” you say back, honest and a little shaky.

His breath hitches. His forehead drops to yours, a brief pause, like he’s saying a silent thank you to whoever arranged all the paths that led you here.

“Then I won’t,” he answers, and there’s a thread of steel under the softness now.

You let yourself fall back onto the bed, the sheets cool against your skin for all of two seconds before he’s there, following you down—then stopping, braced on his knees between yours.

His hands slide to your hips, thumbs resting at the dip there, fingers brushing the edge of your bikini bottoms. He looks up first, checking your face, the question clear even if he doesn’t say it out loud.

When you don’t pull away—when your fingers curl in the sheet instead—he exhales, something tight easing in his shoulders.

His thumbs hook under the thin fabric at your hips, warm against damp skin. He moves slowly, easing the waistband down a fraction at a time, knuckles gliding over the curve of your thighs. The bottoms drag in a soft, whispering line along your skin as he works them lower, lifting your ankle gently to slide them free.

He doesn’t stare. He just takes a second, hands smoothing back up your legs in a reassuring, grounding touch, like he’s reminding you that you’re not on display—you’re with him.

Then he leans over you again, his weight lowering carefully, his palm finding its familiar place at your waist as if to say, I’ve got you, without needing the words.

His weight settles over you slowly, like he’s conscious of every extra ounce, every point of pressure. One hand braces beside your shoulder, the other curves instinctively around your waist, fingers spreading as if to shield more of you, to hold you steady. He feels solid and warm and impossibly familiar, his body slotting against yours in a way that makes something low in your chest unclench.

He starts at your mouth, kissing you with a patience that doesn’t match the heat in his eyes. Each pass of his lips is deliberate, unhurried, like he’s tasting you after too long away. When he finally pulls back to breathe, he doesn’t go far—just tips his head down to your jaw, following the line of it with soft, open-mouthed kisses.

The world narrows.

To the drag of his mouth, the brush of his nose against your skin, the way his breath stutters every time you sigh his name. He finds the hollow beneath your ear—the spot he’s always known too well—and lingers there, teeth scraping lightly, tongue soothing after, and you feel your whole body respond in a helpless, arching shiver.

“Jannik,” you gasp, fingers curling into his shoulders, into his hair—anywhere you can anchor yourself.

He answers you in German, low and rough against your throat, words you don’t need translated to understand. Reverent curses, soft promises, your name threaded through all of it like a prayer. Every time you tug him closer, every time your hips tilt up to meet him, another breathless string of syllables spills out of him, like he can’t hold them in and hold himself together at the same time.

His hands are everywhere and nowhere at once—skimming up your sides, memorizing the new curve of your waist, smoothing over your back, framing your face like he needs to keep checking you’re really here. When he touches the small swell of your stomach, he softens, thumb brushing there with a tenderness that makes your throat ache. When his palms slide lower, pulling you flush against him, that gentleness coils into something deeper, needier, but never careless.

His hand slid lower, fingertips tracing the curve of your hip before drifting between your bodies, knuckles brushing the thin barrier of fabric. The small, involuntary sound that broke from your throat told him everything he needed to know.

His fingers stilled for half a second, like he was giving you one last out, one last chance to change your mind.

You didn’t.

You tipped your hips into his hand instead, a small, helpless movement that dragged a rough sound out of his chest. His forehead dropped to yours, eyes squeezed shut for a heartbeat as he reined himself in, and then he was kissing you again—deep, hungry, almost reverent—as his touch grew more sure, more deliberate between your folds.

He followed every tiny reaction like it was a map.

The way your breath hitched when he changed the angle. The way your hand fisted in the sheet when he found the exact spot that made your whole body tense. The way you broke his name in half when he did it again, and again, just to prove he could.

“Like that?” he whispered against your mouth, even though your shaking thighs and the tremor in your voice had already answered for you.

You could only nod, the word yes dissolving into a gasp as the warmth coiled low in your belly drew tighter and tighter, a knot he was determined to pull you through. He kept his pace steady, maddeningly consistent, holding you exactly where he wanted you, his other arm banded around your waist, keeping you close as if he could take some of the intensity into himself.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, switching to Italian without thinking, the consonants rough against your ear. “Lasciati andare… let go, amore. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

The reassurance, the tone, the way his fingers never faltered—it all collided at once.

The tension snapped.

You went over the edge with a sharp, broken sound you barely recognized as your own, every muscle in your body seizing and then melting all at once. Your legs trembled around him, fingers digging into his shoulders like you needed him to keep you from flying apart completely.

He held on.

He rode it out with you, whispering your name, nonsense praise, soft curses, his mouth everywhere he could reach—your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your lips—while your body shook against his. Only when the aftershocks finally started to ebb did he ease the pressure of his hand, gentling his touch, smoothing his palm over your hip in slow, grounding strokes.

You were still trying to catch your breath when you felt it—that small, involuntary tremor in his body, the way his muscles stayed coiled instead of relaxing with you.

He’d held himself together for you, and now that you were slowly coming back down from your orgasm, the strain was written everywhere: in the tight set of his jaw, the way his forearm shook where it was braced beside your head, the harsh rise and fall of his chest against yours.

“Jannik,” you murmured.

His eyes opened at the sound, blown dark and soft all at once. For a moment he just looked at you, like he was trying to steady himself on the sight alone.

“You’re unreal,” he said quietly, almost accusing, and then he laughed under his breath, the sound frayed. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

You did, actually. You could feel it—hot and insistent where your bodies pressed together, every inch of him telegraphing how close to the edge he was.

He shifted his weight, just enough to give himself room to move, and ducked his head to kiss you again, slower this time, like he was trying to buy himself a few more seconds of control. His hand smoothed over your hip, up your side, pausing to check in at your waist, your stomach, your ribs like he was making sure every part of you was really okay.

“You’re sure?” he asked, voice low, words brushing your mouth as his thumb stroked an absent path along your skin. “You’re not too tired? We can stop. I can—”

You cut him off with a kiss, fingers sliding up into his hair, tugging just hard enough to pull a rough sound out of him.

“I’m sure,” you whispered, when you let him breathe again. “I want… you to enjoy me too.”

Whatever leash he’d had on himself snapped into something different then—not wild, not careless, but stripped of any last pretense. His eyes searched yours one more time, and when he seemed satisfied with what he found there, his shoulders dropped, tension shifting from restraint into intent.

“Okay,” he breathed.

He shifted lower, settling fully between your thighs, his hand trailing down to guide, to line himself up, to erase the last of the space between you. For a moment, he went completely still, forehead resting against yours, breathing hard like he was standing on the edge of something massive.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he murmured, the words almost lost between your mouths. “Any second. You say stop, I stop.”

You nodded, throat too tight for speech, your hands finding his shoulders, his back, anything you could grab onto.

And then he pushed his cock in—slow and careful, easing forward in a way that made your whole body tighten around the feeling of him, made the air leave your lungs in a sharp, stunned sound that he swallowed with his mouth.

The stretch, the closeness, the way he filled every place you hadn’t realized was still empty—it was all too much and exactly right at the same time. He stayed there for a long beat, buried deep and absolutely still, like he was giving you and himself a chance to adjust.

“Breathe,” he whispered, and you weren’t sure if he was talking to you or to himself.

You did, dragging air into your lungs, letting your fingers trace the tense line of his spine, the familiar dip at the small of his back. You shifted just a little under him, legs tightening around his hips in silent answer.

Whatever sound he made at that went straight through you.

What followed wasn’t rushed.

If anything, it felt like the opposite of every hurried night you’d ever had—each slow roll of his hips deliberate, each soft curse against your lips another I missed you, I missed this, I’m here. He watched you like he was memorizing every reaction: the way your eyes fluttered shut, the way your mouth fell open, the way your nails dug into his shoulders when he hit that exact, perfect angle.

He set a pace that was almost torturously controlled at first, checking in with every breath, every shift. But as you met his thrust more eagerly, as your body opened and answered him, the rhythm deepened, smoothed, turned into something that felt less like restraint and more like surrender—from both of you.

By the time he finally pressed his forehead to the crook of your neck, his breath breaking against your skin, your name spilling from his lips like a prayer, the villa might as well have been on another planet. There was only this room, this bed, his body wrapped around yours as tightly as he could hold you, and the quiet, stunned realization that for the first time in too long, you weren’t being pulled apart by the world.

You were coming back together, piece by piece, in the only way either of you really knew how.

For a while, you were both suspended there—caught in that slow, steady rhythm he’d found, the one that let you feel every careful movement, every shiver of restraint in him.

Then you felt it: the way his muscles bunched under your hands, the slight hitch in his breath that meant he was fighting himself again.

He lifted his head, eyes searching your face like he was checking a scoreboard only he could see.

“Comfortable?” he managed, voice rough.

You nodded, though the word felt too small. “Yeah,” you breathed. “You?”

He huffed out a laugh that sounded nothing like amusement. “Not really.”

Before you could worry, he shifted—easing back just enough to adjust, one arm sliding under your shoulders, the other bracing under your thigh to guide you with him. He moved you both like he was handling something precious, angling you more onto your side, tucking your knee over his hip so there was less strain on your back, on your belly.

The change was subtle and everything at once.

He fit against you differently now: chest to your back, his breath warm at your ear, one hand splayed low across your stomach, holding you in place, holding you together. He rolled his hips again, testing, and the new angle made your fingers claw helplessly at the sheet.

He was still moving with that careful, controlled rhythm when you felt the tension coil in him again—his grip tightening fractionally at your waist, the breath he dragged in through his teeth right against your ear.

“Hold on,” he murmured.

Before you could ask, he shifted his weight, his arm sliding from beneath your shoulders to hook under your knee instead. He lifted your leg a little higher, easing it over his hip, drawing you more fully against him. The change was small on the outside; inside, it felt seismic.

The next slow roll of his hips made your breath leave you in a broken sound.

“Better?” he asked, the word barely more than a rasp.

You could only nod, fingers scrambling for purchase on his forearm where it banded across your middle. Your whole body felt strung tight, every nerve tuned to the way he fit against you now, the new angle sending sparks up your spine.

His hand slid from your stomach, down the curve of your side, along your lifted thigh, his palm warm and steady as he guided you into the rhythm he was building. Every time he drew you back to meet him, the sensation punched through you in a deep, dizzying wave that stole your words and replaced them with helpless little noises you had no control over.

He buried his face in the curve of your neck, breathing you in as he found a new rhythm, deeper, smoother, his voice dropping into a stream of low German that vibrated against your skin. Your name, mixed with praise and soft curses, wrapped around you as surely as his arms did.

“Così,” he breathed into your neck, matching each deliberate movement with the word. “Just like this. You feel that, amore?”

You did.

It was everywhere—under your skin, in the way your leg shook where he held it, in the tremor that started in your wet dripping core and rippled outward. His touch never rushed, never lost that maddening patience, but it was relentless in its own way, keeping you right at that edge where all you could do was hold on and let it wash through you.

He felt the way you started to tremble, the way your breath came in short, uneven bursts, and his arm tightened around you, pulling you flush against his chest, as if he could shoulder some of the intensity for you.

“Ho te,” he murmured, words vibrating against your skin. “I’ve got you. Let go.”

The combination of his voice, his body, the sure, unhurried way he kept you moving with him tipped you over. Your whole body shuddered, a deep, rolling wave that left your muscles shaking and your fingers digging into his wrist where it held you.

He held on—guiding you through every tremor, murmuring your name and nonsense praise into your hair—until the aftershocks finally ebbed and you went boneless against him, breath coming in soft, stunned gasps.

Only then did he ease his grip on your leg, laying it gently back down, his hand smoothing over your thigh in slow, soothing strokes as if to coax you back into your own body.

You were still shaking when you realized he hadn’t let go. Your pussy clenched around him without meaning to, and the way his breath shattered against your skin told you exactly what it did to him.

Every ripple that ran through you seemed to run through him too—his arm locked around your middle, his thigh tangled with yours, his breath dragging raggedly against your neck. You could feel how tightly he was holding himself, every muscle drawn taut, his rhythm gone uneven as he fought the same wave you’d just been dragged under.

Without thinking, your cunt instinctively clenching around him, pulling him closer instead of away.

He made a sound you’d never heard before—half curse, half prayer—right against your ear.

“Don’t… do that,” he managed, voice wrecked.

You did it again, just to see.

Whatever fraying strand of control he’d been hanging onto snapped.

His hips stuttered, then drove into you with a new, desperate focus, still careful but stripped of the last of his restraint. The rhythm he’d set—slow, patient, endlessly controlled—fell apart into something rawer, needier, his movements chasing the tension that had been coiled in him from the moment he’d touched you.

“Look at me,” he rasped, lifting his head just enough to see your face.

You twisted back toward him as much as you could, meeting his eyes over your shoulder. They were blown wide, all the composure you were used to seeing on court burned away, leaving nothing but you reflected back at you—your flushed cheeks, your parted lips, the dazed way you were still clinging to him.

“This—” he broke off on a groan as you tightened around him again, his forehead dropping to yours. “You have no idea…”

He never finished the sentence.

You felt it when he crossed that last line—the way his whole body locked for a heartbeat, the way his grip on your waist tightened, the way his breath left him in a harsh, broken sound that could’ve been your name. He buried his face in the curve of your neck as the wave hit him, his shoulders shuddering, every last bit of tension finally ripping free.

You held on.

You rode it out with him, fingers digging into the forearm he had wrapped around you, your leg still hooked over his hip, keeping him close while his body shook against yours. His voice, usually so controlled, came out in fragments—German and Italian tangled together, your name threaded through all of it.

Slowly, the tremors eased.

His weight settled more fully along your back, still careful of your stomach, his chest heaving against you as he dragged air back into his lungs. For a long moment, neither of you spoke. The only sounds were the sea outside, the soft rush of your breathing, the faint thud of his heartbeat pressed against your spine.

“Hey,” he said at last, voice hoarse, lips brushing your shoulder. “You okay?”

You let out a small, disbelieving laugh, utterly wrung out and weirdly light at the same time.

“Yeah,” you whispered. “You?”

He huffed against your skin, a tired, disarmed little sound. His arm tightened around you, pulling you the tiniest bit closer, like there was still some space left he could erase.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been better,” he admitted quietly, turning to kiss you deeply.

You lay there like that, wrapped up in him, the villa holding the two of you in its quiet, as the world outside stayed exactly where you wanted it: far away, and for once, irrelevant.

By the time the sun drops and the villa slips fully into blue-shadowed dark, you’re not thinking about headlines or schedules or pressure. Just the solid weight of him, and the quiet certainty in his touch that says he’s already decided this—this off-season, this baby, this version of you—is worth everything else he left on the table.

Later, when your breathing has finally evened and night wraps itself around the villa, he tucks himself behind you, one arm slung over your waist. His hand finds its place again on that small curve of your belly like it’s coming home.

He presses a drowsy kiss between your shoulder blades. You feel him smile against your skin.

“Perfect,” he whispers into the dark, so quietly you almost miss it. “Everything is perfect.”

//

You woke up already wanting.

It hit you in that hazy space between dreaming and being awake—a slow throb under your skin, a restless ache low in your body, the ghost of his hands from last night still stamped into your nerves. For a second you didn’t know where you were, just that you were warm, heavy-limbed, and not alone.

Then you felt him behind you.

One long, solid line of heat along your back, chest pressed to your shoulder blades, his thighs tucked behind yours. His breath was slow and even against the back of your neck, stirring the little wisps of hair there. His hand had drifted in the night and settled exactly where it always seemed to end up now: splayed over your lower stomach, fingers relaxed but firm, like even asleep he refused to let go of you or the tiny secret tucked inside you at ten, eleven weeks.

You lay there and let yourself feel it.

His weight. The soreness in your muscles from the way he’d taken you apart. The way your body hummed with quiet, smug satisfaction and, underneath it, that whispering more.

Weeks of nausea and bone-deep exhaustion had made you feel like your body belonged more to hormones than to you. Here, in this bed, wrapped up in him, it felt like yours again. Yours and his.

Carefully, you slid your hand over his and lifted it away from your stomach. He made a small sound, brow furrowing in his sleep, fingers closing on air like they were searching for your hip.

Something hot and fond curled in your chest at that.

You padded to the bathroom, splashed cool water on your face, ran your fingers through your hair until it looked less “slept on wrong” and more “artfully mussed.” On your way back, you grabbed one of his t-shirts from the chair—the navy one that always hangs low at the neck and is just barely long enough to cover you if you don’t stretch.

You didn’t bother with anything underneath.

The cotton was soft and worn-in against bare skin, the hem brushing the tops of your thighs. Every step back toward the bed reminded you how naked you were under it, how easy it would be for him to slide his hand up and—

You cut that thought off before it sent you crashing down a mental flight of stairs.

When you slipped under the sheet again, you didn’t flop onto your back or lean over him.

You went back to him the way you’d woken up: turning onto your side and gently fitting yourself into the curve of his body, your spine to his chest. His arm was still heavy on the mattress; you nudged it until it came back around your waist on instinct, his hand landing low on your stomach like it had never left.

You lay still for a beat, listening.

His breathing stayed slow, but it wasn’t quite as even now. You could feel the awareness, just beneath the surface.

You shifted. Just a little.

A slow rock of your hips back into him, testing. The soft drag of his t-shirt over your skin, the brush of him where your bodies met. His fingers tightened automatically at your waist, pulling you closer, like his body was answering a question his brain hadn’t caught yet.

You did it again—another small, deliberate roll, a quiet grind that fed that restless ache and sent sparks skittering up your spine.

Behind you, his breath caught.

“Amore…” he mumbled, voice thick with sleep, his nose nuzzling clumsily into your hair.

“Buongiorno,” you murmured, letting your head tip back against his shoulder as you pressed back into him once more, slower this time, less testing and more honest.

His hand clenched at your hip, fingers digging in.

You felt him wake up in real time: muscles going from loose to coiled, chest tightening against your back, every line of him tuning itself to you. His mouth brushed the edge of your ear as he breathed in.

“Che stai facendo…” he rasped, accent heavy, the words rough. “What are you doing?”

“Waking you up,” you said, as innocently as you could with your hips still moving in that lazy rhythm. “You did a number on me last night.”

He let out a strangled little sound that hovered between a laugh and a groan. His hand slid from your hip to your stomach, palm covering the small, almost-bump like he needed first to check you were still there, still okay.

“Yeah?” he asked quietly, voice frayed. “You’re not… too tired?”

You rocked back again, the movement dragging everything into sharper focus.

“My body skipped the part where it was supposed to be tired,” you confessed, breathless honesty slipping out before you could catch it, “and went straight to please do that again immediately.”

He swore softly in German against the back of your neck.

“Amore,” he said, “you can’t say things like that to me when you’re wearing only my shirt and moving like this.”

“Technically,” you muttered, “you’re the one who insisted I sleep in it.”

You felt, rather than saw, the way his mouth curved against your skin.

There was a long second where he didn’t move, his hand splayed over your stomach, his body hot and rigid behind you, like he was arguing with himself.

“I’m supposed to be responsible,” he managed. “You’re—” His fingers flexed at your waist, holding you in place even as your hips kept that subtle, teasing motion. “You’re pregnant. I have to be… good.”

“You were good,” you said, and you meant last night, and the last few weeks, and the way he kept treating you like glass and treasure at the same time. “You’re always good.”

You slid your hand back, finding the back of his thigh, anchoring yourself.

“Right now,” you added, softer, “I just want you to be mine.”

He sucked in a breath that hissed through his teeth.

For a heartbeat, you thought he might still pull back, roll away, force some distance.

Instead, the leash slipped.

His hand left your stomach and dropped to your hip, fingers curving into the soft flesh there. He pulled, dragging you firmly back against him, eliminating the last of the space between your body and his. The other hand rose to your jaw, turning your face toward his in the low light until he could find your mouth.

The kiss he gave you then had nothing sleepy about it.

All the patience from the last few days condensed into something hotter, needier. His lips were insistent, his tongue sliding against yours like he’d been thinking about this exact thing since he fell asleep. You made a small, startled noise into his mouth and he swallowed it hungrily, his fingers tightening at your hip.

“God, I missed this,” he breathed, words muffled against your lips. “Missed you like this. Wanting me.”

“Idiot,” you panted. “I always want you.”

That did something to him.

He shifted, rolling you carefully onto your back without really breaking the kiss, his body coming over yours, one forearm braced beside your head, the other hand still locked at your hip. He kept most of his weight off you, careful, but there was no pretending at distance now. Heat radiated off him, pressed along every line of you.

“Say it again,” he demanded, voice rough, eyes searching your face in the half light.

“I always want you,” you repeated, heart beating too fast. “Jannik, look at you. How could I not?”

Whatever last shred of control he’d been clinging to frayed.

His mouth crashed back onto yours, the kiss turning messy, all teeth and tongue and soft, broken sounds you didn’t mean to make. His hand slid down, gripping the back of your thigh, urging it up around his waist. The shift in angle pulled a sharp bolt of sensation through you; you gasped into his mouth.

He felt it. Of course he did.

“That good?” he rasped, forehead dropping briefly to yours.

“Yeah,” you managed, fingers fisting in his shirt. “Don’t stop.”

His answering curse was half German, half prayer.

“Okay,” he said, and you heard the vow in it.

What followed wasn’t rough in the careless way you used to fear. It was focused. Intent.

Every kiss, every roll of his hips, every drag of his mouth along your throat had an edge to it now—a raw hunger he didn’t bother to hide. His fingers left the kind of kisses on your skin that would turn into bruises if he stayed long enough, but every time your breath hitched in a way that wasn’t pleasure, he adjusted without you having to say a word.

That hand that squeezed your thigh a little too hard would slide up a second later, easing the angle, stroking along the inside instead. The arm braced next to your shoulder shifted to take more of his weight whenever you arched up into him. His mouth would tear itself from yours every few moments just long enough to mumble a hoarse, “Okay?” against your cheek.

Every time, you pulled him back down, answering with the way your body chased his, the way you said his name like it was the only thing left you knew how to say.

You weren’t used to this version of him—this stripped-back, uncomposed Jannik. The world only ever got the ice-cool one, the player who swallowed everything down and turned it into clean lines and quiet fist pumps.

This was different.

This was the boy from Sexten who’d loved you perhaps his whole life, and the man who’d finally stopped pretending he could ration that love out in careful doses. The one who cursed in Italian when you rolled your hips just right, whose voice cracked when he told you how good you felt, whose rhythm stuttered when you clenched around him without meaning to.

“You’re killing me,” he muttered into your neck at one point, voice shredded. “Dio, amore, you’re… I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” you whispered, dizzy with the power of it, wrapping your legs tighter around his waist, pulling him closer. “You’re fine. I’ve got you.”

He made a broken sound that was half laugh, half something more raw.

“You’re supposed to be the one I take care of,” he gasped. “How do you still manage to ruin me like this?”

“Occupational hazard,” you got out. “Dating an overachiever.”

He choked on a disbelieving noise, then gave up on words altogether.

The pace he set after that stole whatever you had left.

He stayed right on the edge of too much without tipping over it, guided more by your body than by his own need. Every time you thought you were going to splinter apart, one of those big hands would flatten over your ribs, or your hip, or that slight, new swell low on your stomach, the warmth and weight of it pulling you back into yourself.

It was that hand, spread wide and protective over your belly while the rest of him moved with unfiltered want, that finally undid you.

Something inside you gave way.

You went under with a soft, shocked sound, your whole body tightening around him before melting, muscles going hot and liquid as the world fell out of focus. Your nails dug into his shoulders; your head tipped back; you clung to him like he was the only solid thing in the room.

He followed you a heartbeat later, his rhythm faltering, a low groan tearing out of him and dying against your throat. You felt the way he shook, the disbelief in the way he whispered your name like he couldn’t decide whether to apologize or thank you for whatever you’d just done to him.

For a few seconds, there was no champion, no cameras, no careful control.

Just the two of you, completely gone.

When he finally came back to himself, it was slow. His body went still, then heavy, then he was easing his weight off you by inches, bracing his forearm beside your head, chest heaving like he’d just played another final.

“Shit,” he said hoarsely into the pillow next to your ear. “Sorry. I—”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” you cut in, still breathless, bringing your hand up to cradle his jaw and turning his face toward you.

His eyes were blown wide, rimmed in green, worry and guilt and too much feeling all jumbled together there.

“How bad was I?” he tried to joke, but his voice wobbled. “Be honest.”

You smiled, slow and real, your whole body humming in ways that felt nothing like anxiety and everything like being exactly where you were supposed to be.

“You were…” You hunted for something clever and gave up. “You were exactly what I needed.”

He searched your face like he was checking for any crack in that answer. Whatever he saw made his shoulders finally drop.

“Yeah?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” you said. “I like you like that.”

A tiny, stunned smile tugged at his mouth. “You like me completely losing my mind?”

You dragged your thumb across his lower lip, still a little swollen from your teeth.

“I like knowing I can do that to you,” you said. “And that even when you lose control, you’re still you. You still check. You still hold on.”

His breath hitched. He slid his hand back down, palm finding your stomach in the space between you, fingers spreading over the small curve there like he was staking a claim and saying a prayer at the same time.

“These,” he said quietly, voice gone thick—“you and the baby—are the only two things in the world I can’t drop.”

Your chest squeezed so hard it almost hurt.

“You really shouldn’t make me fall more in love with you after a performance like that,” you muttered, because if you didn’t undercut it with something, you were going to cry.

He laughed, ragged but real, the sound loosening every last tight line in his body. He eased onto his side, tugging you with him until you were half on his chest, half tucked into his shoulder. His arm wrapped around you, hand settling in its now-familiar place over your stomach.

This time his grip was a little tighter, like he needed to feel all three of you to believe any of it was real.

“You okay?” he asked, one last time, voice soft in your hair.

You buried your face in the warm curve of his neck, breathing in salt and sweat and that faint, expensive soap he always forgot the name of.

“I’m… good,” you said, and the word felt too small. “Really good.”

He let out a long breath that lifted your cheek.

“Then I am too,” he said simply.

His fingers drew lazy patterns over your side as your heartbeat slowly matched his. The aftershocks smoothed into a deep, bone-deep calm. Outside, the ceiling fan ticked. Somewhere in the distance, a gull complained.

If anyone had told you years ago that your favorite version of Jannik wouldn’t be the unshakeable man holding a trophy high under stadium lights, but the one who came a little undone in a quiet room on a hill because of you—you would’ve laughed.

Now, listening to his heartbeat under your ear and feeling the weight of his arm around you, you understood it perfectly.

This was the part of him the world didn’t get.

The part he only ever lost for you.

//

You were both a mess—breathing finally steady, sheets wrecked, his t-shirt twisted around your waist—and for a blissful moment you just lay there on his chest, feeling the slow thud of his heart against your cheek. His hand drew lazy patterns on your back, the heel of his palm occasionally brushing the top of your ass where the shirt had ridden up.

“We should get up,” you mumbled eventually, though you didn’t move an inch. “Breakfast. Water. Vitamins. Responsible adult things.”

“Mm,” he agreed into your hair, absolutely not moving either. “We should.”

You both stayed put.

It took actual effort to peel yourself off him and sit up. He watched you do it like it was a private show, eyes dark and soft at the same time, one arm folded under his head, the other resting—inevitably—over your stomach.

You swung your legs over the side of the bed and stood, tugging his shirt down. Cool air hit your bare thighs; you heard his breath catch.

You glanced back. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, too quickly, gaze dragging up and down. “Just thinking about how I am a very lucky man.”

You tried to roll your eyes and mostly succeeded, padding toward the kitchen. “You’re going to be a very hungry man if you don’t get up and help.”

You’d just reached the counter, hands busy with the coffee pods, when you felt him behind you.

Big hands slid around your waist, palms flattening warm and sure over your lower belly as he stepped in, chest to your back. The heat of him seeped right through cotton.

“I thought you were going to help,” you said, but it came out softer than you intended.

“I am helping,” he murmured, nose nuzzling into the damp ends of your hair. “Emotional support.”

His fingers spread over that small, new curve like he needed to feel every millimeter. His thumbs stroked absent, soothing arcs. You let your head tip back into his shoulder with a quiet sigh you hadn’t meant to let out.

“Careful,” you warned. “If you keep doing that I’m never going to remember the difference between the coffee button and the espresso button.”

He chuckled low in your ear, the sound vibrating pleasantly down your spine. “You don’t know the difference anyway.”

You made a token attempt to elbow him. He caught your hand easily, threading his fingers through yours and bringing them back down to your stomach, trapping both your hands under his.

You stood like that for a minute—your joined hands over your belly, his chest a solid wall at your back, his chin resting lazily on your shoulder while the machine whirred.

He dropped a soft kiss where your neck met your collarbone, then another, lower. The shirt slipped a little; his mouth followed the new line of skin without much shame.

“Jannik,” you sighed. “We just—”

“I know,” he said, but he didn’t stop. “I keep thinking it’ll be enough and then you walk around like this in my clothes and it turns out I’m an idiot.”

“You really can’t keep your hands to yourself,” you muttered, but you were already tilting your head to give him better access.

He smiled against your skin. “You keep saying that like it’s only my problem.”

You were about to argue when your free hand—traitor that it was—went up and back into his hair, fingers curling in the still-sleep-warm strands.

He hummed, pleased. “See,” he whispered. “Two-way street.”

By the time the coffee finished, his mouth had made it all the way along your shoulder and his hands had wandered from your stomach to your hips and back again, fingers sneaking under the hem of the shirt like they had their own agenda.

You turned in his arms, pressing your palms to his chest to keep a sliver of distance.

“This is not how breakfast works,” you told him. “You’re supposed to cook. Or at least cut fruit. You promised me oranges.”

He looked genuinely aggrieved. “I can cut fruit and touch you at the same time.”

“You absolutely cannot,” you said. “You’ll cut your fingers off.”

He tipped his head, conceding the point. “Fine,” he said. “Sit.”

You hopped up on the counter, legs swinging, watching him move around the kitchen. He opened cupboards like he’d lived there for weeks instead of a day, found a knife, set oranges on the cutting board.

His hair was wrecked, his t-shirt clinging in interesting places. There were faint red marks along his throat where you’d lost patience with being gentle.

You bit the inside of your cheek. He’s just cutting fruit, you told yourself. You can behave for five minutes.

You did okay for three.

Then he reached for the plate on the top shelf, the hem of his shirt lifting just enough to show a strip of bare lower back, the deep, easy stretch of muscle.

You made a small, helpless sound.

He turned, plate in hand, brow lifting. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” you said too fast.

His gaze dropped to your bare legs swinging against the cabinet. He set the plate down, wiped his hands on a towel very deliberately, and strolled back over, standing between your knees.

“Tell me,” he said.

You tried for dignity. “I was just thinking about how ridiculous this is.”

“How ridiculous what is?”

“That you lasted ten minutes last night trying to be careful and now you’re acting like… this,” you said, gesturing weakly between you. “You can’t walk past me without—”

He slid his hands up the outside of your thighs, fingers wrapping around, thumbs brushing in toward the sensitive skin on the inside.

“Without what?” he asked, pretending innocence badly.

Your breath hitched. “Without… touching me.”

He smiled, slow and wicked, and leaned in, his nose almost brushing yours.

“Good thing you like it,” he murmured.

You did. That was the problem.

He kissed you then—coffee still cooling on the counter, oranges forgotten. It wasn’t as wild as last night, but it wasn’t sweet either. It was that in-between kiss that said, we could stop right now, but we absolutely won’t.

You went from “we really need to hydrate” to “how did we end up back against a wall” in about thirty seconds.

At some point you surfaced enough to gasp, “We can’t just stay in bed all day.”

“Yes, we can,” he said immediately, mouth hot against your jaw. “That is literally what vacation is.”

Your laugh broke on a breath when his hands slid to your waist, thumbs stroking under the hem of the shirt, tracing the edge where your skin started to go sensitive.

“Jannik,” you warned again, feeling heat pool low and fast. “If we keep… like this…”

He huffed a little, like he was almost embarrassed to admit how far gone he was. His lips brushed the shell of your ear.

“Honestly?” he whispered there, voice dark and rough. “Good thing you’re already pregnant.”

You froze, half a second of sharp, startled vulnerability.

He must’ve felt it; his hands stilled, grip tightening just enough to keep you grounded.

He drew back a fraction, eyes searching yours, making sure you were still with him before he let the rest out—the smile tugging at his mouth, the teasing glint in his eyes softening what he said next.

“Because at this rate,” he went on, gentler, “if we weren’t, we’d be in so much trouble.”

You blinked.

A laugh punched out of you, unexpected and startled and a little hysterical. “You’re saying we’d accidentally make a baby?”

“Not accidentally,” he said, affronted. “On purpose, very enthusiastically, with terrible self-control.”

You snorted, cheeks hot. “We already did that once.”

His face shifted at that—amusement folding into something tender that hit you right in the center of your chest.

“Exactly,” he said quietly. “And look how that turned out.”

His hand slid back to your stomach, palm covering the small swell there, thumb brushing in slow, reverent strokes.

“This little one already exists,” he murmured. “We’re not ‘trying’ for anything. We’re just… very bad at acting like we’re not wildly in love with each other.”

The filthy, teasing edge softened, but didn’t disappear. It sat right on top of something warmer, deeper—want and love braided so tightly you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

You swallowed, your hand coming up to cover his.

“So what I’m hearing,” you said, trying for light, “is that the baby is basically serving as accidental contraception. Because we’d be making stupid decisions.”

“At the moment?” he said, eyes dropping to your mouth again. “Absolutely.”

You kissed him first this time, fingers curling into his shirt, pulling him in.

He went easily—hands finding familiar places on your body like there was nowhere else they wanted to be, like there was nowhere else they’d ever belong.

Breakfast happened eventually. Sort of. In stages, punctuated by hands on hips and backs and bellies, by quick, greedy kisses stolen between slices of toast, by him stepping in behind you at the sink just to hook his chin over your shoulder and murmur something in your ear that made you blush and swat at him with a dish towel.

You lost count of how many times one of you said, “Okay, now we’ll be serious,” only to wind up pressed against a counter or sprawled on the couch ten minutes later, breathless and laughing and a little in awe that this was your life now.

That you could touch each other like this without watching the clock. That you could want like this without feeling guilty. That you could be half-dressed in a sunlit kitchen in Mallorca with his hand on your barely-showing bump and his mouth on your neck and have it feel less like something reckless and more like something… deserved.

Dangerous, yes.

But very much yours and his.

//

Well, friends. I have nothing to say except: smut. so much smut. Our couple needs it—dare i say, deserves it.

I’m dead. Regardless, enjoy, and trust me it ties into the plot (I promise).

No update next week as I will be traveling. Thanks for reading and would love to hear from you guys!