You don’t hear him at first.

You’re at your desk, legs tucked under you, soft cotton kurta clinging to your thighs from the way you’ve folded yourself into the chair. A pen twirls between your fingers. Your hair’s in its usual messy ponytail, half your face hidden behind loose strands and crooked glasses. You chew your lip, focused on the screen in front of you.

That’s how he sees you—again.

The same way you’ve looked every day for the past three months. The same way you always do when you make him lose his mind.

He shouldn’t be home this early.

He should’ve stayed at the command center.

But something inside him snapped this morning—when he overheard your soft voice on the phone, telling your cousin how "Advik’s nice, but not that kind of husband." How maybe he “wasn’t interested in women like her.”

Not interested?

Advik's blood had frozen.

And now here he is—silent in the doorway. Watching. Breathing heavier with each second. His control, the discipline honed by years of command, warping at the edges. You shift slightly, adjusting your leggings, the motion causing your kurta to ride up just an inch.

He sees it. The slight swell of your soft tummy. The dip of your waist. The curve of your hips as your body shifts in the chair, full, unbothered. Unaware of how he’s aching.

You sigh, stretching your arms above your head with a little whimper. That soft little sound.

That’s what does it.

He’s across the room in seconds.

You gasp as his arms cage you in, his palm slamming flat against the desk beside your head. Your chair swivels slightly from the force.

“Advik—?!” you blink up at him.

But the look in his eyes—burning, tortured, feral—freezes you.

He doesn’t speak. He only stares.

Then one gloved finger slides under your chin. Tilts your head up slowly.

"Take. Off. The glasses."

You do. Wordlessly.

He tosses them to the side. Gaze locked to yours. "You think I don't want you?"

You open your mouth. But the words don’t come. You never imagined he’d speak like this.

"You sit here every day," he grits, voice low and breaking. "In this tiny kurta. Your thighs spilling over the chair. That belly I fantasize about putting my mouth on—"

Your breath stutters.

"—and you think I’m not burning?"

His hands move, suddenly grabbing your hips, fingers digging into the softness there like he owns it.

"I come home and see you waddling barefoot across the floor, humming to yourself, belly bouncing—"

"Advik," you whisper.

He lifts you out of the chair, deposits you on the desk.

“Every day you walk past me,” he growls, voice rough and uneven, “and I have to pretend not to care. Not to want.”

Your kurta is bunched around your waist now, your leggings halfway down your thighs.

"You think I’m cold? Polite? Distant?"

He presses his body between your legs. You feel him. Hard. Straining against his uniform.

"You think I don’t dream of pushing you onto this desk? Of watching those plush thighs tremble around my face as you scream my name?"