19

SEBASTIAN

Two weeks. That’s how long I’ve been forced to see her, smell her, watch her, but not touch her. It’s pure, raw torture and I hate it. I expected her to run. I thought she’d be gone by the next morning, but instead she shocked us all by staying, sashaying out of her room at five in the morning in her running gear and heading out the door, like it was the most normal thing in the world for her to do.

My eyes never left the tracking app for a second of the hour she was gone, and the only reason I stopped myself from following her, was because her security team tracked her progress through the cameras I had installed on every inch of the route we ran together.

She hasn’t uttered a single word to any of us, not even a grunt in acknowledgment of our existence. But now that the gates and doors always open for her whenever she leaves, she’s starting to relax, at least when I’m not around.

My body aches for her. Knowing she’s here, knowing how she feels and tastes and sounds but not being able to touch is like a physical pain that only seems to be getting worse with every moment that passes without her. She was mine for a day, but in that short space of time, I gave her my soul and without it I’m hardly more than a shell.

She watches me when she thinks I’m not looking. I can feel her eyes on me, and I spend hours watching back the footage from the security cameras in the shared spaces of the house to see her staring at me. There’re cameras in her room too, but I made Clay promise to never let me view them no matter how much I beg or threaten him. Of course, I can access them if I really want to, but no one but me knows that.

She’s wary of me and I know a part of her is still waiting for me to drop the facade and reclaim what will always be mine. But there’s also heat in her glares, a spark of want hidden beneath all the hatred. She might despise me, but she enjoys the passion that flares between us the moment we touch.

If only she knew all the things I want to do to her. How I fantasize about tying her to my bed and locking the door, kissing her and fucking her until she’s so drunk from all the orgasms I’ve given her that she’ll forget why she hates me and falls in love with me. I dream about plucking her off the path when she runs in the dark and kidnapping her, keeping her my prisoner in an actual golden cage made just for her.

My fantasies are becoming more and more disturbing with every moment that passes when she’s not mine.

I’m still following her.

I’m not sure I’ll ever stop, but I stay at a distance, not letting her feel my presence like I did during her first couple of days on campus. Back then I wanted her to know she was being watched, now I just simply can’t look away.