When I confessed this to him, he refused to believe it. He was absolutely convinced that I was playing with him, getting revenge for all the mind-fucking he’s done to me over the years. I can kind of understand why he felt like it could all be a cruel joke, and I’ll admit seeing him insecure and unsure of himself was an incredibly gratifying experience, but as much as I might be tempted to, I’ve never played those kind of mind games with him.

It wasn’t until I went deliberately AWOL that he lost his shit and the real Sebastian finally came out to play. After he tracked me down and fucked me so hard I screamed loud enough to make my voice hoarse, we sat down and talked about which of his stalker behaviors I could tolerate and which were hard limits for me. Then he spent the whole night forcing orgasm after orgasm on me, to try and get me to agree to things I told him were deal breakers.

No matter how normal Sebastian pretends to be, I know that his obsession with me is as potent and out of control now as it was the day he decided I was his. And a month down the line I’ve discovered I enjoy pushing his buttons until he loses control and turns into the snarling, angry, threatening man he was the day he revealed he was my cage and that he’d never let me go.

I know I still have a full-time security team following me around, but I’ve never seen them and most of the time I forget they’re even there. As much as Sebastian likes to pretend he doesn’t want to keep me locked up, he confessed that he would struggle to not know where I was at all times and I came to the conclusion I could tolerate being followed as long as I didn’t have to see it, or feel the eyes on me.

The tracking device is still beneath the skin in my neck, but he promised he’s never activated it unless I was actually in danger. He did activate his though and from the app he installed on my phone, I can know exactly where he is at all times, not that I’ve ever thought to look.

The messed-up history we share hasn’t just disappeared since we admitted our feelings for each other, and it’ll be a long time before my dad will ever accept that Sebastian and I are together. He doesn’t understand how I could possibly forgive him for everything he’s done to me, and I get it, some days I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to totally forgive him completely either. But what my dad is starting to understand is that even with all the awful things that have happened between us, we love each other, and sometimes love doesn’t make sense and it isn’t always kind. I’m hoping at some point in the future they can become tolerantly cordial toward each other, and possibly, eventually Dad could maybe learn to like him. My mom is over the moon that Sebastian and I are trying to work things out, she even turned up at Kingsacre thinking that mine and her relationship would be instantly fixed too. Just like my dad isn’t willing to forget Sebastian’s sins, I’m not ready to pretend that my mom didn’t abandon me when I needed her the most. Perhaps we can reclaim some semblance of a friendship in the future, but for right now I’m still keeping her at a distance.