Page 20 of Lord of Obsession

"That was—" The unspoken lie dies in my throat as he steps into my space, blocking my retreat.

"That was real." His voice drops to a whisper. "The first real thing you've done since you started playing student." He puts one hand on the table next to me and leans his body weight on it, caging me in. "Tell me you haven't thought about it. Tell me you don't wake up remembering how it felt to finally let go. Tell me you don’t dream about me pinning you down and fucking you?”

I should deny it and maintain the facade I've spent years constructing. But my body betrays me, and my pulse races as he leans in closer. The scent of his cologne fills my lungs—expensive and dangerous, like everything else about him.

"You're delusional." The words lack conviction even to my ears.

"Am I?" His free hand finds my tie, sliding along silk until his fingers rest against my thundering heart. "Your body remembers what you are. Whatweare. All this"—he looks around and gestures at my academic sanctuary before staring at me in my eyes, in my soul—"it's just permission to lie to yourself."

Heat blazes through my veins, turning my controlled breathing into something more ragged. "You're just seeing what you want to see."

"No." His voice carries absolute certainty. "I see what you're desperate to hide. The way your eyes catalog weaknesses in everyone who passes. How your fingers twitch toward pressure points when someone gets too close. I see the killer's instincts you can't erase, no matter how many hours you spend in this glass?—"

I grab his wrist before he can finish, the movement driven by pure instinct. His pulse races beneath my fingers, betraying his own excitement. We freeze in this moment of near violence, neither willing to break first.

"There you are." Satisfaction colors his tone. "There's the real Rafael Valenti. Not this hollow shell you pretend to be."

"I chose this life." But even as I speak, my grip tightens on his wrist, muscle memory seeking vulnerable points.

"No." He twists his hand in my grasp, turning capture into caress. "You chose to hide. To bury yourself in books and pretend you're something other than what they made you. What we both are."

In the glass, I catch our reflections—two figures locked in a dance of dominance and denial. Beyond our bubble, students pass by us, wrapped in their simple world of deadlines and grades too much to give us a second glance. None of them understand the war being waged behind these transparent barriers.

"Last chance." The words slip out in Sicilian, another tell my defenses are falling away. "Walk away."

His smile promises violence and salvation in equal measure. "Make me."

The library's ventilation system stutters, dead air settling thick between us. A clock ticks somewhere beyond the glass walls, counting down to something inevitable. My fingers still circle his wrist, reading his pulse like Morse code, a rhythm that matches the chaos beating in my chest.

"You think you've got me figured out." I release him with deliberate slowness, each movement measured. "You think you can just walk in here and unravel everything I've built."

"Built?" He nods his head toward my abandoned notes and the legal texts spreadacross the wooden desk. "You mean this fortress of paper and pretense?" His fingers trail across my textbooks, deliberately smudging the precise margins of my notes. "How many hours do you spend arranging these props? Making everything look perfect on the surface while underneath?—"

"Stop." The command cracks like a whip.

"Why? Because I'm right?" He moves behind me until I'm surrounded. "Because you're tired of maintaining this exhausting charade? Playing the dedicated student, pretending you don't dream in shades of red?"

Truth hooks beneath my ribs, dragging air from my lungs. The careful distance I've maintained from my nature shrinks with each word, each step, each breath shared in this too-small space.

"You have no idea what I dream about." But the obvious lie tastes bitter.

"Don't I?" His voice drops lower, intimate as a knife between vertebrae. "I bet you wake up reaching for weapons that aren't there. You spend hours choosing clothes that help you disappear into this civilized world. I bet you?—"

The table edge digs into my palms as Ilean forward, seeking stability in a world suddenly off its axis. "You're projecting your own nature onto me. I'm not like you."

"No?" Cool glass meets my back as he steps closer. "Then why haven't you called for help? One word, and those perfect classmates would come running. Campus security would love an excuse to remove the big bad Greco from their pristine halls."

He's right. The thought burns through me like acid, eating away at years of careful construction. I could end this now. I could maintain my cover as just another law student. I could...

"But you won't." His breath ghosts across my neck. "Because deep down, under all this expensive cotton and careful control, you're exactly like me. Born into blood. Bred for battle. You’re just better at hiding it."

The words sink their hooks into something primitive in my brain, something that remembers lessons taught with fists and firearms instead of textbooks. Something that recognizes him as both a threat and a mirror.

"I chose a different path." I repeat the lie, though we both know it’s not true. It sounds hollow, even to my ears.

"Did you?" His hand settles at the base of my throat, thumb finding my racing pulse. "Or did you just choose a different kind of warfare? Trading bullets for legal precedents, blood for ink?" A soft laugh brushes my ear. "Tell me, Rafael, when was the last time you felt truly alive? Truly yourself?"

The warehouse.

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