It wasn’t enough.
I reach down to adjust myself, my cock stiff and aching both from the sight of her in her tight running clothes and the thrill of watching her. But I make no move to take it out or ease the ache. I want this—the pain of desire, the hungry need. The next time I come, I want it to be with her.
Even if it’s only while I watch through two sets of glass.
I finish my coffee, trying to run through the list of things I need to accomplish todayotherthan hunting my beautiful prey, but it’s difficult to focus. There are other things that demand my attention, people who depend on me. And it’s still not lost on me that I’m lying to my men about why I’m here. Those men follow my orders without question because I've proven myself ruthless enough, smart enough, and strong enough to lead.
Which is why I should be in Boston. Or Moscow. Or Chicago. Any of the places where I have influence and my presence would actually be useful. Instead I'm here, in New York. In thisapartment I have no use for except as a vantage point to watch a woman who doesn't even know who I really am.
Madness.
I keep myself as busy as I can for the remainder of the day, and go down for dinner to a restaurant next door to my building. I ask for a window seat so that I have a vantage of her apartment, and I see when she comes home just after six p.m., now wearing a black pencil skirt and a soft-looking sweater. Her skin looks milky pale against all the black, her lips painted a deep burgundy, and my cock twitches at the thought of them wrapped around it. The finer details of her outfit and jewelry are lost from here, but I take in the sight of her hungrily, sipping my wine as I watch her disappear into her building.
The urge to ask for my meal to-go so that I can go upstairs and watch her undress is strong, but I resist. I have to keep control of myself in this, or I’ll lose everything. I’m the hunter and she’s the prey, and the prey does not dictate the rules of the hunt.
I do.
I eat slowly, forcing myself to wait. When I’ve enjoyed my meal, I go back upstairs and pour myself a vodka before crossing to the windows, where I immediately see her in her living room.
She’s sitting in front of the tv, eating something out of a bowl while scrolling on her laptop.Probably still working, I think, wishing I could see her screen from here. Her work ethic is admirable, but a strange, almost protective instinct itches at me as I watch her. She should be eating a proper meal, out somewhere. She should be taking time for herself, not only working. Finding pleasure in something besides her job.
As the wordpleasureenters my mind, I can feel the hot slide of desire through my veins, that delicious pressure building. I wonder what she would do if I walked into her building right now. If I popped the locks on her door and entered herapartment. If she saw me, ‘Alexander Volkov’ standing in her entryway.
Would she scream? Try to call the police? Would she give me everything I want, right then and there?
None of those options are particularly palatable. Certainly not the first two, and the last isn’t really what I want. Iwantthe chase, the build-up. And I intend to draw it out for quite a while before I have her.
I watch her for a while longer at the window before going to the couch, sipping vodka as I enjoy the view. She moves around the room, going to get books from a shelf on the far end, only adding to my suspicion that she’s probably working. She gets a glass of wine after a little while, and then, just after ten p.m., puts her books and laptop away, disappears into the kitchen, and then reappears heading toward the hallway to her bedroom.
My pulse leaps and I stand, taking another slow sip of my vodka as I cross to the windows to watch. I’m worried she’ll draw the blinds and deny me my view, but she doesn’t. Instead, I watch as she disappears into the bathroom, and my chest tightens again. I hadn’t thought of the possibility that she might undress in the bathroom.
A moment later, she emerges again, and reaches for the hem of her sweater.
My mouth goes dry, my cock instantly hard with anticipation as she pulls the black fabric up and over her head. For the first time, I can see the shape of her small breasts in the plain black bra beneath it, the small swells above the cups begging for my hands. My cock throbs, and I swallow hard, reaching down to adjust it as her hands go to the zipper of her skirt.
I’ve never wanted to stroke myself so badly in my life. The need to drag my zipper down and wrap my hand around my aching flesh is almost unbearable, but I don’t. I make myself wait.
When she touches herself in that bed, I’ll do the same. When she comes, I’ll come with her. And until then, I won’t allow myself any relief.
The release will be all the better for denying myself, for now.
I feel like I can’t breathe as she undoes her bra, and for the first time, I get a glimpse of her nipples, soft and rosy against the pale flesh of her breasts. She tosses it onto her bed, leaning down as she hooks her fingers in the waist of her panties, and I groan low in my throat as she slides them down her hips.
She turns, fully nude, and walks into the bathroom.
My cock is straining against my zipper so hard it feels as if it might break. I can feel the need throbbing through me like a second heartbeat, and my hand tightens around the vodka glass, white-knuckling it as I stare at where she was standing a moment ago like there might be an afterimage lingering.
Fuck. I want her so badly it hurts.
I stand there until she emerges twenty or so minutes later, wrapped in a white towel, her hair wet against her shoulders. I watch her drop it and slide on pajamas—a small pair of shorts and a tank top—and as she climbs into bed every part of my body begs for her to touch herself. To give me what I need for a release.
But instead she turns the light out, plunging her room into darkness.
—
As the week passes,I memorize her routine. The next morning, I watch her get up and disappear into her bathroom. I’ve mapped every inch of her apartment from this position and studied the layout obsessively—I know where every room is. The only views I don’t have are of her bathroom and kitchen, which means thereare sixteen minutes and twenty-five seconds in her morning routine where I can’t see her.
For six minutes and ten seconds of that, she’s in the bathroom, leaving me with nothing but my imagination and the memory of how she looked last night, stepping out in a towel, her wet hair leaving dark spots on her shoulders.
