6
ROMEO
I'm losing control.
It's a foreign sensation, this feeling of something slipping through my fingers. I've spent my entire life in control of everything. It’s been easy—without rampant emotions and impulses to deal with, the world is calm and simple to navigate. It makes this life ideal for me. Control is survival in my world. Control is power.
But around Savannah, that control is fracturing.
I sit in the back of the town car, watching the city slide past the tinted windows, and I can feel it—that dangerous unraveling. My pulse quickens at the thought of seeing her in three hours. I've already planned my route through campus to maximize the chance of "accidentally" encountering her before our scheduled meeting time.
And I've thought about nothing but her for… well, since the day I saw her, if I’m being honest with myself.
This isn't how it's supposed to work. I'm supposed to be the one in control. I'm supposed to be the hunter, not the hunted. I'm supposed to want her, yes—but in the way I want otherthings. Calculated. Strategic. A goal to be achieved and then moved past.
But this is something else entirely.
Being near her is both heaven and torture. When we're in the same room, every cell in my body is aware of her. The way she moves. The sound of her voice. The scent of her: almond soap and jasmine perfume. When she speaks, I’m torn between soaking up everything she says and losing myself in the shape of her mouth as she forms the words.
And when we touch—even innocently, accidentally—it takes everything I have not to grab her, pull her against me, make her understand that she's mine. That she's been mine from the moment I saw her under that tree.
I want to possess her completely. I want to own every thought in her head, every breath in her lungs, every beat of her heart. I want to erase Thaddeus Whitmore from her memory, from her life, from existence. I want to mark her in ways that can never be undone, make her so thoroughly mine that the idea of belonging to anyone else becomes impossible.
The intensity of it frightens me and exhilarates me at the same time. Even more so because it’s so novel… because I’ve never felt this before. But there's something else, too. Something more dangerous than simple obsession.
I'm fascinated by her mind.
Not just attracted to her physically—though God knows I am. That night in the car opened up the floodgates, and since then, I’ve spent most of my time alone trying to ease my arousal with endless orgasms. I jerk off in the morning when I wake up, in the shower, before I go to bed, slipping away to one of the stalls on campus after I’ve spent time in study group with her. My cock is fucking raw from how much I’ve been stroking it to the thought of her… but my attraction goes much deeper than that, too.
When she talks about her research, her eyes light up with genuine passion. When she argues with me about Minoan religious practices or palatial architecture, she doesn't back down. She challenges me. She makes me think. She's not intimidated by me the way most people are. And she’s genuinely fucking brilliant.
Everyone else—they see what I want them to see. The charming exterior. The easy smile. Or, if they know who my family is, they see the danger, and they're careful. They measure their words and defer to me. They treat me like a dog that might bite or a snake that might strike.
Savannah doesn't defer. She argues with me. She disagrees. She looks at me like I'm just another person, not a Ciresa, not someone to be feared or managed.
And somehow, impossibly, I find myself actually caring about archaeology when I look at it through her lens. About Bronze Age trade networks and religious iconography and the fucking light wells at Knossos. I find myself reading scholarly articles not because they're useful for the project, but because I want to understand what she's passionate about. I want to be able to talk to her about the things that matter to her.
This is completely unlike me.
I don't care about other people's dreams. I don't invest emotional energy in understanding what makes them tick, except as a tool for manipulation. I pretend interest when it's useful. I ask questions to gather information, to find leverage, identify weaknesses.
But with Savannah, it's real. And that terrifies me more than anything else.
I’ve never felt anything so real before.
I get to the library early because I can't stand waiting any longer. I take the elevator to the third floor and find the study room we used last time. It's empty, and I claim it, spreadingout my materials. Laptop. Notebooks. The stack of books I've pulled from the stacks—not just the ones on our reading list, but additional sources. Scholarly articles I've printed out. A copy of a book on Minoan religion that I ordered from a rare book dealer because the library's copy was checked out. I'm arranging everything when I see her through the glass wall.
She's walking through the main study area, her bag slung over one shoulder, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. She's wearing jeans and a simple linen T-shirt, nothing remarkable, but the sight of her does something to my chest. That tightness. That warmth.
She sees me and smiles, and I feel it as intensely as if she reached out and touched me.
"You're early," she says, slipping into the room.
"So are you."
"I'm always early." She sets her bag down, and I catch that scent of jasmine again. "I see you've been busy."
She's looking at the books I've laid out, and I see the moment she registers the rare volume.
