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I reach down and wrap my hand around it, stroking slowly, my grip firm.

I think about the moment he pulled ahead of me, just enough to make me see red. His dark lashes were wet with sweat, clumped together, framing those warm brown eyes that were focused entirely on the path ahead. He looked beautiful. It’s infuriating. My beautiful, infuriating boy.

My strokes speed up, my breathing growing heavier as the water cascades over me.

I think about the distinguished line of his nose, the pink flush of his cheeks, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. The way his chest rose and fell with each breath, his lungs working hard to keep up. He was trying so hard to beat me, to prove himself, but I couldn’t let him.

A flame of guilt flickers in my chest at the memory of the solid impact of my body against his, and how he looked at me afterward. He was furious, humiliated, hurt. I didn’t really want to hurt him. But then I think about St. Silas, about the shinty matches and the rugby scrums, and I remember Cameron pinned beneath me in the mud, his chest heaving, his face red and dirty. I remember the excitement in his eyes when I was on top of him. He’d struggle, trying to push me off, but I was stronger. I was always stronger.

My hand moves faster, my grip tightening.

I could hold him down as long as I wanted. And I wanted. I wanted to keep him there, beneath me, where he couldn’t run. Where he couldn’t escape. Where he was mine.

Oh fuck.

I come hard. My body shudders with the immediate force of it as my release splashes against the tile. The water washes it all away, the guilt and the pleasure, like it never happened.

I stand there for a long moment, catching my breath, my legs shaking.

And then the disgust sets in.

I turn off the water and step out of the shower, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around my waist. My reflection stares back at me from the mirror, half-obscured by steam.

I look the same as I always do. My dark hair is easily fixed into a perfect, immovable style. My features are handsome and defined. My eyes are a gray-blue with the usual dark circles underneath, the only physical indication of my devotion to Cameron. Between my own classes and watching Cameron, I keep a punishing schedule. Sometimes, I feel like I’m losing my mind.

This is Cameron’s fault.

If he wasn’t so— If he didn’t⁠—

I shake my head, gripping the edge of the sink.

He makes me like this. He makes me obsess. He makes me think about him constantly until I can’t focus on anything else. I want to know what he’s thinking and feeling. I want to be inside his head, to understand every thought, every fear, every desire. But I also want him to know me as more than the asshole who hurts him. Cameron is the only person I want to watch, touch, talk to, smell, own. But I can’t. At least not as myself.

I run a hand through my wet hair, and I sit on the edge of my bed, staring at nothing.

My phone buzzes, and I reach for it automatically, my heart skipping a beat when I see the Lure notification.

I unlock the screen and open the app.

He’s thinking about me—well, not me, but Gwen. We talk about our mornings, and then he says the words that make my blood boil. I stare at the screen, my vision tunneling: An unpleasant interaction? No one important?

The words repeat in my head until they’re all I can hear. How dare he dismiss me like that? Like I’m nothing? Like I don’t matter? I’m everything. I’m the only person who sees him. The only person who knows him. The only person who cares. And he thinks I’m “no one important?”

My hands are shaking with rage as I type my response. The words are kind and supportive, everything Gwen should be, but inside, I’m seething. I want to throw my phone across the room. Instead, I message him about breakfast and keep the conversation light and friendly.

The towel is loose around my waist. The room is cold. But all I can feel is the heat of my anger and the fragile pain of wanting something I can’t have.

Cameron doesn’t care about me. Because when I’m myself, I’m the person who shoves him into bushes. The person who pins him in the mud. The person who makes him furious and humiliated and hurt.

I’m the villain in his story.

He can’t wait to escape, and Gwen is who he runs to for connection. And it’s fucking crazy, but I’m jealous of my own invented persona. I’m jealous of someone who doesn’t even exist. I laugh, a short, bitter sound that echoes in the empty room. This is insane. I’m insane.

But Gwen is designed to be everything Cameron needs. It’s the only way I can have him, and the paradox is a mind fuck. I’ve created the only way I know how to get close to him, but it might be the thing that pushes us further apart, especially if he ever learns the truth.

OCTOBER

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