Page 10 of The Art of Obsession

I turn on my smartwatch, summoning the holo-program. It cost me a pretty penny, but my control over her is worth it. It took me a good hour to put all the cameras in place, to record all the necessary angles. Later, I’ll replay this just as I replayed her response to all my little gifts.

She first tries the bathroom door, making a beeline for the window. Only to find it hopelessly locked, immovable. Naturally, I secured all windows and doors, forbidding any escape. And another sweet revelation she will soon learn.

Everleigh rushes to the next room, a center study with a door that leads to another bathroom. As she tries that bathroom, finding no window, she rushes back…just in time for the study door to close.

The moment she tries to open the door, finding it locked, her cheeks flush with fury. She is locked inside, not the other way around.

Eight minutes.

As soon as she grabs the nearest lamp, intending to use it on the doorknob, I lower my mouth to my smartwatch. “Simply say ‘please’, and I will open the door, Little Quill.”

She startles at my voice issuing through the speakers, her hands pausing, still clutching the lamp. “That’s cheating!”

“So is that.”

She presses her lips into a tight seam, but I read the defeat in her eyes. Because she’s not about to damage her boss’s property. Setting the lamp back on the desk, she marches to the door, balling her hands into dainty fists. “Please,” she spits out.

“Good girl.” I unlock the door.

Seven minutes.

She turns a corner and finds herself in the sun room, one wall of glass windows featuring a view of the mass of woods. One door that leads to the terrace. As soon as she steps inside, she grabs a pillow from the love seat and uses it to hold the door open. Good, she’s learning. Flexibility and resourcefulness are necessities in my world.

I almost expected her to try the terrace door, but no. She remembers my explicit instructions. No escaping the house.

Six minutes.

The next room she comes to is the wine cellar. I stiffen, clenching my gloved hand into a fist, bringing it to my chin, and observing. Her pale hand touches the knob. She slowly twists it and opens it a crack?—

—then hurriedly shuts it before moving down the hallway to the stairs. Hmm…I stroke my chin, intrigued. Why not there? Blood rushes to my cock because, aside from art, there is nothing I love more than an enigma. And Everleigh Lennox is both.

She reaches the top of the stairs.

Five minutes.

She tries multiple bedrooms. All to no avail. Her panic sets in as she heaves rushed breath, jerking at window frames, pounding on the reinforced glass.

I ease out of the chair, tugging at my waistcoat. Shudders assault her small frame.

One minute.

I pause at the staircase, gripping the railing.

When she hurries to the steps, her eyes like terrified prey, knowing her time is depleting, I turn off the program. Instead of retreating down the hall, trying more doors she already has, Everleigh hurries down the steps, passing me in a fluster.

Forty seconds.

I stalk her, tracking her movements. No escape in the library, Little Quill. I anticipated her going there first. So, I would not have made it so simple.

She’s a vision with her wild dark hair teasing the curves of her round hips.

Thirty seconds.

No escape in the downstairs guest room.

Ten seconds.

The fear in her eyes pulses into me, summoning a predatory need to feed on that fear. Cut her, mark her, bleed her. And see what comes out. Her blood will make a delirious palette when the time comes. But I’m too obsessive to lose control.