4 - Adrian #2
She checks her locks again. Checks her windows. I watch her move through her apartment, and I could narrate every step before she takes it. Bathroom next, quick scan. Bedroom, checking the closet, under the bed. Not frantic, but thorough. The knife stays in her hand.
Finding nothing, she returns to the kitchen. Makes coffee even though it's nearly midnight. The disgusting instant stuff—I have to force myself not to swoop in and make her something better. Black, no sugar, she drinks it standing at the counter like medicine.
Through my carefully placed holes, I have a complete view.
When she moves to the living room, I shift to the lower hole.
When she finally heads to her bedroom, I'll move to the angled view.
Always watching, always present. This is what marriage would be.
Knowing the music of someone's private life, sharing space even when walls divide you.
We're living together in everything but name.
Sometimes, when she opens her windows, I catch the faintest trace of her. That clean soap she uses, nothing fancy, but it makes my mouth water, makes me want to press my face to her neck and breathe her in until I'm drunk on it.
The phantom she dismissed on the street was me.
I'm the shadow at the edge of her vision, the presence she can't quite catch.
It thrills me, this almost-discovery, the way she gets so close to the truth before backing away.
My pulse races with the near-miss, the delicious danger of almost being caught.
When she finally goes to her bedroom, I follow her movements through the walls, tracking the sounds of her nighttime routine. She showers first, and I count the minutes, determined to learn every part of her routine. Twenty-four minutes.
I listen to the water shut off, imagine her wrapping herself in the threadbare towel she refuses to replace, imagine the droplets of water still clinging to her collarbone, that spot where her scar catches the light.
These domestic details are everything. This is what true intimacy means.
Not just knowing someone's body but knowing their quietest habits.
She doesn't know we already share a home. Why didn’t I do this years ago?
Soon, she’s asleep. I can tell by the rhythm of movement, the absence of sound.
She sleeps light. I've learned this from watching her at the club during the rare times exhaustion wins.
The slightest noise wakes her. But tonight, feeling safer with her locks checked and her knife close, she lets herself rest.
I sit against our shared wall, pressing my palm flat against it, feeling for vibrations of her presence like reading braille love letters.
This is necessary. How else would I know if someone tried to break in?
How else could I ensure she's breathing steady, not having nightmares about the trauma she's running from?
Because she is running. Lisbon isn't a vacation plan.
It's escape. I recognize the shape of someone trying to disappear.
The way she counts steps sometimes, always in eights.
The scar on her collarbone she's never explained.
These are tells of old damage, the kind that comes from our world, from the violence that lurks under Miami's perfect surface.
She needs protection. Not the kind she thinks.
Knives and locked doors and hypervigilance.
She needs someone who sees the threats she doesn't. Someone who can remove problems before they become dangers.
The Zayas crew has been pushing boundaries since Jorge's death, testing what they can take.
If they knew she mattered to me, they'd use her.
This secret watching keeps her safer than any announcement of protection would.
This is love. Real love. Not flowers and promises, but actual presence. Being there whether she knows it or not. Making sure she's safe, fed, watched over. Love that costs something, that requires you to live in the shadows so they can live in the light.
Some would call this stalking. They don't understand the difference between obsession and devotion.
Obsession is selfish, about possessing. Devotion is about protecting, even when it costs you everything, even when they never know.
Devotion is patient the way I'm patient, content to exist one wall away, to love without acknowledgment, to guard without gratitude.
Through the wall, I hear her shift in her sleep.
She sighs, a soft sound that makes my chest ache with want so sharp it feels like drowning.
The sheets rustle as she turns, and my cock hardens instantly at just the sound of her body moving in bed.
I press my palm harder against the wall, feeling the faint vibration of her existence, and have to bite back a groan.
This is my torture and my church. Lying here, hard and aching, while she sleeps untouched inches away. My free hand moves to my cock, gripping myself through my pants, but I don't stroke. Not yet. I just hold myself, feeling the weight of my need, letting it build until it hurts.
In Lisbon, who would know the exact sound she makes when she's dreaming? Who would recognize the difference between her restless sleep and her peaceful sleep? Who would be here, cock throbbing, memorizing every breath?
No one.
Another shift. Another sigh. This one longer, breathier. Is she dreaming? My grip tightens on myself, and I imagine tearing through this wall, imagine her eyes going wide when she sees me, imagine the knife she keeps close being useless against what's been building between us for years.
Through the wall, I hear her breathing deepen again, settling back into sleep.
My cock pulses in my grip, demanding relief I won't give it.
This is part of it. The discipline, the control, the proof that I can want her this badly and still wait.
Every hole I've drilled, every moment I've watched, every breath I've counted brings us closer to the inevitable moment when this wall comes down.
When she'll look at me and finally understand that some hungers can't be escaped, only fed.
When she'll realize that Lisbon was never real, that every escape route leads back to me.
When I'll finally taste that mouth that haunts me, finally put my hands on skin I've only watched, finally bury myself so deep inside her that she'll forget there was ever a world where we were strangers.
The thought makes my cock leak, and I have to pull my hand away before I lose control completely. Not like this. Not jerking off against a wall like some desperate teenager. When I come, it will be inside her, with her nails in my back and my name on her lips.
Until then, I wait. I watch.
She sighs again in her sleep, and my whole body clenches with want.
Soon, Isa.
So fucking soon.