Chapter 2

ARIA

My thighs still ached.

Not in that sore-from-too-much-exercise kind of way. No—this was the afterglow kind. The kind that made me shift under the sheets and bite down on my lip when memories crept in uninvited.

I lay tangled in cheap cotton sheets that clung to my bare skin, the air heavy with the faint scent of lavender from last night’s candle—and something else.

Something raw.

Something that still lingered between my legs.

Touch yourself, Luna. But don’t come until I say.

His voice wasn’t even real. Just black text on a screen. But I felt it as if he’d whispered it straight into my ear. I hadn’t touched myself again after that stream. Couldn’t. Not because I didn’t want to—but because somehow, I didn’t know how to without him.

Obsidian.

He wasn’t just some faceless username anymore. Not after last night. Not after that message.

I rolled onto my side and reached for my phone, the screen glowing too bright for my sleep-heavy eyes. The cam app blinked with a single notification.

No message.

No tip.

But he was online.

Just there.

Present.

Watching?

I set the phone down like it might burn me. My pulse was too fast, skin too warm. What the hell was I even doing?

This wasn’t a love story.

This wasn’t real.

Except…

It felt more real than anything else in my life.

By the time I made it into the kitchen, Lexi was already halfway through her cereal, scrolling TikTok with bed hair that looked like a wild animal had nested in it. Her pajama pants were a mess of little cartoon sharks, and her bowl clinked every time she scooped another bite.

“You’re up late,” she said, not even looking up.

“You mean early.”

She peeked at me over the rim of her bowl. “You look… flushed.”

I blinked. “It’s warm in here.”

She made a face. “Not really.”

I turned toward the coffee maker before she could see the blush creeping up my neck. “You’ve got class at ten?”

“Yeah. Frog dissection today.” She gagged a little. “Super stoked.”

I let out a dry laugh as the coffee dripped slowly, painfully slow. My hands were still trembling slightly, even as I tried to focus on mundane things like mugs and almond milk.

“You were working again last night?”

I hesitated. “Mm-hmm.”

Her tone didn’t shift. No judgment. No curiosity. But I could feel her watching me, even if she didn’t say anything. That was Lexi’s way—she didn’t pry. But she noticed everything.

If she ever found out what I really did…

That I took off my clothes for strangers online.

That I let someone control my toy from across the internet.

That I liked it. Craved it. Needed it.

No.

She couldn’t know.

She wouldn’t understand.

I sat beside her, coffee in hand, and tried to act normal. Like I hadn’t spent the night moaning into a rug for a man I didn’t know.

“I might have a few job interviews lined up,” I offered casually.

Her face lit up. “For real? Like, actual jobs? With offices and break rooms and shitty fluorescent lighting?”

“Actual jobs,” I lied.

“That’s amazing, Aria. Seriously. You’ve been busting your ass. Something’s gotta give.”

God, I hoped so.

Because I was skating on rent, the electric bill was overdue, and my credit card company was already calling again. The cam money helped, but it wasn’t enough. And Obsidian… his tips were generous—but unpredictable. If he disappeared, I’d be fucked.

And not the good kind.

By midday, I slipped outside. The sun hit hard, the sidewalk radiating with heat and leftover street grease. I tugged my hoodie tight around me, sunglasses low, and headed toward my usual café—where the Wi-Fi was strong and nobody asked questions.

I checked over my shoulder a few times, for no real reason.

No one was there.

Still, I couldn’t shake that feeling—that slithering sense of being watched. Not like when I was streaming. That was performative, expected. This felt different. Like someone wasn’t watching Luna anymore.

Someone was watching me.

Aria.

I told myself I was being paranoid.

I told myself it was nothing.

But my gut said otherwise.

---

I spent the next few hours hunched over my laptop, rifling through job listings like a woman possessed. Copywriting gigs, virtual assistant stuff, anything that paid more than pennies. Something I could show Lexi with pride. Something normal. Something safe.

Something that didn’t involve vibrating toys and strangers with usernames like Obsidian.

But the second I opened the cam dashboard—just to check, just to peek—my chest tightened.

A tip.

From him.

But this time… there was a message.

> You looked beautiful last night. But I prefer you without the mask.

I stared at it.

Without the mask?

The lingerie? The lipstick?

Or…

Did he mean me?

Did he know?

Panic crept up my spine like ice. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, nerves tingling.

> What mask? I typed.

No response.

Ten seconds.

Twenty.

Nothing.

My hand trembled as I closed the laptop harder than necessary and shoved it in my bag. I didn’t care that my coffee was still half full. I needed out.

---

Back home, I locked the door behind me, triple-checked the windows, and tried to breathe through the tightness in my chest. The living room was silent. Lexi wouldn’t be home for another hour.

I curled up on the couch, phone clenched in my hand, willing my pulse to slow down.

Then it buzzed.

Unknown Number.

> Don’t be afraid. I only want to see the real you.

I dropped the phone like it was a live wire.

How did he get my number?

I hadn’t listed it anywhere. Not in my profile, not in any chats. My cam identity was walled off from everything else in my life. It was supposed to be untouchable. Untraceable.

And yet…

Here he was.

Inside my phone. Inside me.

I picked it back up slowly, as if the message might disappear if I blinked.

I didn’t reply.

I wanted to.

God, I wanted to.

But something in me whispered that this wasn’t about lust anymore.

This was about power.

Control.

Obsession.

And the worst part—the part I couldn’t say out loud, not even in my own mind—

A part of me wanted him to cross more lines.

XANDER

She replied.

Not with words. Not right away.

But I saw the hesitation. The way her hands paused over the keyboard. The silence between the commands.

> What mask?

Just that.

But it was enough.

Enough to tell me the shift had happened. That she felt me, really felt me—not as another faceless name in her chat window, but as something different. Something real.

She was starting to understand: I wasn’t just watching.

I was already inside.

Inside her head.

Inside her habits.

Inside the quiet, private world she thought no one could reach.

I leaned back in the chair, fingers drumming against the glass desk. The surface was cold, sleek—perfectly polished. The room around me was quiet, except for the low hum of a server in the corner and the whisper of city traffic outside.

I didn’t answer her message.

Not yet.

Tension is like a string—you don’t pull it all at once. You let it stretch, tight enough to ache, until the silence becomes the loudest thing in the room.

I wanted her sitting with that ache.

I wanted it in her.

Just like I’d been the night before.

---

Aria Vale.

She thought I didn’t know.

Thought Luna was a mask she wore in the dark and could peel off in the light. She thought she could hide behind firewalls and fake names, that she could take the money and give nothing else away.

She didn’t realize how quickly lines blurred when someone really looked.

And I’d been looking for a while.

Her setup was smart—I'll give her that. VPN chains, encrypted traffic, scrubbed metadata. She was more careful than most.

But care has limits.

She used the same payment email for an SEO course two years ago. She logged into her cam dashboard at a café I already owned the network to. She recycled an old alias—Aria—on a Twitch account that still had a half-blurry profile pic of her laughing in a tank top.

That photo?

It showed the mole under her left breast.

One image. One string of numbers. One too-human mistake.

That’s all it took.

And then Luna wasn’t Luna anymore.

She was mine.

I hadn’t meant to send her the message.

Not yet.

Not like that.

But something about last night unspooled me. The way her voice broke when I told her to stop. The way she waited. Not for tips. Not for praise.

For me.

She was exposed. Honest. Not Luna, not even Aria—but something rawer, purer. She doesn’t know it yet, but I saw the part of her she keeps locked behind exhaustion and self-preservation.

And I can’t unsee it.

So when I found the old invoice—her burner number listed at the bottom—and fed it into my private contact system, I didn’t hesitate.

>Don’t be afraid. I only want to see the real you.

And she dropped the phone like I reached through the screen and touched her.

Perfect.

Not because she was afraid—but because she felt it.

That pull between terror and thrill.

The one that makes your skin prickle.

The one that says someone sees you. Truly sees you.

Because I do.

I always have.

I moved through my penthouse slowly, letting the silence work its way through my spine. In the mirrored bedroom, her stream screen glowed soft and blue—offline but awake. Her laptop was open. No cam. No mic. But activity pulses still flickered.

Click.

Click.

Scroll.

She was searching for answers.

Panicking.

Thinking.

Exactly where I wanted her.

I sank onto the edge of the leather couch, drink in hand, the scotch warm as it hit the back of my throat. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city stretched wide beneath me—restless and blind.

Somewhere out there, she was pacing her apartment.

Looking over her shoulder.

Questioning what was real.

And I smiled.

She should.

Because I’m not just the man behind the toy anymore.

I’m the man she’s going to meet.

Maybe in line at a coffee shop. Maybe when she drops a book on the train and I pick it up. Maybe when she stumbles into someone in a rush and looks up to find me already watching her.

It’ll feel accidental.

But it won’t be.

I’ve already mapped her routes.

Timed her walks.

Seen what she orders.

Noticed how she tugs on her sleeve when she’s nervous.

She’s not just a fantasy anymore.

She’s a plan.

And when I finally touch her—not through a toy or a screen—but with my own hands, my own mouth—she’ll understand.

This isn’t obsession.

This is gravity.

This is what happens when two people are already bound—one just doesn’t know it yet.