He stepped toward you slowly, the kind of slow that made the air thicken around you. You felt it again — that pull you kept pretending wasn’t real, the way your breath caught the moment he entered the room.

Tom’s eyes tracked every reaction, every tiny shift in your stance, every flutter of your pulse. He almost smiled.

“I can see the way you react to me, you know,” he murmured, his voice sinking under your skin like velvet dipped in poison. “You don’t even notice it anymore, but I do.”

He circled you once, lazy and confident, like a predator amused by how easily its prey froze.

“You gravitate toward me without thinking. The moment I’m near, your body moves closer. Your pulse jumps. You breathe differently.” His fingers brushed your shoulder, and your knees almost buckled. “My scent makes you weak. My voice…” He leaned down near your ear. “Turns your mind into fog.”

Your heart hammered. You hated that he was right.

He continued, low and calm, as if stating a simple fact. “When I’m not around, all you do is think of me. And when I am…” His hand tipped your chin up. “All you can focus on is me.”

You swallowed, hating the truth in it, hating the way his touch felt like gravity.

“You know why, don’t you?” he asked, though he didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll tell you my little secret.”

His breath brushed your skin.

“Shhh, darling. You may not like it.”

A pause. A soft laugh.

“Your obsession with me… it stems from a bit of dark magic.”

Your eyes widened, but he only tightened his grip, not painfully, just enough to make you feel the promise in it.

“It doesn’t really matter anymore,” he whispered. “Because even without it… you’d still be mine.”

Tom drew you closer, his voice dropping to a final, dangerous murmur.

“And you will never be able to escape me.”