Sadist

"Oh my gawd!"

My eyes shifted to Anna as she spoke.

"You do like him now, don't you?" she whispered to me while our professor lectured. As she spoke my eyes skirted around the room to make sure no one was paying attention to her.

"What are you talking about?" I whispered back.

"Luca!" she said and her eyes darted to where he sat across the classroom from us. "you've been watching him."

I shook my head and rolled my eyes at the same time. "Don't be stupid." I responded, "And pay attention to the lecture."

Although she was right. I had been watching him. But it wasn't because I thought he was hot. Although that wasn't untrue. I was just watching him with curiosity.

How could he possible be the same guy who I played ping pong with? He had been so active then, he had also acted like a completely different person. He had smiled and laughed while he played. But here, he never smiled, he never showed any emotion except for maybe a 'pissed off' emotion. He rarely ever spoke to anyone, and all during class, his eyes stayed glued to his notebook.

My gaze shifted to him again as I thought.

I wondered if he was actually taking notes... Did the infamous Luca Zhang actually give a shit about his grades?

As if he heard me thinking this, his eyes shot up to mine.

In that moment, I realized I was staring again. Immediately, my eyes flew back to the professor and I began to hold my breath. Anna was right, I had been staring too much. Apparently I had been staring so blatantly that even Luca noticed. I bit my inner cheek as I waited for him to look away. But instead I felt the heat of his gaze on me for the rest of class.

~Shit. What if that was the last straw? Is he actually going to kill me now? Why did I have to be curious about him of all people?~

When the professor dismissed us, I stayed in my seat until nearly everyone had left the classroom. Luckily for me, Luca was one of the first people out.

"Are you coming?" Anna asked as she swung her backpack over her shoulder.

I shook my head, and attempted to steady my shaking knees. "I think I'm gonna stay here and study for a little bit."

I expected her to think that was weird. After all, staying in a classroom to study after class was over was never something I'd done before. But Anna simply shrugged and headed for the door, "Alright!" she smiled, "I'm gonna go get ready for my date!"

~Oh...That's why she's not worried about me. I probably could have told her I planned to drown myself in a bowl of cheerios and she would be fine with it.~

I stayed in the classroom until my heart stopped beating, and I had chastised myself so much that I would probably never look at Luca for longer than a single second again.

When I finally stood to leave, not only was the classroom empty, but so was the hallway outside. I breathed a sigh of relief that I could at least have some solitude before I got to my next class.

I apparently breathed for relief too soon though.

Nearly as soon as I exited the classroom, a hand grabbed at my arm and yanked me into a nearby closet. I dropped my books and yelped as the door shut behind me and a hand went over my mouth.

~This is it. I'm dead.~

I shut my eyes tight and clenched my hands around the straps of my backpack waiting for some kind of blow to the head.

~Either Luca is about to kill me for staring, or one of his groupies is. Or wait, what if they torture me and question me about how I know Luca? What if they are trying to find out the secrets of the ping pong team?~

"Look at me." spoke the familiar voice of Luca.

~Oh god! it is him! Oh no! I knew he was pissed about the point I got on him, but I didn't realize I could make it worse in a matter of one day!~

I shook my head and kept my eyes pinched shut as he removed his hand from my mouth.

In response to this, I felt him take a step closer to me. I could tell by the way his skin cooled the air near to me. All vampires radiated a brisk temperature like the wind coming off the ocean.

"I said look at me." he spoke again, and as he did, his hand snaked up the back of my neck, his fingers threaded through my hair, he grabbed hold of the hair at my scalp, and pulled so my head angled up at him. I gasped at the contact and at the pain and my eyes flew open just in time to see something strange.

Luca hesitated.

Or I think that's what it was.

He had looked angry, but then something else flashed across his face. It looked like the words he planned to say stopped coming out on their own, and his mouth hung slightly agape. Then for a split second his eyes dilated.

I could see all of this because of how freaking close he was. Which had nothing to do with the very spacious janitor's closet we were currently in.

"I- I'm sorry." I mustered, "Please don't-"

~kill me.~

I decided not to finish the sentence, because I didn't want to give him any bad ideas.

The look Luca was wearing dropped from his face as I spoke. And when I finished, he squeezed tighter to the hair on my scalp. "Don't what?" he asked and I squeaked from the pain "Finish what you were going to say." the sides of his lip perked up in a sickening smile.

~Holy shit! I KNEW IT! he is a sadist! He's getting enjoyment from my pain and fear! DEAR GOD, if you're out there, help me now!~

"I wasn't going to-" I stumbled over my words and tried frantically to think of another ending to the sentence I had begun. But my brain wasn't working fast enough. No. My brain wasn't working at all! not with this psychopathic hottie standing so close to me!

"Yes, you were." He stopped me from continuing. "Just say it."

I tried to steady my breathing and I felt his thumb move tenderly across the nape of my neck and into my hair line. it was as if he planned to coax the words out of me. "Please don't... hurt me." I finally answered settling for the word 'hurt' over 'kill'. My eyes darted away from him and he pulled at my scalp until we were making eye contact again.

"You think I want to hurt you?" he laughed and again my brain screamed:

~SADIST~

"I- just- you were so angry." I attempted to hold eye-contact and then remembered I was still allowed to blink.

"Don't worry." he pulled his hand out of my hair and my shoulders dropped with relief. "I'm not going to hurt you." he said taking his hand that was in my hair and placing it on the wall behind my head. He leaned his weight into that hand and brought his face closer to mine. I attempted to lean away but only bonked my head on the wall.

When he laughed at my misery this time I got a good view of his teeth. And I realized that I was one of the few people in the world who had seen him laugh like this.

I assumed all others who had seen him laugh like this were probably dead already.

Did Luca even have any friends? As far as I knew the only person he ever spent any time with out of his own volition was his younger brother who was a freshman.

~And apparently the ping pong team~

Although he didn't really seem to be 'friends' with any of them.

"I just want to remind you." Luca's words brought me out of my ridiculous thoughts. "That we aren't friends."

"What?" I spoke from pure surprise.

~Why would I ever think you were my friend?~

"Outside of our club" he continued, "You don't know me and I don't know you. Got it?"

I nodded my head frantically.

~So it's all to protect his stupid ping pong club.~

"If you do anything." His voice dropped an octave and my mouth instantly went dry. "To jeopardize my club; and yes, that includes staring at me too much in class; then I will make you regret the day you chose to come to this school. Got it?"

~Already kind of regretting it.~

"Yes." I choked out.

"Good." he stood and his face went back to the resting-bitch-face everyone knew and loved. "I'll leave first." he checked a watch that hung on his wrist that was all-too-expensive for a college student. "You can leave in about thirty minutes."

"Thirty minutes?"

"You don't want people seeing us coming out of the same closet, do you?" he patted my shoulder before I could respond and left.