Nocticadia

by Keri Lake

“What separates monsters from good men is only a matter of perspective. In your eyes, I’m a sick fuck for what I’ve done to you. But I, on the other hand, see you as a parasite.”

My class. My requirements. My student.

My house. My chair. My woman.

Without a doubt, Lilia Vespertine was going to be a massive headache. But she was my headache.

“Stay out of trouble, Curious Moth,” he said, as he strode for the door. Curious Moth. A nickname. A fitting one, too, given the fact that I had no intentions of avoiding the flame.

“That is the tragedy of women, isn’t it? We deny ourselves beauty for the sake of misleading men.”

“The wealthy possess an insatiable appetite for the rare and priceless. They stare because you’re the only thing worth staring at.”

“My, you are a wicked little moth.”

The girl was a problem. An incredibly beautiful, but annoying, problem. That she could stand there, making bold demands, while staring me straight in the eye had me wishing I could either throttle, or kiss, her. I couldn’t tell which compelled me more than the other.

Calling her beautiful was like calling the sun lukewarm. She’d blazed like the hottest part of a flame in that dress. And fuck me, I’d felt the heat.

“And so the moth befriended the flame.” “Huh,” I said, falling into step after him. “I didn’t think the flame was capable of being friendly.” “You assume I’m the danger to you.” Smiling, I lifted my bag up onto my shoulder. “Well, I suppose you would’ve locked me in that cell, if that were true.” “I suppose I still can. But it’d be a shame to cage a specimen so …” “Intriguing?”

“You’re a sickness inside of me that begs never to be cured. Infecting me with this unshakable craving for things I shouldn’t want.”

“And because I’m a selfish prick who has to live with the fact that I cannot have you to myself, I’m going to ruin you so that any boy who comes after me will leave you deeply unsatisfied, and you’ll be left fucking your own fingers, desperate to remember the time you had your professor’s face between your legs.”

She was the warmth of the sun on a cold and rotting corpse. The first breath after a lifetime of death.

“Jealousy is a callow schoolboy’s emotion that ends in hard feelings and bloody noses. What I feel for you, Miss Vespertine, would destroy lives.”

The freedom and security, and our heated bodies entwined together like two flames. Soulmates.