Page 1 of A Moth to the Flame (Utopia #1)

Chapter

One

CORDELIA

“Yes! Yes! Oh, God! Yes!”

Spoiler alert—I did not make a sound just now, much less shriek a single word in ecstasy.

I blink at the pages of the book clutched between my hands, where the black print blurs against the white background. Kind of hard to see anything clearly through my tears.

The unmistakable sounds of heavy sex penetrate my little bubble of private grief.

Am I…hallucinating?

My shoulders curl forward. Either the day is finally catching up to me or this is something else. Something far more horrifying.

I haven’t picked up a book in years. What if auditory delusions are the consequences of falling off the wagon?

“Please! Harder!” a distinctly feminine voice begs.

I glance at the page again.

Okay, harder is a word in front of my eyes. There’s begging and panting, sure. Please isn’t printed a single time .

A garbled, unprintable string of nonsensical moaning reverberates in my ears.

This is wild. And I’ve read some pretty wild stuff, everything from ruthless white-collar billionaires to blue aliens with pronged schlongs—my addiction ran deep and wide.

I flinch when something slams against the wall behind me.

A second slam reorients me. I sniffle and force my eyes to focus.

The rickety bathroom stall that cradles me has a solid two-inch gap surrounding the door.

The paint might have been royal blue once upon a time, but a veritable rainbow of shades makes up various layers that are scratched more than they’re smooth.

Kind of similar to looking at a cross-section of a mountain that was dug out to make a roadway.

Sharpie marker wisdom covers every available surface of the flimsy walls like a wholly different kind of choose-your-own-adventure story.

One particularly large offering snags my attention. I narrow my eyes.

For a good time, call Duke.

An actual phone number is printed neatly beneath the advice.

Below that:

Can confirm. He fucks like a man possessed.

That’s a weird endorsement, but the truth has always been stranger than fiction around here. The idea that anyone would willingly sleep with that cretin is beyond my comprehension. At least the five-star reviews pull me out of my head enough to make sense of my current reality.

The longest, loudest moan that I’ve ever heard isn’t a hallucination. It’s not even my grief-riddled guilt eating me alive. The sounds that have dwindled to murmurs are coming from the men’s bathroom that’s right next to the ladies’ room that I’m hiding out in.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

I’m okay. I’m normal.

Well. As normal as I can be anyway.

As desperate as I was to stop feeling the phantom pull of fresh cemetery mud beneath my feet, this little escape is suddenly the last place I want to be.

I stuff the book into my purse, abandon the stall, and bypass pretending to wash my hands at the dingy sinks.

There aren’t any paper towels to dry off with anyway.

I’m not about to add wet skin to my escalating distress.

As I grasp the handle of the door, a sense of damp coldness sweeps over me like I’ve soaked myself through my clothes, despite not touching a drop of water.

When I emerge into the back hallway of the bar, the noise of a packed house settles around my shoulders. The cacophony should be a relief after what I overheard.

It’s not.

Worse yet, a large figure trips out of the doorway beside me.

It’s even dimmer here than in the restrooms, so I brace myself against the intimidation of his hulking presence. So much for another moment to pull myself together. The man staggers toward the wall opposite the restroom doors, bracing his hand against it like it’s the only thing holding him up.

My shoulders relax a fraction, because he’s clearly not a threat to anyone. He audibly pants like he might be sick. Either that, or he’s flustered to have caught an eyeful of what I only overheard happening in the men’s room.

I’m tempted to ask if he’s okay. I don’t. Instead, I watch him from the shadows.

The man blows out a long, slow breath that makes me think maybe I won’t need to rush back into the ladies’ room to find something to help him clean up. After he releases the wall, he rolls his shoulders, then slowly turns toward the chaos in the main room of the bar.

It’s shameful, but my breath catches at the sight of his profile.

I’ve never seen a man this beautiful before.

Tall, dark, and handsome doesn’t begin to describe his masculine magnificence.

For once, I’m grateful to go unnoticed. I’m probably drooling all over myself.

My heartbeat matches the rhythm of his ticking jaw.

Every ounce of man hunk-induced override evaporates with a single word from his perfectly proportioned lips.

“Gingersnap.” His deep voice rasps over the syllables with the finesse of a razorblade.

I feel each slice all the way to my brittle bones.

No. Hell, no .

How dare he?

How. Fucking. Dare. He?

“Don’t call me that,” I seethe.

My name is Cordelia, damn it. The few people who feel the need to shorten those four syllables call me Delia. I have no idea why three syllables are so much more manageable on their tongues. Even his putrid nickname for me is a mouthful.

I’m not a cookie. Anything but a ginger. My hair is decidedly not pale. More a flame.

“Why?” he asks smoothly. As if he hasn’t noticed that he’s gotten a reaction out of me after all these years.

“Because I hate it,” I sputter.

He glances my way. His gaze travels up and down my body with all the intensity of a physical caress. More like a bitch-slap, but there’s no need to split hairs here. “That’s why I do it.”

I don’t know what he sees when he looks at me, but all I feel is loathing when I stare back at him. I’m vibrating with the force of my rage. I hate, hate, hate that he has so much power over my emotions after all this time.

I step toward my mortal enemy, until we’re toe to toe. I have to tilt my chin up to maintain eye contact, but I’d rather strain my neck than give him another single inch to mow me down.

“Fuck. You. Duke,” I hiss.

I refuse to break for Duke Castellaw when he’s not willing to bend for me.

He smirks. “I always knew you thought I was a smokeshow that you wanted to fuck.”

“Of course, you’re a smokeshow,” I retort, ignoring his implication that I’ve ever remotely thought of fucking his sorry ass.

I wouldn’t touch his pinky toe with a ten-foot pole, even if it was only to brush anti-fungal paste on him to prevent him from losing his entire foot.

“Makes sense for a demon who crawled out of the depths of hell.”

He throws back his head and laughs so hard that his prominent Adam’s apple bobs with the force of the noise.

Just as quickly, he reverses course and lowers his mouth until his breath brushes against my too-hot ear.

“You forget that I know you, Gingersnap . It’s probably your favorite fantasy to fuck a demon. ”

He doesn’t know me, not anymore. Just like—in appearance, at least—I barely recognize the man he’s become.

I’m deeply ashamed to have been attracted to him in that blurry window of time before he opened his mouth and revealed his true identity.

Gangly limbs and floppy, scraggly hair have been replaced by stacks of muscles and shoulder-length locks.

He looks like some kind of warrior straight out of a fantasy novel.

His coloring remains the same. Nearly black hair, nearly black eyes, tanned skin.

The close-cropped beard is new, but even that’s the same black as his soul.

He fits the image of a demon to a T—all dark, masculine power befitting a personality of utter cruelty.

Did I think I was vibrating before? That was a lie. Every molecule of my being zings with crackling energy that I focus back on him in a mirror of revulsion.

“Is that why you’re still obsessed with me, Duke? Am I your favorite fantasy?”

More like his favorite punching bag.

He leans into my personal space, threatening to suck me into the black hole at the center of his chest. Without warning, he traces a path along the shell of my ear with the warm, wet tip of his tongue.

A full-body shudder of unmistakable arousal rolls through me. Not my fault. I haven’t been touched in so long. Too long.

His gravelly whisper breaks my infuriating physical response. “You’re so good at lying to yourself. Maybe I could learn something from you after all.”

That’s it.

I snap.

My palm stings with the force of a long overdue slap to his face.

A furious heartbeat later, the men’s room door swings open. Duke and I leap apart.

“Duke,” a drop-dead gorgeous woman greets him with a smile.

She’s a blonde bombshell, my opposite in nearly every way. Where I’m short and curvy, she’s tall and lithe. My eyes are a striking, almost peculiar shade of green, but hers are a warm brown like maple syrup. The only thing we have in common is messy hair. Her golden tresses are mussed.

That little giveaway is what makes me realize that it was her and Duke going at it in the men’s room.

She must’ve spent all this time in there trying to make herself look like she wasn’t enjoying Satan’s favorite minion in a bar bathroom.

My gaze flits to each of their ring fingers as if my brain is on autopilot. Neither of them wears a wedding band.

Not that their relationship status is any of my business. Or concern.

Our town is so small that it’s not even on a map, but I have no idea who this woman is.

Then again, this bar is packed tonight.

She steps forward and presses her still swollen lips to the side of his face where I slapped him. Her words against his cheek are whisper soft. “I’m sorry it wasn’t good for you. Thank you for making sure that it was for me.”

My eyebrows climb into my hairline.

Duke dips his chin once in acknowledgement but says nothing.

I might be in the depths of my own personal hell, but I’m not about to shame a complete stranger. I wait until she’s out of earshot to spit, “Really? You were fucking her in there?”

I don’t care if he was generous. He’s a disgusting pig.

He leans against the wall, crosses his arms, and shrugs. The asshole doesn’t so much as whisper an apology or an excuse.

My heart stutters. My lower eyelid twitches. “Duke, for Pete’s sake, this is my granny’s wake!”

I hate the way my voice breaks. Not because my grief isn’t justified, but because he doesn’t deserve to bear witness to it.

He opens and closes his mouth a few times. His gaze darts around wildly. His calm, cool demeanor shatters into barely controlled chaos so fast that it makes me feel feral.

I spin around and stalk out into the bar before I give in to the urge to finish him off in a totally different way.

Or before he can finally ruin what’s left of me.