Page 3 of Lustling

They will burn the world to find her.

ONE

"Miss Temple, can you come up here, please?"

The words strike like a whip, dragging me back into my body.

I blink hard, breath catching in my throat as the classroom comes back into focus. I’ve been drifting again, lulled into that strange, empty space where the world feels muffled and far away. Mr. Conrad’s voice had long since dissolved into background static, his lecture on economic hierarchies forgotten. I’d been thinking of something else. Someone else. Or maybe nothing at all. Just floating.

Now every eye in the room is on me.

Shit.

I push back from my desk, forcing my legs to move. My skirt brushes against my thighs as I stand, my hands smoothing it on instinct, even as a wave of nerves rolls through me. I try to keep my face neutral. Unbothered. Just another walk to the front of the room.

Shawn leans casually against the edge of Mr. Conrad’s desk, arms crossed, lips curled in a smirk that never fails to send heat rushing through me. He’s a study in contradictions—dark hair in disarray, cheekbones sharp enough to cut, but eyes warm andslow like honey in sunlight. He always looks at me like he knows something I don’t. Like I’m a secret he’s already unwrapped, layer by layer.

My breath catches.

And then the world tilts.

I’m naked.

Not metaphorically. Not in some dreamlike, abstract sense. I look down and see skin. Bare breasts. The soft curve of my stomach. Thighs exposed. Nothing between me and the gaze of the room.

My pulse skips, then hammers wildly. Panic rises in my throat, sharp and cold, but I can’t seem to move. My arms come up automatically, a futile attempt to shield myself from view, but it’s too late. I’m already seen.

I look up—expecting laughter, gasps, maybe screams.

But there’s nothing.

Blankness.

No one reacts. Not a single shift of expression. My classmates stare with dull, glazed eyes, faces smoothed into that eerie stillness that feels more like death than politeness. As if I’m not real. As if I’m part of the floor or the furniture. Something less than them.

Then one of them smiles.

A slow, almost mechanical tug of the lips.

Another follows. Then another. Until the whole room is grinning at me with that same grotesque calm. Like they’re watching a play they’ve already seen a dozen times. Like they know the ending.

My heart pounds. I can’t breathe.

Shame should burn me alive. But instead—something colder blooms. Something familiar in a way I don’t want to admit. Like I’ve been here before. Like I’ve stood in this place, stripped and watched, and told myself it was normal.

Shawn steps closer.

He tilts my chin with two fingers, his touch warm and possessive, grounding me even as everything feels like it’s unraveling.

“On your knees,” he says, low and easy.

I obey.

I don’t think. I don’t question. I just drop.

The tile bites into my knees, but it’s distant. My focus narrows to the way he unbuttons his jeans, the way he pulls his cock free—hard, waiting, thick with need. My mouth waters at the sight of him. I want to please him. I want to be used.

I take him into my mouth, letting him fill me, deeper and deeper until my nose is pressed against the heat of his skin. His groan curls through me like silk. One hand slides to my hair, not rough but firm, holding me there. Possessing me.