Page 4 of Lustling

I glance sideways.

They’re still watching.

All of them. Frozen in place. Smiling wider now. Mouths parted in reverence or hunger—I can’t tell which. Their eyes gleam, wide and wet and far too still.

Shawn thrusts deeper. I gag slightly, tears prickling at the corners of my eyes. But I don’t stop. I moan around him, pleasure and humiliation tangling in the pit of my stomach like smoke. His fingers tighten in my hair.

Then he shoves me back.

I hit the floor with a gasp.

He grabs me, spins me, bends me over the desk with a force that’s practiced. Brutal. My hands scramble for purchase against the smooth wood as he drives into me from behind. Hard. Fast. Unforgiving.

I moan, the sound torn from my throat. It’s too much. It’s not enough.

The world fractures.

There is no classroom. No Mr. Conrad. No students.

Only this. Only him.

Only the desperate, mounting pleasure that coils deep inside me—hot and filthy and overwhelming.

I’m close. So close.

And then?—

Something shifts. A shadow moves.

It doesn’t creep or glide. Itarrives. Like it’s always been there, just outside the frame of my vision. Now stepping into view.

I can’t see his face. But I feel him. Vast. Towering.

Wrong.

His presence swallows the room, swallows Shawn, swallows me. Every light dims. Every sound fades. All that’s left is breathless silence and the weight ofhim.

A voice—low and cruel and ancient—slides across my skin like oil.

“I’m coming for my prize.”

I scream. And bolt upright.

The dream shatters around me like glass.

My dorm room is dark and still. My chest heaves, each breath a ragged gasp. Sweat clings to my skin, my sheets tangled around my legs. The silence buzzes in my ears like static. My dorm mate’s bed is empty.

I press my hand to my chest, trying to steady the frantic beat of my heart.

He was there. Not Shawn.Him.

The faceless one. The voice. The presence.

Always at the edges of pleasure. Always waiting until I lose myself. And then… hetakes.

Only this time?—

Something’s different.