Nocticadia: A Dark Academia Gothic Romance

From the cart, I lifted two physics texts and placed them on the shelf where they belonged. A glance at my watch showed only five more minutes before my shift ended, and I couldn’t stand it any longer. My stomach twisted with the uncertainty of whether, or not, he’d even show.

Once the clock struck, I alerted Kelvin, as I normally did, and grabbed my bag, stopping in the restroom along the way to make sure I didn’t have any food from dinner lodged in my teeth. I removed my underwear, feeling much more confident about that since the night I’d shown up for class without them, and stuffed them into my bag before hustling to the rotunda room.

The ceiling of the circular structure was a glass dome that loomed over the marble floor two stories below it. An upper level of rooms rounded its perimeter, enclosed by a bannister. Through a skinny door, I climbed a narrow staircase to the second floor, and peered into the rooms in search of Devryck. Shelves of books lined the walls of each separate room, and though there were desks with lamps for studying, the entire floor was often completely empty. I walked through the tall archways, finding Bramwell with his back to me, in a darkened corner of a small study area, hidden behind a wall of books. A small nook beside a window that overlooked the courtyard.

I closed the door to the room, and with a twist of a lock, we were completely alone.

“All the years I’ve been at this school, I’ve never been up here,” he said, not yet having turned to look at me.

“I’ve only come up here a few times. This is where all the historical texts for Dracadia are kept.” I sauntered up beside him, looking out at where campus life buzzed. “It’s so beautiful.”

“You showed.” His tone carried a bitter snip of anger.

“So did you.”

“I didn’t have a choice. You’re all I’ve thought about since this afternoon.” Quick hands yanked my arm, and my spine hit the wall behind me, knocking my bag to the floor beside us. His lips crashed into mine, fevered and impatient. Tongues and teeth. Frantic.

He lifted my sweater vest over my head, revealing a white button-down beneath, and tossed it aside. His breaths hastened, and his throaty groan vibrated against my lips. After a moment of fumbling with my shirt buttons, he gave one hard yank, jerking my body and tearing it open. Buttons flew off, clattering to the floor. “I’ll buy you another,” he said against my lips. Cool air hit my breast as he peeled back the lace bra.

Across the room hung an elaborate gold mirror that filled one of the square wooden panels of the wall. In the reflection, I saw the two of us together–me, a disheveled mess with my breast hanging out and a look of euphoria painted in my expression, and him in his black shirt and slacks, a dark specter, whispering dirty words in my ear.

“Have you thought about that night? When I tongued and sucked on that little clit of yours?” He rolled my nipple between his fingers, and my lids grew heavy as an intoxicating need pulled at my belly.

“Yes.”

“Do you touch yourself thinking about it?” When I didn’t answer immediately, lost to his ministrations, he pinched both nipples, inciting a small shock of pain. “Tell me.”

Mouth bone dry, I nodded.

Rough palms slid up both my arms as he guided them over my head and manacled my wrists with his hands above me. “I’ve been starving for you ever since.” Hungry lips hunted my throat, while his free hand palmed my exposed breast. He paused his kissing just long enough to suck one of my nipples into his mouth, the teasing little tug between his teeth coaxing a moan past my lips. Still holding me captive with one hand, his other palm slid up the hem of my skirt, and he froze.

I smiled and bit my lip at his discovery. “I figured it was more convenient without them.”

“Fuck me.” The moment his finger made contact with my sensitive flesh, I arched into him, leaking a quiet whimper, careful to keep any sound that would echo through the rotunda. “If you ever show up to class like this, I’ll take you aside and spank your bare ass.”

“Is that a threat, or a promise?”

Groaning, he gave a slap to my ass, as if to prove his point. The pain smarted my cheek, and I jerked against him with a quiet grunt. He returned to his soft caresses over the needy bit of flesh that ached and throbbed for his fingertips.

Another glance at the mirror, and I took in the slackened jaw and drunken lust on my face as he teased me. How utterly intoxicated the man made me.

As though catching on to what had captured my attention, he turned toward the mirror.

“You like to watch?”

Licking my lips, I nodded.

Two fingers pushed up into me on a wet glide, and I felt him shudder around me. “Look how beautifully your body surrenders to me when my fingers are inside you.”

I let out a shaky breath, as he hiked my leg up to his hip. Cheek pressed to mine, he forced my head to stay watching, as he bunched my skirt to my hip, my cocked leg offering a clear view of my bare flesh. “You’re pink and perfect now, but you’ll be a red and swollen mess by the time I’m finished with you.” His words rooted themselves in my head while I clenched around his fingers.

I dug crescent moons into his biceps, and fought to keep upright, as my knees weakened.

Bottom lip caught between my teeth, I rested my crown against the wall as he pumped in and out of me, curling his finger inside of me with each thrust. Wet sounds echoed around me, inside my head, filling my brain with lewd visuals of the two of us. Faster, he pumped while rubbing his thumb over the electric ball of nerves that had me choking on a moan. Eyes clamped, I focused on the pull of his fingers and the wet squelch of fluids that leaked out of me, dripping down my thighs.

“Do you hear that, Lilia? How your greedy little pussy weeps for me. Look at the mess you’ve made on my fingers.”

I turned toward the mirror, in which he held my skirt up, giving a clear view of his skin that glistened with my slick arousal. “You make me this way,” I whispered.

A deep, sneering sound of amusement sent a shiver beneath my skin. “You don’t want to know what you do to me, Little Moth.” He stirred his fingers, so deep inside of me, I pushed up onto my toes, releasing a whimper as his thumb pressed against my sensitive clit. Teeth grazed my jaw. “This is what I see at night when I’m drenched in sweat, stroking my cock to thoughts of you.” A kiss behind my ear. “You make me come so hard I can’t fucking breathe after.”

His dirty words wrapped around my head like dancing devils, pulling at the strings. Tight. So tight that every cell in my body shook, as I ground myself into his fingers, desperate and hot and needy.

“That’s it. Come for me.”

The deep, burgeoning ache he’d summoned escaped me on a tearless sob, as my muscles relented and an overwhelming pleasure bulleted through my veins. I tipped my head back, mouth gaping around a scream that he captured behind his palm. On a blinding explosion, I succumbed to bursts of ecstasy winding through my muscles in fevered pulses. My knees buckled, but he held me up as he circled his fingers, drawing out the last drops of my orgasm.

“Good girl,” he whispered, his palm still pressed to my mouth. He guided my face toward the mirror again, where my heavy-lidded eyes and weak posture made me look drunk. A kiss behind my ear, and he slowly withdrew his fingers that glistened with my release. “I’m going to fuck you delirious.”

In the mirror’s reflection, I watched him shove his fingers into his mouth, and a rough sound of satisfaction rumbled in my ear as he rested his head in the crook of my neck. He breathed against me for a moment, his fist in my hair, body trembling like he was fighting for control. “You taste like innocence, Lilia. A good man would walk away from you right now.”

“Are you a good man?”

Instead of answering me, he lifted me into his arms and carried me to one of the study desks, where he laid me onto my back. After planting my heels on the desktop, my legs fully open for him, he stared down at me with the same reverent gleam in his eyes as the night in his office.

I’d never done something sexual in a public place, where people scurried back and forth only one floor below. My belly tightened at the thrill spiraling through me. Although the door was locked, I fantasized someone walking in and seeing us, me spread before him like a sacrifice.

His tongue swept across his lips, and he bent forward. One long lick up my tender seam, and I arched, mouth gaping for a scream I couldn’t cut loose.

He moaned and grunted as he sucked on my clit, but I wanted more. Not so much the physical, but emotional connection. To have him inside of me and on top of me, and feeling me as much as I felt him.

“Devryck,” I whispered. “I need more. Please.”

Sighing, he shook his head. “I can’t do that, Lilia. Especially if you’ve not had much experience.”

A flare of embarrassment warmed my cheeks. “I told you, I’m not a virgin, or anything. My first just … wasn’t anything spectacular. It stung. I bled. And it probably only lasted about a minute and a half. We did it a few times, and he ghosted me after.”

“He ghosted you?”

“I caught him screwing another girl behind the theater.”

At that, he stilled, before breathing hard and rubbing a hand down his face. As if contemplating. Overthinking. Battling himself.

“Whether you’re a virgin, or not—the fact is, I’m not a gentle lover. I don’t want to hurt you.” His heated gaze trailed down my body and back, and a pained expression flashed across his face. “But just looking at you stirs my compulsions. This rapacious need to take what I want.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat, unsure about my next words. All I knew was, I didn’t want him to stop. In spite of his warning, I still wanted it. Him. I was desperate to sate this curiosity burning inside of me. This cliff dive into unknown waters. “Then take what you want.”

Brows furrowed, he stared down at me. “You’re certain of this.”

“Yes. I’m certain.”

Lowering his gaze, he rolled his shoulders back, seeming to mull it over. Undoubtedly calculating risk and consequences, as his analytical mind would.

A hard thunk beside me was the heel of his palm hitting the desktop, and on a growl of frustration, he straightened himself, the clink of his belt a small victory. He unfastened his pants, and it was then I realized this was really happening. I was about to fuck my professor.

He pushed down his pants and sprung that monstrous cock free.

I swallowed a gulp as I stared at it, standing tall and erect, heavy and ready to plow into me. Physics told me he’d never get that thing inside of me without some serious damage. The way he casually held it in his palm like a lethal weapon, taunting me with it, left me both desperate and terrified to know what it would feel like moving inside of me.

“I can assure you, this isn’t going to last a minute and a half. I’m not some adolescent boy who comes the moment his dick gets wet. I’m a man who fucks hard and thoroughly enjoys the torment of delayed gratification. You’re going to be sore. And I really fucking hope you want this, Lilia, because you’re going to hate me when it’s over.”

“Why? Are you going to ghost me, too?”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to stay away from you after this. But let me be very clear,” he gritted through clenched teeth as his hand gripped my throat. “I don’t share. If anyone else so much as looks at this pussy, I’ll take pleasure in dissecting him, starting with his eyeballs.”

It seemed the jealousy of Spencer’s uninvited kiss hadn’t entirely faded just yet, and like before, his psychotic comments shouldn’t have sent a flutter to my stomach. The possession in his tone should’ve had me running in the opposite direction. But I’d known bad guys my whole life. The skeevy, slimy types who took from girls and ultimately didn’t give a damn about them. I knew boys who hurt girls for their own selfish pleasure. Who cast them aside afterward, as if they were useless, used-up rags.

Devryck was a different breed altogether. As he’d said—a man, not a boy. The kind who broke the rules in fucking his student, but was courteous about it–giving pleasure before taking. Bad, though? I supposed that was yet to be determined, but I was willing to take the risk. I was willing to lay my pride down just to feel the kind of passion I’d only ever read about in books. I wanted his rough hands and teeth, and to feel his sweat against my skin.

When I reached for him, he gently batted my arm away and stood stroking himself in front of me, drawing his hand up and down his cock in a way that had my thighs trembling in anticipation. “Show me what I shouldn’t want. Make it hurt.”

Swallowing hard, I slid my fingers over the throbbing ache between my thighs. Eyes on his, I plunged two fingers inside of me and watched the veins in his neck pulse to the surface.

Still pumping his stiff cock, he licked his lips with a ravenous glint in his eyes. “What do you think about at night, when your fingers are knuckle deep inside this pussy? Tell me what you want.”

A voracious need curled inside my belly like hot coils. “I want …”

“Your thighs are trembling. Say it.”

“I want your cock.”

“That’s exactly why you wore this skirt, isn’t it? Why you tease your professor to the point of madness. You need to be fucked, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

From his pants pocket, he tore a condom out of a package, and I watched with fascination as he smoothed it down the length of his swollen and hungry cock. It was when he lined himself at my entrance that he paused and lowered his head. The conflict clear in the tensing of his muscles.

“Do it. Please.” I wanted him so badly, it physically hurt.

“Goddamn it, Lilia. Goddamn you.” He notched himself inside, and a mewling whimper escaped me. He trapped the sounds behind his big palm, and I breathed hard through my nose. “Shhh. Take it a little at a time.”

Hands balled into fists at my sides, I nodded.

“I’m gonna go slow. I promise I won’t push all the way until you’re nice and stretched.”

I panted through my nose as he kept his hand held over my mouth. Little thrusts at a time, he tunneled himself deeper. Deeper. My muscles keening with his rigid intrusion.

“Goddamn, you’re so tight,” he said on a ragged breath. “Take a little more.” Inch by inch, he filled and stretched me, the pressure inside of me swelling, reluctantly welcoming him, until at last, on a painful sting, he was fully seated.

Hands balled to tight fists at my sides, I continued to breathe hard through my nose as I took in the dizzying fullness of his cock inside me. My body had tensed so much, I felt light-headed by the time my muscles eased up. God, don’t pass out.

Bent over me, he stilled, resting his head against my shoulder, his muscles rigid and vibrating with what I imagined to be pent-up energy and frustration ready to tear through me. “Are you okay?”

At my whispered, “Yes”, he lifted his head and drew his hips back, then drove forward again.

“I needed this,” he rasped, his jaw tense and flexing, as he ground his hips into me so deeply, it stole my breath. “I can’t tell you how badly I needed to fuck you, Lilia.”

A tortured sound ripped from my throat, captured by his palm, and he rocked in and out of me again with rough and powerful strokes. Plundering, as he’d promised, but each glide arrived smoother. I clawed at his arms, holding onto him, and something inside of me shifted.

I took in the feel of his body against me, the vigor in his tight muscles, the way his skin moved across mine, rousing a humming in my nerves. The quiet stuttering breaths. The frantic digging of fingers and trembling of arms and legs. He was everywhere. Across my skin and inside of me, winding himself into my bones and muscle. Moving like the violent waves of the ocean, that deep, vacillating sea, which pulled me like the tides.

A force of terrifying strength.

I tilted my head back toward the window beside us, through which the stars twinkled with constancy in a world that felt like it was spinning out of control. Time liquefied between us, rippling in slow currents that bent and swayed with our sweat-slickened bodies. I was slipping, falling, tumbling into feelings that I’d never felt with anyone.

The tightness in my chest promised implacable pain, but I didn’t care. I wanted this. Needed it. Even at the risk that he’d cast me aside too.

And I hated myself for that. Hated that I was so hungry for passion, starving for the need to feel so much at once, that I could even fathom letting him slice me open that way like one of his dead corpses, somehow brought back to life by his skilled hands.

It was too much and not enough.

The commotion of everything I felt right then sprang forth a mist of tears. What were these strange, foreign feelings taking hold of me?

“Lilia,” he whispered, the hand that had quieted me stroked the top of my head, and I lowered my gaze to find his eyes brimming with concern. “Am I hurting you?”

“No. I didn’t … I feel … so much.” A tearful chuckle slipped out as I tried to reel in my emotions. “I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to do with it all.”

“Sex should always make you feel something. Just let go.”

A tear slid down my temple, and I gave a nod.

He thumbed away the moisture and resumed his thrusts, holding my head in place. “Keep your eyes on me, Lilia.”

More tears spilled across my temples, as I watched him staring down at me–our gazes locked, our bodies tightly woven together. Could it have been more perfect? Could I have known another soul so intimately as in that moment, with the two of us wound so tightly together? Entombed by rapture and the shame of knowing we’d breached the forbidden boundary and there was no going back.

The sound of voices and approaching footsteps brought him to a halt. The doorknob rattled, and I slapped a hand to my mouth, not daring so much as a breath.

He hoisted me up into his arms and carried me to the shadows of the room, pressing my back into the wall there.

“I thought you said no one comes up here,” he whispered.

“I’ve never seen anyone up here,” I whispered back.

The intruding voices grew louder, telling me they were just on the other side of the wall now.

Devryck slid his hand over my mouth, holding me propped against the wooden surface that pressed into my spine, his tip prodding my soaked entrance.

“There’s an entire collection on Dracadian history up here,” one of the voices said. “I could spend hours reading through these books.”

“Ugh. You’re such a nerd.” Another voice chuckled. “What are you looking for, anyway?”

As the two prattled on, I could feel Devryck’s cock impaling me, pulsing with impatience. He rested his forehead against my shoulder, shaky, warm breath scattering over my skin.

Slowly, I slipped lower. Lower. Until his cock slid back up inside of me, and when I arched, his grip over my mouth grew tighter.

“Shhhh,” he whispered, giving small thrusts in and out of, me, his eyes aflame with a burning voracity that refused to be smothered. A feverish craving simmered in my veins, as I dug my nails into his muscled shoulders.

While the two strangers on the other side of the wall spoke of history and their class schedules, and other benign conversation, he fucked me.

I turned just enough to see the two of us in the mirror.

The indent in the cheek of his ass every time he drove forward. The tension in his muscles and neck, and power in his thighs with every controlled thrust and sinuous roll of his hips.

The raw beauty of our reckless fucking reflected back at me like a dark image I wanted to frame inside my mind.

My breaths turned to a sharp staccato, as my muscles wound tight, taking in the swell of his cock filling me.

His teeth clenched, jaw wired and straining. Sweat gleamed over his body while his muscles flexed around me. Destroying me from the inside out.

As the footsteps finally retreated, he let out a shaky breath and slammed into me harder. Faster. Thumping against the wall marked the fervor in his body.

The tension rippled inside of me. Twisted and curled, as I rode the edge of something wonderful. A deep, cramping ache bloomed in my taut muscles, and I arched into him, surrendering to this rapturous destruction. He groaned and grunted while holding me tighter, rutting against me like a feral beast. Faster and faster.

“Fuck. Fuck!” Jaw cocked open, he squeezed his eyes shut and let out a shuddering breath of relief. Long cords in his neck pulsed with each unsteady jerk of his hips. His body shook so hard, I thought he’d drop me. A look of pain and ecstasy claimed his face as he stared up at me, filling me with his release.

I stroked a hand down his damp hair, watching the euphoria wash over him, the focus and intensity as he succumbed to his climax. The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

Something shifted, electrifying the space between us. Shadows of a young and naive girl slipped from every sharp breath that quivered out of me. I was different now. Changed to something I didn’t recognize–something far more vulnerable. Exposed. I wondered if he could see it in my eyes, the pathetic infatuation that had to be glowing there. Still drunk off what we’d done, I turned away, but felt the grip of my face as he guided me back to him and pressed his lips to mine. My body slid down the wall, as he lowered me to the floor.

“You are sublime,” he whispered against my lips and slipped off the spent condom.

I watched in rapt fascination as he tied off the end of it, eyes wide at the amount of fluid captured inside.

“Jesus. That looks like enough cum to impregnate a village.”

With a smirk, he tossed the condom into a small trash can. “Let’s hope the forensics team isn’t the one who empties the trash.”

I smiled at that. “Housekeeping arrives at about ten. Maybe we should tie up the bag. Spare them the visual.”

“I will. When I’m finished with you.”

Reaching out for my arm, he took both of us to the floor, drew me into him, and holding me between his legs, my back to his chest, he wrapped his arms around me. “Tell me you’re okay. Tell me I didn’t hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

“You’re not sore, at all?”

An ache pulsed between my thighs, raw and stinging, as if he’d torn me. “I didn’t say that. I just said you didn’t hurt me.”

On a relieved sigh, he buried his face in the back of my neck. “I won’t fuck you again tonight. But I will fuck you again.” Perhaps it was mindless on his part, when he slid his hand down between my thighs and palmed my pussy. Not probing or caressing, just holding it there with the heel of his hand resting against my pubic bone. It felt wildly possessive yet somehow sexy at the same time. Something of a balm to the lingering sting of his intrusion. He breathed into the back of my neck and kissed the shell of my ear. “I’ve never felt something so intense before. Every moment with you is something new for me.”

“This is all new for me, too.”

Together, we breathed in the darkening corner, our quiet little oasis, and I drank in the aftermath of what we’d done.

“What is it you wanted to show me?”

It almost seemed too morbid for the mood right then, but I reached for my bag, anyway, yanking my phone from inside. A quick scroll through the pictures landed me on the one I’d taken of the skull with the black stone teeth. “I’m curious about this.”

He shifted around me, taking the phone from my hand, and held it up to his face. “Unless my Dracadian history is off, this looks like the skull of a young Cu’unotchke child.”

“The natives who inhabited the island centuries ago?”

“Yes. You see these black stones here?” He reached around me, pointing at them on the screen. “They sharpened them for teeth. Early dental care.”

“Were they cannibals?”

“Some believed they were. They were said to have silver, glowing eyes and beastly fangs.”

“Noctisoma?”

“I suspect so.”

Pieces pulled together, forming a picture that left me questioning the link between the stone and Noctisoma. “Do you think the stones served another purpose, though?”

“Like what?”

“Briceson told me that they isolated a new chemical from black stones called casteyon. They found it in the gizzards of seagulls and ravens. Earlier, the assistant professor told us that some birds tend not to become infected with Noctisoma.”

He handed the phone back and pulled me against him, as before. “It’s an interesting theory. Perhaps one you might consider pursuing while you’re here.”

“But not you? What if it’s a cure for Noctisoma?”

He kissed my temple. “I’m not looking to cure Noctisoma. The organism has so much potential as an antineoplastic, antimetabolite, antioxidant. And of course, autoimmune therapies.”

“Yes, of course. But for those who don’t want to be infected with the worm itself, it might prove effective.”

“It might. And I encourage you to establish a hypothesis. Perhaps something you might consider for a thesis someday. I can direct you to some resources, if you’d like.”

Thesis someday? It sounded like an unkept promise that a parent would make. Why did that have such a condescending ring to it? “Yes. I would like, as a matter of fact.” I didn’t mean to have such a snippy edge to my words, but my mother had passed away from infection. Had someone investigated even the smallest possibility of an antitoxin, I’d have surely been willing to administer it to her.

His arms tightened around me. “You’re angry.”

“I’m not angry. I’m just … frustrated.”

“I don’t blame you, but my condition doesn’t afford me much time to venture off into other avenues, as noble as they might be.”

I sighed, reminded of the cause behind his research. “I know. Perhaps I can study gastroliths and black stones, and you can study the toxin, and we’ll compare our studies every night in bed.”

“After sex, I assume?”

I tenderly ran my nails over his arm. “Of course. No one wants to talk about worms during sex. That’s gross.”

“It is. And besides, I have a one-track mind, the moment your panties come off.” He slid his hand down my thigh, giving a slight squeeze.

“Someday, maybe we can have a proper date.”

“You’re inquiring about activities beyond sex?”

“It’d be nice to eat an actual meal and maybe take a romantic stroll after.”

“I’ve eaten quite heartily whenever we’re together.” His teeth grazed the shell of my ear, and I tipped my head, smiling at the tickling of my skin. “But if it’s a date you’d like, I’ll see what I can do.”

“See what you can do?” Tonguing my back teeth, I kicked my head to the side. “That sounds like a copout, if I’ve ever heard one. If you’re not careful, Professor Bramwell, the freshman in my exposition class might beat you to it,” I teased.

“Freshman,” he grumbled. “I doubt his balls have even dropped yet.”

Chuckling, I twisted around, resting my legs over top of his. “Are you jealous?”

The dark smile on his face sobered to something serious, and he pushed a stray hair behind my ear. “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.” Palm to my jaw, he kissed me hard and bit my lip to emphasize his point.

As we lay hidden in our quiet, little nook, he explored my body with his hands and lips and tongue, until I was spent and boneless. Just before ten, we gathered up our clothes and exited the rotunda separately, so as to avoid any suspicion. He walked me to the bus stop, and I returned to my dorm with a smile on my face.