Lily

"Lily, did you submit the assignment?"

I looked up from the book I was reading.

It was James. He had a flustered look on him as he waited for me to respond.

"Yes, why?" I ask.

He rubs his head sheepishly. "Can I see? I haven't done mine yet because I don't understand the content."

"Sure."  I open my backpack and take out the assignment. I hand it to him, but he doesn't take it. Instead, he takes the sit beside me.

We were in the library. I was sitting at a huge study table. Many seats were available, so I don't know why he took the one closest to me. James and I aren't friends. We don't say anything to each other apart from the occasional hello. I don't mind him interrupting my reading or asking to see my assignment. No. What I minded was the look in his eyes. It was creeping me out.

He takes the paper from my outstretched hand.

"Thanks, Lily."

I nod in reply.

He gives the paper a once over. "Damn, Lily, you're so smart."

I smile.

"How did you write this? Did you, like, look it up online or something?"

I shake my head. "No, but I did do some research to understand it better. I suggest you do the same."

He leans forward. "Can you explain this paragraph?"

I look at the paragraph he was pointing at. I move forward to get a better look at it.

"Oh yeah, that one. It talks about the-"

"You're so pretty," he whispers, interrupting me. "How did I never notice how pretty you are?"

His eyes grew hooded as he talked.

I hadn't realized we were so close to each other. Our heads were touching.

Immediately I move back and put some space between us.

I clear my throat. "Um, thanks."

"Pretty and smart."

I squirm in my seat.

"Thanks," I say again.

He continues to stare at me.

He raises his hand towards my face, but I move back in time before he makes contact.

"James! What are you doing?" I rise from my seat in alarm.  What the heck just happened?

"Sorry." He puts his hand up in surrender.

My voice must have been loud because we earned several stares our way.

"Is there a problem here?"

My heart skips a bit. No, it skips more than a bit. It skips as if it wants to fly out of my chest.

My mind is filled with flashbacks. Me, sprawled in bed. Me, crying out. Him, quieting me. Him, assuring me and apologizes.

I still don't know why he apologized for putting me on cloud nine. Last night that was exactly where he took me, cloud nine.

My professor took me to cloud nine and apologized for it.

He told me he wasn't a normal man and his wants weren't normal. I thought he was joking. I thought he was scaring me away from him. So I giggled. Oh, my giggle soon turned into sobs. Not sobs of pain, no, the opposite.

"No, sir."

James's high squeaky voice snaps me out of my head.

In his usual immaculate attire with the top two buttons of his shirt undone, long black hair in disarray, and piercing stormy eyes.

How is my breath still hitching at the sight of him? Shouldn't I be used to his magnificentness by now?

"That didn't look like nothing," he says, his voice low, deadly, menacing.

Poor James.

I wouldn't want to face the wrath of the angel of death at any time.

Right now, Mr. Williams is the angel of death with his killer look and stone-cold glare.

"We were just working on an assignment. Right, Lily?"

James turns to me.

I could save him. I could also choose not to.

I choose the former.

Taking a shaky breath, I say to my dark professor, "Yes."

At the sound of my voice, he takes his gaze from James to me.

His eyes darken to a shade I know all too well. Was he having flashbacks as well?

"You sure?" he rumbles.

The sound gives me another set of flashbacks.

"That feels good, baby?"

He tugs my coarse strands around in a fist and pulls my head up so I can look at him.

"Tell me."

He tugs again. Unable to resist, I meet his stare.

"Yes."

"You sure? Because I feel like I'm in heaven. You're heaven. But I don't want to hurt you. So you gotta tell me, okay?"

My voice was lost as he moved against me. So I answer with a breathless groan.

"You sure?"

I moan in response. He matches my answer with another move, this time slower, harder.

I come back to the present because I must look zoned out.

"Yes, we were working on an assignment," I say.

He gives me a look that says he knows I'm lying. But he doesn't say anything about it further.

He turns to James. "For interrupting the silence in the library, you're to write a five-page essay on the value of silence. Either that or I mark you down for all the times you missed an assignment. And believe me. You have missed plenty of them."

My eyes widen, and so does James's.

"B-but-" he splutters.

Caspar raises a hand and stops him.

"Go."

James scurries away.

I'm left alone with him. Not entirely alone, seeing that we were in a room full of people. But it might as well be just us because I was trapped. Trapped under his spell, and nothing else matters.

"Lily."

The way he says my name. It was never ordinary. He said my name like I held all the answers to the world's problems. Like I was the solution to it all.

To rile him up, I say, "Sir."

As predicted, he growls lowly.

I blink innocently. "Sir?"

In one lunge, he grabs my hand and pulls me forward.

I gasp and push him away.

"Caspar! We are in the library! In school!"

"I know exactly where we are," he says, his voice raised, earning the attention of several passersby.

"Did you think you were going to get away? James had his punishment. It's only fair if you have yours too."

"Punishment?"

"For the noise, you made earlier. You're coming with me. I have several books I want you to read and make a report on," he says sternly.

His expression was unamusing.

I was confused.

I didn't understand until I looked around and saw that we had an audience.

Was he acting? So people wouldn't question why he had held my hand? Also, it wouldn't look right for me to go unscathed while James took the brunt of it all.

So I school my face and say in a timid voice, "Okay, Mr. Williams."

"Come with me."

He doesn't wait for me to reply. He takes long strides out of the library.

I hurry behind him.

Once we got to his office, he looked around before pushing me inside.

The resounding click of the lock turning echoes in the silent room.

He faces me.

"Lily."

"Caspar."

"Fuck, baby, come here." He wraps a hand around my small waist and pulls me tight against him.

"You're killing me," he groans.

I wrap my arms around him—the muscle of his strong back moves against my hands.

"Seeing you with him. It killed me. I saw him almost touch you. It took everything in me not to break his punny hands, so they never go anywhere near you. How dare he touch you? How dare he touch my baby, huh?"

"He didn't touch me. I didn't let him."

He raises my chin. I meet his stormy, rainy eyes.

"Yeah, you didn't because you know that no one touches you but me, don't you?"

His words. I never tire of them. His jealousy, his possessiveness. I will never tire of them.

"Yes, no one," I whisper.

"Good. Because you're my Lily, my baby, my antidote."

I giggle. "Your antidote?"

He nods, licking his lips. The action made my toes curl.

"Yes, my antidote. Which I need you to give to me right now. I need to cure the poison in my heart. I need to cure it because I don't want to lose control as I almost did earlier. So please give me a dose."

He rubs my lips with his thumb, pulling the bottom one so it juts out.

His eyes droop. "Please?"

He begs.

He pleads.

For me?

I give him what he wants. I bring my face forward and smash my lips against his.

Oh, I give him what he wants. I feed him and feed him and feed him.

I feed him the antidote exactly as he asked.

I come up for air. He doesn't let me take more than a few breaths.

What is air anyway? What is oxygen?

What are they when we have him?

So my brain shuts down. It didn't need anything else. It only needed his lips. His tongue. His teeth. His taste.

It only needed him and all that he would give to us.