Moth to a Flame

1. CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Landon

“Find what you love and let it kill you.”

Charles Bukowski said that. I’m just the hateful asshole who repeats it.

Since I was twenty-one, these words have been playing in my head like a sick mantra. Over and over.

Fourteen years now.

Fourteen years that I’ve known this one. Simple. Truth.

The things you love will end up killing you.

Or worse.

You’ll be the one who ends up killing them.

Abstinence it is. That’s the best solution for a man like me.

I’ve gone and done better than that. I fill my life with things that piss me right the fuck off. All in the name of suffocating this love muscle.

Because it is a muscle.

The more you hate everything and everyone, the less you’re after the comforts life has to offer. The less you obsess over them.

The less dangerous you become.

My gaze lands on the window in front of me. The sound of the ocean reminds me it’s there, despite the dark of the night hiding the water lapping at the shore.

Hate the ocean. I truly do. Hence why I walk on the beach often. Wet my feet and despise the sand clinging to my toes and how the saltwater ruins the hem of my jeans.

But the darkness isn’t all I see out there.

My reflection stares back at me.

At six-foot-five, I’m taller than most people. My black eyes are as dark as the night outside. The color is unnatural.

Almost as unnatural as the color of my platinum-blond hair that I was born with.

The thick straight strands reach my shoulders and I hate it.

Sure, I could’ve cut it short, avoiding the unnecessary glares.

No.

It’s an agony to look in the mirror every day, knowing I’m a spitting image of my dead father.

I need it to be a burden. To be insufferable.

Like this place I call a home is. This mansion that means nothing to me. If I had it my way, I’d live in a loft downtown. Nothing fancy. Concrete floors and an industrial-looking apartment. I’d like that.

I won’t have that. Ever.

I have this. This estate with the white and gold marble floors. The fancy spiral staircase. I sleep in a giant room overlooking the ocean. There’s a chandelier in the dining room, for fuck’s sake.

Last but not least, what antagonizes me the most is my business. Moth to a Flame. I’ve made a fuckton of money off it. Money I don’t need from millions of subscribers from all over the world. Money that makes me feel like a rich bastard. Definitely not someone I’d want to hang out with.

But the money isn’t the worst of it.

Moth to a Flame is a constant reminder of how alone I am.

Running a dating and hookup service for kinksters when I don’t allow myself any of it…

Fucking torture.

Moreover, when my company does everything in its power so that our subscribers find their match.

Looking for pain? We’ll get you your spanker. Golden showers? Plenty of our users will gladly be at your service. Age play, role play, pet play—they’re all welcome on Moth to a Flame.

There’s beauty in that. Acceptance. Homecoming, if you will.

How easy it is for them.

How it’ll never happen to me.

I won’t have love. Or an active sex life. I just won’t.

I witnessed firsthand what love does to my family.

Doom. Bloodshed. Inevitable death.

No one else should be hurt because my gene pool is more like a cesspool.

Because obsession is a mild description of what consumed my mother until she couldn’t take it anymore. Until the day she lost it altogether and put a bullet through my father’s head and then through hers.

She reached her limit fourteen years ago.

I’ve been doing my fucking best to avoid relationships ever since.

Fourteen years of convincing myself I don’t need a woman in my life. Of resenting our subscribers for dating, fucking or falling in love. Got a few emails inviting me and my two VPs to their wedding—life’s clever way to laugh at my face.

It’s laughing harder now, I’m sure. Mocking me as it—whatever diving entity is out there—watches me lose what little sense of self-control I’ve had for years. As I give in to my obsession, as I stalk her .

This isn’t the first time I’ve done it, either.

This is the fourteenth time in fourteen days that I have taken a seat behind the desk in my den.

I can’t help it. I Fire up my laptop and hack into hers with my dick hard in my jeans.

I stalk her.

Regan Everglow.

One of our subscribers whose profile I stumbled upon two weeks ago.

Sometimes, I browse through our subscribers’ profiles, checking to see if anyone stands out. Anyone who could be a threat and abuse this, my , community. No one fucks with what’s mine.

It’s a clinical process. A necessary one.

Then her profile popped up. A new subscriber. A woman looking for a man to roleplay a consensual non-consent scene with. But it wasn’t her kink that made me forget the vow I’d made to myself.

Her face. Her gorgeous fucking face.

Round cheeks, thick, black lashes. A shy smile and those large brown eyes that stared into my soul.

We could be good together , her innocent picture whispered to me. You could be rough. You could be dirty. Belt me, cut me, pretend to rape me. I’ll take it. Everything would be okay if you just came for me. Come get me, Landon. Come for me.

I hate myself for falling for it. I loathe myself for being unable to stop it.

A minute.

That’s how long I manage to keep my cock in my jeans when her image comes up on the screen. Like every other night over the past two weeks, I take myself out and fuck my hand while watching her.

Doing it is a far cry from abstinence. Squeezing myself harder, having precum leak from the tip, that’s not it, either.

Groaning and biting my bottom lip, I make myself bleed and imagine it’s her I’m sinking my teeth into.

God, fuck, it feels good. In fact, nothing about sitting in my leather armchair and fixing my eyes on my laptop feels bad, wrong, or disastrous. I’m not going to reach in and strangle her just so that I could be the only man in her life.

I’m indulging myself. Because of her.

I’m so fucked.

We both are.

“You have no right. You have no right to be this beautiful. This gorgeous and innocent and perfect and not mine.”

Except she is mine. In the darkness of the night, I can admit it to myself.

Tomorrow, she won’t be.

Until then, there’s only one man in her world. Me.

My balls tighten as I watch her in her small living room in Brooklyn. The reminder that I dug into her personal information and found out where she lives sends another shot of electricity up my spine and, fuck, I’m close.

Fuck, she’s so na?ve. Waiting for me there, sitting there on her dark blue loveseat, flipping pages in a book with her feet propped up. The woman crawls under my skin, poisons my blood.

Makes me want to spank her until she cries. Until she calls me her only one.

I am her only one.

“Look at you, Miss Everglow,” I whisper, my voice hoarse with lust.

Her dark brown hair rolls in waves down her back, her brown eyes mesmerized by the horror book she’s reading. The Necro and His Girl .

Like I give a fuck about the book. I care about her thick thighs and how I want my arms around her soft stomach while I hug her at night. While I sink into her as she sleeps and fuck her from behind.

“You’re safe. So safe, little lamb.” My hand squeezes tighter as I rub myself from root to tip. The friction hurts. Hurts so fucking good. “I’m not there to ruin you. Not there to bend you over that loveseat, shove your leggings down your legs, tear your panties in half. The things I’d do to you.”

She shifts, her pouty lips parting at what she reads.

“My fingers will be buried in your hips.” My chest heaves with every breath. My cock thickens, and I’m so close. “You’ll scream when I’ll go all the way in. One push and I’ll be deep inside your cunt, my legs pinned to your thighs. I’ll tilt your ass up for me, hold you in place, and rut into you. I’ll watch my cock going in and out of your pussy, watch you soak me.”

In the safety of her home, she flips through another page in the book. Her fingers are delicate, her nails painted black.

Just like mine. If this isn’t fate, I don’t know what is.

“Then I’ll reach my arm around you, slide my hand down your navel. I’ll worship every patch of your skin. Beat you with my cock while my fingers delve into that spot…” My grunt echoes in the empty den. “I’ll force five orgasms out of you. Five before I come deep inside that pussy. Before I mark you. Before I…”

Can’t say it. Won’t say it.

I do.

“Before I fuck babies into you.”

The idea of saying that to her pushes me over the edge. I never thought about having children. Don’t want to hurt them, which I inevitably will.

The words, though. The motherfucking words of owning her so completely.

White spurts of cum jut out of the tip of my cock and make a mess of my hand, of my abdomen.

I should be in her apartment, making a mess of her instead.

“No, you shouldn’t,” I tell myself.

One last glance over Regan, and I cut the feed. Wiping myself with the tissue I pluck from its box on the heavy wood coffee table, I curse myself for giving in to my obsession.

“You don’t want her anywhere near you. You know why?”

What kind of question is that? Of course you fucking know . My dead father’s voice thunders in my head. Why are you doing this to yourself? To her?

Haven’t heard from him in a while. Fourteen years, to be exact.

Fourteen years that I’ve kept my shit together.

Now that I’ve snapped, I don’t think I can go back to the way I was. I need her. Have to have her.

She shouldn’t be mine, but she is.

What the fuck is this? You calling her yours? Fantasizing about breeding her? You want to end up like your mother, is that it? You want Regan to end up like me?

“Shut up.” I wave my hand in front of my face, tuck myself in, zip up, and throw my black sweater on. Unable to stay seated, I start pacing the marble floors, convincing myself of the lie I’ve been chanting for the last two weeks. “I’m not her. I won’t kill Regan. I’m obsessed, not irrational.”

The chill of the end of the summer creeps into the house. Closed windows and brick walls don’t fully protect me from the elements. There’s a heating system, sure. It works, too. I’ll be comfortable if I switch it on.

I might grow attached to this place.

You are her son, after all.

“I’m yours too, fucker. Or do you have any doubts?”

Never.

He’s got that right. Axton Sterling knew as much as I do now that his wife, Abigail, would never cheat on him. She loved him too much.

That was the root of the problem, wasn’t it?

Her love.

Her obsession.

Ping, ping, ping.

The notification thrusts me back into my reality.

This isn’t just any other notification. I assigned this specific sound to alert me when someone messages her .

The second man I allowed to contact her. I messed with our interface two weeks ago, keeping her profile private.

Last week, I set her up with Clayton Sims. He looked at her profile for an hour according to my data, then blocked her. He must’ve jerked off to her before he ghosted her.

Jerked off to my Regan.

Not like they could’ve ever been together.

He ticked off the masochist box. She ticked off the rape fantasy and consent non-consent ones. They didn’t stand a chance.

But he did think she was good enough to jerk off to. Motherfucker.

Never mind.

Anyway, yesterday, I set her up with a new match. Another man she could never want.

I let Marshall Fuller find her.

His looks aren’t the issue. With his full brown hair, green eyes, and at five-four, he’s not ugly or handsome. He’s plain.

His kink?

He’s into reading the Ten Commandments to a woman before he gets to the sex part.

Which is also fine.

For another woman who isn’t Regan.

Stalling instead of taking her right then and there won’t do it for her. I can already tell.

Caught. Held down. Taken so-called against her will. That’s what she’s after.

It’s everything that Marshall isn’t.

What I’m doing is sick, to rig the system. Stopping Regan from unsubscribing and trying her luck on another website while keeping her from finding her true match.

I do it regardless. She’ll have no choice but to run right into my arms when we finally meet.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

You’re starting to sound just like her.

I’m spiraling. I’m aware. Still won’t kill Regan, Dad, so don’t even start.

Marshall, on the other hand, I might kill him.

Depends on how he treats her.

In two seconds flat, I’m back in the armchair, my fingers tapping furiously on the keyboard.

Leave Marshall out of this. He’s innocent.

“Fuck no.” I shut the old man up once and for good.

I’m not losing my mind.

I’m not.

I push my hair behind my ears as I monitor his and Regan’s chat window, growling as they get the formal introduction part out of the way.

WhipYou1984: Twenty-five. Great age. And Regan. That’s a beautiful name.

ReganE: Umm. Thanks. My dad named me that, after, you know…

She’s trying to reel him in. Pique his curiosity.

She’s definitely piqued mine.

WhipYou1984: No, I don’t. It doesn’t matter, either. What matters is you’re gorgeous. And fall is just around the corner, finally. I hate summer. Bug bites are a bitch. Hate scratching myself to death when I hike. LOL. Don’t you hate summer?

The vein in my temple throbs. My teeth grind.

Doesn’t matter? Doesn’t matter?

Everything about her matters.

Sweet fucking Regan with the name that means something.

I’d draw it out of her. Would play Twenty Questions if she told me to.

For now, I wait. This is the part where she tells him she’s not interested.

ReganE: Not a fan of summer myself, I guess.

My heart is a raging drum.

She answered? To that?

She likes him?

I’m not mad at her. I’m mad at the situation. At him, for sitting at home, looking at my girl, and talking to her about the motherfucking weather.

Years of abstinence, of living a life I don’t like in the slightest. They go down the drain. Nothing could’ve prepared me for this. For the sharp pain in my chest.

For the flare of jealousy.

My vision blurs around the edges. I make a sound I don’t recognize in the back of my throat. My entire body vibrates with it. With this rage.

Understanding comes next. A clear realization of what I have to do now.

Yes, I forced him on her. Yes, it’s my fault they’re talking.

Doesn’t change the fact that he’s looking. At. Her.

His filthy green eyes are staring at what’s mine.

I go to the kitchen, grabbing the sharpest knife I own before heading to the foyer. On the short walk there, I pull up Marshall’s personal info into my phone.

His address comes up on my screen. I’ll be there soon enough. Manhattan is a little over an hour away, and this late at night, the traffic is light.

Boots. Keys. Leather gloves. A black wool hat to hide my hair that stands out.

The door shuts behind me.

My black Porsche—a despicable, overly flashy mode of transportation—roars, and I’m outside my gated home.

Marshall will pay for talking to my Regan.

With his life.