Ethan's POV
My little star thinks I'm using her for academics.
The thought followed me all the way out of the library and into the cold evening air.
I slid into the back seat of the car waiting for me near campus. The driver closed the door quietly and began moving toward the city.
Outside, the university buildings slowly faded behind tinted glass.
Inside my head, however, one person refused to leave.
Meera Narayanan.
I leaned back and closed my eyes for a moment.
"You're using me."
Her voice replayed clearly in my mind.
The suspicion in her eyes.
The stubborn tilt of her chin.
The way she had folded her arms like a tiny warrior ready to fight someone twice her size.
A quiet laugh escaped me.
Using her?
"Oh please, honey."
If she only knew.
I could probably teach her the entire engineering discipline in a single afternoon if I wanted to.
Computer science included.
Algorithms.
Architecture.
Networks.
Security.
Mathematics.
Every subject she was studying was something I had mastered years ago.
Gold medalist.
Top of my class.
Seven degrees.
Ninety Two companies already under my management.
Academics were never my weakness.
No.
The reason I was sitting in that classroom had nothing to do with grades.
It had everything to do with her.
And the fact that she had absolutely no idea what she had done to me.
The car stopped outside the tall glass tower of the Moretti headquarters.
I stepped out, adjusting my jacket slightly.
Night had fallen across the city, but the building still glowed with lights on nearly every floor.
My company never slept.
Security guards nodded respectfully as I entered.
Employees moved quickly through the lobby.
Phones ringing.
Keyboards clicking.
Deals being negotiated across continents.
This was the world I belonged to.
Control.
Power.
Precision.
No chaos.
No confusion.
Except the chaos sitting inside my head right now.
Her face appeared again.
The way her brown skin had glowed softly under the library lights.
The faint scent of her hair when she leaned across the table to show me an equation.
The delicate movement of her fingers when she rolled the idiyappam with coconut milk.
My jaw tightened.
And then there was the moment that still irritated me.
She had refused to feed me.
A small smile formed slowly.
"Oh little star…"
One day she would feed me with those same hands.
Not because I asked.
Because she would want to.
Because I would make her want to.
Let alone food, she will feeed herself to me and I will make sure she would never stop afterwards.
Man, the day when that comes , I will suck her soul out of pleasure .
I stepped into the elevator.
The doors closed.
And the mirror reflected a man who looked calm on the outside.
But inside?
Something far darker was growing.
Something dangerous.
An obsession.
My office occupied the entire top floor.
The assistant stood up immediately when I entered.
"Sir, the media team is waiting."
"Good."
I walked into the conference room where several members of the public relations department sat with laptops open.
They all stood up.
"Sit."
They did.
One of them began carefully.
"Sir, you asked us to review all public materials containing your identity."
"Yes."
"Articles, interviews, press photos…"
"Yes."
"Is there a reason?"
I leaned back in the chair.
"Remove them."
They blinked.
"Remove… everything?"
"Everything with my face."
"Everything with my name connected to visual records."
"Archive it."
"But remove it from public access."
The room fell silent.
One of them spoke carefully.
"Sir… that would mean removing years of business coverage."
"Yes."
"And magazine interviews."
"Yes."
"And the financial summit videos."
"Yes."
Finally someone asked,
"Why?"
I smiled slightly.
"Privacy."
They didn't believe that.
But no one questioned me further.
Within minutes they were working.
Deleting photographs.
Pulling interviews offline.
Scrubbing my presence from the internet piece by piece.
If someone searched my name tomorrow, they would find almost nothing.
Exactly how I wanted it.
Because if my little star ever became curious enough to search me—
I wanted her to find nothing.
No clues.
No answers.
Just mystery.
Later that night, I returned to the family estate.
The dining room lights were still on.
Which meant my father was awake.
And probably waiting.
As soon as I entered, Alessandro Moretti looked up from his chair.
Across from him sat Sofia Moretti.
My sister Isabella Moretti lounged sideways in her chair.
And my younger brother Luca Moretti was scrolling through his phone.
Family meeting.
Interesting.
My father spoke first.
"You've been going to college."
Not a question.
A statement.
I sat down.
"Yes."
Luca burst out laughing immediately.
"I knew it."
Isabella grinned.
"You enrolled as a student."
"Yes."
My father leaned forward.
"You are a gold medalist."
"Yes."
"You graduated top of your class."
"Yes."
"So explain to me…"
His voice remained calm.
"Why you returned as a student instead of taking a professor position."
That would have been easy.
Universities loved hiring successful alumni.
I could have walked into any lecture hall as faculty.
More authority.
More control.
But I shook my head slightly.
"Professors leave after lectures."
"And students stay all day."
My mother's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Stay… with who?"
I didn't answer immediately.
My father asked calmly,
"How old is the girl?"
Straight to the point.
Of course.
"Eighteen."
Isabella leaned forward.
"Eighteen?"
"She turns nineteen next week."
My mother watched me carefully.
"What is her name?"
I smiled faintly.
"Not yet."
My father studied me for a long moment.
"You are serious about her."
"Yes."
"And she knows who you are?"
"No."
"Good."
He leaned back.
"Keep it that way."
My mother spoke softly.
"She is innocent then."
"Yes."
"Then be careful."
I nodded slowly.
Because careful was exactly what I needed to be.
I didn't go home. Not immediately.
Instead, I sat in my chair—my real chair, the one behind the desk that no one else was allowed to touch—and I let myself think about her. Really think about her. Not the careful, controlled thoughts I allowed myself during the day, when I had to be patient, had to be strategic, had to pretend that I was just another student with just another crush.
No. Now, in the privacy of my own space, with the doors locked and the city glittering far below, I let myself have her.
I closed my eyes and I saw her. Not as she was in the library—defensive, scared, running. But as she would be. As she would be.
I saw her on her knees before me, that ridiculous sweater replaced by something silk and dark, something that slipped off her shoulders even easier than the stretched-out collar. I saw her looking up at me with those dark eyes, and in this vision there was no fear. No confusion. Just want. Just need. Just the desperate, aching hunger that mirrored my own.
I saw her lips part. Saw her tongue dart out to wet them. Saw her reach for me, her small hands trembling as they fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer, closer, closer.
I saw her throat. That pale, perfect throat with its delicate pulse beating just beneath the skin. I saw my mouth there, felt the warmth of her, tasted the salt and the sweetness and the life that sang in her veins.
My hand moved without conscious thought, sliding down, palming myself through my trousers. I was already hard—had been hard since the moment she'd looked at me in the library with those fierce, accusing eyes—and the pressure of my own touch sent a jolt of pleasure through me that made me gasp.
I thought of her hands on me instead of mine. Those small hands, so soft, so warm. I thought of them sliding under my shirt, over my chest, down my stomach. I thought of them wrapped around me, hesitant at first, then gaining confidence as I guided her, taught her, showed her exactly what I wanted.
I thought of her mouth.
God, her mouth.
The sounds I made in that empty office were not human sounds. They were the sounds of something ancient and hungry, something that had waited too long and wanted too much. My hand moved faster, rougher, and in my mind she was beneath me, around me, taking me in a way that had nothing to do with blood and everything to do with possession.
I would have her. All of her. Every inch, every moment, every breath.
I would taste her fear and her desire and her surrender, and they would all be the same thing in the end—they would all be mine.
The climax hit me like a wave, like a fall, like the moment you realize you're drowning and you don't even want to be saved. I came with her name on my lips, with her face behind my eyes, with the echo of her voice—using me, using me, using me—ringing in my ears.
For a long moment I just sat there, breathing hard, my head thrown back, my body still trembling with the force of it.
Then I cleaned myself up, straightened my clothes, and became Ethan Blackwood again. The student. The helper. The harmless boy who sat with her in the library and explained algorithms until her pretty head spun.
But underneath that mask, underneath that careful control, the truth burned on.
In seven days, she would be nineteen.
In seven days, I would give her a birthday she'd never forget.
And after that—after that, my little star would learn exactly what happened to girls who thought they could refuse me. Who thought they could run. Who thought they could lie in their beds at night and pretend that the touch they felt in the darkness was just a dream.
It was never just a dream, Meera.
It was always me.
And soon—so soon now—it would be so much more.
I drove home through the empty city, the streets slick with a light rain that had begun to fall. Our family's estate sat on the outskirts, hidden behind walls and gates and security that would have made a small country jealous. I parked in the garage, walked through the silent house, and climbed the stairs to my room.
But I didn't go in.
Instead, I stopped at the window at the end of the hall—the one that faced east, towards the city, towards the university, towards her.
She would be asleep now. I knew her schedule, knew that she was always in bed by eleven on weeknights, knew that she'd be curled on her side with her hair spread across the pillow and her lips just slightly parted. I knew that her roommate was at her boyfriend's again, which meant she was alone. Which meant—
No.
I stopped myself. Not tonight. Tonight I'd pushed enough. Touched her enough. Shown her enough.
Tonight I would wait.
But as I stood there, staring towards the distant glow of the campus lights, I let myself feel it. All of it. The obsession that burned in my chest like a second heart. The hunger that gnawed at me constantly, endlessly, growing stronger with every day that passed. The love—yes, love, if that was the word for this consuming need—that had taken root in me and would not be denied.
She thought I was using her for academic help.
Oh, honey.
If only you knew.
I turned away from the window and walked to my room, but even as I lay down in the darkness, even as I closed my eyes, I wasn't alone.
She was there. In my mind. In my blood. In every cell of this ancient, immortal body that had waited centuries to find her.
Sleep came eventually, but it was thin and restless, filled with dreams of dark eyes and soft skin and the taste of her fear like honey on my tongue.
And somewhere across the city, in a little dorm room with a silly sweater thrown over a chair, my little star slept on, unaware that her birthday was coming.
Unaware that I was coming for her.
And that this time, I wouldn't be stopping.