Page 32 of Real

“No. Thank you. You have no idea how badly I want you.” He bites down hard on the skin just above the crook of my neck. The pain is so sweet, I take in a sharp breath.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t keep biting you,” he whispers.

“Why?”

He sucks at the skin, his tongue worrying over the bite mark. “If I don’t stop, I’m going to leave bite marks all over your beautiful skin.”

“Please,” I beg. “Mark me.”

He walks across the room with me in his arms, his fingers digging into my ass possessively. “You’d let me bite you wherever I wanted?”

“Yes.”

“Anywhere? Even here?” He runs a finger along the seam of my ass. “Would you let me taste you, baby?”

“Oh yes.”

I lick at his neck, even though I know I can’t bite him too. It’s one thing for him to claim me. No one else wants me. But he wouldn’t let me claim him back.

He arches his neck into my mouth. Does that mean he likes it? I kiss him and suck gently at his skin.

We’re suddenly in a bedroom. He must have been walking faster than I realized.

“If you ever wanted to… bite me, you could,” Timothy says. “If you were interested in that.”

I sink my teeth into his skin.

“Oh, Buddy. God, yes.” He releases me onto the bed, covering me with the comforting weight of his body.

I bite him again. He grinds the heat of his cock against my hip. He’s hard. For me.

“Do you like that?” I ask nervously. Maybe I’m being a little too much. I don’t want to mess this up.

“Yes.” He starts unbuttoning my shirt. He’s fast, and I can’t stop him before he pushes my shirt open, and my chest is exposed. His eyes scan over the marks from Dorian’s ring and the outline of the knife that’s still stuck in my chest. My skin has mostly closed over it now, but the ridge of it is still visible along my sternum.

I yank my shirt closed. “I’m sorry.”

Timothy’s mouth is open, the desire gone from his eyes. Instead, there’s only pity there. “Buddy, did Dorian—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

I wish I could go back and ask him to leave my clothes on. He was kissing me, claiming me. We were going to make love.

Now it’s all ruined.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Timothy says, grabbing my hand before I climb off the bed. “I was just a little surprised, okay?”

“If I keep my shirt on, can we keep going?” I ask hopefully.

He shakes his head and my heart sinks. Of course. I’m damaged. I’m nothing. I was a fool to think someone like Timothy would want me.

He places a hand on my chest, to the side of the knife and pushes down. I relax against his hand, lowering myself onto my back. I’m not sure what he wants. He unfastens the two bottom buttons of the shirt and spreads it open. This time I’m even more exposed. He can see the gray indents of the bullets stuck in my right abdomen and the cigarette burns under my belly button. He runs his fingers along my skin, not with desire but with something else. Curiosity? Maybe I’m nothing but a freak to him now like I was to the police officers that put me on a shelf in the evidence room.

“Can you heal?” he asks.

That was one of the first questions the policemen asked me. I wasn’t sure how to answer because I honestly don’t know.

The knife gouges and bullet holes from the first few weeks after my burrowing season with Dorian all went away within minutes. At the time, I hated myself so much for failing him, I wished his efforts to kill me would work.

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