Page 26 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
She had to go back. She needed to go back.
There wasn’t another word for it. Her body knew the direction like a tide knew the pull of the moon.
She moved to throw on clothes, already half-planning the path she’d take, how early the sun would fall, whether the air would shift again. She’d find him. Today. Now.
That’s when she spotted her phone on the counter, the screen blinking with three missed texts and one voicemail.
From Lauren.
I’m almost on my way!!
Omg are you ghosting me??
Driving now—be there in 2 hours! You better be there!!
Nora blinked at the screen.
“Shit.”
Two hours.
Her stomach dropped, her adrenaline surging. She was in no shape to host anyone. She didn’t even feel human. She felt like a lightning rod in bare feet, too aware of every sound, every grain of grit against her skin.
She hadn’t showered in… she wasn’t sure how long. The air still smelled like sweat and something ancient and hungry. Shestripped her clothes off as she crossed the room, muttering to herself like it would help.
“The one day I get spiritually ravaged by a sand cryptid and it’s also guest day? Cool. Great.”
She scrubbed herself in the shower like she could erase the dream, but the ache between her legs pulsed with every movement. The water didn’t help. Her thighs still trembled. Her skin still glowed faintly, like something beneath it wanted out, and she didn’t even bother pretending it was the lighting.
By the time she got dressed, the kitchen looked like a crime scene. A coffee crime scene. Grounds on the counter, a mug overflowing in the sink, toast half-burned and abandoned.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, coffee sloshing in her mug.
She kept glancing at the window like she expected to see him there. Watching. Waiting.
Was this what being haunted felt like? Or was it more like being claimed?
A low hum rolled through her bones, an echo of a dream that hadn’t entirely let go.
“A couple days,” she muttered. “You can pretend you’re normal for a couple days.”
She tried to believe it.
She sprang into motion, still half-dream-drunk, grabbing the laundry basket and hauling the sheets from her bed like they’d personally betrayed her. The handprint was mostly gone, but she could still feel the ghost of it on her thigh.
She tossed the tangled sheets in the washer, started it with a slam, then rushed to the guest pullout couch. It still smelled faintly of whatever desert funk accumulated in unused corners of a house like this. She yanked open the windows, letting in a blast of sun-heated air and grit, hoping it would clear the house of… whatever this was. Whatever she was becoming.
She stripped the old bedding, flipped the cushions, flung a fresh set of clean sheets across the frame. The fitted one snapped off a corner and she swore, tried again, then caught herself staring out the window, mid-action, eyes glazed, body still humming with leftover need. She wasn’t thinking about Lauren. Or the couch. Or the fact that she probably hadn’t vacuumed since she’d gotten there.
She was thinking about heat. His breath. The pressure of his fingers. The ache was still there, coiled low and tight. Her thighs pressed together involuntarily.
“Focus,” she muttered, shaking herself. “Pull it together, Vale. Your friend’s about to walk into a literal sex fog.”
She grabbed the Febreze and sprayed the air like it might exorcise the scent of desire. It didn’t help.
Neither did the fact that the desert felt closer now. Watching. Waiting.
She caught her reflection in the dark windowpane, her hair wild, cheeks flushed, lips bitten red.
