Page 57 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
He hadn’t said her name. He hadn’t promised anything.
But the words he did say had landed like a curse.
I can’t lose another.
She swallowed hard.
There had been another. Of course there had.
Some desert love story gone wrong. A first bloom who didn’t survive.
And now, she was on the same path. Glowing and aching and trying not to fall apart.
She pressed her thighs together and winced.
Her body was still betraying her. Still pulsing. Still ready.
Ready for what, though?
More rejection?
More almosts?
She curled onto her side and pulled a throw blanket around her shoulders.
She didn’t cry.
But she didn’t sleep either.
Because even with her eyes closed, she could still feel him.
And she wasn’t sure if that meant he was nearby, or if he’d left something inside her that wasn’t going to leave.
CHAPTER 14
THE HOUSE HAD that same eerie stillness it always did after he left her aching.
Nora lay on her back on the sofa, staring at the water stain on the ceiling, arms limp, shirt twisted under her ribs. She hadn’t moved in what felt like hours.
It didn’t help.
The hum inside her was growing louder.
She sat up abruptly and rubbed her hands over her face, like she could scrub off the night.
She tried to think like an academic. Or a scientist. Or a woman clinging to the edges of reason.
Symptoms:
-restlessness
-auditory hallucinations
-tactile sensitivity
-temperature dysregulation
-intrusive erotic flashbacks of a desert cryptid licking the sweat from her neck
