Page 78 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
It wasn’t the sun-through-window or too-many-blankets heat.
It was the heat of him, still in her.
He was gone, and she’d known it before she opened her eyes. But he was still in her. Skin, lungs, tongue. Like something sacred she couldn’t spit out.
She shifted, and the movement pulled a dull ache from between her thighs, something heavy and tender that made her breath catch.
Fuck.
Had that really happened?
She opened her eyes.
The ceiling hadn’t changed.
The house hadn’t burned down.
She was alone.
But her body hadn’t forgotten.
Her hand drifted down hesitantly to the curve of her neck, and there it was: the mark. Faint, pink, the shape of teeth still visible in a crescent.
Not a dream. Not this time.
She sat up fast, pushing her hair out of her face. Her throat was dry. Her skin was sticky. Her head buzzed with a dozen half-formed questions she didn’t want to ask.
Was she in heat now? Was that what this was?
She laughed once, sharp and stupid and low, and dragged herself out of bed like a woman trying not to acknowledge the crime scene she’d just woken in.
The mirror above the dresser caught her.
She looked wild.
Hair tangled, lips swollen, eyes glassy like she’d seen God and told him to fuck her.
She padded barefoot into the bathroom, flipped on the light, and splashed water on her face until it ran in rivulets down her neck. It didn’t help.
Her reflection still looked like someone who’d been marked.
Claimed.
And worse—she didn’t feel regret.
She felt guilt, sure. But it wasn’t about the act. It was about how much of herself she’d given. How easily it had happened. How fast she’d folded open like the desert had been waiting to crack her skin and bloom something underneath.
Nora leaned on the sink with both hands and stared herself down.
“You wanted that,” she whispered to her reflection. “You begged for it.”
The mirror didn’t flinch.
“But do you even know what you asked for?”
She let out a breath and turned away.
The kitchen was a mess. She hadn’t cleaned since… before. There were two half-melted candles on the counter and a mug of something herbal long since turned to soup. She opened a cabinet, grabbed coffee, poured grounds into the machine with mechanical precision.
