Raven didn’t wake with an alarm. She woke with a sting. A dull, pulsing ache at her hip, warm and bruised and possessed. She stretched beneath the silk sheets, her body sore in places she didn’t want to name aloud. Her thighs throbbed with the memory of ropes. Her neck bore the ghost of his mouth. But it was the ache on her upper thigh that tugged her from sleep like a whisper with teeth.
She padded barefoot into the bathroom, hair wild, throat dry. The light was too bright, but she flicked it on anyway, bracing herself against the sink. And there it was. A bruise, deep red, purple at the edges, already darkening.
A bite. But not just any bite. The shape was too intentional, too precise. An indentation of teeth, curved perfectly around a deeper press near the center.
The letter J.
She
