Raven didn’t wake with an alarm, she woke with a sting. A dull, pulsing ache sat high on her thigh, warm and bruised and claimed. She stretched under the silk sheets and felt every place he had left himself. Rope memory still lived in the soft insides of her thighs. Her neck carried the ghost of his mouth. But it was the mark on her upper thigh that dragged her out of sleep like a hand around her throat.
She padded barefoot into the bathroom, hair wild, throat dry. The light hit too bright. She flicked it on anyway and braced both hands on the cold sink. There it was. Deep red. Purple already blooming at the edges. A bite so deliberate it looked designed. Teeth had sunk in clean and sure, curved around a deeper press right at the center.
The letter J.
She sucked in a breath and touched
