I straddle his thighs, my dress riding up as I settle against him. His hands span my waist, and I feel something I haven’t felt in two years—safe.
“Your tattoo,” he murmurs against my throat, his thumb tracing the small snake on my collarbone. “What does it mean?”
“Rebirth,” I breathe, arching into his touch. “Shedding old skin.”
“Beautiful,” he says, and the word is full of reverence. “You’re beautiful.”
I want to argue, to tell him he can’t see me clearly enough to know, but then his mouth is on mine again, and I stop thinking altogether.
His hands worship my body, and when he removes my dress, it’s with the kind of reverence usually reserved for sacred things. When he lays me back against the silk sheets, it’s like he’s handling glass.
“Are you ready?” he asks, his voice rough with restraint.
“I am.”
What follows is unlike anything I’ve ever known. He focuses entirely on me—my pleasure, my comfort, my needs. His touch is patient, exploring, learning what makes me gasp and arch beneath him. When tears slip down my cheeks, he kisses them away.
“Why are you crying?” he whispers.
“Because I never knew it could feel like this,” I answer.
He doesn’t respond with words, just holds me tighter as exhaustion pulls me under.
2
KASI
Three Months Later
“You’re not eating enough, Kasi.”
Mrs. Rosetti corners me by the cash register as I’m wiping down the counter, her weathered hands planted on her hips in that universal mother pose. At sixty-five, she’s built like a brick house and twice as stubborn.
“I eat plenty,” I lie, avoiding her sharp brown eyes.
“Plenty of what? Air?” She clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “You were skin and bones when you showed up here three months ago, and you’re still skin and bones. A strong wind could blow you away.”
“I’m fine, Mrs. Rosetti.”
“Fine, she says.” She throws her hands up dramatically. “You know what fine stands for? Fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. My late husband used to say that.”
I can’t help but smile. “Your husband sounds like he was a wise man.”
“Wise enough to marry me.” She softens, reaching over to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear like I’m one of her own daughters. “Whatever you’re running from, cara mia, it can’t follow you here.”
Rosehill is the kind of town where nothing ever happens. Population five thousand, one main street, and enough distance from my old life that I can almost pretend Kasimira Vale never existed.
Here, I’m just Kasi. Kasi who works the morning shift at the bakery, who lives in the studio apartment above the hardware store, who pays rent in cash and keeps to herself. Nobody asks questions about why a twenty-two-year-old woman has no credit history, no social media, no past worth mentioning.
I turn down Sycamore Road, past the white picket fences and perfectly manicured lawns. Children play in their yards while their mothers water gardens, and everything is so beautifully normal it almost hurts to look at.
This is what I bought with one night in a stranger’s arms.
The money had been more than I’d ever dreamed of—five thousand dollars from the man whose face I never saw but whose touch I still feel in my dreams.
Every night, I trace the phantom paths his hands took across my skin, remembering how he held me like I was something precious instead of something to be used.
And sometimes, when the loneliness gets too sharp, I let myself fall into the memory completely. I close my eyes, press my handbetween my legs, and imagine the way his mouth tasted me—slow, thorough, like worship—his tongue dragging against my clit until I broke apart in his arms.
