Page 29 of Dirty Game

I sit on my bed, empty tray in my lap, and touch my bottom lip where his thumb was.

I can still feel it, that contact that lit up nerve endings I didn't know existed.

I can still taste chocolate and strawberries, still feel the ghost of his fingers against my mouth.

Is this desire?

This warm, pulling feeling that makes me want him to come back, to touch me again, to explain why my body is suddenly speaking a language I don't understand?

I stand, walk to my bathroom, and look at myself in the mirror.

My lips are slightly swollen from his thumb, stained red from strawberries.

My pupils are dilated, cheeks flushed. I look... alive.

For the first time in years, I look alive.

I press my fingers to my lip where his thumb was, trying to recreate the sensation.

But my own touch does nothing.

It's him—specifically him—that makes my body react this way.

Between my thighs, there's an ache I've never felt before.

A warmth, a wetness that makes no sense.

Is this what those men were talking about?

This feeling?

But they made it sound violent, painful, something to endure.

This doesn't feel like something to endure.

This feels like something to chase.

I think about his thumb on my lip.

His fingers feeding me strawberries.

The way he said "good girl" like it was a reward.

My hand drifts to my stomach, to the heat building there, but I don't know what to do with it.

I don't know how to ease this ache.

Tomorrow, I'll go back to the books.

I'll find more thieves in his organization.

I'll be useful in the way that keeps me safe.

But tonight, I lie in bed and replay every moment—his violence in the restaurant, his gentleness feeding me, the way his eyes went dark when I made that sound while eating chocolate.

I've been taught my whole life that my virginity is my only value.

That my body is currency.