Page 60 of She Haunts Me Still

He’s softer with her this time, his broad, ring-covered hands carefully caressing her bare skin in the muted light. Kissing his way down her body, giving her everything she wants without making her beg. And when he’s inside her again, he’s patient and focused, like she’s the only thing he can see.

Ezra holds her afterward as they drift in and out of sleep, lazily kissing in tiny, shared stretches of consciousness. They stay tangled up in each other until his watch beeps and he drags a hand over his face, grumbling at the thought of getting up.

“I want to come back and find you here,” Ezra says, trailing kisses along her jaw. “Better yet, let me keep you in my room forever.”

Mallory laughs softly. “What about class?”

“I can tutor you.” Ezra grins against her. “There will be tests. But also extra credit.”

“Hmm.” She playfully bites his lower lip. “And the dining hall? I’ll get hungry.”

“I’ll feed you.” His mouth hovers over hers, suddenly more serious. “I could take care of you, Jules.”

Ezra stamps another kiss to her forehead before climbing out of bed. Mallory leans back against his pillows and watches him dress, taking in his tall body. The textured veins in his arms. The stark, muscular lines in his chest and abdomen and thighs.

All the parts of him that now belong to her.

He tugs on his coat and leans down to kiss her again.

“Don’t go,” she whispers teasingly, and he groans.

“Believe me, I don’t want to.” Ezra straightens, swinging his messenger bag over his shoulder. “Be back in an hour.Don’t move.”

She makes a show of pulling up the covers and catches sight of his grin, boyish and unabashed, as he closes the door. For a few moments, Mallory listens to the distant hum of traffic, the occasional trill of a bird. She tries to fall back asleep, replaying last night in his room after they left the theater. How he kissed her like he was already starving for her again. His endless stream of praise when she was on her knees for him, telling herhow fucking goodshe was being. How he laid her onto his bed and asked if he could tie her wrists, turning her into a writhing, pleading mess with his fingers and mouth, until she was desperate for him to fill her any way he wanted.

Mallory sits up. She can’t think about this right now.

She swings her feet over the bed and surveys the emptyroom. Textbooks open on his desk, just like in her dream. His nightstand, with the clock stuck at 3:33. And his drawer—

His drawer is slightly askew.

Mallory looks out the window before gently opening the drawer. She pokes a finger inside, nudging a box of condoms, several lighters, and two orange pill bottles. Migraine medications.

She’s about to slam the drawer shut, feeling wrong for snooping, when another bottle catches her eye, this one larger and amber colored. She reaches carefully, tugging it loose. It takes her a second to realize she’s holding an iron supplement. In an injectable form.

Mallory bends, looking deeper into the drawer, and her eyes widen at a container of syringes toward the back. She pulls the box out, holding both objects in her lap. She’s heard of iron pills you get at the pharmacy—Arden’s mom was anemic and used to take them—but this is something else.

Without meaning to, she brushes the bite marks Ezra left against her clavicle last night. Recalling the taste of his blood-slick kiss, the shape of his lips around her red, wet fingers.

And the smallest ounce of suspicious fear pricks at her neck.

What if,a tiny voice asks inside her,Ezra isn’t done lying to you?

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says aloud, shaking away thoughts of Anne Rice novels andBuffy the Vampire Slayer. Reading about the Vampire Panic has clearly messed with her head. There’s no such thing.

Mallory tucks the items away, feeling foolish, and reaches for the discarded rosary beads on the nightstand. She pullsthe strands over her neck, arranging the cross between her breasts, and grins at the idea of Ezra coming back to find her wearing this and nothing else.

Before she can sink into the fantasy, a rapid-fire knocking on the window makes her jump.

Heart pounding, Mallory whirls. The knocking grows louder, and her pulse skips at the faint sound of her name.

“Mal,” someone yells from outside, “are you in there?”

Without enough time to dress in her clothes from yesterday, Mallory snatches a sweatshirt from Ezra’s bureau and yanks it on, the hem practically skimming her knees. She glances at her reflection in the mirror, wincing at her swollen lips, the obvious kiss-tinged bruises on her neck. Ignoring the rise of an embarrassed blush, Mallory marches to the window—and her eyes widen to find Saskia amid the reddening trees, holding a fistful of papers.

Mallory cracks the window. “What are you doing here?”

“Do you ever answer your phone?” Saskia replies. “I’ve been calling you for hours.”