Chapter 45

LESSIE

For a heartbeat, I didn’t understand what had just happened.

It was like the air had been sucked out of the room, leaving only heat and the sharp, burning pain that bloomed across my neck.

Dante’s teeth sank deep, not enough to draw blood but enough to make my body jolt, every muscle tightening under the sudden, searing sensation.

It burned. God, it burned.

The pain wasn’t sharp like a cut, it was heavy, pulsing, as if something was being branded deep beneath my skin.

I wanted to scream, to shove him away, but my voice caught somewhere in my throat, strangled by shock.

And then, just as the burn reached its peak, something else followed, a slow, spreading warmth that coiled low in my stomach, confusing and shameful and nothing I wanted to feel.

Pleasure.

I hated that word, hated how my body betrayed me by responding to something that should have terrified me.

The sensation came like a ripple, colliding with panic and guilt until I could barely tell where one ended and the