Kiss, Bite, Lick – Chapter 3 – The First Bite

The high from that first night lasted for a week. A solid, glorious seven days of walking on air. 

He texted me good morning. He called me on his lunch break. He sent me a picture of a tie he was thinking of buying and asked for my opinion, as if my taste mattered. As if *I* mattered.

 I felt like I was living someone else’s life, a life where the girl in the background finally gets a starring role. 

I started wearing makeup to work, not a lot, just a little mascara and some lipstick that made my thin lips look a little less thin. I started sitting up straighter. I felt… different. Taller. Brighter.

The first bite was so small I almost didn’t feel it.

 It was a Friday night, and we were at his place, cooking dinner together. Well, he was cooking. I was chopping vegetables, badly. 

I was telling him a story about something funny that had happened at work, a rare moment of levity in the sea of spreadsheets. I was getting into it, my voice a little louder than usual, my hands gesturing as I recounted the tale of my boss accidentally replying-all to an entire department-wide email with just a thumbs-up emoji.

I finished the story, laughing, and looked at him, expecting him to be laughing with me. 

He wasn’t. He was just standing there, leaning against the counter, a strange, unreadable expression on his face.

“What?” I asked, my smile faltering.

He shook his head slowly, a small smile playing on his lips, but it wasn’t a warm smile. It was… condescending.

 “Nothing,” he said, pushing off the counter and coming toward me.

 He stopped in front of me, his hands coming to rest on my hips. 

“It’s just… you’re cute when you try to be funny.”

*Try*.

The word landed like a tiny pebble in my shoe. Annoying, sharp, and impossible to ignore. My smile vanished. 

“What do you mean, ‘try’?”

“You know,” he said, his thumbs stroking the skin just above the waistband of my jeans. 

“You get all animated, your voice gets all high. It’s adorable. Like a little puppy trying to bark.”

I stared at him, my mind racing. 

Was he making fun of me? Or was he… complimenting me? 

The tone was so gentle, so affectionate, it was hard to tell. 

He leaned down and kissed me, a soft, lingering kiss that tasted of garlic and olive oil and something else, something that felt a little bit like pity.

“Don’t look so serious,” he murmured against my lips. 

“I love it. I love everything about you.”

And just like that, the pebble was forgotten. The kiss erased the question. I melted back into him, my arms wrapping around his neck, my body pressing against his. He loved me. He loved everything about me. Even the parts of me that were “adorable.” That was good, right? That was more than I’d ever had from anyone.

A few days later, he was taking me out to a fancy restaurant for my birthday. 

I spent hours getting ready, agonizing over what to wear. I finally settled on a little black dress I’d bought on sale a year ago and never had the courage to wear. It was a little more revealing than my usual fare, with a neckline that dipped a little lower than I was comfortable with, but I wanted to look good for him. I wanted to be the woman he saw when he looked at me.

When he picked me up, he didn’t say anything at first. He just looked me up and down, his eyes lingering a little too long on my chest. 

I felt a flush of pride, a preen of satisfaction. I’d done it. I’d impressed him.

“You’re wearing that?” he asked, his voice flat.

My confidence evaporated. 

“What? Is it… is it okay?”

“It’s… a lot,” he said, his brow furrowed.

 He stepped into my apartment, closing the door behind him. 

“It’s just, this place we’re going, it’s more… understated. You’re going to stick out. It looks a little… desperate.”

*Desperate*.

The word hit me like a slap in the face. I felt the sting in my cheeks, the hot prickle of shame behind my eyes. I looked down at the dress, at the cleavage I’d been so proud of moments before, and all I saw was something cheap. Something sad.

“I can change,” I whispered, my voice trembling.

“No, no,” he said, his tone instantly softening. 

He pulled me into his arms, his hand cupping the back of my head. 

“Hey, look at me. It’s fine. You look beautiful. Really. It’s just… not for tonight. Next time, maybe we can go somewhere you can really dress up. Somewhere loud. Somewhere you’ll fit in.”

He kissed my forehead, his lips a warm, gentle balm on my skin. He was comforting me. He was taking care of me. He was just trying to help me navigate a world I clearly didn’t understand.

 And the fucked-up part, the part that makes my stomach hurt to even think about now, is that I thanked him.

“Thank you for telling me,” I mumbled into his shoulder. 

“I don’t want to embarrass you.”

“You could never embarrass me, baby,” he said, his arms tightening around me.

 “I just want to protect you.”

So I changed. I put on a bland, grey sweater and a pair of jeans and went to my own birthday dinner feeling like a child who’d been scolded. 

And through the whole meal, I felt a strange sense of gratitude. He was looking out for me. He was saving me from myself. He loved me enough to tell me the truth.

The real bite, the one that drew blood, came a week later.

We were lying in bed, tangled in the sheets, the aftermath of another one of his glorious, selfish fucks. 

I was sated and sleepy, my head on his chest, his heartbeat a steady drum under my ear. His phone, which was on the nightstand, lit up with a notification. It was a preview of a message from someone named “Jessica.”

*Can’t stop thinking about last night…*

My blood ran cold. Every muscle in my body tensed. I lifted my head, my heart starting to pound a frantic, painful rhythm against my ribs. 

“Robert,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. 

“Your phone.”

He didn’t even look. He just reached over, picked it up, and silenced it, placing it face down on the nightstand without a word.

“Who’s Jessica?” I asked, my voice shaking.

He sighed, a long, put-upon sound, like I was a child asking a tedious question.

 “Sarah, don’t.”

“Don’t what?” I pushed, sitting up, clutching the sheet to my chest. 

“Don’t what? Who is she?”

“She’s a friend,” he said, finally turning to look at me. 

His expression was one of profound annoyance, like I was interrupting his favorite show. 

“We went out for drinks with some people from my work last night. You were working late.”

“But the message…”

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, running a hand over his face. 

He sat up, the sheet pooling around his waist. 

“It’s nothing, okay? She’s just a friend. She gets a little… friendly when she’s had a few drinks. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“She’s thinking about last night,” I said, my voice cracking. 

“What happened last night?”

“Nothing!” he snapped, his voice sharp enough to make me flinch. 

He saw me recoil, and his face immediately softened.

 He reached for me, his hand gentle on my arm.

 “Hey. Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.” 

He pulled me back against him, my back to his chest, his arms wrapping around me like a cage. “We just talked. I promise. I was thinking about you the whole time.”

I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe him so badly it hurt. I wanted to sink back into his embrace and let his words wash over me, let them erase the ugly little message I’d seen.

He turned me around in his arms, his hands cupping my face, his thumbs wiping away my tears. “Look at me,” he commanded, his blue eyes boring into mine. 

“You. Are. Everything. To me. You hear me? This,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the phone, “is nothing. It’s noise. You’re the signal. You’re the only fucking thing that matters.”

And then he kissed me.

It was a desperate, punishing kiss, a kiss designed to shut me up, to erase my doubts, to remind me who I belonged to. 

His tongue was in my mouth, his hands were in my hair, his body was pressing me down into the mattress. 

It was a kiss that said, *If you just stop asking questions, I’ll give you this. I’ll give you me.*

And I let him. I let him fuck me again, hard and fast, his face buried in my neck, his grunts of pleasure a raw, primal sound in my ear. 

I didn’t come. I didn’t even get close. I just lay there, my body a vessel for his pleasure, my mind a battlefield of doubt and desire. 

When he was finished, he collapsed on top of me, his body a heavy, sweaty weight.

“See?” he murmured, his voice thick with satisfaction.

 “Nothing to worry about.”

I lay there, staring at the ceiling, the city lights painting stripes across the dark room. 

The bite was deep now, and it was starting to throb. 

But as he kissed my shoulder, his arm draping over me possessively, I felt the pain start to fade, replaced by a familiar, comforting warmth. 

He had chosen me. He was here with me. And somehow, in the twisted, tangled logic of my heart, that felt like a victory.

← Previous Chapter
Next Chapter →