Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller

gel over the cut.
I suck in a breath through my teeth and watch his jaw clench tight.
Silently, he peels the plastic apart, pulling the Band-Aid free, then secures
it over the cut, his thumb tracing the outline of the K.
Setting the first aid kit on the nightstand, Kal pushes to his feet and
rounds the bed, pulling back the covers so he can clamber beneath them.
My breathing hitches, the intimacy of his proximity making me shiver,
heart pounding like a siren in my chest.
He doesn’t say anything else, though, just picks up a leather-bound copy
of Witter Bynner’s complete works and settles in.
I roll over again, propping my cheek on my pillow, studying him as he
slides on a pair of black-framed glasses and begins to read, eyes scanning the
page in a slow, hypnotic fashion.
Absorbing the clean slope of his sharp jaw and the tiny dimple in his
cheek that clefts when he’s deep in concentration, I do my best to commit it
all to memory, in case this has been a fluke, and I wake up tomorrow with
him ignoring me all over again.
The dread swirling around in my stomach promises it is.
Nothing good can last.
For some reason, that’s the fear that keeps me from falling into an
immediate slumber. Not the fact that someone is clearly coming after me, just
like Kal said they would, or that my world back in Boston is probably
crumbling to the ground.
But the notion that whatever stone was turned tonight, be it through
trauma or the natural progression of surrender, is fleeting.
That I’m stuck in a loveless marriage, a prison, like I always feared I
would be.
“How come I haven’t seen you naked?” I blurt, trying to erase the anxiety
with conversation.
Kal’s eyebrows raise above his glasses, and he glances at me. “I can
assure you, it’s just as big when you see the full picture.”
Heat flares in my cheeks as I think about the size of his dick, and I shift
my thighs absently, scooting closer without fully meaning to. “No, I just…
you’ve seen me naked. I’m naked now, in fact.”
“No complaints here.”
One of his hands comes down, sliding over my waist, and when I open
my mouth to say more, he yanks me toward him, pulling me flush with his