Page 30

Chapter Thirty

Griffin’s Beach Marnie

“ W ho knew we had so much stuff?” Marnie asks, hands on her hips as she looks around the living room of her new place.

“You never saw my place in Summerville, love. I had a lot of stuff waiting to move into a house here,” Venom says, his arms wrapping around her waist.

Smiling, she turns in his arms and kisses him. “I wish I would’ve seen your house. And I promise to make it up to you, but I need a shower first.”

“I like showers.”

She giggles and waves an arm around to the boxes before pointing out the window at the moving truck. Between her apartment and his storage unit, they’ve had two trucks full of items to move. “What about our stuff?”

“It’ll still be here after I’ve had you in the shower,” he says, his lips kissing her neck. “And then the bed. Oh, and the kitchen counter for a late-night snack.”

Moaning, she closes her eyes. “We’ll be too tired to unpack.”

“We’ll order pizza. Fuel us up. And then we can call people to help. How have the girls been treating you?”

“Everyone’s been great. The only one who has been pretty cold is Autumn, but I don’t think that’s specific to me. It seems to be across the board with all the women.”

“I bet Lex would be more than happy to get a group of women to help you unpack the boxes while I call the Prospects and a few of the guys to help me carry everything inside.”

His lips kiss her neck again, and her eyes roll to the back of her head. “I think this is the most I’ve worn clothes since we’ve been back together. Unless you were gone on a run. I wore clothes significantly more while you weren’t around.”

His eyebrow lifts as his blue eyes gaze into hers with affection and need. “And when did you shed your clothes then, love?”

The nickname is back, and Marnie melts every time he says it. She’s longed to hear it ever since she realized she couldn’t live without him. “Whenever I’d get the urge,” she whispers, tilting her head and smiling up at him, “to hop in the shower. It’s rather awkward hanging out in wet clothes.”

He nods with a small, mischievous smirk, and she’s suddenly thrown over his shoulder. She squeals, and he walks quickly through the master bedroom and into the bathroom. Before she knows it, she’s standing in the shower with him, and the water pours over them.

“Oh! It’s cold!” she cries as Venom’s lips crash against hers. “It’s… Oh…”

The water drenches them, making their clothes heavy, but she doesn’t care. Every time he kisses her like this, she refuses to do anything that may make him stop. She’s wanted this for so long that she cherishes every moment together.

“You’re right,” he says, moving to suck her earlobe. “Wet clothes aren’t fun to stand in. We should probably take them off.”

Marnie laughs as he strips out of his clothes before helping her. There’s nothing graceful or sexy about how difficult it is as the fabrics stick to their skin, but she loves it. Everything he does has her swooning.

Once they’re completely naked, she can’t tear her eyes away from him. Her man with a lean, muscular body, bleached hair, high cheekbones, and the bluest eyes she’s ever seen stands before her looking at her with nothing but love.

“What?” Venom asks.

“I love you.”

He looks down at his erection and looks back up at her with a wide smile. “I’d love me, too, if I was you.”

Taking him into her hand, she strokes him while her other hand runs down his chest. Her eyes follow her hand as she feels a rough section of skin.

“What’s this from?” she asks, her hand releasing him as she spots a few other similar scars along his chest. Scars she’s never noticed before. “It looks familiar, but I can’t place it.”

He looks down at the spot where her hand rests. “You’ve seen a similar one on Melanie’s back. It’s from a cigar.”

“How…?”

“Pretty much the same way she got hers. One of my mom’s boyfriends used me as an ashtray.”

Blinking, she gently traces it before moving to one of the others. “How old were you?”

“Uh… four, I think.”

Four years old?

Marnie slides her hand down to touch a jagged scar along his side that looks like a lightning bolt.

“Got thrown through a window. A piece of glass broke and stabbed me. I used to call it my superhero symbol.”

Superhero symbol. Something a child would say. “How old?”

“Twelve. No, eleven. Another one of Mom’s boyfriends, but I’m not sure if they were married at that point or not.”

A raised scar along his collarbone catches her attention, and she can’t believe she’s never noticed it before. Then again, they rarely had sex in the light. Even now, they find dark rooms to find their releases.

“What about this one?”

“Got stabbed by the meth head who killed my sister. He didn’t realize it would only propel me to make him suffer even more.”

“You were older?”

“Twenty-four.”

The tears appear involuntarily, and she gently kisses a cigarette burn on his pec before clinging to him.

“What’s wrong?”

“These should have never happened. You didn’t deserve these.”

“You don’t know what I did—”

“No child deserves this. Nothing you could have done would have warranted touching you, let alone leaving scars.”

His lips find hers, and her back presses against the wall as he does everything he can to distract her. No matter what, she knows it will never be okay. He may have accepted it as his fate, but she refuses to let him believe it’s alright.

He protects everyone else because no one ever protected him. He loves even though he has more reasons to hate.

The water hits his back as he toys between her legs, and she hooks her leg up over his hip to guide him inside her. He bites her lower lip, his hand holding her throat without squeezing, and neither tears their eyes from the other.

She cups his cheek, and even as the sadness washes over her for the little boy whose mother didn’t love him enough, she gets lost in his eyes.

In them, she sees their future. A little baby with eyes the color of the sky, just like his.

Marnie walking down the aisle with a bouquet of flowers and taking his last name.

Growing old together as they watch grandchildren playing in the grass.

“You see it, too, don’t you?” Venom whispers, his hips jerking to drive deep into her.

She moans as her orgasm builds. “What do you mean?”

“Our future.”

“What do you see?”

He smirks as he releases her throat to pick up her other leg and press harder against her while her ankles hook behind his back.

The way he holds her makes her feel weightless, and his cock pounds unrelenting until her muscles tense.

A warmth begins to spread across her belly as she teeters on the edge of bliss.

“I see you with a baby in your belly,” he grunts as he picks up speed. “And a ring on your finger.”

“William!” she cries out, her fingernails digging into his shoulders.

Rather than pull out like he used to, he fills her before resting his forehead against her shoulder while he pants. “I don’t deserve you.”

She wiggles her legs, and he slides out of her to set her onto the shower floor. “Look at me.”

He does, and Marnie hates the uncertainty in his eyes now. “It’s true.”

“No, it’s not. I love you, William.”

“But I’m not a good man.”

“You’re good to me. And to the people you care about. That’s all that matters to me.”

There’s an air of insecurity about him that he never let her see before. Not like this, and she can’t understand it. “Marnie… What do you see?”

“When?”

“When you see our future?”

Smiling, Marnie gently brushes his lips with hers. “I see a perfect little baby with your eyes. I see me walking down the aisle to you. And I see us drinking coffee as we watch our grandchildren play in the yard.”

“I’m in your future?”

“Don’t you see? You are my future.”

He sighs in relief and kisses her again. Knowing what she knows about his childhood, she decides to do everything in her power to take care of him. Even the small things like washing his hair.

“What are you doing?” Venom asks as she takes charge.

“I’m taking care of you,” she says. “I’m showing you not just how much I love you, but that you deserve it. One of these days, I’m determined to make you believe it.”

He smiles like she’s never seen before as he lets her take charge, tilting his head to help her wet his hair before lathering up the shampoo. Her fingernails gently scrape at his scalp, and his eyes close, the smile still on his face.

“I’m going to make you a promise,” Marnie says as she rinses his hair. “I promise to do everything in my power to never let anyone hurt you again.”

“Marnie—”

“The idea of you being hurt, especially as a child, makes me so angry for you. And it kills me because you never deserved any of it.”

He cups her face and gives her a sad look. “That’s not true.”

“It is. I just hope one day you’ll believe me when I tell you that you only deserve love. Not pain and suffering. But I will show you love every day until I take my last breath. I will care for you the way you care for others.”

“Why?”

“Because you had every reason to become someone who only knows how to hate. Instead, you choose to love. You protect us because you weren’t when you needed someone to do that for you.

I’m never giving up on you. Or us. It will be my life’s mission to stop you from looking so damn surprised when you’re offered kindness. ”

Taking his body wash, she lathers it up and runs it along his skin, his eyes watching in amazement. No one’s ever done this for him before, have they? He’s been neglected his entire life, and I only added to it when I hurt him.

His cock comes alive again as she rinses him, and she looks up into his eyes. “Please?”

“Marnie—”

“Try? Please?”

Venom nods, and she slowly moves onto her knees, shifting out of the direct water line. It’s the one sex act he refuses her. Having her take him into her mouth has been off-limits because of her dead boss, who tried to blackmail her into blowing him.

He saved her that night. Showed up like a white knight and killed the man who thought she was nothing more than a biker whore. It was the night she should have realized he loved her.

“Marnie,” he says, but it’s a moan. “Fuck.”

Using her hand, she alternates between taking him deep into her mouth and stroking him while she sucks just the tip. It seems to be the right combination because his hand slams against the wall as he tries to brace himself.

“I’m gonna come,” he warns.

Marnie doesn’t let up. Instead, she takes him as far as she can, sucking enough to border between pleasure and pain. Something Venom likes in the bedroom.

He fills her mouth with a gasp, and his body trembles. Swallowing everything he offers, she leans back onto her heels. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“It’s still difficult to see you like this, but fuck if you’re not good at that, too, love,” he says and pants. “You take my breath away, love.”

“You and me against the world. Forever.”

Guiding her to stand, he looks ready to cry. “Promise?”

She peppers his face with kisses, giving him soft affectionate touches. “Cross my heart.”

“God, I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now, I need to finish showering, and you promised me pizza. And I’m starving.”

“Whatever you want, love, you get. Especially tonight.”

“Be careful what you wish for.”

Smirking, he bends down to nip at a nipple, making her yelp. “I think I can handle anything you could ask me. I’ll move mountains. You just gotta ask.”

“Good thing I think the Earth is just as God intended. You might get tired otherwise.”

“Just say the word.”

He steps out and wraps himself with a towel to find his phone, and Marnie places her hand over her mouth. How the hell could she have missed the pain he carries all this time?

I can’t screw up this second chance. I’m scared of what it might do to him. And to me. I’ll make sure he knows what true love feels like, even if I have to die to prove it.