Page 43 of Craving Venom (The Venomous Beauty Trilogy #1)

My elbows bend instinctively, curling my body inward, trying to pull my arms back, but he’s mercilessly steady.

His fingers hook under the leather, and in one smooth motion he stretches my arms above my head.

The force of it slams my back onto the mattress, knocking the breath straight from my lungs.

With one knee pressed into the mattress, he secures the other end of the belt to the headboard, forcing my wrists to stretch, to strain, to fucking stay.

My body fights harder as my legs kick up, trying to connect with any part of him. But he just laughs, grabbing my calf mid-kick, shoving it back down with zero effort.

“You’re adorable when you struggle.”

His lips hover a breath away from mine. I bare my teeth, ready to bite the second he dares to close the distance.

But he doesn’t kiss me.

Instead, his mouth drags along my jaw. I flex my body at the unwanted heat that spreads beneath my skin. His fingers slip under my camisole, gliding over the exposed plane of my stomach.

I twist, yanking away from his touch. “Don’t—”

The disgust in my voice is clear. Or at least, it should be.

But when his lips find my neck, a moan betrays me.

His fingers inch higher, pushing my camisole up, grazing the undersides of my tits. He hums against my throat, the vibration sparking an unbearable sensation between my thighs.

“I’m going to feast on these,” he rasps.

I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood.

I yank against the belt, but it only makes the leather bite deeper. My camisole slides up past my ribs, past my collarbones, and suddenly—shit—it’s covering my eyes.

“Can you not?”

Darkness swallows me whole as my vision is snatched away. The sound of fabric tearing barely registers before cool air brushes between my thighs.

I scream in panic, trying to snap my knees shut, but Zane doesn’t let me.

“Spread your legs.”

I squeeze them shut, my breath ragged. “Zane, stop—”

The slap lands hard against my pussy with a sharp, wet smack, sending a quick flash of pain through me as my hips jerk violently. I hate that my clit throbs from being slapped, that my nipples ache, that heat festers inside me, growing into a filthy ache I can’t smother.

“Don’t ask me to stop when this pussy belongs to me.”

“Yeah right,” I scoff, spitting the words. “You don’t own me, you motherfu—”

He shoves two fingers deep inside me.

My body seizes as my breath catches on a choked sob, my walls clenching around the sudden and ruthless intrusion. My thighs twitch, and my hips push forward before I even realize what I’m doing.

I barely have a second to breathe before those same fingers, now drenched in my juices are shoved against my lips.

I snap my teeth together.

He grips my jaw, forcing it open, and shoves his fingers inside. I choke as the taste of myself floods my tongue.

“Taste your own lies, Faith.”

His fingers push deeper, smearing my wetness along my tongue, against the roof of my mouth, dragging along my teeth like he wants to brand me from the inside out.

Zane finally pulls his fingers from my mouth, leaving a slick trail of spit along my lips. My throat convulses, desperate to purge the taste of myself from my tongue.

A wet slurp echoes in the room.

I hear it again and it’s louder, more exaggerated, as if he’s making a show of it.

“That’s—” I gag on my own spit, still tasting myself on my tongue. “That’s fucking disgusting.”

“You’re already tied up. Don’t make me shut you up.”

My breath stutters, but I force my lips into a sneer. “What, are you scared I might hurt your fragile ego?”

I open my mouth to say something worse, something cruel, something that might actually get under his thick skin but something cold touches my stomach.

“Zane—”

A hiss.

Fucking hell—

My body jolts as instinct takes over, but Zane’s already there, pressing my hips down, keeping me still.

“Zane, get it the fuck off me.”

“Calm down. She’s just exploring.”

My fingers tremble as my arms strain against the belt. “I swear to God, I will fucking kill you—”

“You won’t.” His lips press against my inner thigh.

The snake slithers across my navel.

My stomach contracts as panic claws up my throat. I’m going to scream.

I try to remember everything Zane’s said in the last ten minutes. I repeat them in my head, over and over, trying to convince myself this little creature gliding across my stomach is harmless, but my brain claws for logic, for anything that can drag me out of the panic spiraling behind my eyes.

It’s easy for Zane because he’s probably spent years around them, knows their movements, understands the rhythm of their bodies, their behaviors.

But me?

I’ve never been this close to one in my fucking life.

“Relax.” Zane’s breath fans over my inner thigh. “You’re doing so well.”

“Get. It. Off.”

He kisses the inside of my knee.

“You don’t like being touched by something that could kill you?” A pause. A cruel smirk in his tone. “Or is it just the snake that bothers you?”

I want to tell him to fuck off, to shove his poetic bullshit down his own throat, but as the snake moves higher, I lose the ability to think.

“Zane.” His name is a plea wrapped in an order and a prayer.

“Do you know why I love snakes so much?”

I am not going to answer that because I know what he’s doing. He’s making conversation to pacify me, to keep my fear manageable, to soothe me just enough to keep me still, so that I don’t scare the snake. And I don’t want that. I don’t want any version of him calming me through the panic he caused.

I want to spit in his face.

Maybe then, he’d see what defiance really looks like.

Maybe then, he’d understand that I’d rather fucking die than let him have all of me.

But the words never make it out because two thick digits force their way in my pussy.

His knuckles grind against my entrance, shoving deeper and forcing me to take all of him whether my body is ready or not.

The only downside is my body is desperate for him.

A cry rips from my throat as my back arches and my muscles lock too tight.

And then—fuck, fuck, fuck—

His tongue joins the assault.

A long, slow lick drags over my slit as his mouth savors every inch of me. His tongue drags lower, licking up his own fingers, savoring me like a meal he’s been starving for.

“When I ask a question, I expect you to answer.” His fingers curl and press against that spot, dragging a wrecked sound from my throat as my hips snap forward. “That’s how conversations work, good girl.”

I snarl. “Go to hell, you psychotic—”

The rest of my words die, choked out by the sudden agony tearing through me as his teeth sink into my clit. A silent scream shatters out of me as my whole body goes stiff while pain radiates from the point where his teeth sink into my most sensitive spot.

My entire body snaps upward as my ass lifts off the bed and my spine arches so violently that I barely notice the snake slithering beneath my neck.

I can’t move.

If I drop back down, I’ll smother that deadly creature under my weight.

So I do the only thing better than begging.

I talk.

“Ahh—why—?” The words break out of me in a thin, shattered sob to keep his mind from turning toward more pain, more cruelty, more of whatever the fuck he’s planning next.

Then, slowly and lazily, with pure cruelty, he releases my clit from his teeth, leaving behind a throbbing pain. I barely get a second of relief before his mouth claims me again. His lips seal over my brutalized clit as he sucks, soothing the pain he just inflicted.

“Because they tell the truth.”

I shake my head, struggling to keep hold of anything that makes sense. “That’s bullshit.”

“Is it?” His tongue flicks against my clit. “You know the story, don’t you? The Garden of Eden.”

I swallow hard, barely able to focus as his mouth tortures me while the snake moves, twisting higher with its smooth scales brushing against my breast and throat.

“Yeah,” I manage. “The one where a snake gets blamed for ruining humanity?”

The snake hisses loudly behind my ear, the sound feels almost… accusatory.

As if it heard me.

As if it’s telling me it wasn’t her fault.

Tears soak into my camisole as fear clamps around my ribs and terror seeps into my muscles. If I could hiss back, I would. To apologize or to say I don’t believe it.

But the Bible does.

The snake glides over my skin, and its body loops behind my neck as it glides over my collarbones, forming a perfect circle around me and it feels so gentle.

Zane drags his tongue slowly along my folds. “That’s what they want you to believe. But the snake didn’t ruin Eve. He freed her.”

He groans as his fingers press deeper, stroking my walls with a precision that makes me feel both worshiped and utterly ruined.

“Think about it, Faith.” He says reverently like he’s giving a sermon right between my thighs. “God wanted humans to be obedient. Blind. He wanted to keep us in a perfect world where we never questioned anything.”

He strokes my clit with his thumb.

“And then came the snake. It told Eve the truth. That there was more. That she had a choice.”

The warmth of his tongue presses against my swollen flesh, but the contrast hits harder when I feel something smoother sliding downward.

I freeze. The snake’s body moves between the valley of my tits with the kind of slow, deliberate ease that says she’s not scared.

But I am. I’m terrified. Not of her, not really—she’s just following her path.

“It didn’t poison her. It gave her knowledge. It gave her power. And what did Eve do with that power, sweetheart?”

The snake inches toward my chin, sending a fresh wave of dread rippling through me but just then, Zane’s fingers curl inside me again, pressing against that devastating spot that makes me see fucking stars.

The sheer force of sensation obliterates everything else, shattering my fear into a strangled, helpless moan.