Page 77 of Craving Venom (The Venomous Beauty Trilogy #1)

“I’ve carved the truth into pedophiles. Cut out lies from men who paid to break girls like you,” he says crouching beside me.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means.” He lowers his head with his elbows resting on his knees and his fingers flexing like he’s holding back something animal just beneath the surface.

“I know the smell of rooms that shouldn’t exist. I’ve scraped teeth off concrete in alleys where screams go to die.

I’ve walked into basements lined with camcorders and children’s names carved into the walls in nail scratches.

And I’ve waited until the ones responsible begged for the very mercy they’d never once given. ”

I recoil as bile rises in my throat, but he doesn’t stop.

“I don’t kill for God. Or glory. Or cause. I do it because someone fucking has to. Because no badge will. Because no cell will hold the kind of sickness I’ve touched. And once you see it—once you smell it—you don’t walk away. You burn it.”

He turns to look at me like he’s expecting pity, understanding, maybe absolution.

I give him none.

“You’re insane,” I spit. “You think you’re some avenging monster, but you’re just like them. You enjoy it.”

“I never said I didn’t.”

“That’s the difference,” I bite out, dragging myself up on shaking legs. “You think hurting bad people makes you good. But all I see is a man hard from the kill. A man who wraps his sickness in stories so he can sleep at night.”

I stagger back a step.

“You’re not a hero. You’re not justice. You’re just the last man standing when the blood dries.”

He stands too and every inch of him starts crowding my shadow.

“And you’re fine with the monsters,” he says. “As long as they’re polite.”

“What?”

“The ones in suits. In uniforms. With wedding rings and fake smiles. The ones who slip something in your drink, not a knife in your ribs. You sleep just fine knowing they exist, don’t you? Because they say the right things. Because they don’t wear masks.”

He takes a step forward. I take one back.

“You’re disgusting.” His hand wraps around my throat again, not like before, not just to control, but to claim. He squeezes just enough to cut the oxygen thin, to remind me that every breath I take from this point on is a decision.

Mine.

Or his.

“You’re trying to twist this—”

“I’m not twisting anything.” His other hand drags down the center of my chest, over the torn edge of my shirt, over the bruised throb between my breasts. “I’m just not faking it. That’s what really fucks you up, isn’t it? That I don’t pretend.”

His thumb hooks beneath the ruined fabric, peeling it open to expose more skin. My breath hitches. He doesn’t look down. He’s watching my face.

“You think I scare you because I’m violent? No. I scare you because I’m honest. Because I don’t lie to you. Not about what I want. Not about who I am. And somewhere inside you, that offends you more than the monsters who smile while they ruin lives.”

What if he’s right?

What if I’ve let the real monsters sit next to me my whole life because they smile? Because they don’t bleed under my fingernails?

“Shut up,” I whisper.

“Why?” I turn my head, refusing to look at him, but his hand catches my chin and forces me back. “Because I make you feel something you can’t name? Because I don’t dress it up in charm and consent and flowers before I fuck your reality in half?”

“Let go,” I growl.

“I’ve done unspeakable things.” His hand moves lower, curling beneath the back of my thigh and before I can stop myself, I hook my leg around his hip as a pathetic reflex. “But not to you.”

He doesn’t gloat. His forehead drops to mine, and for a split second, it almost feels intimate. Almost. But his grip doesn’t soften. It tightens.

“Doesn’t that mean something?” he asks. “Doesn’t that make me different? At least to you?”

“No.”

His pelvis grinds into mine, and I can feel the thick press of his cock through both our clothes. Hard. Mean. Like the truth I’ve been choking on since that first breathless moment in the dark. Fuck.

“It means I’m next.” My hips push into him, desperate for more friction, even as my heart threatens to tear itself out of my chest. “It means I’ll bleed prettier. You don’t spare people. You save them for last.”

I snarl and shove at his chest again, but he doesn’t budge. His breath is hot against my ear. My clit throbs, crying for attention.

“I hate you,” I whisper.

“You don’t even know how to hate me right,” he rasps, pressing his thigh up into my core. “You scream like a victim, but fuck, you grind like you fucking own me.”

“That’s because I do own you, you fucking freak.”

His body stiffens.

The words land harder than any punch I could throw. And I know it. I feel it in the way his grip loosens around my throat.

His hand slams my head back into the wall so hard my ears ring.

“If you do realize that you own me,” he hisses, every word seething through clenched teeth. “Then fucking prove it. Take me. Break me. Tame me.”

He drags his thigh higher between my legs, splitting me open around the heat of it.

“But if you can’t…” His breath is a snarl against my cheek. “Then I’m going to make your pussy admit what your mouth won’t.”

And I swear I don’t know if I’m going to die, come, or both.

My hands shoot up, shoving the edge of his hoodie back with so much force that the fabric bunches around his shoulders. My fingers tangle in his hair, and I yank. Strands catch between my knuckles, and I pull until his head jerks toward me.

And then I kiss him.

Through the fucking mask.

My mouth crashes into hard molded material and it hurts. My lip splits on the edge. I taste blood. But I don’t stop. I drag my lips across it, scraping my teeth down the groove of that jagged, red fracture, wanting to split it wider.

His hand clamps on my ass, dragging me higher against him until I’m grinding against his cock with no space left between us. His other hand leaves my throat and fists my hair, matching my grip with one of his own. He yanks my head back and slams his mask into my mouth again, harder this time.

The mask grinds against my lips, and the crack running through the center presses into my mouth, but I kiss it harder.

Because if I can’t have his mouth, I’ll devour the closest fucking thing.

“You want to be owned?” I snarl between gritted teeth, still clinging to his hair. “Then crawl.”