Page 79 of Craving Venom (The Venomous Beauty Trilogy #1)

She swallows hard, then slowly reaches for the hem of my hoodie. Her fingers brush against my stomach, tremble slightly as she bunches the fabric. She lifts it slowly, revealing the ink etched into my stomach, my ribs. Her palm moves over my abs, trailing higher to my chest.

“You’re covered in ink,” she whispers, awe mixing with heat.

“They’re not decorations.”

Without asking a single question about my tattoos, she pulls the hoodie off completely. Her eyes roam over every line, as if trying to read me like I’m a story she’s afraid to finish.

She stares at my chest with equal parts of reverence and danger in her eyes. She knows touching me is a bad idea and does it anyway.

Then she lowers herself.

My fists clench. Every muscle in my body tenses as she slides her hands down my sides, skating her fingers just under the waistband of my jeans.

She’s stalling.

“You’re playing with my patience,” I growl.

She doesn’t answer. Just presses her lips to my stomach. A kiss. Soft. Almost innocent. Then another, just below my navel.

“Faith,” I warn, gnashing my teeth. “Take. It. Off.”

She meets my eyes, and fuck there’s fear in them. Real fear. But there’s something else, too.

Power.

She’s trying to take it.

Her hands move to my belt. She unfastens it like she’s undressing a god she doesn’t know how to worship. Every sound, the clink of the buckle, the drag of leather, makes my cock throb harder.

She doesn’t rush.

She unbuttons my jeans, then slowly pulls the zipper down. Her knuckles graze my cock and I nearly lose it.

“Faith.”

She pushes my jeans down, and they catch around my thighs. My cock springs free, thick and hard and already leaking at the tip.

“You’re shaking,” she whispers, mouth still ghosting over me.

Because I’m holding myself back. Every second she draws this out, I want to rip the skin off my own body and fuck her right here, on the cold floor, against these shelves, between the pages of every book that’ll never be this dirty.

I’ve always considered myself a strong man.

The kind of bastard who could carve through anyone and anything without so much as flinching.

But Faith is my undoing. She makes my pulse hammer against my ribs, my blood surge with a heat I’ve never felt before.

She makes me doubt that I’m untouchable, because right now, I feel more human than I ever have. Weak, in a way.

Her fingers brush the base of my cock. She drags one fingertip along the thick vein running down the underside. I hiss through my teeth.

She looks up at me.

“You like that?” she asks softly, but it’s manipulative as hell.

She leans in, presses the softest kiss to the swollen tip. My cock jumps.

“Good girl,” I grit out, threading my fingers through her hair.

She kisses me again. This time a little lower. Then again, dragging her mouth down my shaft, worshipping every inch.

She opens her mouth and takes in just the head as her tongue swirls around it slowly.

I groan as my head tips back and my grip in her hair tightens.

She sinks lower, gliding her lips over the top of that thick vein she traced earlier with her finger.

When I give her hair a sharp tug, her mouth stills around me, a soft hiss slipping past her lips, but she doesn’t pull away.

I pull her hair tighter. “You want the truth?” I rasp. “Open wider. I’ll give it to you down your fucking throat.”

Her mouth stretches wide as she takes me in. She can’t fit it all. Not even close. My cock is too fucking thick for that sweet little mouth to handle, but she tries.

She swallows half, maybe less, and wraps her hand around the rest, stroking slow while her tongue works under the head. I hiss through my teeth, bucking my hips forward on instinct. Her throat clenches, and she gags.

She moans around me, and it vibrates all the way through my spine. I grab her hair in a fist, forcing her to stay right there, just like that.

“I didn’t want anyone knowing I was in Veridian yet,” I rasp, rolling my hips, fucking her mouth. “Because D.O.M’s already aware I’m hunting them.”

She chokes on me.

I pull back just enough to let her breathe, then shove back in, making her take it again. Her hand never stops stroking the base, matching the pace of my thrusts.

“They don’t know who’s who,” I groan. “That’s how the cult works. There are no faces. No names. No real identities. Just initials, roles, and rituals. Everything’s compartmentalized on purpose. One hand never knows what the other is doing. That way, if someone gets caught, no one else burns.”

I thrust a little deeper, her throat tightens around me, but I keep going.

“They recruit people in layers. Outer ring doesn’t know shit except what they’re ordered to do.

Middle ring handles the real operations like transport, tech, obedience training.

But the core? The Dominion Circle? They’re ghosts.

You’ll never see their faces. Never hear their real voices.

Every meeting’s masked, coded, encrypted.

You think you’re speaking to one man, but it could be three. ”

Her hand strokes me faster, and I nearly come undone. I try to ground myself in the feel of her mouth, just to stop myself from hurting her.

“I couldn’t risk them finding out I was in Veridian. One slip. One wrong name. One camera. That’s all it would’ve taken. They’d scatter. They’d hide the girls. Kill the ones who knew too much. That’s why Brian Keller got the easy death.”

Her eyes blink up at me, confused, watering.

“I cut his tongue out first.”

Her hand slows, trying to process it through the haze of spit and cock.

“I didn’t want him screaming, so I cut out his tongue first. With a pair of rusted shears. He thrashed so hard I had to snap his wrist just to keep him still. Blood poured down his chin, bubbling out like he was drowning on it.”

I close my eyes for a second, picturing the way Brian’s legs kicked, the way his eyes bulged when I clamped the pliers around the base of his tongue and yanked until the muscle tore free in a wet snap. Blood sprayed across the floor. He tried to cry out, but it came out as nothing.

“But that wasn’t enough. He still made noise. So I stapled his fucking mouth shut.”

I pull her head back slightly, letting her breathe, then thrust again.

“I slit him from gut to throat. Took my time with it. Let him bleed out after Eleanor crawled out of the cage he kept her in.”

Her hand works around the base, faster now, and her lips seal tighter as she takes as much as she can.

“You’re doing so good, baby,” I groan, tilting my head back, letting the sound of her mouth slurping around my cock echo between the shelves. “Fuck. Just like that.”

I grab her hair and start guiding her faster, rougher, as her tits bounce with every thrust of my hips and her moans vibrate around my cock.

“Good girl,” I hiss, tugging her head back only to shove it forward again. “You look so fucking pretty choking on me.”

“You want more?” I growl.

She nods.

She fucking wants this.

Wants my cock bruising the back of her throat while I tell her about the monsters I carved open. Wants to pretend she’s scared when she’s soaking wet, moaning around me.

“Derick Voss,” I grit out. “You want to know what I did to him?”

She hums around my cock.

“I skinned the bastard alive.”

My chest heaves.

“He brought Maya. He thought no one would find out. He thought she was just another number. Just another girl to break. I dragged him to a basement. Tied him to a drainpipe. Used a carpet knife. Hooked it under his skin and peeled back strips of his skin. I made him watch me hold the flesh he wore like it was nothing.”

My hips stutter. My cock throbs at her lips stretched wide around me, at her spit that covers me. I’m soaked in her.

“I poured bleach in the wounds. Just to hear him scream. He tried to crawl away with no legs. So I dragged him back. Nailed his palms to the floor.”

My grip turns brutal. I force her down onto me, deeper, until her knees give out and she loses balance.

“That’s what he deserved, and I’ll do worse to the rest.”

I snap.

My hips slam forward, fucking her throat hard now. Her hand’s a blur at my base. Her moans are muffled but desperate. Her tongue presses flat under my cock, letting me fuck deeper, rougher.

Every thrust rips another breath out of me. I’m unraveling. Coming apart with her mouth wrapped around the worst parts of me.

“Don’t stop,” I snarl, voice hoarse, raw. “Fucking take it.”

Her throat tightens again.

That’s it.

I break.

Pleasure rips through me as my cock jerks hard in her mouth. I come down her throat. Her lips seal around me, drinking every drop.

Thick globs of cum drip from the corners of her mouth, sliding down her chin in messy trails before splattering across her tits.

They’re rising fast, struggling for air, and shiny where my release coats her skin.

One strand clings to her nipple, catching the light as it pulses with each breath she takes.

She looks so wrecked and yet when she straightens on her knees, it’s not weakness that radiates from her.

It’s determination.

I see the tremble in her arms, the effort it takes just to stay upright. She’s barely holding on. But she doesn’t back down.

And that means something.

It means she’s still got a move left.

“Get on your knees,” she commands.

I stare down at her. She just threw me off-balance. Not because I’m afraid, but because I’m interested. Because something in me likes this, the idea of her wrapping a leash around my neck.

When I don’t obey her command, she leans in and licks the cum off my cock. Her tongue swirls around the tip before she kisses the ink just above the base right over the word carved into my flesh.

“Faith—” I growl.

She drags her teeth across her bottom lip. “Don’t be a baby.”

My cock’s already back to full hardness. I should be ripping her off my cock just to flip her over and fuck her until she begs.

Instead… I drop.

My knees hit the cold floor.

I’m not even all the way down before she presses both palms to my shoulders and forces me back. We’re on the goddamn library floor. There’s barely enough room to stretch out with shelves boxing us in. I can’t even lay flat. My spine’s curved up slightly as my elbows strain to prop myself.

Her bare thighs bracket my hips, and her pussy is soaked to the point where I can feel it dripping on my cock before she even lines us up.

“What are you doing?” I rasp.

“You said I had to earn the truth.” She rakes her nails down the snakes inked across my chest. “So I’m not done yet.”

Her mouth finds my neck and she sucks hard. Leaves a red blotch right beneath my jaw. Then another. And another. Down to my collarbone. Her teeth scrape the flesh that’s already raw from her tongue.

I stare up at that wild, terrified glint in her eyes.

They’ve turned into a shade of blue like a storm-darkened sky, rimmed with the pale fire of lightning at dusk.

They’re too bright. Too alive. Those eyes were made to ruin men.

And right now, they’re ruining me. And if she doesn’t sit down on my cock right this second, I’ll lose whatever humanity’s left in me.

Because she’s the only thing keeping me tethered right now.

“Faith,” I growl. “Sit down on my cock.”

She doesn’t.

She licks a stripe along my throat, then sinks her teeth into the skin just beneath my ear. I hiss, grabbing her hips hard enough to bruise.

“Now.”

She leans down, and flicks her tongue over my lower lip. “Tell me about Corrine.”

My cock throbs so hard it hurts.

“Tomorrow night,” I bite out. “She’s being auctioned.”

Faith goes still.

Her pussy brushes the tip, and I jerk up into her with a groan, but she lifts her hips just enough to keep me out.

She’s not giving in. Not until I break.

And I know it.

She won’t let me inside her until she knows everything. Until I hand her the truth, not just the pieces I’ve bled out between thrusts and threats.

“They hold The Quadrennial event every four years. It’s not just a gathering; it’s a fucking ritual.

The Dominion Circle treats it like sacred tradition.

Every seat at that auction is reserved for high-tier members only.

Attendance isn’t optional, it’s required.

Even the ones who’ve gone deep underground crawl out for it.

It’s the one night they all come together in one place.

Because for them, it’s more than just trade, it’s worship.

They believe the auction renews their power, strengthens their hold. ”

I feel her pulse thudding through her thighs.

“That’s why I have to go. That’s why I’ve been quiet. You think I give a shit about being caught? No. I care about getting them all in one room.”

And when I do?

I’m burning that fucking altar to the ground.

“You’re going?”

I nod once.

Her hips shift involuntarily. Her pussy grinds against me, soaking me, and I can feel the tremble in her thighs.

Faith’s eyes narrow. “You’re going to kill them?”

“Not kill.” I meet her gaze as my cock is raging under her. “I’m going to erase them. One by one. I am going to make sure no one even remembers what their names used to be.”

Her pussy slips along the head of my cock again, making me moan.

“Faith.”

Her lips ghost along my collarbone.

“Sit.”

She drags her tongue down the center of my chest. Lets her tits press to me. I can feel her trembling just a little like she’s scared of what will happen when she gives in, when she finally lowers herself onto me.

And she should be.

Because I’m not going to be gentle.

I grab the back of her neck and pull her down—not inside me—just until our lips nearly touch.

“Sit the fuck down on my cock before I lose what’s left of my patience.”

Her breath catches.

And she lowers herself.