Page 18 of Lovely Venom

“This green and gold is art. That’s got bite, Quinlan,” Dirk says quietly as he works. “This blonde got a name?”

Blade finally looks over as Jett’s ink gun goes quiet at the exact moment of the question.

“No.” I lean in and whisper, “Just a cunt I can’t get out of my mind.”

Dirk looks up at me. “Try asking her for a date. Less extreme. Cheaper and pain free.”

She’s fucking DEA, and I kill people.

She’s officially on the off-limits list.

I run every minute with her in my head. How I took her so many times in my bed and she let me. She seemed a little shy at first.

Then I whispered to her, “Open for me, baby. I’ll go slow and get you used to my cock and how rough I like to fuck. You’ll be begging me to fuck you harder by the time I’m done with you.”

By four a.m., the needle’s stopped, and my obsession is inked into my skin, carved into my soul.

I glance at the table next to me. “Where did Blade and Jett go?”

Dirk raises one eyebrow, getting ointment ready. “They left.”

Message received. They left together.

Dirk tapes down a massive clear bandage, but the pain isn’t gone. It’s throbbing. Pulsing. It’s a second heartbeat that has a place now to live and breathe.

And she does, too.

I stand up, Dirk catching me. “Easy, boss, you lost a lot of blood.”

We get to a mirror, and even underneath the plastic, the vibrant mix of green and gold pops on my skin. A goddamn tear wells up.

That might be the pain, though.

“Christ, that’s gorgeous,” I mutter.

“If you come back with your mystery lady, I can adjust the snake eyes to match hers more closely,” he says, tone normal, no longer needing to whisper since the place is empty.

I smile and sign the credit card bill.

Thatwill never happen.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Raina

Ifind the unopened letter from one year ago buried in my desk, along with my mother’s death certificate. The only proof she ever existed is a piece of paper that says she’s gone. And somehow, that hits harder than anything else. With no job and no family, all I have is loss and silence.

My eyes stray to the black glossy urn on my bookshelf. Momdidhave books. Lots of romance novels. Dora’s son, Remy, and his boyfriend didn’t seem to need anything to spice up their love life, so I boxed the entire collection and took it with me.

Those boxes sat unopened in a corner until I was forced to take five weeks’ vacation from another fuck up. I convinced Ruby to spend a Saturday with me in the nearest IKEA, where I bought a bookcase system. Mom’s smut now sits onmyshelves.

Plopping on my sofa, Mom in the urn and her smut winking back at me, I stare at the unopened letter.

My fingers tighten around the envelope until the paper crinkles under my grip. I peel away the seal and reach inside the envelope. Holding my breath, I slide out the folded notebook paper.

Mom’s handwriting is instantly recognizable and jarring. She didn’t have the penmanship of a serial killer. That’s me. She always wrote like a sixteen-year-old girl. Exaggerated script and perfect. All that’s missing are the hearts to dot the I’s.

On the folded-down part, a preamble reads: