Page 250 of Craving Venom

“You’re disgusting.” His hand wraps around my throat again, not like before, not just to control, but to claim. He squeezes justenough 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.

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