Page 1 of Lovely Venom

PROLOGUE

CHANTEL

Rough words. Steady hands.

A dark, addictive scent that wraps around me and doesn’t let go.

Those details are imprinted on me, and three years later, I still can’t erase the lingering ache of our final night together.

The memory lives inside me, haunting me in my dreams and loneliest hours.

It was supposed to be simple. No names. No attachments. Clear rules. But nothing about my time with him was simple, and when the memories come rushing back, they consume me.

“Do you remember what I told you, dea?”

The weight of his hand settles on my throat, tipping my head back as his voice brushes against my ear.

There’s something so possessive about the way he touches me. It sends lightning through my veins and makes it hard to breathe at times.

Of course he knows.

The efficiency with which he’s learned to read my reactions is as terrifying as it is fascinating. He’s observant, calm, composed, and he speaks with the quiet kind of authority a man can only be born with.

It makes sense that he chose Bran the Blessed as his alias because the watcher sees everything.

He knows when I need his control and when I need my own. He recognizes when to push and when to give. Nothing is forced. He leaves the door open and allows me to surrender on my terms.

And with him, surrender has become inevitable. My body reacts to him almost instinctively when he directs me now, and somehow, he calms the chaos inside my mind. It’s liberating, but also confusing.

A dynamic like ours can only work if I risk the free fall, knowing he’ll be there to catch me. But trust isn’t something I give easily, or in most cases, at all. I’ve spent years forging this armor around me, and it’s been impenetrable until him.

With every fear he strips away, he dismantles another piece of my defenses, leaving me exposed and vulnerable. Paradoxically, I can handle dysfunction because my nervous system recognizes it, but these moments of safety?

They unravel me.

Tonight, it’s so much more intense than anything else we’ve done. Beneath the blindfold, all I have to rely on are my senses. But even without sight, he’s there when I close my eyes.

Large, masculine hands. Dark hair. The smooth, well-carved lines of his jaw, and the steady pulse in his neck. The only mystery remains obscured beneath the matte black half-mask, but I know his eyes would be as devastating as the rest of him.

He’s all man—a fortress of muscle and bone, with the kind of protector energy that feels nothing less than primal.

That presence swallows me whole as I sit on his lap.

I’m familiar with the brush of his immaculate suit when he touches me, but tonight his chest is bare.

It’s become a ritual for me, drinking in the sight of him as he enters the room, methodically removing his cufflinks and loosening his tie.

When he takes off his suit jacket and rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt, my mind conjures up the most unholy thoughts I’ve ever had. But seeing that broad expanse of olive skin for the first time, the ridges of muscle along his abdomen, and that faint dusting of dark hair that disappears beneath his trousers? My brain short-circuited.

“Peak male evolution” isn’t a strong enough description.

The pull of his masculinity triggers a primitive urge to lay myself bare for his pleasure.

If only he’d let me.

I often wonder what’s in this arrangement for him. He’s a man built to claim, and I’m certain he’d have plenty of willing subjects. But here he is with me, patiently working through these exercises in trust as he gives me pleasure and never takes any for himself.

It’s not an even exchange, and it’s difficult for me to accept that. But he tells me what pleases him most right now is watching me surrender, and I believe him.