Page 41 of Lovely Venom

“What? I’ve seen the way women throw themselves at you. It probably only takes one night for you to ruin them.”

“You’d be surprised,” he answers dryly.

I don’t know what he means by that, but it doesn’t matter. I’m pretty sure my mouth has disconnected from my brain because words are just spilling out now.

“I bet you’d make beautiful babies.” I reach up to touch him, letting my fingers roam over his face.

He releases a rough breath, and that smolder in his eyes turns into a blazing inferno. “There’s one way to find out.”

I can’t tell if he’s joking, but now all I can think about is what it would feel like to be wrecked by Cristian Vitale. Physically, not emotionally, because I suspect the latter is something a woman doesn’t recover from.

Against my better judgment, my eyes drift to his lips, and for one fleeting second, I wonder what it would be like to break my rules—just once. Kissing is supposed to be a nonnegotiable. But right now, the irrational side of me isn’t thinking about messy complications. That part of me makes me do stupid things, like sit up and crawl onto his lap.

A low rumble vibrates through his chest as I shift closer, settling over the unmistakable heat in his trousers. Apparently that part of him likes me just fine.

His gaze slides over the exposed part of my thighs and all the way up my dress, pausing on the soft swell of my breasts. I know I’m not imagining the hunger in his eyes or the pronounced hardness straining against his zipper. When I roll my hips against him, he bites back a groan, and that sound unravels my last thread of restraint. But when I reach for his tie and start to loosen it, he closes his eyes briefly, then stills my hands with his.

“Not like this, gattina.”

His rejection is subdued, but it doesn’t matter. It stings like hell in my fragile state.

“I’m sorry.” I scramble off him and slide across the bed, putting as much distance between us as I can. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Chantel—”

“Can you please just go?” I turn away and pull the covers over myself. “I want to be alone.”

There’s a long stretch of silence before he finally stands and leaves the room.

Once he’s gone, I curl into myself and try to hold it together, but I can’t. My emotions are all over the place, and I can’t even blame it on one particular thing. It’s just this constant feeling of never being enough.

The worst part is that no matter how much I’ve tried to kill it, there’s still something inside me that wants to be chosen, loved, and protected. I hate it, and the irony is that it doesn’t even matter. I’ll never feel safe enough to trust anyone again.

I let myself wallow for a few minutes before I dry my tears and stuff down my emotions, locking them away. Tomorrow’s a new day, and things will be better. At least that’s what I always tell myself.

I slip out of bed and change into a tank top and shorts, then go about my nightly routine. Opening my drawer, I retrieve my stiletto knife and tuck it beneath my pillow. Then I place the flashlight and a canister of pepper spray in their respective places on the nightstand. Lastly, I remove my gun from the biometric safe and begin my ritual.

Clearing the bathroom first, I prop my baseball bat beside the door and plug in my burner phone, just in case. I like to have a weapon in each room, and I can’t sleep until I’ve checked everything.

Usually, I’d scroll through the notifications from my doorbell camera on the way home, but tonight I wasn’t able to do that. There’s an order to my chaos, and if I stray outside of it, the possibilities of what could go wrong overwhelm me.

Once my room and bathroom are secured and I’ve checked each of the windows six times, I quietly make my way down the hall in the darkness.

I move around the perimeter, methodically inspecting every other window before I reach the front door. When I find only one of the deadbolts locked, a flood of intrusive thoughts crashes through my mind.

What if someone already got in?

What if they’ve been here the whole time?

They could be in the attic.

Were they waiting for me to come home?

What if they come for me and I freeze?

I breathe my way through the mini panic attack as I lock each deadbolt and check them all six times. But tonight, that isn’t enough. So I stand there for a while longer, repeating the ritual until I manage to convince myself I really locked them and I’m not imagining it.

Once I accept that, it calms me a little, at least until I turn around.