Page 96 of Lovely Venom

His fingers bite into my hip as he punctuates his words with more punishing thrusts.

“Three. Fucking. Years. Chantel.”

“I know,” I say again, the words nearly getting caught in my throat.

“Who does this belong to?” He drives into me.

“You,” I whisper.

“So why the fuck did you take it away?”

“Because you made me want things I can’t have,” I cry out.

I regret it the moment I say it. It’s too honest. But this is what he does to me, and part of me resents him for that.

He shouldn’t be able to get through my defenses.

He’s not supposed to matter.

But the emotion in my voice proves otherwise, and I know he heard it.

He slows things down, flipping me onto my back and settling his weight between my thighs.

Dragging his fingers through my hair, he takes my mouth in a languid kiss that dissolves the tension between us.

There’s a quiet intensity to the way he rocks into me. He’s not just fucking me. Whatever this is, it’s deeply intimate, and I shouldn’t like it. But it feeds something inside me I’ve tried so hard to erase.

My mind is at war, and right now, I can’t tell which side is winning. So I just surrender to the moment.

Pressing my fingers into his back, I succumb to a long, soul-deep release that leaves me boneless and wrung out.

With heavy eyes, I watch Bran pull out with a groan and mark me with his cum for a second time.

Something inside me feels achingly empty as he does that. Because I realize I’ll never know what it feels like for him to finish inside me.

“Thinking greedy thoughts?” He brushes my hair aside, thumb grazing my cheek.

“How did you know?” My lip tips up at the corner.

“You hold your breath.”

“Really?” I frown.

“Among other things.” Amusement threads through his voice.

“What other things?” I call after him as he rises from the bed and heads for the bathroom.

“Can’t give away all my secrets.”

My eyes gravitate to the tattoo I didn’t know he had. A pair of black wings stretches across the expanse of his back from one broad shoulder to the other.

It’s a beautiful piece of work, and the canvas is, well, perfect—which is rather annoying. Men as hot as Bran should not be allowed to cover themselves in ink. Nobody needs another reason to stare at him.

Especially me.

When he returns with a damp cloth to clean me up, my gaze roams over his face.

“Have you always had that?”