Page 145 of Making Choices

I don’t let her go.

“What happened?”

“I hacked Zeke’s phone.” As Cherub swallows, I mimic the movement. Feeling her racing pulse and her breaths beneath my palm is a potent mix. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to stop myself from leaning forward and kissing the despair from her face. “He recorded himself making a deal with my dad to stay away from me in exchange for them calling a truce.”

The truth trips unbidden from my mouth. “He’s a fuckin’ idiot.”

“It gets worse,” she admits.

A single tear tracks down her cheek.

I catch it with my thumb, then lick her sorrow from my skin.

Cherub’s pupils dilate.

“Tell me, what’s worse?”

“I think he’d already left me before Dad threatened to send me to jail for killing Alex… and I think that’s why you two fought at the cemetery.”

“Like I said…” With the hand around her neck, I tug her closer. When her palms land on my thighs, my cock twitches. Cherub’s nose is brushing mine, so I feel her small gasp at the same time as I hear it. She flushes, colour filling her face as she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth. “He’s a fuckin idiot.”

As the reality of our position dawns, my duchess tries to move away.

With perverse pleasure, I hold her in place.

“He’s your best friend.”

The desire to sink my teeth into her bottom lip engulfs me.

“I don’t know how true that is anymore.”

Cherub’s eyes widen.

“Why?”

I press my forehead to hers.

“Because I’m startin’ to think Bebe is right… how can Venom be my best friend when I’ve fallen for his woman?”

Her immediate reaction to my half-truth is acceptance.

I know this because I feel the fight leave her body.

Then Cherub’s mind, the psyche that Venom’s spent nearly twenty-three years moulding to accept him as her sole reality, rebels. She digs her nails into my wrist. I absorb the sting as I wait to see what she’ll do next. Shaking her head, my duchess makes a whining sound that’s pure panic.

I let her go.

On her hands and knees, Cherub scrambles for the end of the bed.

The sight of the Venom tattoo between her shoulder blades snaps me out of my apathy.

Surging forward, I take hold of her ankle and pull her flat. After flipping her onto her back, I straddle her waist in the same way I did earlier when I was tickling her. This time, I’m naked and aroused, and she’s flushed and unbalanced. Cherub lifts her eyes to the ceiling to avoid looking at my cock, yet I feel the way her body sinks into the mattress as the fight leaves her again. I place a hand on either side of her face, caging her in, as I lower my mouth to within a whisper of hers.

Repeating her earlier confession, I tell Cherub, “It gets worse... I think she’s fallen for me too.”

“No.”

My duchess screws her eyes shut to block out the truth.

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