Page 152 of Making Choices

I allow myself the count of ten to bask in the feel of Cherub’s arse pressed against my morning wood, then I roll out of her bed like a ninja on stealth mode. After tucking her in, I stare down at her and try to make my feet carry me out of her room. Mumbling something under her breath, my duchess shifts restlessly. She flops on her back, then kicks at the comforter to uncover one leg.

Her thermostat, as she jokingly calls it.

My hungry gaze traces the elegant limb.

From her painted toes to the top of her inner thigh.

The sight of the thin cuts marring her perfect flesh makes me curl my fingers into fists.

Then, like I have nearly every day for the past six weeks, I sneak out of Cherub’s bedroom before a single ray of the morning sun has crested the horizon. It’s day forty-three since I inadvertently imploded my life and I’m not handling it. At all. My misstep with Bebe has created all kinds of problems for my faction of the Shamrocks, and after Hades and Angelis managed to calm Venom down with an incredibly abbreviated version of the truth about my run in with the Maddison clan, one that erased Bebe’s role in everything, the club decided that it was best if we all put distance between Cherub and us.

Especially me and Venom.

But mainly me.

I’m the fuck up.

The one who dragged her into the crosshairs.

A man who flew too close to the sun and ended up incinerated.

And it only got worse from there when a week or so after the concert, Cherub tried to join the monthly family night, only to be told that her ex-fiancé had laid down a decree banishing her from the compound. It was a cowardly step, one that I’d argued against, yet the vote went against me. Everyone except Hunter and Cub voted with Venom to cut her off from the Shamrocks for her own protection.

My duchess reacted to the news by going completely off the rails.

Sure, she went to work most days.

Gabriel kept an eye on her, and his assistant, Veronica, ensured she remained busy.

Her despair got the better of her at night.

Drugs. Drinks. Dancing on bars.

Those three activities I could handle.

It’s the constant flirting that drives me to the point of madness.

Every time she gets high and allows Nadia to goad her into approaching some random preppy douche drinking IPAs with his douchebag mates, my jaw locks and my heart seizes. I can feel the jealousy pounding through me, poisonous wave by poisonous wave, until I’m ready to kill. The need to possess her swamps every rational thought in my head. Unleashes a side of me that I never knew existed.

Turns me into Venom.

The solitary silver lining in all this is that my brothers have my back.

As I devolve into my most primal form, they keep me from losing control.

In the space of five months, Cherub has made me both empathise with and loathe Venom.

How the hell is he surviving without her?

I’m barely holding on and I live in the same house.

“What the fuck?” Toker halts at the top of the steps as I pull Cherub’s bedroom door shut behind me. Dressed in my boxers, with my cut and jeans slung over my forearm, and the top of my boots clasped in my fist, the scene is incriminating. “It’s like you have a motherfuckin’ death wish.”

I press a finger to my lips.

He shuts up.

“I’ll explain downstairs.”

---