Page 167 of Tempting Fate

Slash pinches either side of my windpipe and cuts off my oxygen completely. Within seconds, I shatter above him. He lets go of my throat as my orgasm swells through me in waves that hit harder with every heartbeat. I gasp for air while he rips my singlet down the middle. Pushing me onto my back, Slash straddles my thighs and fists his big cock. His dinner plate sized hand moves fast, down and up, up and down, ending each pump with a vicious twist of the angry head of his pierced cock, before his palm repeats its journey.

Over and over.

Harder and harder.

Faster and faster.

He fucks his hand while staring me in the eyes with the promise that he’d punish me just as hard if he thought I’d let him. Bending over me, Slash loses his rhythm and ribbons of his release spurt onto my exposed breasts. He’s barely finished with his orgasm when he drops to his side next to me and pulls me back to his chest. Grinding himself against my arse, he uses his free hand to rub his cum into my skin.

Once he seems satisfied that he’s marked me properly, his fingers tighten around my necklace, and I stiffen, expecting he’s going to rip it off me.

He doesn’t.

Instead, Slash lets it slip from his as he falls still and rests his chin on the top of my head. When his breathing returns to normal, he states in a resigned voice, “You’re gonna lie to me, aren’t you—gonna tell me we’re not right, even though I made you see how good we can be together.”

“It’s not right.” I screw my eyes shut and do my best to swallow down the shame that burns deep in my soul. “It never will be.”

After I roll away from him and back to my feet, Slash props himself up on his elbow and stares at me. I refuse to meet his searching gaze or to look at any part of the body that felt so good against mine. The long-forgotten, half-finished bottle of tequila lies on the floor at the end of the bed. Clutching the two sides of my shredded tank top together, I bend down to grab it, then hug the bottle to my sticky chest as I run to the hallway.

“You can lie to me,” he shouts after me in the angriest tone he’s ever directed my way. “But you can’t lie to yourself forever, duchess! The truth has a way of comin’ out.”

I lock myself inside my room, toss the tequila on the mattress, then dash into the bathroom. Once the water is scalding, I step under it and scrub at my breasts. There’s thudding on Slash’s side of the wall, then silence, until the muted sound of his Harley turning over rumbles for half a minute before it fades away.

When the hot water runs out, I wrap myself in a towel and crawl onto my bed.

My laptop mocks me.

With shaky hands, I grab my computer and throw it at the wall.

My phone bounces in front of me when the cord rips free. The new message icon blinks. I touch the screen then swipe up on the notification. When it opens, I have to read the text thread twice before I actually believe my eyes.

ZEKE: What happened tonight can never happen again

ZEKE: It was a mistake

ZEKE: Move on, Lily

ZEKE: That’s what I’ll be doing in Sydney

The laughter that bubbles in my chest isn’t filled with humour. It’s black as tar and full of nothing but scorn. For a moment, I try to stifle it, then it gets the better of me.

So, I just let it flow.

It burns. The irony of it all.

I almost succumb to the guilt that tries to consume me in the face of my mistake with Slash, then the two words Nadia said to me almost two months ago bounce around my head as a saving grace.

She was right, then.

Somehow she manages to be even more so in this moment.

When the maniacal laughter finally dies, I ball my hands into fists and scream as loudly as I can, “Fuck men!”

My throat is raw by the time I’m finished purging my rage, so I drain the bottle of tequila... then I throw myself back on my pillows and cry myself to sleep.

34

VENOM

---