Page 106 of The Venom We Bleed

After a moment, my laughter and amusement finally die down, but Gio doesn't move away. Instead, he looks down at me, eyes glimmering in the shadowed room as he takes me in. One of his hands comes out and my breath catches when he cups my cheek.

"What did Morpheus want from you tonight, Juliet?" he asks.

Not 'Prep Girl' this time but my name. It's impossible to sober completely just because of one question, but some of my earlier drunken reverie slips away. I stare up at him. Should I tell him?

"We're not playing Truth or Dare anymore," I say.

That thumb of his strokes slowly up and down the side of my face, the rough calloused texture of his palm like a brand on my flesh. I want more of that touch, that heat. Ice has crept its way into my chest and formed a cave there. I've been alone for months, cold and unwanted. Afraid to even consider reaching out to someone that I should've trusted without thought. Morpheus Calloway is my dad's best friend. He's been there forevery birthday, every Christmas, every major milestone in my life.

So, why can't I rely on him?

"He wants me to move in with him," I find myself saying when Gio doesn't move.

He frowns. “You don’t want that?”

What I want is … so far outside of what I can have.

I turn my cheek and his hand slides off my face. “Answer me,” he presses. “Why don’t you want to live in a nice big mansion, safe on the better side of town?”

The way he says the word ‘better’ comes out of his mouth like a sneer. I push against his chest. He doesn't take the hint. He doesn't move. Instead, Gio grabs me by the wrists and holds my hands against him until I'm forced to return his stare.

“Why does it matter so fucking much to you?”

The varying shades of brown in his eyes swirl as he looks down at me. Then he says three words that seem to change everything. “Because you matter.”

My throat closes up tight. My eyes burn. I matter? Bullshit. I want to scream at him but my muscles remain lax, unwilling to fight back against the garbage spewing from him. Fine then. If my body won’t fight, then my mouth will.

“If I mattered so much then my dad wouldn’t be a fucking criminal,” I snap. “If I mattered so much then my mom wouldn’t have skipped town. If I mattered so much then this whole goddamn town wouldn’t?—”

“Shhhh.” Gio hushes me with a quiet noise and I fall silent. I swallow against a too-tight throat, willing the tears at the back of my eyes to remain right where they are. No damn way do I want to cry in front of one of the Scorpion Kings. I’ve already allowed myself to be too vulnerable in front of them.

“What else did he want, Juliet?" Gio’s question is a quiet beseeching sound in the deadly silence that surrounds us.

I don’t owe him any answers. I don’t owe him shit, but … “Why do you want to know?” My voice comes out as a croak. I’m viscerally aware of Gio’s body pressing down into my own. My back is against the mattress and he’s draped over me so that there’s nowhere I can feel where he’s not touching me.

The room is still spinning slightly, the world slowing down to give me a chance to keep up. Gio holds my hands, pinning them over my head, stretching my body beneath him so that my breasts are shoved upward into his chest. My nipples pebble against the thin fabric of my sleep tank. I should be screaming and trying to knee him in the balls, but for some reason, my body relaxes beneath his. As if it knows that we’re not under any threat by this man.

“I already told you,” he whispers, lowering his head until they’re nothing but a hair’s breadth away from mine. “Because you matter. Because I want to know.”

I should not feel as good as I do, and yet, there’s at least one thing that makes it better—the fact that I’m not the only one affected by our position. Gio’s cock stretches against my belly, tenting the fabric of his pants. My breath releases from my chest and I slowly peel my eyes away from his to look down the strong length of his body.

Holy. Fuck. They can’t all be ripped with muscle and packing some serious dick game…can they?

When I glance back up at Gio’s face, his pupils are blown wide as fuck as he stares down at me. He doesn’t even try to shift his hips away or hide the fact that he’s hard.

“Do you really think your boys are going to be happy with this?” I mean for the words to come out as a taunt, and though they start that way, by the end of the question, I sound as breathless as I feel.

One single dark brow arches. “We didn’t grow up like you, Prep Girl,” Gio replies. “We’ve always had to share our toys.”

I freeze under him.“What?”Those words can’t mean what I think they do.

Why not?a snide voice in my head asks.It’s what you expected anyway?That they would use you, play you, and fuck around with you just to prove that they could. No one really wants the fallen princess of Silverwood. No one cares.

His whiskey eyes narrow. “I’m not going to like what’s going through that pretty little brain of yours, am I?”

I buck my hips and his eyes widen a fraction just before he settles himself more firmly on top of me, letting the weight of his hips pin me underneath him. His cock nestles against my belly button and sinks against my stomach as if it’s planning to make a home there soon. I’ve gotten it on at least somewhat with two of the Scorpion Kings and now, here I lay, ready to make the same mistake with the third and final one.

What the fuck am I doing?

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