Page 78 of The Venom We Bleed

The temperature in the room before those words were verbalized had been a comfortable, warm. As soon as they leave my mouth, however, it drops significantly. A shiver steals over my shoulders and down my spine. I lift my legs up, pulling them from beneath the sheets, and wrap my arms around my knees as I had before.

“He was going to rape me,” I clarify, “and I let him think he could so he would get close enough so I could stab him in the back.” My teeth rake over my lower lip. “Then … I pushed him off the balcony and watched him fall to his death.”

Nolan knows all of this already. I told the Scorpion Kings everything when they showed up at my apartment. It had seemed stupid to hide it when Gio had seen the results of my actions.

I squeeze my eyes shut and press my forehead into my palms. When, after several beats of silence, I finally lift my head, Nolan is sitting up. The outline of his upper body illuminated by the soft light of the moon coming in from the window.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.

Wearetalking about it,but I know he doesn’t just mean the action itself. He wants to know if I need to unleash all of the shit that’s now in my head. I contemplate the question. Logically, I recognize that the events of the night only happened a few short hours ago, but somehow my mind has fast-forwarded me through it. Almost as if time has warped becoming both longer and too fucking short. I feel detached from the hours between then and now. All I can focus on is where I am here, with Nolan, or there, withhim. It could have been a second before now or years in the past, and yet … I don’t know how my emotions can ever fade.

After a beat, I turn my cheek from one side to the other. “No,” I whisper. “I don’t think so. I just”—I squeeze my arms around my legs a bit tighter, until my chest constricts and aches—“I just think I needed to say it aloud.”

Nolan watches me, the one eye that I can see is dark, his pupil nearly swallowing the ring of cinnamon that is his iris. “How did killing him make you feel?”

Of all the questions I might have guessed he would ask, that was certainly not one. My lips part, jaw dropping. “What?”

He tilts his head to the side, examining me. “You heard me,” he says. “How did it make you feel?”

I want to snort at his question and tell him that he sounds like some sort of gangster therapist, but I don’t. Instead, I find myself thinking back to the moment the intruder had been on top of me, how his body had pressed me down into my shitty futon. The smell of him, rank and stinking of tobacco. For the last several months, I’ve felt nothing but anger, pain, abandonment, and utter loss. There’s no place for me in this new world I’m unaccustomed to, no room for someone who doesn’t belong.

All those short skirts … your tiny, little cheerleading uniform. Do you dance around like that just for me, pretty girl?I want to swat the ugly words away.

I wish I still had those meds my mom had gotten me. My nightmares … they’re not real. Just fear brought to life by anxiety. It’s easier to focus on the events of tonight. Those are undeniable.

When that man had broken in, when he’d held the knife to me and threatened me with a fate worse to many than even death … it had become so clear to me that not only do I not belong, but no one would even care if I died. No one would care if I was raped. Even if they heard me scream or beg, no one would have come—but then someone had.Theyhad.

Knowing that no one cared if I lived or died or if something worse than either was happening to me had been the final nail in a coffin I didn’t know I was already lying in. My grave is built and I am dying. Suffocating.

Holding that knife in my hand felt like I was fighting back against fate. As if I had finally found a home. A home in which I’m not a victim. I don’t have to be one. I enjoyed making him hurt. The warmth of his blood on my fingers had created a fire inside me, and it made me whole again. It’s a bad idea to admit this to anyone, much less someone like him, to a Scorpion King.

“Powerful.” The word is a rasp on my tongue. “It felt powerful to stab him, to kill him.” To make him hurt the way he hurt me. To take back control and make it my bitch.

Nolan’s eyes are steady on mine, unwavering. I’m more than a little astonished to find no judgment in them, no condemnation. Then again, knowing who he is—a gutter rat like the rest of them no doubt used to the violence that life has to offer in the streets—perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised.

“Good,” is all he says. One simple word and I feel …accepted.

For the first time since my life fell apart, I feel like someone is looking at me and they’re not seeing what they want to. He’s not seeing Allen Donovan’s daughter, the child of a criminal. He’s seeing the real Juliet—no blood ties, no family, no past.

I sway towards him, my eyes falling from his gaze to his mouth. I wonder if his lips are as soft as they look. Before I can close that distance between us though and make what I’m sure is a stupid mistake, Nolan is already there—erasing the inches of space.

His mouth presses into mine with a readiness that both confuses and incites me. My hands arch up around his neck and I open my mouth without thought.

Kissing Nolan is delicious.

It’s nothing like making out with my ex. Nolan’s kiss is more devouring than those lame pecks and cool, boring licks. The difference is like that of a kitten and a lion. Nolan is all predator, crawling over me and pressing me back into the bed as his hands grip my hips and his body surges forth. His hard cock is against my belly, rubbing back and forth, but I’m not scared. I want more—more of his mouth and lips and touch. It doesn’t make any sense. I should be traumatized by what happened tonight—maybe I am, but I’m not scared of Nolan Pierce. I’m not scared of the way he makes me feel.

A gasp escapes me, and when my lips part, he delves inside, sliding his tongue along mine. Fire dances along the surface of my skin, turning me to ash. I am a creature of pure sensation under this indelible beast.

Nolan kisses me and I am afraid that it’s the kind of kiss I will never be able to forget.

Pressing one hand to the center of his chest, I push him back just enough to separate our mouths. Hot puffs of breath echo between us, and for the first time in a long time, the dark doesn’t feel quite as oppressive.

“What?” Nolan sounds strained, the single word he lets out is taut and hungry.

“You hate me,” I breathe. “Why are you doing this if you hate me?”

A low groan rumbles up his throat and his lower body sinks down harder against me. I can feel his erection, hot and hard, where it’s trapped between us. I don’t feel threatened by it though.

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