Page 61 of Venomous Heart
Ava panted, her hands flat on the mattress of leaves, her red hair catching the light from the fire as he fucked her roughly. Each stroke of his seed stem brought him closer to the total possession he wanted, each thrust making her tight channel clench and quiver.
He wanted her to scream again. He needed her to.
His hands went to her stomach, then he lifted her so she was straddling him, her ass tight against his hips as he thrust into her. He held her close, one arm against her chest, going up to her throat. He wrapped his fingers around her throat, delighted at the fast, erratic beat of her pulse.
He could feel her channel quivering, squeezing him as she neared another, more powerful release.
His free hand went to her front and he brushed over her nerve bundle. Ava cried out at the direct contact and he knew all he had to do was rub it and she would come for him.
But not yet.
Arlen kept rutting her as she lay in his arms, powerless, suspended in his lap as he fucked her deeper and faster. The release built inside him, pulsing from his seed sack, inevitable now.
Just before it came, he rubbed her tiny nub with his thumb, rough and fast.
Ava screamed mindlessly as her channel pulsated to the rhythm of her ecstasy. Then all thought deserted him as he thrust inside her, rutting her with a soulless purpose, his seed stem impaling her as he lifted her up and down.
He roared as he came, the hot, powerful jet of semen spilling out of him and into her, coming in tandem with her as she finally collapsed in his arms.
Arlen put her down gently and Ava panted, curled up on the bed of leaves, her face flushed and her expression blank. Finally, after a long time, she rolled onto her back and looked up at him. Her pristine purple eyes settled on him and his gut twisted with an unfamiliar emotion.
Suddenly, he was ashamed. He had rutted her like a beast, using her body roughly for his own pleasure. He didn’t deserve her.
“That was… different.” Her mouth stretched in a sexy smile.
“I’m so sorry.” Arlen stared at her in shock, his gaze moving from her flushed cheeks to her hips, where red marks the shape of his hands were rapidly darkening. “I hurt you.”
“What are you talking about?” Ava laughed, the sound pure and crystal-like. “You did the exact opposite of hurting me!”
Arlen ran his hand over the curve of her hip, his mind oblivious to her reassuring words. Because he knew. He knew what he had done.
“I rutted you.” Shame burned through him and he lowered his head. “I should never have lost control like I did.”
Laugher rang above him and Arlen looked up sharply.
“You don’t get it, Big-Blue-and-Mighty? You could never hurt me. You told me so yourself.”
Arlen watched her face for signs of deceit. For signs of resentment, signs that she was holding back her true feelings, but found none.
Ava was telling the truth. Arlen found he couldn’t talk. All he could do was watch her as she shook her head, still laughing.
Then he gathered her in his lap and held her against him. He savored each beat of her heart against his own, and suddenly he understood. He understood what that ripping in the fabric of his very soul was, what that terror that had invaded his body and mind when he’d thought he had lost her meant.
It meant he wasn’t just linked to her by the Mating Venom. He loved her with every fiber of his being, with the blood in his veins and the breath in his lungs.
Ava made his life whole in a way he hadn’t thought possible for so long, he didn’t even remember what hope felt like. Now that she was in his life, he had found something it had always lacked. A meaning, a purpose other than duty.
She was his reason to live, his reason to fight.
And as long as he had breath in his lungs, he would not fail her.
“When I saw your transport fall into that lake, I thought I was going to see you die.” Arlen spoke in a low voice, studying the elegant line of her jaw, the way her lower lip was just a tad too full for her upper lip. Perfect. Everything about Ava was just perfect in his eyes. “The thought of losing you… death would have been a sweeter fate.”
Ava locked gazes with him then. Emotions passed between them that didn’t need words, that could not be expressed by words.
“What were you doing out there?” Ava frowned slightly, then shook her head in disbelief. “How did you find me?”
“Some girl named Edmila harassed my men until they contacted me aboard the Mantrilla flagship.” Arlen bent over her throat and nipped her exquisite, silky skin. “I rushed back and looked everywhere for you. It was by only sheer luck that you didn’t think to deactivate the locating chip in Knut’s transport. I can’t even think what would have happened if you’d known how to deactivate it.”
