Chapter 4
VENOM
I smile up at her. There’s a fire in her that speaks to the one burning in my soul.
Despite having a piece-of-shit father, she’s stayed true to her own heart.
Or maybe because of him. I don’t know. But I’m witnessing a wintry wild flower growing among the frozen weeds of my dark world and I can’t handle the thought of someone hurting her petals.
I take her hand and pull her back to rest on my chest and she comes willingly with beautiful kiss-swollen lips spread into a sweet smile.
“Sleep now, snow angel. Tomorrow will be here soon enough. Let’s not think about it for now.”
I take her softness into my arms and hold her to me, stroking her hair as she drifts to sleep.
Me. A killer. And here I am gently soothing a delicate ice petal into her dreams. The amount of blood I have on my hands will never change, but if I’m lucky, I’ll never have to show her that ugly side of me.
It would turn her against me. I know it.
No woman wants a man like me. I lean down and place a gentle kiss to the top of her head.
But it’s too late. I have her and I am not letting her go.
Her father can come for her, but all he will get is a gun to his head.
He should have protected her. Instead, he did something that sent her running off in the middle of the night in this God forsaken storm.
He’ll pay for risking her life soon enough.
I’ve been on my own for a long time now.
No family to call home to or to care for.
That was never in my cards. The military became my family and taught me how to care for myself and fight for those who can’t protect themselves.
And then I took it one step further and learned how to bring lives back from the brink of death.
Now, the Savages are my family and…
I pull a blanket over us and fill my heart with the sound of Willow sighing heavily in her sleep. Now she’s my family. There’s no way she’s leaving this cabin tomorrow, and it’s going to be fun telling her so when the sun comes up.
For now, I take comfort in knowing I’m her protector and she will always have me.
Honestly, I’m not close to God at the moment, but we have had a lot of conversations in the past. I’ve begged for some souls to be saved, and on the flip side I’ve sent a few to their maker. I’m not entirely sure where I stand with Him right now, but he can’t be too mad at me.
I wrap my arms around Willow and settle her over my chest. Her hand rests on my heart and the energy she feeds into me is made of pure love and light.
Thank you , I send up just in case this is a gift from above. I’ll treasure her as the perfect snow angel she is.
He and I know the pain I’ve gone through in losing someone I loved with all my heart.
I was young and so was she. Never fall for someone on your team is the number one rule back in bootcamp.
But I did it anyway. She took a live round to the chest in training.
It was a freak accident that shouldn’t have happened, but there was nothing I could do to save her.
Tonight I was given a second chance to love again. It’s a foreign feeling I don’t know what to do with, but I’m not letting it go.
Out here on the back acres, it’s so quiet you can hear your own heartbeat lie to you. Mine right now says I can't keep the angel I found in the snow, but I know the lie for what it is. I have no interest in giving back the gift I found.
The wind finally chokes out and the night settles. Branches scrap across the roof here and there and the fire crackles. In another hour I’ll have to move to add more logs, but not yet.
Half of my soul left my body when I found Willow in the snow half dead. The other half I just gave to her and I have zero regrets.
That means something to me.
And now I’m lost in fucking love when i swore three hours ago I would never love another woman again. I never wanted to feel the pain of loss like that and now I would take every ounce of pain in the world if it means keeping her.
I huff and scrub a hand down my face. Fuck. Listen to me wax on like I’m some damn poet who invented love or some shit.
I don’t know how long we lay like this but when I wake, Willow is gone.
I shoot up, blankets falling everywhere. The fire has died down, and the cabin is dark. Silent.
Relentless fear shoots through me. Did her father come in while I was sleeping?
No, I am a light sleeper. I would have heard the front door open.
Lethal hunger rises and the heat sinks into every blood cell in my body.
I reach for my clothes and go to jerk on my shirt but the sound of water makes my movements still.
Soft humming of my snow angel filters out through my bedroom door.
The fear in my body drops away and I can breathe again. My heart drops back into my chest where it belongs, too. I drop the shirt and ease into the room. My bathroom door sits slightly ajar, the light filtering out. The scent of my shampoo and soap linger in the warm air.
I ease the door open and watch the beauty in front of me linger under the hot spray.
“Gonna keep staring or are you gonna get me wet, big guy?” she teases, cheeks flushed, skin glowing in the golden haze. Willow stands in the middle of my shower—bare, perfect, daring me to come to her.
Fuck. I’m ruined for this woman.
Her eyes caress over my chest and linger there a moment before she finds my arousal.
“Oh.”
Her pretty blue eyes widen just enough to stroke my ego and make my cock harder for the woman. Multiple ideas of how to make sure she gets pregnant tonight bombard my thoughts and I plan on making sure I use every single one of them.
I grin hungrily and push the sliding shower door closed behind me.
I crowd her into the spray of water, one hand braced beside her head, the other sliding down her slick, heated skin.
Her honey-colored hair is plastered to her shoulders, drops sliding down the soft slope of her chest, catching at the peaks of her perfect nipples.
My cock aches, thick and heavy between us, but I take my time—rubbing my nose along her jaw, breathing her in, fighting that urge to just devour.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” I growl, tracing a line down her neck with my tongue. She shivers, giggling as her hands skate over my chest, nails raking through the dark hair, bold and soft and everything I never let myself want.
She tilts her head, blue eyes bright as ice, lips still slightly swollen from our first encounter. “Pretty sure I do,” she whispers, hips rolling against me, rubbing her wet, slick body all over mine like she was made for only me.
I groan—helpless—catching her mouth in a brutal, hungry kiss. She whimpers, arms sliding around my neck, water pouring over both of us as I drag my hands down her back, cupping her ass and pulling her flush against me.
“Tell me to stop,” I murmur, just to hear her fight me. ‘Tell me to stop so i don’t fuck you so hard we both lose track of time. I will ruin you, willow. If I take you again there will never be another man who lays his hands on you. Do you understand me?”
She grins against my lips. “Promise?”
My heart shatters between us at the depth of meaning behind that one word.
Hope lives in her eyes and she is showing me every once of herself.
That she thinks I am better than any of the men she grew up around or even her father cracks the last remaining fragments of my heart.
Not for me. But for her. She deserves so much better but I can’t help myself.
I am the fucking devil and I want what I want and Willow is the object of my obsession.
She’s the sunshine and sweet winter’s kiss to my darkness and hellfire.
I push her gently, pressing her back to the cool tile.
She gasps, heat and chill colliding, and arches for me—offering me the very thing I want to taste the most. My mouth finds her eager nipple.
I swirl my tongue around the sweetness, my teeth grazing just enough to make her moan.
I suck, then bite softly, loving the way she writhes, desperate and sweet.
She makes the monster in me slip from the darkness and notice the innocence of her nature.
I’ll stain it, growls deeply and I notice it. Then I flick the intrusive thought away. I can protect her. I will protect her. Even from myself.
“You taste better than you should,” I mutter, moving lower, kneeling in the steam, hands bracing her hips. I nuzzle the inside of her thigh and watch her shiver with the same anticipation of where this is leading that I have pumping through my veins.
“Venom—please—” her fingers bury in my hair.
I grin, lips curling. “Open for me, Willow. Show me what I’ve already claimed. Show me your sweet, perfect pussy.”
She does and I can see every ounce of trust she has in me to care for her mix with hunger. It’s an intoxicating combination I never want to be without again in my life.
I slip my tongue through her folds, slow and deliberate. The water sluices over my shoulders as I taste her sweetness. She’s slick, sweet, honey coats my tongue, and when I suck her clit, her fingers clutch my hair, pulling me in like she wants to drown in me in her taste.
My tongue swirls around her swollen clit, my hands griping her ass and holding her to me. When I growl a low, rumbling beastly sound against her soaked little pussy, my snow angel melts for me.
Willow moans wildly as her release hits hard against my mouth. I groan, feeling the flood of her arousal spill over my tongue and down my chin. I drink every last fucking drop of her like a man dying of thirst.
I tongue her, fingers sliding deep, curling until she’s shaking, mouth open and begging me to give her another orgasm. She’s so fucking eager for it hurts.
Keeping her pussy flush against my mouth, I tease her over and over, from one climax to another until she looks ready to fall to her knees. I brace her weight in my arms and hold her steady. I will never let her get hurt.
I slowly stand, chest heaving, water running down my face. When I drag my tongue over her parted lips for a kiss, both of us moan at the taste of her on my mouth.
“Venom,” she says shakily and knowing I’ve made her so weak she can barely say my name shoots pride through me.
She pants with pleasure while it is pure, untamed raw lust forcing my chest in and out. She’s still panting, cheeks glowing, but she grabs my cock like she knows what she wants and finally feels confident enough to go for it.
“My turn,” she whispers, sinking to her knees, looking up at me with that wild, hopeful smile. Her mouth is hot, wet and my fucking heaven. Her tongue slides along my length and when her lips wrap around the head, sucking, teasing…
“Fuck, Willow. You make me see stars,” I hiss, bracing a hand on the wall, the other tangled in her hair. She moans, taking me deeper, her hands stroking what her mouth can’t reach. I can’t last—not with her li. N this, not with her making me forget every single rule I ever lived by.
She makes me lose control, and that is a totally new experience for me.I pull her up, kissing her hard, lifting her so her legs wrap around my waist. She laughs, breathless and sweet, all trust and need.
“You ready?” I rasp, lining up the crown of my cock to her entrance, every muscle in my body strains until she gives me the words I want to hear.
“For you? Always.”
I slide into her in one slow, deep thrust, pinning her to the shower wall, water cascading over us, mixing with her moans, her hands clutching my shoulders, nails biting deep into the flesh of my shoulders.
We move together, desperate, filthy, perfect. Her sunshine and warmth melts every jagged piece of me, my darkness swallowing her whole. I pound into her, hips snapping, her cries turn louder and higher, until she shatters again, taking me with her.
With my cock harder than it’s ever been in my fucking life, I groan, spilling inside her. Every muscle is shaking. She clings to me, soft and breathless, nuzzling my jaw.
“I never thought life could ever be perfect. Yet here we are,” she whispers, sleepily.
Perfect. With me? I hold her words close to my heart as I dry her off and slip her between the sheets of my bed. I return to the living room and throw more logs on the fire before I come back to find a sleeping Willow curled under my sheets waiting for me.
I’ll never let her go.