Sweetest Venom (Virtue #2)(42)

I want him to get mad at me. Inflict pain on me. I want him to hate me, hit me, physically hurt me. Maybe then the guilt and pain breaking my chest will stop and numb me from the inside out.

He moves so fast that I have barely any time to realize what his intention is before he’s over me and his hands enclose around my neck, making it hard to breathe. The venom of my soul has contaminated him.

I can’t move. I’m at his mercy and some disturbing part of me rejoices in that fact. Take away my will to say no, Lawrence. Make it easy for me to deny my own heart. Make it easy for me to hate myself. Please forgive me, Lawrence.

“Don’t mention him in my presence again,” he warns, loosening his fingers.

I manage to laugh even as his fingers are wrapped dangerously close around my neck. “It doesn’t matter. He’s—”

Before I have a chance to finish my sentence, Lawrence covers my mouth with his. This kiss is as fatal as a bullet to the heart. It tears me open and makes me bleed. It’s like dying a slow death each time his lips touch mine, but the masochist part of me wants that pain, that nothingness that he brings me. I shove him, kick him, and scratch him. I invite his wrath, his maddening fury. We struggle for dominance. My life in his hands, his pride in mine—both of us doomed.

Freeing one of his hands, he brings it down between us, pushing my legs apart as he unbuckles his belt, unzips his pants, pulls out his cock, and thrusts inside me. My vision begins to blur with the lack of oxygen as he moves aggressively, remorselessly in and out of me, but I love it. I wrap my legs around his waist, bringing him closer to me while my fingers go to his hair and pull violently. The anger is edged on his face. The degradation of my being in every swift and brutal thrust of his hips into me. And so help me, God, but I want him, need him with an animalistic hunger that scares me. He f*cks me so good. He f*cks me until he’s marked every piece of me. I cry out in ecstasy spiked with pain when I come undone, an atomic bomb going off inside me as a frenzied Lawrence reaches his own temporary madness and spills himself inside me.

A second or an eternity passes by before Lawrence lets go of my neck and pulls out of me as though my skin were burning him. He pushes himself off of me and sags against the seat, a shudder running through his body. His face pale, he watches me with bleak eyes as I sit up and bring my hands to my neck and try to suck in as much air as possible. My lungs burn but my body sings with the memory of his cruel touch.

“That was very foolish of you, Blaire. Don’t ever provoke me again.” He runs a hand that shakes a little through his hair. “But if this is how you want to be treated, Blaire, so be it. I don’t give a damn.”

Once I’m dressed, I turn to gaze out the window and close my eyes as I feel my eyes burn with tears that won’t fall.

What have I done?

A small, mocking voice inside my head answers my own question. “What you’re best at, of course. Destroying everything around you.”



I’m sitting on the cold, unmade bed as I watch the sunrise through the glass windows of Lawrence’s bedroom. Clasping my arms tighter around my legs, I recline my head on my knees. As the rays cast their warm light on the floor and push the darkness away, I wish that I could disappear along with them. Maybe if I did, I wouldn’t be able to poison and kill beautiful things anymore.

I think of Ronan and his sweet smile when I first met him, and then I see the man from last night. So cold. So hardened. So full of hate. And I know that it’s my fault. I destroyed him and his beauty.

I think of Lawrence and how he looked at me and kissed me on the dance floor, offering himself to me. And what did I do? I took his offering and shattered it in my hands, feasting on his pain.

But the morning light has brought crystal clear clarity. And with it a slow, all-consuming realization that I can’t continue living this kind of life, hurting the people who least deserve it—I can’t. Lawrence deserves better. I know what I must do to atone for my sins, to purge the evil inside me once and for all. I close my eyes and bask in the peace of knowing that the end is near, even as I try to suppress the pain threatening to consume me from within.

I get dressed with the few clothes that Lawrence’s money didn’t buy and go in search of him. After we’d returned from the masquerade, he stormed off into his library while he instructed the staff of the house not to bother him for the rest of the night. Standing outside the room, I take a deep breath and open the door without bothering to knock. He lifts his head and looks in my direction. His gaze instantly finds me. It’s a simple action but when our eyes lock and I’m able to see the naked pain in his, I feel the earth shake beneath my unsure feet.

I take an unsteady step toward him. “Lawrence … I—”

“I must say that I’m surprised to find you still here. I would’ve imagined that you’d be on your knees doing what you do best with that boy by now.” He puts the book in his hands down on the coffee table next to him. His lips flatten, his tone contemptuous. “What do you want?”

“I came to say good-bye. I’m leaving.”

“Then leave. No one’s stopping you.”

Flinching, his words whip me raw, but I deserve his anger and hate. Shame paints red flags on my cheeks. “I know that anything I say right now won’t be apology enough for the way I treated you last night.” My throat suddenly feels constricted. “Of how I truly feel about you. But I’d like to explain why—”