Page 191 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
Please, please, please let this be real. Let what we have be enduring.
LEVI
“Idon’t want this to end.” Violette’s words make that squishy thing in my chest tighten. With her body curled against mine, I pause massaging her neck to peer over her shoulder from where she still sits between my legs in the tub. Her gaze is distant even as tears glitter on the edge of their oblivion.
Her lower lip trembles.
She blinks.
Tears plummet.
That sensation in my chest tightens further. My arms wrap around her, binding her to me as I press a firm, fervent kiss to her cheek. “Baby, we’ve only just gotten started.”
She heaves a shuddering sigh. “I don’t mean just the courtship. I meanus.”
Violette pauses, turning in my arms. Her bright lilac eyes reddened with emotion, dancing between mine.
“All of us.”
Her desire isn’t surprising. I expected it. Knew it. Knew that even beyond this courtship, she wants both of us. She’d already vocalized it. But it had left room to question,‘to what end?’
Sexually?
Temporarily?
Fuck, it was still a question as to whether or not she wanted either of us.
Now, there is no question.
And it had allowed me to ignore what such a possibility forces me to ask myself.
Do I want to devote my life not only to Violette, but to Azrael?
A male.
Despite the curiosity I’d felt as a kid, or the fact that it never waned, it wasn’t something I’d allowed myself to entertain. And thanks to my heavy attraction towards women, the distraction of life and work and trauma, or the fact that it requires, quite literally, an act of God for me to open myself up to someone... It was something that I’d more or less to keepneatlytucked away, in a box, in a haunted storage unit trapped with in my mind, distinctly labelled,do not fucking open.
But with Azrael, there is an undeniable pull I feel towards him. Something I’ve only ever experienced with Violette. And thanks to her and Azrael, this is something I can finally explore now.
Although I can’t help but wonder what exactly occurred when he severed mine and Violette’s bond.
Is what I feel just a symptom of his magic?
Did he do this deliberately?
Are Violette and I both being manipulated by him?
Trust is the most integral part of any relationship to me.
If I can’t trust Azrael, then I won’t entertain my heart any more than it has with imagining a life where I share Violette and myself with him. And he might not be capable of dying, but I’m fairly certain quartering his body and sinking each piece to the bottom of the ocean would be pretty fucking close.
My mind whirs with all the many ways I might try to kill him as my fingers gently graze Violette’s cheek. She stares up at me like I hold her heart in my hands. It’s an honor and responsibility I don’t take lightly.
“How much do you trust him?”
Violette’s brows knit together, eyes sliding towards some distant corner like she hadn’t given it much thought.
My sweet, trusting Violette.
