Page 26 of Darling Venom
Something darker.
Maybe they were in this together.
Charlotte and Mark.
To make me lose my mind.
I don’t know. I was pretty paranoid these days.
Maybe not.
Fuck.
Was it pathetic that I didn’t even care that she might have been doing this for shits and giggles?
Our tongues swirled together. She tasted of bubble gum and coconut.
I wrapped her in a vise grip and thought, if we could just stay this way forever, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to breathe.
I had so much I wanted to say to her.
Hannah had dumped Tate. The wedding was off. He was pissed at me for ruining yet another thing for him.
This time, he’d found a great way to retaliate.
Tate dragged me to therapy twice a week, sitting outside the door like a guard dog, glaring at the wooden barrier to make sure I didn’t sprint out of there. He got it all wrong. What I wanted to do was jump out the window, but it was usually locked.
In answer to his BS, I’d started doing drugs. I might not be good at math, but I sure as hell was good at meth. The drugs made me cold all the time, but nothing killed Tate quite as much as the knowledge that he was not in complete control over something.
Dad didn’t answer my calls. Tate had finally scared him off.
And catching even more feelings for Dicks was a bad idea. Guys like me never got the girl.
Everything seemed so final.
At a boiling point.
As if life was simmering and about to spill over.
Charlotte groaned into my mouth, and I cupped her neck, putting her feet down so I could rub myself against her. I was so hard, and she was so soft. I never got hard anymore. Probably a gift from the drugs.
Our kiss grew deeper, more passionate. I allowed myself ten more seconds before I broke it off.
I burned her taste into my memory: fresh, sweet, innocent.
Another tongue stroke.
Another nibble.
Another kiss.
Then I let go, shoving the penny back into the front pocket of her jacket, a blasé smile on my face.
“See you next year, Venom.”
Turned out, all it took was one kiss for me to break all the rules.
Suddenly, I cared too much to pretend I didn’t know him. That I was oblivious to what he was going through.
