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“Trust me,” I say with a scoff, my lips twisting with amusement. “When you come at me with that bullshit attitude of yours, you’ve been a shitload closer to death than you could have ever known. Especially when we first met.”
Oakley smiles, her eyes sparkling with silent laughter. “You mean that night in your shitty fake apartment when I found the calling card and all of my details in your bedside table?”
“Damn straight,” I tell her, my hand tightening on her thigh and pulling her closer to me. “That mouth of yours has always been my biggest enemy. I didn’t know if I wanted to wire it shut or fuck it.”
“When in doubt,” she says, “always fuck it.”
I laugh as she falls silent, a seriousness coming over her as she places her hand on my chest and looks up at me again, her gaze filled with the deepest fear I’ve ever seen. “Zade,” she murmurs, her hand visibly shaking against my chest. “I’ve been trying so hard to hate you. Every time you open your mouth, you infuriate me, and I use that as fuel to keep hating on you, but then you go and do this. You hold me in your arms at night and touch me without even realizing it and . . . I’m falling in love with you, Zade.”
Horror grips my heart in a chokehold, squeezing tighter until I can’t breathe. “No,” I whisper, shaking my head as I lean into her, my hand cupping the side of her face. “You can’t.”
Oakley lifts her chin, closing the gap between us and catching her lips in mine, kissing me gently. I know I should pull away, but goddamn it, I can’t. She’s too perfect. The forbidden fruit I’ve tried to avoid, but she’s breaking down my walls and forcing herself in, and now those words . . . I’m falling in love with you.
Fuck. They tear at my soul knowing what I have to do to her in the next three nights.
I kiss her tenderly, and with every passing second, the passion amplifies between us, the connection that’s been dormant for the last two months striking up and burning brighter than it ever has before.
Knowing this can’t happen, I pull back and shake my head, the taste of her lips on mine like the sweetest drug. “You shouldn’t love me,” I warn her. “I don’t deserve it.”
She considers me a moment, her hand falling on top of mine on her thigh, clutching onto it as though it were her only lifeline. “I wish you could see yourself the way that I do,” she tells me, her heart breaking right in front of me. “You’re so much more than the asshole you portray yourself to be.”
Meeting her eyes, I go to correct her when I hear someone approaching in the distance. I whip around, blocking her body with mine, when I realize it’s just Cross and Dalton. Peering further into the darkness, I see Sawyer coming from the opposite side of the property. Then as one, both Cross and Sawyer hold up their hands. “Got her,” they say in unison, both of them holding a black snake in their hands.
“Uuhhhh, what?” Oakley grunts, leaning around me and looking back at the guys. “Did they both just say they had Venom?”
“Uh-huh.”
“They both can’t have her,” she murmurs as if thinking out loud. “That could only mean that one of them has some random snake they found.”
“Yep. My money’s on Sawyer,” I tell her. “Cross could identify Venom in a sea of a million black snakes. He’d still find the right one.”
Cross’s brows furrow, probably assuming he heard Sawyer wrong, and he quickly catches up to us with Dalton at his side, both of them looking like they’ve been through hell and back to get that snake. Venom curls securely around Cross’ hand as I step out of the way, allowing the boys space to check on Oakley as we wait for Sawyer to catch up.
It only takes another minute before he’s standing at the back of my SUV with us, and just as he goes to hold his hand out to Cross, the snake strikes, plunging its fangs right into Sawyer’s palm. “Ahh fuck,” he grunts. “This little bitch. I swear, she’s never liked me.”
Cross smirks at Sawyer. “Yeah. No shit. That’s because that’s not Venom,” he says, holding his hand up to show Venom curled between his fingers. “I think that’s a baby black king snake, which isn’t venomous, but it’s dark, man. I don’t wanna risk that I’m wrong.”
“Fuck,” Sawyer panics as Oakley gasps in horror.
Fucking perfect.
Sawyer goes to shake the snake off him when Cross hurries in. “Hey, don’t hurt her,” he says, unwinding her body from Sawyer’s wrist, though I can’t help but notice just how fast he moves, telling me this might be a little more serious than any of us anticipated. “She’s still precious even if she has bad taste in men.”
