Page 22 of Beautiful Venom
6
DAHLIA
My heart stills and my fingers freeze as a tremor grips me.
I claw at the slick damp ground beneath me as Kane’s front covers my entire back, his weight oppressive, his body an unyielding slab of muscle, like being squashed by a wall.
A faint mixture of cedarwood and citrus lingers in the stale air and seeps into my flaring nostrils.
I should feel some form of relief that he finally showed up tonight, but I don’t.
Far from it.
My muscles lock and dread twists my insides.
A creepy tension squeezes my throat, and my breaths come in short, frantic gasps.
The air thickens and a gloomy cloud envelops him with a shroud of darkness.
This isn’t the Kane I thought I knew. His presence doesn’t soothe—it suffocates.
He’s not the Vipers’ agreeable captain or the ‘philanthropist’ who so generously offered to help me.
No. This is Kane Davenport. Vencor’s Senior member.
I’ve often found it hard to correlate Vencor’s destructive nature with his personality, but right now, I can see the shadows he came from.
His voice is different—deeper, lower, and entirely alien.
He turns my face at an angle, and the shadows flicker on his mask, dousing him with a menacing edge. His grip turns my body into a prisoner beneath him, a crushing hold that paralyzes more than my limbs.
“Kane?” I whisper, a slight tremble seeping in.
“Shh…” His gloved finger glides across my cheek, slow, deliberate, before tracing my lower lip. “Don’t say my name.”
Goosebumps spread like wildfire, my skin tightening under the icy graze of his touch. The truth slams into me.
He’s changed. Colder. Impersonal.
Terrifying.
The Kane I knew of never truly existed. Only this calm, calculated predator. His stillness is a façade, his serenity is laced with menace, wrapping around my throat.
The mask strips away his kindness, revealing the monster underneath.
“I warned you.” His words drop like stones into the dark, each one heavier than the last. Then, in a flash, he lifts off me, flipping me over so violently, my vision swims.
I yelp as my back hits the ground and he settles between my legs.
Our eyes meet beneath the shadowy light. His look is as dark as the night with a slight glimmer, an unfamiliar gaze.
His gloved finger strokes my face again, and although the motion is gentle, it feels as cold as ice. Then he slides his finger down, over my pulse point and to my collarbone.
Kane rips my shirt and bra open down the middle, and my breasts bounce free, my nipples instantly hardening at the chill.
I don’t have time to adjust as he drags my jeans down in one vicious movement. They stop at my knees, then he pulls them all the way off, throwing my sneakers aside in the process.
I lie beneath him in my ripped shirt and bra and plain black undies, my skin heating and a sense of humiliation rotting in my stomach.
