Page 27 of Venom and Lace

Ryzen explained on the ride over that everyone would be asleep when we got there. He would have a chat with Covington, but I could head to our room and sleep.

It was dark inside the house, except for a dimly lit hallway. Ryzen’s guards looked around, nodding at each other as if to say it was safe. At the bottom of the staircase, he pulled me in close and squeezed me.

“Don’t wait for me, get some rest, honey.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead.

I inhaled the scent of him and snuggled closer in his arms. A butler at the top of the stairs cleared his throat, and I reluctantly pulled out of Ryzen’s arms and made my way to the top.

The room we were given was massive, bigger than any guest room I’d ever stayed in. At least there was a king-sized bed. No chance of me rolling over and drooling on him in the middle of the night. I dragged my suitcase open and rummaged around, looking for my toothbrush. Juliet had indeed packed that violet lingerie set, along with some thongs and sexy nightshirts. I snickered and rolled my eyes. You just couldn’t be mad at her, though.

I changed into shorts and a tank top and stuffed the lingerie underneath the rest of my clothes. Didn’t want Ryzen to see that I had all this sexy lingerie and get the wrong idea. Or did I?

I pulled out my toiletry bag and headed towards the door I assumed was to the bathroom. There was light spilling from underneath the doorframe and when I opened the door, I was greeted with a blast of steam. I waved my hand in front of my face to clear the air and took a step forward. Why the hell would there be steam in here? Was this a Texas thing? Did they steam the bathrooms before guests arrive? Weird. I rolled my eyes and shut the door. A noise a few feet in front of me had me stopping dead in my tracks.

An outline of a person started to form in front of my eyes, and my stomach dropped. No. Not a rich person steam room. A shared bathroom. A shared frickin’ bathroom.

Abort! Abort mission!I slid back towards the door and reached behind me for the doorknob. Maybe they hadn’t heard me come in. Oh, God. This was not the first impression I wanted to make at the Covingtons’. If I embarrassed Ryzen, he would kill me.

It seemed like the only thing that I could count on these days was the universe doing everything in its power to mess with me. As I reached for the knob to the door, the outline became more and more clear. A man stood only five feet in front of me. A very naked, very muscular man. I held my breath as I turned the knob. And that traitorous bitch had the nerve to squeak.

His head jerked, and he turned in my direction. Oh, he was naked all right. Naked as the day he was born. He rubbed the white towel against his damp hair and smirked at me. He actually had the nerve to smirk.

My fingers flew to my lips, my breath catching in my throat. Not just because I was staring at Cian Blackwood, completely naked, only a few feet in front of me. But because I was staring at the giant scorpion tattoo on his chest. The same tattoo I had seen nine months ago as I had lain on that bar top and tried to recover from the best orgasm of my life.

“Hello, little mouse,” Cian purred.

Oh, fuck.

Chapter Nine

“Juliet, where have you been? We have a code red on our hands. I repeat, a code red!” I peeked out the closet door, then shut it again. I kneeled down, my knees scraped against the floor as I scooted towards the back. I huddled against something squishy that I hoped was pillows and not a closet demon.

After ten minutes of me calling Juliet non-stop, she finally picked up. “Nova, I’m sorry. I drank my ashwagandha tea and fell asleep. What’s wrong?”

“Uh-huh. More like you had some dick-wagandha and fell asleep.” I gripped my phone tight in my hands and whispered, “He’s here. Halloween guy. Orgasm king. He’s here.”

She gasped, and it sounded like a glass fell on the floor. “What? The mask guy? Why is he there?”

“It’s the cherry-licker from the park. Cian Blackwood. Ryzen’s ex-business partner.” I bit the inside of my cheek.

“Oh, shit.” She chuckled into the phone. “Things just got more interesting.”

“I’m glad you think it’s funny.” I leaned my head back against the wall and squeezed my eyes shut. “What am I going to do?”

“Nothing. You’re going to keep your cool, be the lioness that you are, and get through this week with your head held high.”

She was right. She always was. So what if I’d slept with my fake fiancée’s ex-business partner? So what if it had been the best sex of my life and I had spent the last few months thinking about it? That didn’t mean anything. That had been the whole point. Sleep with a random guy, get over my slump, and move on. Which was what I had been doing. Never once had I gone back to that club or even tried to find the mask guy. And now I was really regretting my decision to not look him up.

“He didn’t say anything? About, you know, what happened?”

“Not a word.” It was—odd. Suspicious, even. Why wouldn’t he have said something before all of this? He had to have known it was me. I mean, I had a lot of tattoos. I would be easily recognizable. Or maybe he did that every night, picked a different girl to sleep with. Maybe, just maybe, I was one of many and just a blur to him. That had to be it. Because otherwise, he would have said something.

Right?

Right.

Definitely.

“If I need you, you will come?” I pleaded into the phone.