Venom swung left and onto the road that paralleled the water.
There was more traffic here, but that didn’t stop either Venom or Dmitri. They wove through the traffic as if it didn’t exist. She glimpsed a flash of hot red in her peripheral vision before Venom pulled ahead and the other vehicle disappeared. “You’re winning!”
“Dmitri’s fast, but he’s not a viper.” Grin wild, and his own hair flying back in the breeze after he lowered his window, he pointed up without losing control of the vehicle. “Look right and up.”
That was when she saw there was a third player in the game. Wings of brilliant blue edged with silver raced over the water alongside them, Illium’s speed in the air a thing of beauty. “How can he keep up?”
“He’s the fastest angel in the city, probably one of the fastest in the world.” Venom swung past a lumbering people mover, slid in front of a sedan, then moved back into the other lane so quickly that she wasn’t sure the other drivers had even seen him.
Dmitri’s red Ferrari appeared behind them a second later. The leader of the Seven went to overtake, but Venom blocked his every move. Illium, meanwhile, kept pace as the two vehicles screeched into another turn that threatened to spin the Bugatti.
But the torque forces didn’t win against Venom’s handling and they rocketed away. All the way back home, where he brought his vehicle to a stop in front of the Tower itself. Dmitri pulled up two heartbeats later, looking over through the open window of his car. His grin was as untamed as Venom’s, and when Illium landed in between the two cars, he completed the trifecta of beautiful, dangerous men.
Venom’s fingers touched the back of Holly’s neck, his arm stretched out and braced on the back of her seat as he leaned across to speak to the others. A sudden, sharp sexual awareness rippled through her body, the tiny hairs on her arms rising. She thought she’d caught it in time, but Venom’s hand curled around her nape.
He rubbed his fingers gently over her hypersensitive skin.
She couldn’t look at him, her heart beating so hard in her chest that she could barely hear the conversation the others were having. She heard Illium laugh, saw Honor’s hand on Dmitri’s cheek as she turned his face toward hers for a kiss, watched Illium and Venom bump fists. And felt Venom’s fingers brushing her skin in a slow, rhythmic motion that went straight to her core.
“. . . tomorrow.”
She caught the last word before Dmitri pulled away to drive his vehicle around and down into the Tower garage. Illium lifted off a second later in a wash of wind that blew her hair back from her face.
“Kitty.” It was a liquid enticement. “It’s the adrenaline. Your blood is pumping.”
Forcing herself to look at him, Holly sucked in a breath. His eyes glittered with the same atavistic sexual heat that burned in her. “Why not?” she whispered. “Have you ever been with a woman even a little like you?”
“You are a kitten,” he said, but he didn’t take his hand from the back of her neck. “I don’t fuck babies.”
“And I don’t fuck anyone anymore.” She stared into those wild eyes without fear. “I’m too scared I’ll kill mortals and I’m terrified I’ll plunge vampires into horrific pain.” All it would take was a single brush from her fangs.
“You’re safe,” she said, twisting in her seat and moving with instinctive speed to fist a hand in his hair. “You want me.” He was doing nothing to hide his reaction.
“You’ll regret it in the morning.” He tugged her hand out of his hair, his grip on her nape tightening as he hauled her halfway across the center console. “I don’t do relationships, either. You’re a relationship type of kitten.”
Holly wanted to spit back a sarcastic comeback, but he’d muzzled her with the truth. Despite the horrific madness growing bigger and bigger inside her, she still craved a normal life. She was the girl who’d grown up planning her wedding, the girl who’d played house with her dolls. Uram had altered the path of her life, but he hadn’t changed the fundamental heart of her.
“That,” she said, running her finger over his lips, “doesn’t mean I want to build a relationship with you.” Venom was too dangerous for her peace of mind; he saw too deep, understood her in ways she didn’t understand herself. “I just want to scratch a bad physical itch.”
“That, I can do.” Dropping her back into her seat, he swung the vehicle around and raced away from the Tower. She didn’t ask him where they were going—it was clearly not to a bed where she could satisfy the craving low in her body, tumescent and hot and ready.
He brought the car to a halt near Central Park just as she’d finished taking off her hoodie in a vain effort to cool down. Getting out, he removed his suit jacket and threw it inside, then unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and rolled them up. After which he removed his shoes and socks and put them in the car.
Then he leaned close to her and whispered, “Run, kitty.”
Holly’s blood rushed to the surface of her skin. She was moving before she’d consciously decided to do so, the most primal part of her taking over. He’d give her a head start, she knew that. It’d make the chase more interesting.
She ran into the park with all of her preternatural speed, and she did things she hadn’t believed herself capable of until that instant—flowing up trees and down others to confuse her trail, moving through the darkness as if it was her world. When she saw the glittering windows of the buildings that overlooked the park, she bared her teeth and wondered if the people within had any idea of the lethal predators that prowled below.
At last she went motionless and quiet, curling up as immobile as the snake that lived in Venom’s eyes.
He found her, but she’d expected that. Having positioned herself up in a tree, she jumped onto his back, taking him to the ground and pumping her venom into his shoulder through his shirt. She was gone before he could flip over, but she was close enough to hear him laugh. An inhuman response.
But neither one of them was exactly normal.
Surrendering to the otherness inside her, she ran as if the trees weren’t there, moving around and through the trunks in ways that weren’t possible with human anatomy. The serrated wings inside her, they shoved and shoved at her skin, the pain constant. She couldn’t fly like the otherness wanted, but she could run, and running . . . racing, it pumped her body full of adrenaline once more.
The madness was sated. For now.
Going flat to the ground three minutes later, her body stretched out on the dark grass, she went motionless again . . . and Venom passed right by her. Her lips curved, a deep happiness in her gut that she couldn’t explain. She waited unmoving for at least ten minutes, not the least uncomfortable, before flowing up and back in the opposite direction.
They played in the night-dark park as if it was a playground. Whenever Holly happened near groups of vampires who were also using the park—or the odd, brave human—she veered away. This was a private game. She’d been running full tilt for at least five minutes when Venom appeared out of nowhere in front of her.
She had no chance of stopping.
Arms coming around her, he took her to the ground in a single move.
24
Holly’s breath rushed out of her.
Hair falling around his face and his eyes brilliant in the fading night, Venom pinned her wrists on either side of her body. His chest heaved, his shirt dirty and torn. And his smile, it was a thing of primal beauty.
Holly didn’t think. She just snapped up her head and captured his lips with her own.
Venom pushed her back down, his body erotically heavy and his tongue lashing hers. Her fangs nicked him. He ignored it. Emboldened, she licked her tongue around his own fangs. He made a sound that she couldn’t describe except to say it wasn’t human. His erection a brand against her, he deliberately nicked her lip.
She hissed out a breath, and he was sipping from her.
Holly groaned, her spine arching. She hadn’t known that being fed from could be erotic. Sliding his hands down her body after releasing her wrists, he grazed his thumbs over the sides of her breasts even as his mouth moved down her jaw and to her vulnerable throat. He nicked her there, too, just enough to release her blood but not enough to hurt.