Kiss of Venom

Kiss of Venom Read Free

Book: Kiss of Venom Read Free
Author: Jennifer Estep
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pleasantries before Roslyn moved off into the crowd to greet her other customers and make sure that everyone had what they needed.
    Gin swiveled around on her stool, her drink still in her hand. Bria did the same, and they both looked out over the club. Eyes wary, faces flat, shoulders tense. Looking for any danger, trouble, or problems that might be heading their way. After a couple of minutes, Bria seemed satisfied that they were in the clear. She started sipping her drink and talking to her sister, but Gin kept scanning and scanning the club, from the Ice bar to the dance floor to the booths in the back. On alert, the way she had to be simply to stay alive these days.
    Finally, her gaze met mine.
    Her eyes narrowed the tiniest bit, as though she were surprised to see me here, but she kept the rest of her features smooth and blank. Gin had the best poker face I’d ever seen. She rarely gave away anything she was feeling—except for the terrible hurt that I’d caused her. Even now, it flared in her eyes, shimmering with a strong, accusing light. Or maybe that was just my own guilt that I saw reflected in her gaze.
    We stared at each other for the better part of a minute before I finally smiled, lifted my hand, and waved at her, as though we were two casual friends who’d spotted each other across a crowded room instead of . . . well, I didn’t know what we were now. Estranged lovers sounded so formal, so doom-and-gloom, but I supposed that was the closest thing to the truth.
    After a moment, Gin smiled and waved back, matching my friendly façade gesture for gesture. Bria turned her head to see whom she was waving at, and her mouth puckered with displeasure. Bria didn’t like me much these days, but I couldn’t blame her for that after the way I’d treated Gin.
    Not after the horrible way I’d hurt her time and time again.
    “You should go over there,” Phillip said. “Offer to buy her a drink. Another gin for Gin, as it were.” He snickered.
    “Look at you,” I deadpanned. “Being all clever with your words.”
    “You’re the one who said that she liked irony.”
    I grinned at him. “She also likes sticking her knives into people who annoy her, something that you seem to excel at.”
    Phillip shuddered. “Trust me, I remember. I thought she was going to slice me open that night in my office on the Delta Queen .”
    That had been back at the beginning of this whole sordid story, when Salina had first returned to Ashland and had tried to kill Phillip before Gin stopped her. Back when I’d still wrongly thought that Phillip had tried to rape Salina, my ex-fiancée, when we were younger. But really, all Phillip had been doing was protecting Eva from being cruelly tortured by Salina’s water magic. I’d walked in on Phillip fighting with Salina and stupidly believed her claims, and I’d almost beaten him to death as a result. Even now, weeks after Salina’s death, the thought of how wrong I’d been about her made my stomach twist with guilt and self-loathing.
    I don’t know why, but Phillip had forgiven me, even though I didn’t deserve it or his friendship. My gaze stayed steady on Gin. There were a lot of things that I didn’t deserve now.
    Gin saluted me with her drink again, almost as if she were saying good-bye. I did the same, and then she turned and started talking to Bria, focusing on her sister instead of me. But I kept watching her. I couldn’t take my eyes off her—and neither could the other men in the club.
    Over the next half hour, a couple of guys approached Gin, sidling up to her with smarmy smiles and offering to buy her a drink. But she ignored them all and kept slowly sipping her own gin. The men quickly turned their attention to Bria, but she sent them away too, since Bria was involved with Finnegan Lane, Gin’s foster brother.
    But there was one guy who was more persistent than all the others. He was a giant, almost seven feet tall, with a lean, wiry body. His baby-blue

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