Venom Read Online Free PDF Page B

finger and wiped haphazardly at the area Cass had indicated. His hand came away smudged with red. “Oh. Paint, probably. It gets all over everything.” His lips twitched as if he were trying not to smile. “It’s a wonder you aren’t the one being mourned, as accident prone as you seem to be.”
    “I hardly think you jumping on me earlier qualifies me as accident prone.” She was surprised by how quickly the response came to her.
    “Oh, if I had jumped on you, you’d know it,” he said with a wink. He reached toward Cass to dislodge a twig from her hair. “I’m Falco, by the way.”
    Cass narrowed her eyes. Now, since he was obviously laughing at her, she found his mischievous grin annoying. Still, it didn’t seem to be the deranged smile of a murderer. But her heart wouldn’t stop pounding, and when she thought about the mutilated body just steps away from them, inside Liviana’s crypt, her stomach surged. Cass glanced around. She couldn’t shake the feeling that they weren’t alone.
    “What are
you
doing here, Signorina…?” He trailed off, waiting for her to provide her name.
    “Caravello. Cassandra,” she said distractedly, her mind consumed by shadows, by faceless corpses and killers hiding in the dark.
    “Cassandra,” he repeated, as though her name pleased him. “So. Did I interrupt something? A sordid little tryst, perhaps?”
    “You must be joking.” Cass was in no mood for humor. Besides, the closest she’d ever been to a tryst was when he’d fallen on top of her in the street earlier that day.
    “Always. Sadly, you don’t seem like the type of girl who would be up for a midnight…encounter.” Falco’s eyes drifted downward. “Too bad.”
    Cass realized her cloak had fallen open, exposing the white nightgown she wore underneath. She pulled the velvet fabric tight around her body. Then the shrubbery rippled once more with unfamiliar movement. Cass’s heart froze.
    “We should get out of here,” she said. “It’s not safe.”
    “Not safe?” Falco raised an eyebrow. “Why? Because it’s dark and you might accidentally trip over your own two feet? I feel quite safe. In fact, I was just settling in to do some reading.”
    Cass furrowed her brow. “Reading?”
    Falco wagged her journal in front of her. “This is yours, I presume.” A slow smile spread across his face. “Let’s find out exactly what you’ve been doing, shall we?”
    “Give it back!” Cass reached for the journal, but Falco easily dodged her. He opened the leather-bound book to a random page and cleared his throat. Clutching a hand to his chest, he pretended to read aloud in a high-pitched voice. “Oh, how I love the way his fingers explore my soft flesh. The way his eyes see into my very soul.”
    This time, Cass managed to snatch the book out of his hands. “That is
not
what it says.”
    “I guess that means you won’t be keeping me warm tonight?”Falco quirked an eyebrow. Before she could muster up a response, he laughed. “Then again, the accommodations probably wouldn’t meet your standards. You’ve probably never slept on anything but the finest satins, have you?”
    Cass hoped the darkness camouflaged her scarlet cheeks. Who was this boy to talk to her the way he did? “Is that why you’re here? Looking for a date?” Cass gestured toward a row of pointed headstones. “I do believe you’re in luck. I see some ladies who won’t be able to refuse you.” The words flew out of her mouth before she could rethink them.
    “Funny. And correct. Sort of. I was actually just looking for a place to get a little rest.” For a second, the smile dropped from his face, and an expression passed across it that Cass couldn’t identify.
    “Sleep in a graveyard?” Cass frowned. “You can’t be serious.” Again Cass felt certain he was lying to her. Could he have had something to do with the body stashed in the contessa’s family tomb? Cass didn’t think so. He was a bit too relaxed for having just