12. Ruin
Chapter 12
Ruin
I can hear them fighting.
Fucking.
Breathing in each other’s pain and expelling it through their bodies, working together to wring each other out until there’s nothing left but a tranquil state of peace.
Or so I used to think. Owning at a night club that doubles as an invite-only swingers club has proven that people usually pass out after having sex, or they’re drunk on hormones and ecstasy and feeling good enough not to care what happens next. They could be fucking one minute and flatlined the next.
Sometimes, they are.
I don’t always invite my targets to the club, but every once in a while I’ll study them before killing them. How they move. How they speak. Who they choose as partners, if any at all, and what they value during their last night on earth.
Celia isn’t a target. I’m not getting paid to kill her. No one has put a hit out for her, and I’m not obligated to study her.
But I do anyway.
While Rage slides his cock in and out of her body, I listen to the sounds she makes. The high-pitched little cries catching in her throat, the sopping wet squelch of her body as she accepts him over and over and over again. I stretch my fingers, remembering the heat of her pussy as I held her down on the mattress inside her master bedroom and made her come. So long ago, now, it feels like the ocean tide—receding, out of reach.
I take a heavy drag of my joint and let the THC fill my lungs. My body still itches all over, but I fight the urge to scratch and pick at my scars. Once the drug hits my system, I can relax one muscle at a time, working my way from top to bottom.
Rebel says that I should try something harder than marijuana, but I don’t want to lose myself. I just want to peel back the harshest layers of light and turn the world down a few notches. Make things quieter. Smoother.
Then, I can breathe.
I hear them arguing. Raised voices. Rage’s laugh, rough as a cliffside and dark as a starless sky. I walk down the stairs to the main level and watch Rage disappear into his bedroom, but Celia is missing from view. I scan the room once, twice, until finally, I hear the water running inside the guest bathroom. None of us use it, and we never have guests, so I doubt there’s even soap in there. Once I’ve grabbed a bar from my bathroom and carried it downstairs, I tap the box against the guest bath door. The soap rattles inside the tiny box.
A few seconds pass before the running water stops and the door lock clicks. Slowly, Celia pries back the door to peer through the crack. “Ruin?” She opens the door wider, her eyes flicking from my mask to the soap in my hand. “What’s that for?”
She’s completely naked.
My gaze sweeps her body for bruises, my dick thickening at the sight of them. A few linger on her neck, the fingerprints still visible, and a few more dot her hips and waist. She bruises easily. Pinks and purples paint her skin, and I long to touch each and every rosy mark.
I pull the door open wider and place the box in her palm. “You.”
Her lips twist in a half-smile. “Thank you.” Placing the box on the vanity, she ruffles her hair and shuts her eyes. “How is it that you got all the nice genes in the family?”
I didn’t.
Moving through the doorway, I shut and lock the door behind me. “Open the box.”
Her eyes snap open and her chest expands on a breath. “What?”
“Open the box.”
Carefully, she does as she’s told and slips the bar of soap into her hands. The cardboard falls uselessly to the floor, and I kick it with my boot as I step closer, crowding Celia against the sink. This is almost like the night we met, only without the candles and the midnight chase.
But the earth-shattering orgasm—that remains to be seen.
My fingers twitch with the need to touch her. To see what my brothers have done. How she’s changed. Are her pussy as lips swollen and red as her mouth, or can she take a beating from both above and below? I’ve seen her swallow my brother’s cock, and now I’ve heard her take one, too.
I want to see more. Feel more. Taste more.
“Sit on the counter.”
She hesitates, and I wait for her to follow instructions. Unlike my brothers, I can be patient. I can wait. She will do as I say?—
Because she thinks I’m the nice brother.
My lips curve into a smile as she obeys, hopping up onto the vanity and dangling her legs over the edge. She reaches for the faucet and I grab her hand to stop her. “Hold still.” Carefully, I brush the hair from her eyes and tuck it behind her ear, following the curve of her neck to her collar bone. My leather gloves make it hard to feel, so I pull them off, toss them to the floor, and repeat the pattern, trailing my fingertips from her cheek, to her ear, down the column of her throat and across every single bruise Rage put there, to the dip of her collarbone.
These are hard to break, but not impossible.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her throat clicking on a swallow.
I consider her question for a few silent seconds.
“Learning.”
I press the flat of my palm to her chest and her heartbeat ticks up a notch. Leaning closer, I take in her cloyingly sweet scent, the hint of peaches in the waves of her hair, the smoke clinging to her skin, and the overpowering smell of sex radiating from between her legs. I lick my lips, wondering what she tastes like after my brothers have ruined her. How she will taste after I do.
When my palm slips lower, over the swell of her breast and its sensitive bud, she inhales sharply. I pause, staring at the flush of her cheeks and the subtle tremble of her bottom lip, before cupping her breast in my hand. She’s warm, warmer than I remember, and a sound catches in my throat. A groan? A grunt?
I squeeze her supple flesh and she gasps, her back arching as my knuckles pinch her nipple. My gaze wanders from her face to that sensitive spot, its peak angling upward, knotted and dense and?—
Celia gasps again and shoots out her hand, clutching my upper arm. “Ruin, that—it’s really sensitive.” Her lips part and she makes no move to close them, her body shivering. Goosebumps trail down her arms and across her chest, making her nipples even tighter.
“I noticed.”
Grabbing the handle strapped to my belt, I whip out my favorite blade from its sheath. It glints in the light, its edge wicked sharp. I’ve carved up many people in my lifetime—those deserving of a face lift and sometimes those who didn’t—peeling back thick layers of flesh until I find the bone underneath. Sometimes, I forget that no matter how deep I carve, I can’t reveal the monster underneath. Not really. But I know it’s there—the essence of a soul, tainted and twisted and laughing, grinning just like me as we tear through muscle and sinew to dig deeper, to find the one thing that’s missing—the one thing that’s just out of reach?—
I always find it in their eyes. The last breath, the final look, the moment a soul lifts to the surface and fades into oblivion. Gone as soon as it’s found. I keep digging inside bodies in search of their echoes, but I never find them.
Pressing the flat edge of the blade to Celia’s breast, I hum to myself at how pretty they look together.
Celia seems to disagree. She recoils back against the mirror, banging her elbows as she scrambles away from my knife. “What the hell, Ruin!”
I glance up at her eyes, and that’s when I see it—a glimpse of her soul tucked safely underneath the flash of fear. My knife finds her flesh again, this time at the curve of her neck, and a bead of blood collects where they kiss. “Let me see.”
Her body freezes, but her mind doesn’t. She looks between the two of us with quick, analytical flicks of her eyes, checking for weak points in my stance, my posture, my body.
Little does she know, they don’t exist.
“The fire,” I begin calmly, grabbing my shirt and tugging. I lift the fabric over my stomach so that she can see the mottled flesh underneath. “The fire took pieces of me, krosotka, pieces I haven’t been able to find. Look all you want, but you won’t find them, either.”
Her eyes scour the contours of my abdomen, across every inch of skin and hidden muscle. “Find what?”
“An opening.”
I keep the blade to her neck while I touch her body, ignoring her breast for her ribs. I run my fingers along the ladder, feeling the dip of each and how much give there is between them. Most are hidden—it’s not like Celia is malnourished—so I press harder to find them. They would be easier to see if I could just?—
Slowly, I slide my knife down her flesh, careful not to cut open her skin any more. My brothers won’t be happy if I leave too many marks. Not yet. Not until they’ve had their fill. Then I’ll have mine. Always taking turns, the clock ticking, the world spinning.
Celia remains still while I continue my tour of her body, the knife mirroring my hand, both of them teasing her waist, her hips, digging into her thighs. Her breath catches when I prod open her legs, spreading her wide.
This is what I want to see more than anything.
How pretty she is down here. Soft, pink, swollen, warm.
Hot , actually . Her thighs were warm but her slit—it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.
She twitches, her muscles likely burning, and I click my tongue. “Still, krostoka, be still for us.”
I pull her lips apart to find her glistening and slick. “Which part is you,” I murmur, “and which parts are them?” Keeping my fingers and her pussy spread, I prod her hole with the handle of my blade.
“Oh, God,” Celia gasps, her muscles going rigid. “Ruin, please, please don’t?—”
A half inch disappears inside, then an inch, and I find myself fascinated by how quickly her body reacts . Her thighs quiver, her eyes clench tightly shut, and she makes those sounds—the tiny whimpers I’ve heard her make with my brothers.
Licking my lips, I tip my knife in and out and play with her opening, watching it expand to fit the handle, then feeling it try to take even more from me.
Was her body made for this, too?
I’d nearly forgotten about my cock, but it roars to life now, pulsing in time with Celia’s own heartbeat. If I press my fingertip to her clit, I can feel it—the heavy beat of her heart pumping blood throughout her body, all the way down to this sensitive spot.
But that’s not my focus for this evening. It’s the way that Celia’s pussy begs for more of my knife that captivates me. Most people think that the blade and its unforgiving edge are the most important part of a knife, but they’d be wrong. It’s the handle, the part you hold, that matters most. Our connection is intimate, the two of us working in tandem to achieve our goals, to take life and, sometimes, keep our own intact.
It’s a sacred bond that I’m sharing with Celia now.
Her body understands.
“Ruin,” Celia moans, her hand gripping my arm tight enough that she might leave a mark, “you’re—you’re bleeding!”
Oh.
I spare a moment to check my palm, but all I see is the gush of red from my grip around the blade… and how it drips onto Celia’s body. Her stomach. Her thighs. Her pussy. Painting her crimson with my blood.
My cock leaks from the tip, and I pull the knife away before I stumble and shove it deeper. I bet she could handle it, but I can’t.
“ F — fuck ,” I groan, my knife clattering into the sink basin while my cock jerks inside my pants. Hissing, I grab Celia’s thigh with my bloodied hand, finally feeling a lick of pain in my palm while my cock spills, the heady mixture of pleasure and pain making me dizzy. I lean over Celia and drag in lungfuls of air, my body suddenly too hot, too tight. The mask covering my face feels like a prison, locking me away from more .
More air. More light. More feeling.
More of her.
Celia’s warm little hands wrap around my shoulders, and she holds me close while my body shakes. “Easy there, easy,” she coos, hugging me tight. Her body heat is lost on my chest and back, but her thighs blaze against mine, reminding me how sticky sweet red she is—now mine as much as my brothers’.
I reach between us and cup her pussy with my uninjured hand, rubbing my blood into those soft curls and the hot flesh tucked beneath, dipping my fingers inside of her to paint her with my essence.
She cries out at the sudden intrusion, but I’m not going to fuck her. I merely slip my bloodied fingers inside her sex and leave remnants of myself there.
If I have a soul, I want it to nestle next to hers.
“Stay still,” I remind her as I pull away. Her eyes are wide, open windows, and I glimpse the bright light of her soul tangling with the shadows of mine. Satisfaction rolls through me, and for the first time in years, it’s like I have control of my entire body instead of the mangled pieces left after the fire.
I pick up my knife from the sink and the bar of soap beside it. The knife slides into its sheath while the soap slips into Celia’s palm. I curl her fingers around the bar and squeeze until I know she won’t drop it. “Clean up. Go on.”
“But your hand?—”
Holding my palm up to the light, I inspect the straight-lined cut jutting across the center. It’s deeper than I’d like, but I’ll be fine. “Flesh will mend,” I remind her, squeezing my hand into a fist to stop the bleeding. I’m not concerned about it in the slightest, but Celia’s eying my closed fist skeptically. Taking a breath and scenting the metallic tang of my blood in the air, I remember the last time Celia patched up my arm, and my lips curve up. If I asked, she’d help me this time, too, I’m sure.
But I won’t ask any more of her tonight.
“Clean yourself up,” I say again, retreating to the door. The turn lock is slick in my hands, and I frown at all the blood I’m dripping. Rage will be angry at the mess. “The bathroom, too.”
He’ll also be angry if he finds out that I pulled out my knife and touched Celia with it, but some rewards are worth the risk.
I give Celia one last, long look before retreating upstairs to clean and cover my open wound, my mouth curving into a smile as I replay the last thirty minutes over and over and over again in my head.
The temptation has never been sweeter, and the fruit never wetter.