Ruin Box Set 1-3

by Lucian Bane

  “What? Like what?”

  He put a hand on his hip and glanced around for the exact words. “I’m having…strange thoughts.”

  “How so? About what?”

  “Not about what.”

  Silence stretched and he met her worried gaze. “Who then?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Scriber?”

  “Partly.”

  “Caliber?”

  “No, Isadore.”

  “Me?” she said, sounding doubtful.

  “Yes. You.”

  “And…Scriber.”

  “Don’t’ say it that way.”

  “What? What way?”

  “Consecutively.”

  “Consecutively?” She didn’t get it of course.

  “I don’t like him.” He paced now, hating the feelings that had control of him.

  “Why, you have no reason not to like him.”

  “Exactly!” He stopped and faced her fully, arms out. “And yet, I do. I dislike him.”

  “What exactly do you dislike about him? And why are you pacing so much, what is wrong with you, you’re making me need to mop.”

  “I told you, something is wrong with my powers. That’s serious. I’m hating somebody who I shouldn’t.”

  “Hating? That’s a strong word. You first said dislike.”

  “I do dislike him. To that last degree I just mentioned.”

  “Wow. But he’s only ever helped us. And he’s been kind and—“

  “Stop!” He grabbed his head. “I get it, you don’t need to verbalize it.”

  After a long silence she whispered, “I see.”

  Ruin looked at her to see if what she saw was decipherable in her expression. What he found was a little smirk on her lips. He could hardly believe it. “You find this amusing?”

  “Actually, yes. I do. Very.”

  “Well thank you for the help, I really appreciate that.”

  “And thank you for disintegrating Mr. Thibodeaux’s ashes.”

  He pointed at her. “I said I was sorry, you know I don’t lie.”

  She stared at him, smirk still on her lips, in her eyes even. “I think…” Isadore walked toward him then stopped exactly before, holding his gaze. “I think Scriber is… very sweet and…kinda cute actually.”

  Blind fury hit him so hard, he growled and bared his teeth at her, like the stupid big bad wolf ready to tear the house down with his bare hands.

  “Oh my God,” she gasped, covering her mouth. “You’re…jealous.”

  The sparkle in her eyes affected him in a very negative way. “You like him!” he gritted.

  To his utter disbelief, Isadore gave a light giggle and ran up the stairs leaving Ruin to boil in his fury. How could she do this? How dare she laugh at him while he was… in this… broken condition? He finally stormed upstairs to force the confession he couldn’t bear to hear, masochism at its finest.

  She wasn’t there. He hurried to the window and heard something in the closet. What the hell was she doing? Had she lost her mind finally?

  “Don’t come in here,” she said, her voice muffled.

  Ruin stormed over and threw open the door. His breath rushed out of him at finding her naked. He couldn’t speak as his eyes burned over her, wanting to know why she was doing that, not wanting to know, yet needing to know, but even more needing to smell and taste her.

  “Isadore.” Her name blasted out, hoarse with need.

  “Take off your clothes.” The order was whispered but firm.

  Ruin obeyed without thought or hesitation until he stood entirely naked before her. She slowly walked out of the closet, her eyes locked to his before slowly lowering over him. When her gaze reached his cock, she drew her brows together and bit her lower lip with a little moan of…hunger. Her hand shot out toward him when he made a move for her. “You will do as I say. When I say. How I say. Is it clear?” she looked up at him and Ruin was suddenly captured by the heat in her eyes and tone.

  He managed a nod. He would do as she said. Perfectly.

  “Good,” she whispered, going to the bed and pointing at it. “I want you here. On your back.”

  He wasted no time and eyed her breasts with hunger as he laid as she said.

  “Hold on to the head board and draw your knees up.”

  Ruin’s heart hammered in his chest as he did as told. What exactly did she have in mind? The confident command in her tone wasn’t entirely foreign, but connected to these instructions, yes. Yes, it was. Very much. And he liked it. Exceedingly. The world could fucking go to hell, assignments be damned, this, right here. That’s all that mattered.

  “Very good,” she said, climbing on the foot of the bed. “I see you’re excited.” She straddled his hips and leaned forward, hands gripping his chest as she sat right on him, pressing his cock against his abs then sliding her hot silk along his length. Ruin let go of a hard groan, the head board creaking loudly from his grip, his gaze locked on her nipples, silently waiting, begging her to fill his mouth with one.

  “You like my tits?” she gasped, continuing to stroke herself along his cock.

  “Fuck, yes.” He looked down, watching what she looked like on him. “I smell you,” he strained, “I need to smell you. Taste you.”

  “Mmmm.” She lowered her mouth to his but remained just out of reach, working herself on the head of his cock, making him dizzy. “You want to taste me?”

  “Yes, I do. Sit on my mouth and grind yourself on me until you’re pulling my hair.” It was the closest thing to a sincere beg he could manage.

  “Sit on your mouth? That’s….very intimate, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, very.” He reached for her lips with his.

  “Not something you would just do with anybody,” she said, staying out of reach, only attempting to kiss him but never connecting. Teasing.

  “Only with me.” He reached again and nipped her lips with his.

  “And what about you?” she whispered, giving more of her lips for him to taste.

  “What about me?”

  “Are you only for me?”

  “Yes, only you. Always.”

  She gasped and kissed him fully, making him groan with hunger. “I want to touch you.”

  “Soon. First…” She whimpered and twirled her hips over the swollen head of his cock.

  “First what? You’re driving me crazy, Angel.”

  She moaned and raked her nails along the insides of his arms. “First I want to watch you orgasm.”

  He gasped, watching her lips kiss a hungry path down, nails raking his sides now. She licked along the center of his abs. “Angel, fuck, do it” he whispered.

  “I love when you say fuck,” she licked at his navel, and Ruin opened his legs for her. “Love when you want me like this.” She forced his legs to the bed and raked her nails along his inner thighs before gliding them over his balls, locking gazes with him.

  “Do it,” he whispered, gripping the headboard and thrusting his cock toward her. “Suck my cock Angel. Deep. Suck it until I feel the back of your throat. Now.” He bared his teeth with a long hiss as she flicked the ridge of his cock with her tongue, giving delicate moans, giving herself entirely to her torment. “Tell me you want this,” he gasped, thrusting.

  “I want this,” she whispered back, kissing along the length then sucking the head into her mouth. “I want this.”

  “What else, what else Isadore.”

  “I want you,” she gasped, sucking him all the way in.

  Ruin let go of the head board and grabbed hold of her head, giving several rapid pumps and groans, his heart hammering with the heat filling his body. “You want me, Isadore? Say it, say you want me.”

  She let him pop from her lips and locked her eyes on his. “I want you, Ruin. I need you.”

  Ruin sat up and pulled her by the shoulders, claiming her lips in a passionate kiss, putting her beneath him. “I want you too, I need you too, just you, only you. Do you understand?”

  S
he deepened the kiss, her legs wrapping his waist, nails digging into his shoulders. “Because you love me,” she gasped. “You do. Say it, say you love me.”

  Ruin stroked his hand over her body, fighting the feeling inside him, the one that rebelled against that word, that incorrigibly elusive word. “I…”

  “Love me, say it. I know you do.”

  “I do?”

  She paused briefly then jerked her head right with a huff, putting her hand over her mouth. Ruin kissed the palm and she fisted her fingers. “Why won’t you say it?”

  Ruin stared down at her, thinking about that answer. “Because…I can’t lie.”

  She shoved at him until he rolled off of her. “Can’t lie? Really?” She scooted out of the bed and stormed to her dresser.

  He went to her, stopping a few feet away as she threw clothes out of her drawer. “I can’t say what I don’t know to be true.”

  She spun to him. “How can you not know that?” She punched him in the chest then shoved him. “How can you not know that?”

  He shook his head, hating for the first time that he couldn’t lie. Because he would. Right then. To remove the look of hurt from her face, to fill the desperate need in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Angel.”

  Her eyes slowly became slits of revenge, her jaw cocked, head nodding. “Kay. Fine.” Ruin stared at her body with longing and she gave an incredulous laugh. “Don’t even think you’re getting close to me. Ever. Again. Not until you know you love me.”

  “You said I did, isn’t that enough?”

  She gasped a laugh looking up at the ceiling then turned her gaze to the floor, shaking her head. “I am so pathetic aren’t I? Willing to believe you love me without your bloody consent.” She spun back to her drawers. “I am such a moron. Maybe Scriber will love me, hmm?”

  “Isadore,” Ruin warned.

  She spun, her eyes flashing. “What’s wrong? You can’t love me but at the mention of Scriber loving me you want to shit a bird?” She pointed between them. “You…me…” she dusted her hands, “Fini.”

  Ruin groaned and grabbed the tattoo on his side.

  “Oh poor baby, your homework is calling you.” She began putting clothes on and Ruin didn’t like her choice of attire. Blue jean shorts and a white muscle shirt.

  “That’s too revealing, Isadore.”

  She paused on her way out, mouth hanging open. “I’m sorry, Jaaayyyy D, but only men who love me get to tell me how to dress. Now excuse me, I got some motherfuckin’ floors to mop.”

  Ruin stood there with his eyes closed, various pains making him rigid. He got dressed, his limbs barely wanting to move as he went down. He found Isadore race mopping, seeming to be paying particular attention to the spot where Mr. Thibodeaux had been. While he really wanted to ponder how in the universe he could possibly not know what love was, he needed to leave. And he really dreaded taking her. Perhaps he could slip—

  “You ready, I’m done,” she huffed, still mopping furiously. “Just a few more spots and we can head out.”

  Like all was fine now? He knew better. He’d just over disintegrated Mr. Thibodeaux right before her eyes, and were now keeping company with an onyx statue of not-so-natural qualities. Which…wouldn’t that explain her strange behavior? Of course. Running upstairs and getting naked in the closet then seducing him wasn’t exactly what one does right in the midst of the supernatural chaos. Unless they’re on the edge of their mental cliff. And how stupid could he be to just indulge her psychosis? But seeing her naked did that to him. The beautiful shock had zapped his sense right from him.

  Fine? Hardly. He walked to the back wall of windows, looking out. Was he supposed to wait for Scriber?

  “I’m here.”

  Isadore yelped at the sudden sound of the being’s silky voice and Ruin spun to find the onyx statue perched in a dark corner behind the stairs. And just how long had he been there? Why was he hiding? Ruin didn’t think he’d watch Isadore, but the idea that he could have, bothered him. He didn’t really know the being very well. “I’m assuming you’re coming?”

  “Yes.” He stepped out of the shadow, his black face not a bit brighter for it. “You are not to perform any assignments without me.” The unspoken understood? was well inflected in his silky tone, along with the reminder of who screwed things up and was to blame for the whole babysitting necessity.

  “Oh good,” Isadore said with a bubbly joy. “Scriber is coming!”

  “Yes.” Ruin barely managed the nonchalance while the rage from earlier reignited. The look in her eyes confirmed her ploy; she was going to pay him back for his ignorance about love, and really he didn’t mind that so much, but using that one thing? Anything but that.

  “Well, isn’t that nice,” she smiled, hand on her cocked hip. “Should we eat first? Scriber, do you eat food?”

  “I can.”

  Ruin understood him to mean he could but didn’t need to, but the way Isadore hurried to the kitchen, he could, he would, and he was famished in that second. “We don’t have time to eat. I have to leave now.”

  She straightened from inside the fridge, staring in contemplation at him before shrugging. “Okay. We can always grab something on the way?”

  “You should change.”

  She looked down. “Why? This is fine.” She looked at Scriber with a sweet smile. “Is this fine?”

  Ruin raised his brows as Isadore followed Scriber’s exit right out of the house, ignoring the question, or seeming to. “Guess he’s not that interested.”

  She turned her head with a dramatically odd swiveling, and held him with a hard gaze. “I’ll get my boots on.” She marched face forward to the bathroom, banged around a bit then came out strutting for the door with her nose up. Without looking she grabbed her purse hanging on the wall then jolted to a halt when the strap didn’t obey her little cocky flick of her wrist. She yanked this way and that then threw the purse into the air only to have it land exactly where it was when she started.

  Ruin fought a grin as he walked over to help her with her war on physics only to be warned away with a glare. He raised his hands. “I’ll…just wait in the truck while you finish getting your purse.”

  “You do that, Jaaaay D.”

  Ruin stood outside the door, waiting for her. The second she walked out, he followed her, wanting to explode something. He couldn’t believe how fucking sexy she looked. Muscle shirt and perky breasts, those shorts, that ass. The ridiculous cowboy boots that demanded he smash her obstinacy with seven dimensions of reckless pleasure. She was an extreme danger to him and the mission. She was bad judgement bait.

  Guaranteed.

  Chapter Six

  The problem of seating hit Ruin even as Isadore hopped in the truck, scooting to the middle. It took all his strength not to insist she drive. He had no logical reason to suggest it and so took his place behind the wheel. To his surprise and relief, Scriber jumped into the back of the truck.

  “You can ride up here,” Isadore said, “there’s plenty of room.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “I don’t care for small spaces.”

  “Hm,” Ruin said.

  “Hm yourself, JD.”

  “Don’t think I’m going to let you start calling me that Izzy.”

  “Sure JD.”

  “What are you going to do, spank me in front of Scriber? Maybe you’ll ask him to hold me down?”

  He grit his teeth until his jaw hurt, wanting very much to drag her back inside and make her apologize. Make her call him by his right name. While he sucked her fucking clit and commanded those pleasure spasms until she bucked on his face and became that woman she was so ashamed of.

  And Scriber likely sensed Ruin’s ‘issues.’ Another humiliation. To have his powers screwing with him at a time like this and in front of the being was not something he needed added to his list of failures and inadequacies.

  Isadore scooted away from him, slammed the door and remained sitting right on it. Good, the last thing he needed was
to have to touch, smell, and taste her right in the middle of a crisis. Maybe he should try focusing on his homework, take the job seriously. He might not know all the details, but he felt its importance at an instinctual level. More details would be nice to help speed along the urgency he desperately needed to counter his Isadore affliction, but that didn’t seem to be in the perks for him.

  Ruin headed in the direction his power pulled. North-east, in this case. They drove in silence and Ruin remembered Caliber mentioning the commander of Daguire’s Guild. Who was that anyway and how was he connected to him, and why. As usual, there was no shock and awe when contemplating it. Any of it. Him being a Carnificem, born into a human body, a whole man and not of a woman... It all felt natural to him. Normal. Even though logic said it clearly wasn’t, whoever he was, before his humanity, was with him, and that piece of him knew things that Ruin didn’t. It was what his instincts responded to, like everything about him knew what was going on except his conscious mind. The wall, he assumed.

  He glanced over at Isadore, the wall giver according to Caliber. She chewed her thumbnail and watched the afternoon slowly fading around them. Ruin checked on Scriber in the rear view then glanced back when he didn’t see him. The being seemed to be asleep on the bed of the truck, head on the spare tire.

  Ruin allowed his gaze to dwell on the endless expanse of flesh leading to the top of her shorts. The way she sat with one leg on the dashboard screamed slide your fingers inside me until I orgasm on you. “You’re quiet,” Ruin said, wishing she’d be just a bit closer. She didn’t answer and Ruin grimaced when the coordinates on his assignment bit into his ribs telling him they were close. Where could they possibly be going? “Are you thirsty?” He was ready to stop and find a reason to get near her before the assignment.

  She still didn’t answer.

  “Come on, you’re not going to talk to me? Ever?”

  “Why should I?” she mumbled.

  “Well, I was more helpful to you than this on your assignments.”

  “You do not need me and you know it,” she muttered again.

  He took a deep breath, glad the following was true and even said it with a measure of pride. “No…I actually do need you.”