by Bane, Lucian
“I think that was a joke?”
“Yes and no. It’s just odd that you’re so … physically attentive.”
After paying the tab, Isadore spied a couple in the parking lot, laughing and hugging and kissing. “Oh look,” she pointed to them, a fine example of two people in love.
Ruin paused and looked from them to her several times before whispering, “You want to? Now?’
“Oh my God,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Those two are in love, I was trying to show you but of course you’d only think of sex.”
Ruin followed her to the truck, still watching the couple while he climbed into the driver seat. “Are you sure we’re not in love? Pretty sure we look just like that, minus all the laughing.”
“Well maybe the laughing is important, you ever think of that?” She slammed her door.
“Laughing is important?” He sounded perturbed. “During sex?”
“Not during sex, Ruin, but around sex, before and after maybe? You know, the stuff that people do in life?”
He started the truck. “Not really, no.”
Guilt hit her as she realized he didn’t know. Maybe she needed to cut him some slack in that area, maybe if she’d have a little bloody patience the man might have time to fall in love with her. But then time could mean he’d come to his senses with her and realize she wasn’t all that. She wasn’t even pretty, he’d just imprinted on her. Soon he’d see the truth of the matter. She was smart, that was the only real thing she had going for her and given his intelligence, time would make her a huge bore. Which … made her realize that sex had become one of her tools with him, hadn’t it?
So much for pure and clean. Not only was she guiding them both to hell, she was the gasoline getting them there.
Chapter Fourteen
Back on the road, Ruin stopped at a gas station to fuel up and Isadore did strangely in the store, and Ruin had the odd suspicion that he’d seen her do all of it before. She stocked up on an arsenal of snacks and other odd items and took forever at the counter with her giant sack of tricks that involved an array of paper exchanging. He kept the annoyed woman behind them from getting out of hand, engaging her in idle chatter that he thought went fairly well. She seemed to really like him, probably too much by the way she smiled, but it kept Isadore out of trouble at least.
They finally made it back in the truck and Isadore slammed her door and threw her portion of the bags she carried onto the floorboard. “It’s nice to see you so chatty,” Isadore said as Ruin left the gas station parking lot. “That one lady back there give you her number?”
“No, it was her address.”
“Her address? Wow, score! I should get into the practice of giving my address out to strangers, don’t you think? Maybe I’ll try that at the next stop.”
“Maybe not,” he said, casually.
“Why not? You didn’t seem to have an issue with her doing it?”
“I’m not going to her address, Isadore. And I did you a favor, you were taking a very long time at the counter and I am pretty sure I averted a crisis.”
She gasped. “Well, JD, if it’s all the same—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m letting you know that if you do, it will bring you something you won’t like.”
“What are you going to do J-D, spank me?”
That. Is. It. “I think that would actually be very appropriate.” He pulled off the road and put the truck in park. “I did warn you.” He got out of his seat belt and reached for her.
“Ruin! I will kick your ass!” She turned and blocked him with her feet.
He sighed and sat back in the seat next to her, looking at the barren fields on his left and right. “Take off your pants, Isadore.”
She gasped and began doing it. “Oh my God! You’re making me!”
“Yes, I am.”
“This is wrong!”
“No, what is wrong is you calling me that stupid name after I asked you not to. You forced me to endure it, now I am forcing you to endure my spanking. Fair?”
“Not fair!” she yelled, removing her pants still.
“Keep you panties on and get over my lap.”
“I’m going to hate you for this,” she warned, lying prone over his legs.
He looked at her ass and suddenly forgot his anger. “At least I won’t have to hear you say that name again.”
“Oh I will say it JD!”
Anger shot through him and he brought his hand down on her ass. “Will you?”
“You stop it.”
“No, you stop it.”
“Ruin, I mean it, JD is just a stupid name.”
He spanked her and again she shrieked. “I agree with you on that. So give me your word you will not call me that again.”
“I can’t call you Ruin in public, it’s a stupid name!”
“But you can call it in orgasm?”
“That’s different!”
“How so?” He stared at her thighs and ass now, wondering how it would feel for her to climax in this position.
“I’m not a child, let me go.”
“Then why do you act like one?”
“Why do you act like one?”
“Children don’t spank, children get spanked. Now open your legs.”
She gasped and did as he said. “JD you can’t—”
He spanked again and then ran his hand between her thighs, desire slamming him at smelling her arousal. “Fuck, Isadore. Is there anything that doesn’t make your secrets weep to be pleasured?” He slid his fingers over her folds pushing against her white panties. “Of course you’re wet.”
“Not from this!” she whimpered.
He slid his finger inside her panties and dipped into the warm silk. “Not from this? This arousal is very fresh. It astonishes me.”
“Fuck you,” she gasped.
“Why do you even say that? Even now, your perfect ass is lifting for it. Why not say fuck me? That’s what you want to say.”
She grunted in his lap, seeming to fight herself. She let her head fall on the seat. “I won’t say it.”
“Why not?” He teased at her entrance with his finger.
“I won’t. This isn’t right. You shouldn’t … ”
“I shouldn’t put my finger in you? I want to say you’re lying but you aren’t. You’re conflicted. And your body is in vehement odds with you. As am I.”
Obstinacy resurrected in her and she shut her legs and clenched her cute ass cheeks with a sharp mmm of effort.
“Your resistance is only making me want you more. I imagine it’s always been that way with you.” Another fascination.
“Good!” she quipped, her voice muffled.
“And that you like to fight me also makes my cock hard. Did you know that?”
She seemed to tighten her legs more at that information.
“Will you give me your word that you won’t call me that name again?”
“I’ll make a deal with you.”
Ruin had to smile as he stroked along the backs of her thighs. “Tell me.”
“You don’t spank me and I won’t call you … that name.”
He grinned at how backwards she was but he was willing to not mention it and seal this deal. “You have my word.” He released her.
She sat up and looked at him with fury. “And you have mine.”
He scooted back to his spot behind the wheel and waited for her to get dressed, sucking his finger. “I like spanking you,” he mused amazed, while starting the truck.
“That’s because you’re a sicko.” She buttoned up her jeans and zipped them, yanking on her seat belt.
“And what does it make you?”
“It makes me a victim to a sicko.”
He pulled back onto the road. “But you liked it, too.”
“I did not.”
Again it wasn’t a lie. He sort of wished it was. “I’m sorry.”
She snorted. “F
or what? For having to stop?”
“I didn’t have to stop.”
“Sorry you have a conscience that made you stop?”
“I stopped because you made a deal. And I’m sorry that you are conflicted. I want you to like it.”
She gasped. “So you can spank me?”
“I could finger you while I did.”
“Oh my God!” she cried, but Ruin could feel her arousal in the air.
“I bet you’d have such a hard orgasm.”
“It was a nickname for crying out loud. I happen to like nicknames. I give them to everybody.”
“You’re changing the subject. But I understand.”
“No! That is the subject.”
“You can call me Ruin. It’s my name.”
“Why? It’s not like it’s a great name.”
“It is when you say it.”
She went silent and he had to look to see why. She stared at him with angry surprise then briskly turned to stare out the window with her arms crossed.
“Can you find me something to eat? Imagining you having an orgasm that way makes me so hungry.”
She leaned and grabbed bags and slammed them on the seat. “Take your pick.”
“Well, it’s hard while I’m driving.”
“I can eat and drive, can’t you?”
“You can’t do it without being unsafe.”
She dug roughly through a bag and threw something at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, meaning it. “Sorry I made you angry.” Not sorry he spanked her. Would never be sorry for that.
“That is hard to believe Ruuu-in.”
God, would she now torment him with mispronouncing his name? He needed her, of all people, no, of anybody, to say it correctly. “Don’t say my name like that.”
“Now I have to say it the way you want? What if I don’t, what you gonna do, judge me? Execute me?”
“Yes, judge you for lying to yourself. Execute pleasure as your correction.”
“Pleasure as correction, don’t you mean punishment?”
“Correction. Since your crime isn’t intentional.”
“I’m telling you right now,” she pointed at him. “You cannot do that kind of thing without reaping dire consequences.”
She was right about that but wrong about the consequences. He’d reap her guilt and shame. Eventually. He would cause her to endure it enough with him until she realized there was nothing justifying it.
“I can’t believe you spanked me. I’m going to get you back, I assure you.”
“We’re close to the first part of our assignment,” he announced, ready to change the subject.
But Isadore went on and on for miles with endless rude responses to his every attempt at making peace. And oddly enough, he could not bring himself to be angry with her. His guess was, her anger soothed him, even though it stemmed from those buried dysfunctions she was constantly accusing him of while hiding her own with strange behaviors.
“So we are going to my moms,” Isadore mused, looking out the window, her booted foot on the dash. He liked how she did that. Even more when she did it barefoot out the window.
“Still not sure. But I’m glad we’ll get there before dark.”
“Oh, I am. Plenty of shitty water under that bridge, no doubt it’s my buried issues.”
“Why buried?”
She shrugged. “Must be buried, because there is absolutely no reason why she should hate me that I can fathom.”
“She hates you?”
“Oh, she won’t admit it, no, but she does. Did you know she blamed me for a sexual attack that I suffered?” Isadore nodded. “Yep,” she said lightly. “Sure did. Her poor daughter is so stupid, she has to do enough drugs for both of us. Little dumb me who went to BU for undergrad, majored in genetics, stayed for masters in Molecular Genetics,” she pointed at him, “and went to MIT for my PhD in neuroscience.”
“So you got through elementary it sounds like.”
Isadore laughed, really laughed, and Ruin grinned at the sound, feeling an emotion new to him but one he really liked. Joy maybe. “Yes, elementary to you, maybe. But I busted my ass.”
“I like your ass.”
She regarded him with a slight smile. “You’re trying to cheer me up,” she said, impressed.
“Is that what you call it?” He shrugged. “Just being honest.”
She kept her smile and looked out the window, quiet for a bit. “Even did a post doc at Harvard but left when my dad died. I was working on regulating the internal clock, and also memory and learning on the biochemical level in the SCN for internal clock and Hippocampus for learning in memory. Yeah. Interesting I know.”
“It’s fascinating, actually,” he said.
She looked at him.
“What? It is.”
She snorted a little. “Most people’s eyes glaze over when I begin to ramble.”
“That’s … not what happens with me.”
“Oh really? What happens with you?”
“My cock gets hard.”
“Oh good grief, I should have known. Is there anything that doesn’t make your dick hard?”
“That you do? Not very much.”
“Well, tell me when you figure it out so I can practice it. I’m kind of tired of being followed around by a hard dick. Though my mother would say I’m luring you.”
“You very much are.” She jerked to him with angry eyes and he added, “But not that you can help it. You’ve lured me from the first day I met you, from the way you checked your traps, rowed your boat and docked it, to how you mopped your floors. And danced.” He couldn’t keep the desire out of that last word. All her science talk with memories of when he first met her was driving him crazy.
She seemed to sense it and cleared her throat. “Sorry you got stuck with a weirdo that medicates trauma with Pine-Sol and other random screwy acts just to … hi-jack their right brain to engage the parasympathetic responses and … keep themselves from being hostage to the crimes heaped on them by a bastard,” she shot her finger at him, “who is in jail, mind you.”
“You always ramble when you know.”
“When I know what,” she muttered.
“You know what.”
She didn’t answer and he glanced at her, unable to hold back a grin. She looked back at him and cried, “What?”
“Say it,” he said. “I love to hear you say those things.”
“I won’t say it.”
“Come on,” he whispered. “Say it. Please.”
“Say what? That you get off to my tragedy?”
“That’s not cute,” he said.
“I wasn’t trying to be cute.”
“Try to be honest, then.”
“Oh my God,” she said, looking down at what he was doing.
“One day you’re going to talk to me about what you love while I rub my cock until I climax.”
She went quiet again but didn’t look away as he rolled his hips, applying pressure and friction on his hard-on with his jeans.
“I can smell your arousal, Isadore,” he said. “It makes me want to corner you and finally slide my cock inside you over and over until I orgasm. While kissing you, fuck I think about that. All the time. And I hope to never meet the bastard who hurt you, by the way.”
“Why?” she whispered, completely aroused now.
“Because I would judge him harshly and execute him slowly and gladly earn more demerits, except I don’t want to jeopardize you with another dark assignment.”
“Ah, told you,” Isadore said as he pulled into a driveway. “This is my mother’s house.” Despite her casual tone, he felt it in the air of the truck. She liked that he wanted to defend her, needed him to. So why did she have to fight him so hard when it came to letting him get close to her, physically? He was more sure now that it was tied to her sexual attack.
“Let me warn you, she’s very chatty. Hopefully we’ll be in and out with whatever you need to figure out here. Tell me w
hat to do, you lead, I’ll follow.”
“I have no idea what to do,” Ruin said, looking at her.
She met his gaze and opened her door. “This is your assignment.”
“Yes, but it’s about you.”
She appeared suddenly blindsided, her mouth open. “Well I don’t know what to do!” she shrieked quietly.
“Maybe I’ll know when we get to it,” he suggested. Ruin was rather anxious to learn whatever he could about Isadore. For more reasons than he could identify.
Chapter Fifteen
They stood at the door of the two story home, maybe two hours before dusk. “Do you think she’s here?” Ruin asked, already knowing she was, but wanting to take Isadore’s mind off whatever had her trembling, and biting her thumb nail. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and kiss her until she forgot whatever it was, but didn’t think she’d accept that.
“Oh, she’s here, alright.” Isadore sounded disappointed even as the door locks disengaged and it swung opened. “Mom!” Isadore gushed, happily. “Surprise! I came to visit!”
The white haired older version of Isadore came closer to the screen door, looking from one to the other, paranoia edging her shocked gaze. “What on earth are you doing here?” she said, her voice nearly a whisper. “Who in the world is this?” She stared at Ruin.
“This is … Ruin,” Isadore said. “A very good friend of mine.” She’d pronounced his name Rune. He’d let it slide this time.
The woman opened the screen door. “Come in. But I’m not really ready for visitors.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call, we just happened to be in the area.”
Ruin couldn’t resist the quirk in his lip and Isadore smiled brightly at him, widening her eyes in a silent plea maybe.
“Just in the area, huh? My name is Susan,” she said to Ruin. “I see my daughter still likes to lie for the fun of it.” The woman turned and headed into the house. “Shut the door and lock it. I’ll put on some coffee. I hope you’re not here for long. I ain’t into putting on a show for more than fifteen minutes. My allergies are flaring up and my arthritis has me practically crawling like an invalid. The pain is more than I can stand.
“Well, thank God for your meds.”
“Very funny, I don’t thank God for that, it’s not only eating up my money, it’s a reminder.”