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  He studied her hand over her chest and stroked it, then carefully took it into his large one, examining every aspect of it. The contrast of strength and texture mesmerized him. Not that she wasn’t strong, but next to him… she was delicate. He stroked the tips of her fingers, discovering they were a little rough, telling of her noble swamp labor.

  He recalled the few people he'd seen in his memory. They seemed to be in small groups. He remembered the words for it. Family. Marriage, husband, wife. She had none of that. No man to protect her and satisfy her sexual needs. And after tonight, after learning what he was... he was no human. And yet...he felt very human. He had human parts, even human appetites. How was he going to learn about what and who he really was? And why he was? He was missing pieces that would give him those answers. He needed them now more than ever.

  Isadore took in a slow deep breath and let out a light moan, sending Ruin’s pulse racing in an instant. She opened her eyes and stared at him in half sleep, then sat up abruptly at realizing where she was, where he was. Her fear felt just like he’d gotten hit in the stomach by a train, and he groaned in pain.

  Immediately she grew concerned. “What? Are you okay?”

  Her added tenderness still had adverse effects, and a great fatigue hit him. He put his elbows on his legs and head in his hands. “Your sympathy and fears," he mumbled.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I mean… I don’t know how not to be that sometimes.” Her words sounded frail and helpless. He was sure crying was suddenly imminent, and he shot up, needing to distance himself from her if she did that. It had the effect of loud grinding in his brain and made him want to crush and kill things.

  “So,” she threw the covers off and shot out of the bed, her tone chipper as she went to her dresser.

  “As I was saying, I did see everything that happened tonight. And I’m aware of how very impossible all of it seems. However,” she shut the drawer and opened her closet next. “I am a Christian,” she went on, her back to him. “I have read the Bible and well know that there is a supernatural. Therefore…” the final word came on a light huff as she kicked the closet door shut with a foot and hurried to him with clothes extended. “I am going to treat these events tonight as acts of God.” She pressed the clothes into his stomach and he took them, watching her go back to her dresser. “I’m going to church tomorrow,” she continued, “and then I’m visiting Old Man Ghospired who is a wise Christian a lot of people go to when they have…” she turned only her head to him, “difficult spiritual matters.”

  “Old man Ghospired?” Hope filtered through Ruin’s agony. “Can I talk to him?”

  Isadore clutched her own bundle of clothes before him. “I was hoping, yes.”

  “And you saw everything tonight,” he said.

  “I saw what I told you. Was that all of it?”

  Ruin didn’t want to tell her she’d passed out before finishing. “Yes, I think so.”

  “Well, that’s good to know.” She gnawed briefly at her lower lip. “I was worried I had missed the main event.”

  Ruin stared at her, feeling like she didn’t really mean what she said but not sure.

  “It was a joke. And I was going to make a fresh gumbo and take some to Mr. Thibodeaux tomorrow. You’ll like him. You’ll come with me?”

  “Yes.” Ruin watched her for signs of the mental instabilities he’d read about in the medical book.

  He needed to finish reading it; the more he understood the human body, the better off he was. She should definitely be hysterical after such an event and the way she behaved now, still had him worried. How could she take it so well when even he struggled with the reality?

  “I’m going to take a shower.” She pointed to the clothes he still held to his stomach. “Those were my dad’s,” she said with a little shrug. “I hope they fit. I mean, so you’re not stuck wearing my stuff. He was a good man. You remind me of him in a lot of ways.”

  Agony began to stir in Ruin at the amount of emotions he sensed behind her words, as well as the stupid idea she’d compare him to a man she clearly admired and…loved.

  “I’m not good.” It was the only thing he could say.

  “Yes, you are,” she nodded with eyes closed, like she’d known this forever.

  He shook his head, the agony of that one thing about himself getting worse. “And how do you know?”

  “I just do,” she said with that same positive tone. “I have faith that you are.”

  His anger flared now, and he turned away from her. “That’s illogical.”

  “Yeah, I know." She passed him, and Ruin’s eyes were on her, particularly the denim and the way it hugged her bottom, showing her exact, perfect shape. She suddenly paused at the stairs, her brows furrowed in sudden contemplation. “I don’t remember going to bed.”

  “You fell asleep,” he said. “I carried you up.” It was close enough to the truth, apparently.

  “See? You’re good. You took care of me.”

  “Because I carried you to bed when you were asleep?”

  “You could have left me wherever I’d fallen asleep.” She narrowed her gaze briefly as though trying to remember that.

  “I had to.”

  She gave him a little smile. “Why did you have to?” Her tone scolded lightly as she headed down the stairs now and he followed. She went straight to the bathroom. “Taking that shower,” she said, shutting the door.

  “Because I just have to,” he called, double checking that everything was still locked down, even though the things he feared weren’t bound entirely by natural laws. "The same way I have to eat," he muttered, frustrated with her determination to make him something he very likely was not.

  He went back upstairs and fetched the medical book and then paused at seeing something on the bottom shelf of the table next to her bed. He leaned his head and retrieved a book. A Bible.

  He set the medical book down and hurried with the Bible downstairs, excitement racing through him. He sat at the table and read, finding a strange emotion bubbling in his blood. He paused, trying to identify it. Hope. That was it. From the moment he’d laid eyes on that word “Bible” the definition of it struck something in him. Maybe this book contained the information he lacked about himself. Maybe his purpose and full identity would be found within its numerous pages.

  Chapter Nine

  A little way into reading the Bible, and Ruin was frustrated with how perfectly he didn’t understand what was there. Line upon line of puzzles presented itself, and what wasn’t puzzling didn’t seem to pertain to him in any way that he could connect. How did she even read this? Why would she, the bigger question. It had so little scientific logic. The only place, so far, that had any kind of practical knowledge was in Proverbs and maybe Psalms, but even that was enshrouded in dense terminology that seemed subjective to a reader's interpretation.

  The sound of her shower reached his ears, again distracting him. Graphic images of her breasts glistened in his mind until knowing the truth became steeped in the mysteries of Isadore. Isadore's body, Isadore's eyes, Isadore's well- guarded and highly esteemed privates.

  He stood and paced, remembering his earlier intention before she’d passed out. To give her a massage. Mostly to relieve her stress and be able to touch her. He had to touch her one way or another. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when, and it may as well be for a dual justified cause. She needed the physical liberation and he needed to be the one to give it.

  Ruin went back to picking at the puzzle called the Bible, attempting to read. The torture lasted only five minutes before the sound of her getting done rescued him from his mounting frustrations and not all of them stemmed from the convoluted book. The idea that some believed the book to be The Word of God was farfetched. How could one be sure unless they'd witnessed God write it?

  Right in the middle of his thoughts, the need to know what her privates looked like struck him harder than ever. He hadn’t seen any in a book, or anywhere else. He needed tha
t data.

  “You’re welcome to take one next,” she gasped, coming out with a puff of steam and her head wrapped in a towel. “But you’ll need to wait until the hot water builds up. I’ll make us coffee while you wait.”

  He eyed her body covered in a thin, mint green robe as she went to the sink and pulled out a bottle of golden liquid from behind a red and white checkered curtain beneath it. She opened it and took a long sniff. He remembered that bottle. “You like to mop.” He recalled how she danced, at least he thought that’s what it was called that first night he met her.

  “Yes. And I plan on doing that while you shower.”

  ****

  Isadore had the water boiling and her Roux dissolved when the shower shut off. Ruin. What an awful name. And yet… there was something about it that appealed to her. Maybe that it was so sad to have that name. Did he like it? Hate it? Want her to use it? She should ask. She kind of liked calling him JD, though.

  The door opened, and Isadore’s stomach jolted. She’d just spent fifteen minutes preparing for his exit, but it was pointless to pretend his presence didn’t shake her to her very core in every way. She’d accepted the reality of it and had settled for at least not humiliating herself with such telling reactions.

  Surely, it’d get easier. “Ah, good, the clothes fit.” So much for thinking daddy’s memories would help her with her fixation. It was supposed to make her want him less, not more. But the simple blue jeans that had sagged on her dad, clung to his thick body like a well fitted glove. And the black t-shirt made him devastating to look at with those green eyes and black hair. How was she supposed to not be affected?

  She'd just buried herself.

  “Yes, they do.”

  Isadore stared at him, confused. She called up what they were talking about and remembered. The clothes. The clothes did fit. "Yes," she nodded stupidly. “They fit... amazingly."

  “It smells good.” He glanced at the stove.

  “Ah, nothing like Cajun gumbo.”

  He went to the pot and sniffed. “I’m starving.”

  The smell of her soap on his body made her mouth water. “Well, I heated you some of the leftovers, this isn’t going to be ready for a while, yet.”

  He turned to the table and went straight to the large bowl of last week’s gumbo where he proceeded to devour it without stop until he was done. Isadore watched, amazed, and maybe concerned.

  “You were starving?” She got a glass from the cabinet and filled it with milk.

  “I was.” He took the drink and downed it with loud gulps.

  “Wow,” she said. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  He looked up at her, licking his lips, drawing her rapt attention to his full mouth that suddenly held back a smile. She shot her gaze up to his and he stood, holding her captive with those green eyes.

  She found herself looking up at him, defenseless as he continued to stare at her. “I want to do something for you.”

  Anything seemed to be the logical response. “Like what? It’s not necessary.”

  His warm fingers closed around her hand. “Yes, it is.”

  “Where are we going?” She let him pull her to the stairs, a bomb of excitement detonating in her stomach.

  “You’ll see. Do you trust me?”

  She’d sworn to try and be as brutally honest as he was with her. “Not entirely, no.”

  He actually glanced back with a smile that arrested her heart. “You didn't lie.”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “You should. Given your faith.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. I’m not perfect. It’s why I need God.”

  He led her to the bed and she was ready to vomit. “Would you… consider removing your robe?”

  She gasped, her eyes popping. “Umm, no?”

  “Okay.” He rubbed his hands together slowly, and her heart hammered in her chest. “I had to ask.”

  “I could… change maybe.” Dear God, she didn’t even know what he wanted to do, and she was ready to accommodate him.

  “Yes.” He sounded pleased with that. "As little clothes as possible."

  Her body heated to a million degrees at his bold, innocent suggestions. She went to her dresser and dug through the items, her hand pausing on one of her thin nighties she’d kept. Mostly to not forget that she was a woman. She never wore it. “Turn around. No looking.”

  “Turned.”

  She looked over her shoulder and quickly slipped into the naughty sheer white nightie that barely went over her butt. It didn’t match her boy looking briefs, but that was as daring as she dared to get.

  “Okay, where do you want me?"

  "On the bed," he said. "On your stomach.”

  “And what are you planning to do?”

  “Help you relax. Can I look?”

  “Not yet.” Oh, if he only knew. Her every muscle was in knots of excitement. “Headed to the bed now.” She lay on her stomach and turned her face away from him. “Ready.”

  Silence filled the tormenting seconds as Isadore lay with her eyes clenched tight, wondering what he was thinking of her.

  “I’m going to touch you.” The whisper was low and near and…threatening. Or maybe it only seemed like a threat with the way it rushed out on a breath.

  “I’m ready,” she sang, trying her best to be brave.

  She startled when his hot fingers stroked near the injury on the back of her thigh. “I should have killed him," he murmured, mournfully. "Does it hurt?"

  “Hardly at all.”

  He took hold of her right foot then. “Starting from the bottom.”

  “A foot massage. Nice.” Dear God, starting from the bottom. How detailed would he get in his journey up?

  She soon forgot about his destination when his touch captured her every thought. It was phenomenal. Reminded her of what it might feel like to float safely in a warm ocean, gentle waves faithfully carrying… embracing… comforting… protecting.

  He worked his miracle up to the knee on her left leg then did the same to the right. He then took soft hold of her ankles and spread them, causing her muscles to lock. “You’re safe,” he whispered, before she could panic too much.

  She tried to relax again, and he spread her legs about two feet apart then began that same glorious treatment to her upper thigh. Were his fingers hotter? She was sure they were. God, was he staring at her butt? What did he think of her body? Did he realize how naughty it was for her to put that lingerie on?

  Did he see it as her way of compromising? Not entirely uninterested in the idea of him seeing her but just not ready to go all nude?

  ****

  Fiery torment billowed through Ruin in staggering amounts. From the moment he'd turned to find Isadore in sheer material, he’d barely managed to remain standing. The first thought was how long he’d have to be tormented before he saw her breasts? He’d let her set the pace. Her body would tell him. Even now, he was near her succulent bottom. The word ass was a slang used for that body part, and he decided the sound felt good on his tongue for what he stared at. And when he’d opened her legs, his heart nearly failed him at seeing her secrets filling and pushing against the soft material of her white panties.

  The question was, how would he manage to keep his lips and tongue off of her? Instinct screamed through him, to taste and lick places on her that his fingers traveled. And her scent. How could something as small as a scent threaten to unhinge his psyche? He wanted to suckle from every part of her body. Just before he devoured.

  His gaze fixed on that perfect spot where her leg joined the full flesh of her buttocks. And the line between those plump cheeks screamed for his slow exploration. He didn’t just feel her excitement in his fingers, he heard it in her breathing now, turning up his torment. Ruin realized that the torture it caused him satisfied something deep inside him.

  He finally straddled one of her legs, angling his head again to gaze on her privates. Her secrets.

  He wanted to see her touch herself
again. Wanted to watch her again. Only closer. Very close. He settled his hands at her lower back, working the muscles there, allowing his fingers to grip her waist. She made little straining moans that tickled the very tip of his manhood causing it to push against the prison of

  denim. He allowed his fingers to knead along her sides as his thumbs circled the muscles at the very base of her spine. The feel of her waist in his hands speared him with desire. He needed to hold her this way, control her body as he did things to her.

  “May I undress?” he asked. He knew it was daring but the torment was not enough. To have his manhood near her, exposed and unable to touch, that would be true torment. And his need for that exquisite torment seemed to be growing.

  A few seconds passed, and he nearly retracted the question when her whisper reached him. “Yes.”

  The sound of her desire had a lethal effect on him. He wasted not a second but tore off his clothes and resumed his straddled position, careful not to let his painful erection touch her as he went back to working those same muscles. He was ready to move closer to his goal and slid his hands along the side of her hips, stopping to press his thumbs in slow circles at the succulent junction where her legs met the curve of her perfect ass. The sharp moan she gave him set off a wicked, non-stop pulsing in his manhood.

  He'd never drank alcohol but felt drunk and driven for more. He allowed his thumbs to gradually move closer to her secrets. His breath shuddered out at the sight of her hips barely moving in response to his touch. The torment was heady. Exhilarating. He inched his touch lower and lower between her legs, getting at the inner muscles there while his gaze studied her every move. Little strained moans became a steady mix in her shallow breaths. Her hips moved without stop now, her beautiful ass lifting more the closer he got to the mark. He realized his pace was teasing her. Tormenting her. Causing her to beg him without words. Exactly what he needed, he needed her to beg him and silently, with her body, worked perfectly. For now.

  Ruin finally had his thumbs right near his greatest desire. He slowed his pace even more, the circular swirl of his thumbs expanding just enough to barely brush against that soft fullness between her legs. Her moans turned more strained, and he watched as her body begged for more with the slight opening of her thighs. Wider. She wanted more, more. That’s it, Isadore. Command it. Speak it into existence and I will answer you.