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  Keeping his torturous momentum, he gradually allowed his thumbs to brush with more pressure against her. At encountering a wet heat on the material, the fire and ice inside him engaged for the first time, stealing his breath. He realized in that second, they had been engaged the entire time, but now, both roared in his veins. Both hungered for the same thing. The three powers had merged into one force and the idea should have concerned him. But he was too drunk to care as he pushed his thumbs into those full folds. Her moans came in sharp grunts and he watched her hips flick and reach for more.

  “Touch me,” she gasped. “Please.”

  Her frustration nearly undid him. Kneeling between her legs, he used his knees and opened her wider. Her hands gripped the sheets tightly with her sharp gasp, making his manhood jump again. “Touch yourself, Isadore,” he rasped.

  She obeyed him without hesitation, sliding her hand beneath her. Ruin pulled her panties aside and a groan escaped him at seeing a glimpse of her secrets finally—and seeing her fingers all over them.

  She cried out and lifted her ass higher, sliding her finger inside her body.

  Ruin growled at the sight and grabbed her panties, yanking them down until he worked them off of her entirely. Returning to kneel between her legs, he took hold of her hips and pulled so she was right on his lap. The idea to stroke his manhood on her was overpowering. But he wouldn’t.

  The position opened her completely to him and he stared, fighting for enough air. The tight pucker of her ass made insane demands on him. Unable to resist, he passed the tip of his finger softly over it and she cried out with a little jerk. Ruin ran firm fingers along her spine as he angled his head, gliding his finger lower. His first stroke on her silk, so very wet with desire, made her squirm and thrust her ass higher. A harsh groan blasted from him.

  “Oh God, please,” she strained between breaths. “Finger me.”

  Finger her. Finger her. The term was easily deciphered, and he gripped a cheek of her ass firmly while sliding his middle finger slowly inside her body. The feel of her hot muscles biting down on his finger made him push his manhood against her inner thigh. But touching it against anything was a huge mistake. He began rocking his hips, giving it the steady friction he needed, his breaths becoming more labored by the second. Her moans were loud and sharp and without restraint, the most intoxicating thing he'd ever heard. When his finger reached bottom, he shuddered at the entirety of it, the feel of her clenching him. His manhood needed to be where he probed, and the idea sent sparks firing in his brain, the heat and ice roaring in avid agreement.

  “Ruin!” She moved her hips with frantic little pumps and the sound of that name on her perfect lips and voice, shattered the loathe he had for the wretched title. His fingers bit into the firm muscle of her ass even more while he answered her demand, moving his finger in and out, rapidly. Her delicious heat drenched his finger and the music it created brought the epitome of torment he craved.

  “Give it to me, Isadore.” He could feel it coming; the orgasm that he’d seen her have before. Her muscles quivered, and her cries rose higher and faster. “Give it to me,” he shuddered, jabbing his finger deeper as he gripped her ass with a near brutal force and jerked her faster on his finger.

  She erupted in screams and shudders and Ruin gave in to the need to put his mouth on her ass. He sucked then bit the tight muscle, dizzy with her intensified spasms. He shoved his tongue into the puckered opening, his cock near bursting at the feel of such a thing. When she'd orgasmed alone, it had

  been nothing like this. It had been silent and short. This was far different. She'd erupted like a volcano and burned him eternally.

  "Fuck me,” she gasped. “Please, fuck me.”

  Ruin got off of the bed, winded. Fuck me. There it was. The one meaning of that word she’d not yet used. That was certainly it. To fuck her was exactly what he wanted. What he had to have. And what he surely had to deny himself.

  Chapter Ten

  Isadore turned in the bed at feeling Ruin get up so abruptly. In her hasty need, she’d forgotten to be ashamed. He stood at the foot of the bed, dressing. Dressing?

  “What…what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  His tone was pure honesty, as usual. She watched in confusion as he hissed to get his enormous cock into his jeans. Then he covered those delicious tattoos on his delicious torso with the black t-shirt she hated herself for finding. Why did you stop, seemed like a perfectly logical question to ask and yet, the way he behaved as though it was the right thing, made her doubt herself? And did she want to look like a needy swamp slut? Not really, no. But then, did she want to feel like he’d pleasured her as a way to…to calm her? Reward her? Pay her?

  “You’re angry,” he said, turning to her.

  He seemed and sounded shocked. What did she have need of now that he’d fingered her and brought her to orgasm? Why should she not be satisfied?

  She dragged the sheet from the bed and went downstairs to check her gumbo. And to have coffee on the pier past midnight. Maybe that alligator would happen by and eat her.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, standing next to her at the counter.

  “Nothing at all is wrong.” She poured her coffee.

  “You’re lying,” he observed, sounding confused.

  “So what? Are you a judge? Oh yeah, you are.” She waved a flippant hand. “Judge away then.”

  “What did I do wrong?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “You seemed to like it.”

  “Oh I loved it, thank you for that service. You should add it to your resume,” she loaded her cup of coffee blindly with cream and sugar, not counting.

  “That was sarcastic,” he observed again.

  She gave an exaggerated gasp, “Awww,” she patted him on the shoulder. “You’re learning so faaaaast.”

  He stood there, showing signs that her passive insult hit home. Good then. She tapped her spoon on the cup, tossed it into the sink a few feet away and headed for the pier.

  “Where are you going?” he said, alarmed.

  “On the pier to have a cup of coffee. I don’t smoke and seeing as we just sort of had sex, feels like the thing to do.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  Her anger shot up. “Ohh no, no, no, only those who actually orgasm get to partake in the after-math party. Sorry JD.” She headed out, mumbling how stupid could a stupid fucker be? Obviously, very.

  She sat on the pier, boldly dangling her feet while trying to ignore and breathe around the huge pressure in her chest, still mumbling away.

  “It’s not safe out here, Isadore.”

  She shrugged, sipping her coffee. “I’m not afraid, JD.”

  “Why are you calling me JD?”

  “Well, if you like the name Ruin I can call you that if you insist.”

  “I didn’t like it.”

  “But now you do?”

  “I…don’t know.”

  “Great,” she muttered. “Let me know when you sort it out.”

  “I liked it… when you said my name just now. I didn’t like it before.”

  Pain cut at her heart. She couldn’t take any more of that. “I would like to be alone, Ruin. Please.”

  “I can’t leave you out here.”

  “Then go…away from me.”

  “I just want to understand what I have done wrong.”

  “I will not tell you,” she glared at him. “You need to go ahead and deal with that. I will not tell you. Telling you is pointless, will only bring about more problems in fact.” The last thing she wanted was to be reduced to a pity fuck.

  “I can’t leave you out here.”

  Obstinate resolve echoed in the words. “Fine.” She got up and headed back inside and busied herself with finishing the gumbo. She eyed the home-made bottle of Muscadine wine Mr. Thibodeaux had given her and decided it was a good time to take the edge off. While she mopped.

  Half a bottle of the nasty stuff later, she stumbled to
her stereo and put on her mopping song.

  Back in the kitchen, she sloshed Pine-Sol into her bucket in the sink. “Mmmm,” she sighed, working her mop up and down to the tune, or very close to it.

  Eyeing the hair clip attached to the curtain, she grabbed it, twisted her hair and clipped it, then twisted the mop hairs, wringing it out.

  Starting from her usual corner, she splatted the mop to the floor and gave herself over to the pet psychosis she’d grown too fond of and dependent on. Fuck it. Fuck them. Fuck all of ‘em who had a problem with it. Fuck the swamp people, fuck the bait stealers. Fuck that alligator, fuck the hurricane she felt coming. Fuck all the hurricanes! Fuck all the shit trying to tear her apart! Fuck JD, fuck Ruin!

  Ruin grabbed her from behind, his arms hot bands around her. “Shhh, okay. You’re okay.”

  Isadore realized she’d said all those things out loud. Maybe real loud. “Sorry, I was… just mopping.”

  “I know.”

  She was suddenly being carried and too drunk to care. “I always wanted to be carried like this. A handsome man, a prince, carryin’ me someplace. Don’t ask where he carried me. One day it was a palace, another time the woods. Even the hospital.” She let her head flop back. “I would always be like this. Like a dishrag. Danglin’ all beautiful and helpless.” She brought her head up. “All pathetic!” She erupted in snickers and then promptly sobered, “Hey,” she scolded, “a girl is a girl, and it’s normal to dream. That’s what I keep saying. I have to hope, don’t I?”

  “You seem to, yes.”

  He laid her on her bed and she moaned, turning on her side. “Get away from me.”

  Isadore shut her eyes and sleep came right to her, a handsome prince, picking her up in his arms and carrying her to her silly dreams. Silly dreams of a man with brilliant green eyes and strange tattoos that didn’t quite find her worth loving.

  ****

  Ruin felt…ill. But he wasn’t sure why or how. His body roiled with heat and ice, like he’d been struck with some awful power that confounded it, scattered its purpose and reason. The symptoms sprung up directly from Isadore. Her words. They were doing this to him somehow, some reason he couldn’t understand. Her every syllable kept replaying itself in his head. Fuck JD, fuck Ruin. I used to dream of being carried like this. By a prince. Those words. Those were the source of his torment. And please, leave me alone. Go away.

  She’d meant every word. And it had affected him beyond meaning. The ice had turned into razors, slicing him everywhere it touched, and the heat burned the cuts, seared them, only for the ice to do it again. And again. A deep part of him was satisfied with this. A deep part said that was good. The pain

  and torment, it was good. A good answer for that need in him, that need for…Isadore. Isadore was everything he hated. Her hope when things were so hopeless, her kindness when she should be wrathful, her love where hate was the justified response. That’s why he needed torment. She behaved contrary to what was truly right and logical. That was it. He had to make it right, had to punish the wrong. He gave her pleasure because he couldn’t hurt her. But he could hurt himself. He could hurt himself and him hurting was okay. It was right, even.

  The confounding confusion was why was she hurt? He'd given her pleasure; exquisite pleasure and she was now in pain? Was it the fucking part? Would she be this hurt over that? If that were the problem, he could remedy it. Maybe the wise man could help him with some of these things. Tomorrow would tell. And while he waited impatiently for dawn, he read more of her books. He hated the poetry one and yet had to finish it. It affected him somewhat like the Bible had. Bewildered him. Only, the poetry one, he understood why he despised it. Perfectly good words strewn together by a mind darkened with lies--empty, wishful truths. But then…why did he think that? How could he know that? What had he seen in the few days he’d become aware, or alive, or awake, to draw such a conclusion? Not a lot. But he knew patterns. And the patterns were there.

  He settled on calling it a hunch. And time would tell if his hunch was correct. That the world was hopeless and wretched. Even though he didn't know what real joy was or peace or love, he knew that it was not what he witnessed

  ****

  Ruin stared up at the church as he walked toward the front entrance with Isadore. An ominous pressure sat on his lungs with every step he took, like hands pushing, trying to prevent him. He waited for the heat and the fire to give him direction, but it was in that scattered disarray again, like it had gotten with Isadore. He wasn’t sure what to expect here. But he did expect something. Hopefully, clarity where the Bible was concerned.

  “Can’t believe I’m late to church. I have never been late to church,” Isadore muttered, her low heels making rapid pops along the cement walk.

  For some reason, the bite in her tone made him feel like she blamed him. “I’m sorry.” That was as far as he could take those words without bringing about trouble he couldn’t address in the ten seconds before they entered.

  She paused before the door and smoothed the thin, buttery colored material that stopped above her knees. The white top was just as thin with tiny straps on her shoulders. Ruin was sure if she leaned over, he’d be able to see her breasts and the notion that others may as well had his stomach in tense knots.

  Nobody should see her breasts but him.

  “Do I look stupid?”

  Ruin met her troubled blue gaze, confused. “What? No, you’re...very intelligent.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Never mind. Stay close and don’t talk to people, please.” She froze with her hand on the giant door handle. She snapped wide eyes to him. “Oh my God, who are you? To me?” She latched a frantic hand to his arm. “You’re my distant cousin, visiting from Boston. Your name is JD.”

  “Don’t count on me to tell people that.”

  “Oh come on! It’s a harmless lie," she whispered. "They don’t need to know.”

  “Then tell them it’s none of their business.”

  “I can’t do that!” she cried, looking astounded. “Whatever, fine,” she hissed. “I’ll do all the lying; keep your stupid righteous mouth shut.”

  He barely shook his head, once again baffled by her. She pulled the giant door open and singing poured out. Walking as close to Isadore as he possibly could without stepping on her, he met as many of the sudden gazes that he could while obeying Isadore’s discreet tugging into the very back pew.

  He watched her smile at a few people then jump right into the song, mid-lyric. He listened to the racket for several minutes, pinpointing a clear distinction among the voices. Not all of them had the grinding quality that stabbed into the ear drums, some of them were gifted. Isadore wasn’t one of them.

  The design of the building with the open ceiling and beams didn’t serve to buffer the torture but rather amplify it. It sounded like a war and the few gifted were being massacred.

  Ruin fought down a smile as Isadore sang loudly, either oblivious to her lack of talent or not caring. He hoped it was the latter. He rather appreciated the entire fuck it motto she’d vehemently taken up while mopping last night, even if it had ended with her hating him for some reason he still didn’t understand. Yet.

  The eardrum rape finally ended and they all sat. Ruin had the urge to touch Isadore but refrained as the man at the front leaned over a microphone and boomed his greeting into the building. Then he proceeded to recite things for the next thirty minutes that Ruin had read several times. He waited for the man to offer enlightenment, his hope dwindling with each second as he listened and studied the members of the church. By the time it was over, he’d learned one thing. How very wicked each of them were and in need of judgment.

  Ruin felt ill when the eternal hour was up. “Are you okay?” Isadore whispered.

  “I need air.”

  She slapped her hand on his leg. “Well let’s go get some.” She hurried them out, but he had a feeling it was more to avoid confrontation. Either way was fine with him, just so they left.

  �
��Isadore!”

  “Oh shit, Geraldine!” Isadore hurried her pace. “Don’t turn, keep walking.”

  Not a problem.

  “Izzy! Wait, I got you that recipe you asked for.”

  “Don’t stop. Don’t stop. We’ll never leave.”

  “Not stopping.”

  They climbed into the truck and she fumbled the keys for five seconds. “Shit, really?”

  “She’s still coming.” Ruin wasn’t worried when he saw the woman’s five by five build moving at a snail’s pace in all her hurrying.

  “Don’t look at her! Look at me!” The truck roared to life like she stepped on the gas too long.

  “Careful, you may run her over.” Ruin watched the muscles in Isadore’s arms and legs flex as she worked the clutch and shift then braced her arm on the back of the seat, stepping on the gas. He held on, taken by images of her muscles flexing the same way while he used his cock to do what his finger had.

  The thin material over her breasts pulled tight and gave a clear image of their perfect shape, adding to the tormenting vision in his mind.

  “Ohhh, I’m the devil for doing that,” she gasped, looking in the rear-view mirror. “Poor Geraldine, she’s such a sweet woman. She’s got nine children and she doesn’t get out much. Church is the only social life she has, and I usually take time with her.” She tossed him an angry glare, like he was the fault for that.

  “Sorry.” Ruin was getting good at using that word in a general sense. He was sorry for a lot of things. Sorry that she was a liar. Sorry he felt ill. Sorry he’d thought going to the church would do some good. Sorry he was going to see Old Man Ghospired instead of taking Isadore back to her house and pleasuring her again. He was not sorry for Isadore not talking to Geraldine. Geraldine, who didn’t know how to stop having kids, or didn’t know how to get out of the house or know when to quit eating. He was sorry somebody didn’t do her a service and tell her the truth. She was wretched. She needed to give up trying. She needed to quit pretending that life would ever be anything but an ocean of despair and woe, all by her own hand for the most part.