Page 34 of Tempted to Rebel

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. Shewilldo 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 tothe 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 afterIdo.

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—thosedeserving 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!”

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