Page 52 of Tempted to Rebel

I meet his eyes, unsure of what to say at first. “I know that you’ve done bad things in the past. I want you to know that it’s okay. We don’t always have a choice. Sometimes, the choice is made for us, and we can’t control what happens next.”

He presses the pad of his thumb to my lips and pulls them apart, feeling for my teeth. “Pretty words,” he muses, “but not true. I have done bad things,krosotka, because I am good at them. Every kill I’ve made, I chose to follow through. I could say that I was following orders, that the choice was made for me, but that is not true. I’ve looked Death in the face and smiled as his friend.” Slipping his thumb over my tongue, he pinches my chin harder, digging his fingers into the soft flesh beneath my jaw and making me flinch. “You may think you understand, but you don’t. There are things stronger than flesh, things I have seen, that I have felt, that no one else has, and no one else will.” He releases my mouth, and I fall back onto the bed, cupping my throbbing jaw.

Ruin towers over me, his hand hovering over my thigh. “There are things stronger than flesh,” he repeats, grabbing my leg and lifting it higher on the mattress, “but the body is the gateway to finding them.”

My heart pounds as he spreads my thighs wide and exhales harshly against his mask. He stands there staring at me for a long moment, like he’s unsure how to proceed. I guess in the past when he visited me at night and touched me, I was in a nightgown, not jeans. He had easier access to my pussy.

“Is that what you’ve been doing? Searching for something?” It sounds a little insane, but I’m trying to understand. Ineedto understand if he’s going to be a permanent fixture in my life.

He grunts, which I think means yes, and pulls the hunting knife from his belt. The same one he pushed inside of me before, in the bathroom back at his apartment.

I scrabble up the bed away from him. “Oh, no. Not again. Put the knife away, Ruin.” I keep my eyes on him while I shout for his brother. “Rebel! Ruin has a knife!” I’m not opposed to a little kink in the bedroom, but a knife in the hands of an unrepentant killer might be pushing my boundaries a little too far.

Something shatters downstairs and thundering footsteps storm up the stairwell. “Ruin! I already told you, no knives!” The moment he spots his brother from the doorway, Rebel flies across the room and tackles him. “Drop it!” He grunts as he tries to force the knife from Ruin’s grasp, but he’s got a death grip on the handle. There’s no prying it free.

I jump up from the bed to put more distance between us. I like Ruin, I’ve always been intrigued by him, but I think he’s got a lot of trauma to unpack, and when he pulls out a knife…

Ice chills the blood in my veins.

I’m scared of him.

Rebel gives up on forcing Ruin to drop the knife. “Fine, just put it away! You’re scaring her!”

“I need to see,” Ruin murmurs, “I need to see it.”

“Not today, buddy, not yet.”

I scoff. “Not yet? Don’t I have any say in this?”

Rebel ignores me. “Here, look into my eyes. Can you see it? You know it’s there.”

Ruin shuts his eyes and shakes his head. “I want to seehers.”

I look between the two of them, unsure what to do. “What is he looking for?”

“That’s a hard question to answer,” Rebel huffs, “but it has something to do with our?—”

“Shut up!” Ruin snarls, pushing his brother off of him. “I won’t find it if it knows I’m looking for it!”

Holding his hands up, Rebel sighs. “Okay, okay. I won’t tell her. But promise me thatwhenwe do this—because we will, just not right now—that you won’t do it alone. I have to be with you when you look for it. Okay?”

Ruin clenches the knife handle tightly. “We can look right now.”

“No,man, we can’t.” Rebel glances over at me, and in another first for the day, he looks defeated. This isn’t a battle he’s going to win in the long run. Whatever it is that Ruin wants to do with me, he’s going to do it. All Rebel is doing now is stalling for time. “She’s not ready yet. If you look now, you won’t find it.”

I flinch as Ruin looks in my direction. But he doesn’t step any closer; he slips the knife back into the holster on his hip and rumbles deep in his chest. “She’s not ready,” he agrees, clenching his fists. “But when she is, I’ll find it.”

The look Rebel gives me next is solemn, but it’s clear whose side he’s really on. It won’t be long before he lets Ruin do whatever it is he’s trying to do to me. If a knife in the pussy is considered foreplay, I can’t imagine what comes next.

I wrap my arms around my stomach and try to calm my racing heart. No matter what it is that Ruin ultimately does to me, Rage and Rebel won’t let Ruin hurt me.

Ifthey’re around when it happens.

And when they’re not, I need to be ready for Ruin.

Whether that means defending myself… or surrendering.

Chapter 20

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