Page 14 of Bound By Ruin

“What was it like the last time Ruin was burned?”

The question catches Thanatos off guard, and the tip of the knife slips against his abdomen. The t-shirt cuts like butter, but so does his skin. A thin line of red appears instantly, welling with blood. He doesn’t react other than to frown at the cut.

I pull the knife away and quickly apologize. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to?—”

“It’s alright.” Lifting his shirt, he presses the hemline to the wound to stem the blood flow. “You don’t have to push hard to make someone bleed, so remember toreallygo in with intent to hurt someone, or it’ll only be a surface wound. See?” He lifts his shirt higher for me to see the cut. “It’s barely bleeding.”

A bead of sweat rolls down his abs, disappearing into the waistline of his black cargo pants. I’ve seen Thanatos half naked a dozen times now, if you count tank tops and gym shorts as partially nude, but the way his brow crinkles as he stares down at the injury, quickly followed with his heavy gray eyes flicking up to mine beneath those long lashes, makes my body heat in a way that it really,reallyshouldn’t.

I quickly move to put the knife back into place on the wall, only for Thanatos to grab my hand to stop me. He guides the knife back to his body and wipes the blade on his shirt to clean it. “Never put a dirty weapon back on the rack.”

My throat clicks on a swallow as his shirt rides up, revealing the flat plane of his muscles underneath.Damn it.What iswrongwith me? Why can’t I notice something other than how warm his skin is through his shirt or how firmly he grips my fingers in his? “That doesn’t seem very sanitary,” I murmur, completely and utterlylamein my response.Who worries about how sanitary cutting someone is when you’re learning to kill?

He grabs a clear bottle of liquid on the counter beside him and squeezes a few drops onto his t-shirt. As intense alcohol stings my nose, he continues to “clean” the blade with his shirt, only succeeding in cutting a strip clear off the bottom. He doesn’t seem to care, too focused on his task.

I can see where Rage gets his cleanliness habits from.

Once the knife is shining again, he releases my hand and lets me put it back into place on the rack. “Try out a few different sized knives to see which you like most. Consider your grip—how well can you hold it? Try moving your arms and body to get a feel for each stroke. Use some of the moves we’ve practiced during our lessons.”

My brain melts with each new thing he says. He’s staring right at me—studying my reaction or, heaven forbid, gauging how well my body moves under his direction. It’s the same thing we do on the sparring mat, except the stakes are higher and the space much smaller.

I pick up a different hunting knife while Thanatos’s voice echoes in my head.

A knife is more intimate than a gun.

Unbidden desire rolls through my body like a steady fever, making me sweat. All of a sudden, it’s like I’m sitting on the bathroom counter all over again while Ruin pries my thighs apart to play with my pussy.

With his knife.

As Thanatos rambles on about proper weapon usage, I fight the embers of need blooming deep inside my belly. I’ve seen Ruin’s dick in the morning sunrise inside my bedroom—it’s veiny on top, with a red blush that extends from the narrow tip halfway down his shaft. A slight curve up towards his stomach makes me wonder what it would feel like inside of me—as hard and unforgiving as the handle he slipped past my lips, or would it be as soft and shy as his kisses, building slowly into a toe-curling crescendo?—

“Are you alright?”

Thanatos presses his calloused palm to my forehead, hovering way too close for menotto smell him. The usual scent of sea salt and clean linen from his morning shower have long since been replaced with the musk that only men can produce—a heady, full-bodied scent that touches something primal inside of me, and I barely manage to choke back a needy moan.

His onyx eyes bore into mine, widening the moment my lips part.

Shit, did I just moan out loud?

He inhales calmly,way too damn calmly, and trails his fingertips from my forehead down to my cheekbone. “You feel flushed.”

My skin tingles from his touch while my heartbeat kicks into overdrive. “I’m—I’m fine. Just the, uh, fire. I got a little burned. Not, like,hurt.But like a sunburn.” For some reason, I think that pulling my pajama top to the side to show him my flushed neck and shoulder is the key to diverting his attention away from the fact that not only is my body on fire, but my panties are suddenlysoaked.

I hastily clear my throat. “See? Just a sunburn.”

His fingers travel lower, ghosting across my jawline on their way to my collarbone. Pressing his thumb against it, he swipes a perfect stripe across my heated skin, all the way to the tip of my shoulder. Licking his lips, he hums deep in his chest. “I see.”

Fuck.

It feels wrong to picture both Ruin and Thanatos naked in the same breath, but all of a sudden, not only is Ruin kneeling between my thighs without his mask on, but Thanatos’s body is hovering over mine, his back bent so that he can lower his lips to the very spot his fingers now touch.

But when I refocus my attention and flick my gaze back up to his face, his lips aren’t ghosting across my shoulder like they were in my mind—they’re hovering a mere inch frommylips.

I jump back so fast that I stumble, gasping as I blindly reach out for something to hold on to. I trip over a metal ammo box on the floor and fall backwards in my haste to put some distance between me and Thanatos.

He’s quick to react, snatching me from the air before I manage to grab onto—oh yeah—the fucking electrified fence. As he spins us around, we tumble against the weapon rack, his breath hot and heavy on my neck as he shoves my back into the wall of guns. Clenching his eyes shut, he shudders from head to toe and growls in the back of his throat. “Learn how your body reacts?—”

The hard length of his cock presses against my stomach, a reminder of how strongly his body affects mine. The silver flash of heat in his eyes as he snaps them open is new, though, as is the tight clench of his jaw.

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