Page 93 of Boy of Ruin
“I know what’s best for you,” I tell her softly, flipping the blade, pricking the side of it against her underwear. She shivers, fingers tightening in my hair, a soft whimper escaping her swollen lips. “And you know I’d never really hurt you.”
I see her throat bob as she swallows.
Then she nods, almost as if to herself, and I feel warmth building in my chest. That feeling only grows as she says, “I trust you, J. Don’t make me regret it.”
And she closes her eyes.
I take a deep breath in, my chest heaving as I watch her lashes flutter against the top of her cheekbones for a moment, as if she’s having trouble not looking. As if trusting me is the hardest thing she’s ever done in her life.
Maybe it is.
I deserve it, though.
I fucking deserve it.
I trail my eyes down her chest, over her swollen breasts, her puckered pink nipples, down her sternum to the small, round bump beneath my hands.
Running my tongue over my top lip, I stare at her pale, flawless skin, just below her belly button. This is where the bump is. The baby.
The one that isn’t fucking mine.
Aside from killing it—it’s crossed my mind a time or two—there’s nothing I can do to change that.
But I can claim her in other ways.
Far better than that fucking scar on her palm.
The butcher’s knife is way too big for what I want to do, but if I get up right now, she’ll move. She won’t let me this close again.
I glance at the kitchen island that she’s leaned against, as if she’s unsteady on her feet, her tits heaving as she takes shallow breaths, her grip in my hair so tight it’s making my eyes water.
I see the knife block. The black handles.
But this one will have to do.
Besides, when I shift my hold on it, gripping it around the blade, holding it almost like an unwieldy pencil, it pricks my skin, too. I feel the sharp sting on the inside of my thumb. The warmth of my own blood.
It’s a minor pain. An inconvenience, just like it’ll be to her.
I would know the fucking difference.
I’m the one that got stabbed and left for dead.
Gritting my teeth, shifting on my knees, I bring the tip of the knife just below my splayed thumb on her belly, right at her womb.
She sucks in a breath, but a quick glance up, and her eyes are still closed.
Good girl, sis.
I press the blade to her skin, and she shivers again, but doesn’t open her eyes. Doesn’t move.
I know she knows what I’m doing.
But she wants it too.
She wants me too.
I drag a small line down her flesh, see it split, the wake of blood behind the wound. Then I curve the knife upward, a smile forming on my lips as she says my name with a little gasp.
