Page 14 of Pretty Ruthless Monsters: Complete Series

KILLIAN

“Please. Oh fuck, please…”

Quinn’s moans and whimpers are easy to hear from my vantage point. I can see her—not quite clearly, but well enough—through the slats in her closet door.

Her closet, which I’m currently standing in, still as a statue.

I’ve been watching her since she started, watching the toys she selected, taking in the way she pleasures herself. It was a clumsy thing at first, like she didn’t know what she was doing, like she was a stranger to her own body. But it didn’t take long for her to find the rhythm.

She plunges that thick toy into her pussy again, and the high pitched almost wail of pleasure that pours from her lips makes me clench my jaw.

She arches her body into each thrust of the dildo, and I notice that too, cataloguing the way her body moves.

The way she twists and writhes, the way her hands work at her tits and her pussy.

She fumbles one hand down to the vibrator clenched between her thighs, and I take note as she turns the intensity up.

Her answering moan is nearly enough to drown out the sound of the buzzing, and she pants hard, sweat glistening on her skin.

I don’t miss a single detail, watching her the way someone would study something scientific. It comes naturally to me, and I file each piece of information away for later, keeping it all organized in my head.

When she slaps her own tit again, I watch the way the pinkness blooms over her soft, pale skin. The way she plucks at her nipple almost desperately, twisting it hard as if to let the pain mingle with the pleasure.

She has to be close by now, probably holding back on coming, pushing herself to her limits.

There’s no way she knows she has an audience, but it’s like she’s putting on a show all the same, letting me see how she makes herself fall apart.

Nico sent me here tonight. To keep an eye on Quinn, he said. To make sure she’s not planning to betray us or anything stupid like that.

A ghost of a smile almost flickers across my lips as I watch Quinn paw at her body, shivering under the pleasure of her own rough touches. It’s almost funny that Nico gave me this task. Or maybe ironic is a better word, since I’m sure he wouldn’t find it amusing.

Because he doesn’t know that I’ve been here before.

He doesn’t know that I know the best way to slip into Quinn’s house undetected. The door at the back of her house that jams instead of latching. All it takes is a shoulder check to force it open, and it’s easy to break in and creep through the place without being seen.

I’ve been doing this for a while now. Stalking her. Watching her. Learning her.

She intrigues me in a way that most people don’t.

Most of the world is bland in my eyes, a neutral landscape full of little people doing insignificant things.

They come and go like moving shadows, beneath my notice or attention.

But with her teal hair and flashing gray eyes, Quinn has always been a spot of color I can’t look away from.

That same hair is spilling over the pillows of her bed now, almost seeming to glow against the white sheets. The flush on her face is just as bright, drawing me in.

With a broken sounding moan, Quinn falls apart, coming hard on the toys she’s using, holding nothing back. I watch her, my attention firmly on what she’s doing now, instead of my own thoughts.

Her eyes are closed, her lips parted, and she doesn’t stop fucking herself through her orgasm. Her mouth moves with silent words as she gasps for breath, and I have to wonder what she’s thinking about.

I always want to know what she’s thinking in those moments where she makes herself come this way. She always seems so desperate, like she’s trying to exorcise her demons through the orgasm.

Her chest heaves as she struggles to catch her breath, but she doesn’t stop. She lets her legs fall open and then grabs the vibrator again, repositioning it. Her breath catches on a whimper, and she must be oversensitive now, coming down from the first climax.

But she doesn’t let up. She grinds the head of the wand against her clit and keeps fucking herself with the dildo, slower this time.

Instead of shoving it in and out of her pussy with reckless abandon, her movements are deliberate, as if she’s forcing herself to feel each slide in and each pull out.

Her hips buck, and she moans before catching her plush bottom lip between her teeth.

It’s not the same as before though. I can tell.

She’s not lost in the feelings, caught up in it the way she was at first. This time, it seems like she can’t quite get the angles she wants, and she adjusts the vibrator again, turning it down and then up again.

She fucks the dildo into herself harder, baring her teeth and screwing her eyes shut, and then slows her movements and sighs. Apparently, she’s not going to be able to come a second time. Not like this, anyway.

With a groan, she gives up, flopping back on the bed for a second before leaning over to put the toys away.

She sounds frustrated as she mutters to herself, her voice too low for me to catch the words properly. But I’m pretty sure I hear her say Nico’s name, and a stab of jealousy shoots through me.

It’s odd, being of two minds about the whole thing.

Nico is the one who’ll be marrying her, the one who will be tied to her. He says that it means she’ll be tied to our gang, to the Princes as a whole—but he’ll be her husband. I know that means something.

I can admit to myself that I’m jealous. I’m the one who’s been following her, after all. The one who’s snuck into her house time and time again, to watch her, to learn her habits, to try to peer into her mind and figure out what she’s thinking.

But Nico is the one who will marry her.

At the same time, a part of me is glad this is all happening. Because with this plan, I won’t be reduced to watching her from the shadows anymore. I’ll be much closer to her.

I watch as she rolls off the bed and then leaves the room and wait until I’m sure she’s gone into the bathroom before I creep out of the closet and follow her on light feet down the hall.

I move silently, and she’s so in her own head that she doesn’t hear me. I watch through the cracked bathroom door as she looks at her reflection in the mirror and then sighs, moving to brush her teeth.

Such a mundane task, something everyone does, but when she does it… it fascinates me. Like everything she does, it fucking mesmerizes me, and I can’t look away.

She spits toothpaste into the sink and rinses her mouth before splashing water on her face. Before she can leave the bathroom, I quickly and stealthily move back to her bedroom and her closet, tucking myself inside to watch as she comes back to her room.

I gaze through the slats as she changes into pajamas, taking in her body. The curve of her hips, the sway of her breasts, the softness of her hair. The tattoos that stand out against her skin, decorating her body here and there.

She slips into bed and under the covers, tossing and turning for a while before finally dropping off into sleep. The moonlight from the window slants over her face, and I wait, just watching.

I wait until her little movements go still and her breathing evens out completely, and then I wait even longer after that.

I know she’s tough as a viper, especially given what Nico told us about what she did today when he went to go speak to her in private. I don’t want to risk her waking up and finding me here. For a number of reasons.

Once I’m sure she’s deep in REM, I step forward, creeping silently out of the closet, just wanting to get a closer look at her.

I stand at the side of her bed, gazing down at her.

Her lashes fan out over the tops of her cheeks, and her hair spreads out over the pillows, falling like teal waves shining in the moonlight.

My fingers itch to touch her, but I don’t give in to that impulse.

Instead, I watch the rise and fall of her chest, the minute movements of her muscles as she sleeps, the way her lips twitch with her dreams.

Her pulse thrums at the side of her neck, slow and sure, and it’s almost hypnotic, the way her breathing and her pulse make a rhythm, the way she’s so captivating even in sleep.

It would be tempting to stand here and watch her all night, but there are other things to do. I draw away from her bed and slip out of her house the same way I came in.

No one is out at this time of night, and I make it back to where I stashed my motorcycle several blocks away without incident.

I climb on and rev the bike, the roar of it shattering the quiet of the street, and then head back to the Carnage clubhouse.

It’s a short ride to the place where we keep our headquarters, which is in a somewhat isolated area bordering an abandoned park and some woods. We have our privacy there, with no nosy neighbors to wonder what we’re doing and call the cops, and we like it like that.

The clubhouse is fairly full when I get there. People are hanging around outside, smoke curling up into the night air from their cigarettes, and even more of our members are inside.

They nod respectfully to me as I walk past them, then get back to their activities, playing pool or cards or shooting the shit.

“Hey, Killian.” Atlas’s ex-girlfriend Zoey smiles at me hopefully from her spot on one of the couches as I pass by.

I don’t even glance her way. I don’t like her, and I know she’s only bothering to smile at me like that because she’s hoping I’ll somehow help her get back together with Atlas. Before they broke up, she was more than happy to keep her distance from me, and I wish it had stayed that way.

Finally, I get to the back of the clubhouse, pushing through the door to the office where I know I’ll find Nico and Atlas.

Sure enough, that’s right where they are. There’s a bottle of whiskey on the table between them, and Atlas takes a sip from his glass as they talk in low voices. Both of them look up as I enter, and Nico smiles slightly.

“Report?” he asks.

“All fine,” I tell him. “No signs that she has any plans to betray us.”

He nods. “Good. We’ll have to keep an eye on her, but this is a good start.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Atlas asks, frowning at him.

“Yes.” Nico nods again. “It’s going to benefit us, in one way or another.”

Atlas looks highly skeptical of that declaration, but instead of arguing, he just pours himself another drink and knocks it back.

Although all three of us are tight like brothers—or at least, as I assume brothers would be, since I never had any—Nico is the official leader of the Princes of Carnage.

He’s led both me and Atlas through thick and thin, and when he has a plan, it’s on us to go with it. Even if we think it’s a bad plan.

In this case, though, I happen to be on Nico’s side.

It’s better to have Quinn close.

I pull out a chair and slide into it, sitting with them.

I don’t usually drink, so I leave them to it, watching as they drain more of the bottle.

Nico swirls his whiskey in his glass, murmuring something in Italian under his breath.

He knows that neither of us speak it, but he was raised by two Italian parents, so sometimes when he’s lost in his own thoughts, he switches languages unconsciously.

It’s one of the ways I can tell he’s got a lot on his mind at the moment.

“He has a plan,” I tell Atlas, even though that goes without saying.

“I do,” Nico agrees, looking up from his glass.

“I’m trying to keep us safe. Quinn was right that we’re stronger together, and the marriage will broadcast that in a big way.

With our two organizations on the same side instead of at each other’s throats, we’ll be able to deal with whoever’s been thinking they can come at us with no consequences.

And if the alliance between Enigma and Carnage doesn’t last beyond that…

well, it’ll already have been worth our while, won’t it? ”

Atlas just grunts, but once again, he doesn’t argue.

Nico leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Trust me, Atlas,” he says quietly.

Atlas’s brown eyes shift from his drink to Nico, and he lets out a breath. “I do. Always.”

“Good.” Nico reaches over to grip his shoulder. Then he drops his hand and leans back. “Now we need to start planning our next move.”

That’s our cue to focus up and listen, so we do.