David sighed. “I guess you have just answered my question.”
We both turned to him, my hand dropping from her cheek. I’d forgotten how in-tune Della and I were. I didn’t know what it was—a lifetime lashing us together, heartstrings knotted together, or just a sixth sense.
Our connection used to wow me as a boy and now undid me as a man.
“You want to know what happens in the end,” I said quietly, staring him down. “You want to know if I’ll keep Della happy for the rest of her life. That this isn’t a mistake. That we aren’t doing something sick just for the hell of it. Am I right?”
David swallowed, his face falling in a way I hadn’t expected. “I care for Della, and for the past six months, I’ve hated you for hurting her. But you’re right. It is sick, and I don’t agree with it. And I hope to God I’m wrong, but I don’t think it will work between you. However, I also know you care for her. I see that. I just hope you understand what you’re getting into.”
My stomach clenched. “I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” Anger turned his voice sharp. “You share the same last name. How’s that going to work now you’re no longer able to be called brother and sister? You know Della better than anyone, but how is it going to feel when you can’t separate the past from the present? What happens when it all goes wrong? What about when people find out?” He forced out a breath, reining himself in. “Look, you’re right. There is no answer. And I can’t protect Della from future heartache. It’s not my place. I just hope you know what you’re doing. Seeing as you’re supposed to be the parental figure in this scenario.”
Fuck.
His words rang in my head.
It wasn’t anything I hadn’t thought about before, but he’d returned all my revulsion and fear. What would happen when we could no longer use the same name? Was that why I was forcing her to leave? So the next town we came across, I could introduce her as my wife and not my sister?
Christ.
I spoke the truth when I said it was too late to go back, but maybe it was suicide if we continued going forward.
Dread settled acidic in my belly as David shrugged at Della. “Sorry, Del. I know I said I’d just say goodbye, but I couldn’t help it.” Gathering her in a hug, he kissed her cheek. “Forgive me?”
She sighed. “Nothing to forgive. I’m sorry I put you in this situation.”
“Don’t be.” His eyes glistened. “I’m really glad you found me that night.”
My hands curled, reminded yet again that David had touched her.
“I’m always here if you need me. Just please…be careful. Okay?” He kissed her one last time, then stepped back. “I want you to be happy, regardless if I don’t agree with how you find it.”
Giving me a cool look, he pointed toward the road. “Now, get off my property.”
Snatching Della’s hand, I helped her slip her backpack onto her shoulders and yanked her through the white picket gate. “Be my pleasure.”
Letting her go, I expected Della to take her hand back. Instead, she latched her fingers around mine—five of hers to my four—and tugged me forward. “Come on, Ren. Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
REN
* * * * * *
2018
WE’D WALKED FOR miles.
At the start of our journey, we’d cheated and used our remaining coins to catch a bus to the city limits. Another few miles up the road, and we would’ve passed the dairy farm I used to work for. Even this far away, the air was tainted with the smell of silage and cow manure.
Instead of heading that way, we’d cut across some farmer’s paddock, jumping over fences and ducking through wire until we approached the outskirts of the forest.
The trees were thin and sparse on the border, steadily growing thicker and taller as shadows swallowed them up. Fallen leaves scattered on the ground while the scent of must and mulch soothed a little of my heartache, welcoming me back.
Della paused as I stepped into the embrace of bracken and branches. We hadn’t talked much since leaving David. Our conversation stuck to impersonal topics such as where I’d stored the rest of our cash, if I gave the apartment key back, and how many supplies we had before we had to return to a town.
My answers had been soft and monosyllable, my mind still hung up on David’s questions. I needed to do this. We had no choice but to try. But what if…?
What if we realised we didn’t work as lovers?
Where would that leave us? How would we ever go back to being family?
I waited for Della to look up at the towering trees, glance over her shoulder, then stride toward me with resolution.
Joining me in the shadowy world, she asked quietly, “Are you happy, Ren?”
I jolted, my heart forgetting its own woe and focusing on hers. “What?”
She dropped her eyes. “Are you happy?”
“What sort of question is that?”
She looked up, annoyed. “One that you’re not answering.”
“Of course, I’m happy. You’re here. I’m happy whenever you’re around.”
“That wasn’t my question, and you know it.”
I sighed, dragging a hand through my hair. “I am happy, Della. But if you’re asking if I’m happy about what we’re doing, I can’t give you that.”
Her shoulders slouched. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t know if I am yet.”
“Oh.” She flinched, breaking me all over again. I wanted to hug her, but after years of denying myself, I didn’t remember how to just reach out and take her.
“I don’t want to lie to you, Little Ribbon.” I closed the distance between us, capturing her hand. “We both need to adjust. I’m sure if I asked you if you were happy, you wouldn’t be able to give me a direct answer.”
“I could.” Her fingers twitched in mine. “I am. So happy. But I’m also petrified that any second now, you’re going to say this was a terrible mistake and march me back to David’s.”
“Believe me.” I chuckled darkly. “I won’t ever take you back to David. You’re mine. You always have been.”
“Phew. I thought you forgot that part.” She half-smiled and walked into me, wrapping her arms around my waist.
“Never.” I allowed my embrace to envelop her, pressing my chin on the top of her head, smelling the subtle scent of melons. “You’ll always be mine, and I’m beyond happy to have you with me in the forest again. Is that enough for now?”
She nodded against my chest. “It’s enough.”
We stood together for a long while, once again committing to this and gathering courage to continue. Once we’d settled our heartbeats, we broke apart, striding deeper into the forest.
Our boots snapping twigs and backpacks creaking were the only sounds as we ventured farther. We didn’t talk—almost as if we were afraid of conversation and its power to make us wonder what would happen when we stopped for the night.
And now, we’d stopped.
For the past twenty minutes, Della had gathered firewood while I’d erected the tent that she’d given me on my twenty-seventh birthday. The same birthday she’d gotten her ribbon tattoo and I’d started a year’s disaster of sleeping with women I didn’t like, want, or need.
I’d despised myself for being so weak I’d sought companionship with women I couldn’t even remember.
Della dumped her armful of branches beside a fallen trunk I’d dragged into a small clearing to be a bench. Strolling over to me as I fixed the final tent peg into the ground, she put a hand on her hip. “Did you use this one while you were gone or our old one?”
“This one.” I stood, stretching out the kink in my back, cursing the aches in my chest. Just like old times, her gaze drifted to the bare flesh below my t-shirt and above my belt.
And just like old times, my heart smoked in desire and I shut down the aching in my blood.
But…I didn’t have to shut it down.
Not anymore.
/> How long would that habit take to break?
Della licked her lips as I lowered my arms. “I want to kiss you again, but I don’t know how.”
She seemed to melt into the forest floor. “Yes, you do. At least, you did before.” Her gaze darkened. “You still haven’t answered me about that, by the way.”
“And I’m not about to answer you now.” Closing the distance between us, I gathered her close, used my forefinger to tip her chin up, and pressed my mouth gently to hers.
Technically, our third kiss, but it punched me in the chest just as violently as our first.
I kept my mind locked on her. This Della. Right now. No Little Ribbon. No childhood recollections. No memories of anything but this.
Her breath caught as I kept the pressure soft and coaxing, even though everything inside said to crush her to me and let go of my control. No one was around. No one would know. But I would know, and that was the main issue we’d have to overcome.
Her tongue crept along my bottom lip, making my body harden. She arched up on her tiptoes, kissing me deeper as she slipped her tongue into my mouth.
My thoughts tried to flicker, a hologram of a little blonde angel laughing in the hay.
I groaned, licking her in invitation, killing the image.
“God, Ren.” Her arms looped around my neck as I dropped my finger from her chin and hugged her flush against me.
Our heads switched sides as our tongues danced and lips slid. Magic sparked from everywhere, electricity hissing, chemistry burning.
I couldn’t catch my breath as we clung to each other, kissing and kissing, losing track of time, not caring our boots crunched leaves as we stumbled together and righted, tripped together and stabilised.
And even though we attacked each other with a kiss, even though my mind threw memory after memory at me, and Della’s hands clutched my hair and tugged, and my fingernails dug into the soft curves of her hips and yanked her closer, we didn’t try for more.
We were happy conquering this small but unbelievable task. Learning each other, recognising each other’s flavour, remembering each other’s body in an entirely different way than the way we’d known before.
I sucked her bottom lip, biting gently as her leg pressed against mine, wedging against my hardness.
Her control snapped, and she tried to crawl into me.
I responded.
I couldn’t help myself.
Wrapping my arms tighter, I somehow marched her back and back, kissing and kissing, until her spine wedged against a tree, and I leaned into her.
Her fingers tugged viciously at my hair. My hips thrust in response, disobeying me. Her teeth nipped at my bottom lip, like I’d done to her, her tongue frantic for more.
Our kiss became frenzied and so fucking hot, I couldn’t stand it.
Breaking away, I held her at arm’s length as I struggled to get my breath back around the sudden vice of my lungs.
Her eyes were so dark they were navy, her pupils as wide as a cat’s. “Wow.” Tracing her mouth with a trembling finger, she shook her head. “I always knew kissing you would be extraordinary, but I had no idea how much.”
I coughed, then murmured around a throaty groan, “Kissing you is better than I could’ve imagined.”
“You’re saying you imagined kissing me?” She looked up beneath thick eyelashes.
I dragged a shaky hand over my face. How could I answer that?
“The truth, Ren. Did you?”
I laughed under my breath, tortured with honesty. “Yes. I imagined it.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Is it like you imagined?”
My voice thickened as I swallowed hard. “Better. So much better.”
She gave a flicker of a smile, slightly nervous, kind of shy, but entirely sexy with the utmost power to drop me to my knees. “I’m glad.”
“Glad you’re destroying me?”
“Glad I’m not the only one feeling this.”
“You’re not.” I took a hesitant step toward her again, brushing aside a wild curl like I had so many times in the past. “I feel it too. I have for years.”
She rose up, kissing me innocently on my stubble-covered cheek. “I can’t tell you the relief it is to hear that.” Ducking away, she headed toward the four-person tent she’d bought me. The brown siding and green stitching camouflaged it perfectly in the rapidly falling dusk.
Dragging her backpack toward her, she sat on the fallen tree trunk and pulled out a packet of pasta and carbonara sauce to make an easy dinner. I wasn’t fooled by her calmness. She acted as if our kiss hadn’t just scrambled her up, but her body couldn’t hide the jerky motions or shaky breaths.
Yet another reason evolving our relationship came with pitfalls. We couldn’t hide. We knew each other too well.
“You still haven’t told me, by the way.” She looked up as she tossed me a lighter from the bag, pointing at the piled firewood to start a fire. “About what happened at David’s.”
Fisting the fire-starter, I strode toward the pile, dropped to my haunches, and set about making a stack with kindling. “Told you what?”
I knew fully well what.
The kiss.
The way I held her.
The mistake.
I cringed. I hadn’t been myself. I ought to have stared David in the eye, told him to mind his own fucking business, and carted Della away. But she’d asked me to stake my claim. How could I deny her that when she obviously needed it?
“Ren…” Her tone raised my eyes.
I sparked a flame, holding it to the dried leaves and tiny twigs. I didn’t know how to reply, so I shrugged instead. “There’s things about me that—” I cleared my throat. “Look, I was jealous. You asked for a public display of affection, and I gave you one. Can we just leave it at that?”
She narrowed her eyes. “What things don’t I know about you?”
I groaned under my breath, hating that she could finish my sentences. “The same sort of things I don’t know about you.”
This was turning out to be as awkward as talking to her about sex that first time. That damn book and its pornographic images. The stilted, strange conversation about penises and vaginas.
Once again, my heart suffocated with repugnance for what I was doing. How was any of this right when I’d taught her what sex was only to contemplate showing her a decade later?
“What don’t you know about me?” Her nose wrinkled. “You know everything there is to know about me.”
I pinned her with a stare. “Not everything, Della.”
It took a moment for my pointed words to land, but when they did, she blushed. The pink flush wasn’t something I often saw on her, and it made my body crave to touch her all over again.
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh.” I focused on nursing the baby flame into a cheery blaze before falling back onto my ass and resting my elbows on my knees. Twirling the lighter in my fingers, I said carefully, “I know you intimately, but not in…that way. I don’t know what you like. I don’t know what you need to find…” I coughed. “Pleasure.”
Her cheeks reddened even more. “Do you want to know?”
It was my turn for my skin to heat. “Is that a trick question?”
She laughed quickly. “I can tell you…or show you.”
I fisted the lighter, squeezing it hard, remembering exactly how the night had gone when she’d begged to be enlightened on sex. She’d taught me, not the other way around. She’d read words I couldn’t read and explained things I didn’t understand.
No fucking way would I repeat that embarrassment or be reminded how far out of my league she truly was.
“I’ll learn for myself.” I growled. “I don’t need a lesson.”
“I’m not saying you do.”
“I know I’ve leaned on you a lot in the past for reading and maths and things, but in this topic, I don’t need any guidance. Got it? I won’t be able to handle this if you start t
eaching me—”
She held up her hand, worry painting her face. “I didn’t mean—”
“Leave it, Della.” I stood, swiping at leaves stuck to my jeans. “Let’s just focus on dinner, okay?”
“No, not okay.” She stood too, her chin arched. “I get that this is hard for you, but it’s hard for me, too. You say there are things about you that I don’t know? Well, guess what? There are so many things I don’t know about you these days. You’ve been steadily pulling away from me and hiding so many parts of you that this feels wrong. I have all these memories of you where you’re covered in sunshine, an open book, but now you seem in the shadows and covered in clouds. You say you leaned on me, but you never did. I taught you because of my own selfish desires, not because you needed help. So don’t withdraw into yourself and paint this any worse than it already is.”
Striding toward me, she balled her hands. “You’ve taught me so much, Ren. You’ve literally taught me everything I know. Don’t you think it feels weird knowing you’ll have to teach me what you like, too? How you like to be touched? How rough, soft, deep, and fast you like it?” She sucked in an angry breath. “This is new for both of us. Just because I’ve accepted the idea of being with you for far longer than you have of me doesn’t mean I’m not having the same thoughts as you. Not struggling with memories of you teaching me how to drive the tractor or your innocent face before you earned hard edges.”
She stopped, breathing hard.
Time ticked on as our argument faded, but we didn’t make a move to patch up the wounds left behind.
Finally, she whispered, “I’m tired. Can we just go to bed?”
Bed?
I gulped, eyeing the tent.
Unlike the previous one we’d shared, there was more than enough room for two adults without touching. The double wings meant we could be entirely separate while our bags were in the middle.
She caught me studying the two pods and huffed painfully under her breath. “Don’t worry. I have my own sleeping bag this time; you don’t have to sleep so close to me.”
Ripping a tawny-coloured bag with highlighter pink zippers from her backpack, she ducked under the tent awning and threw herself into the left wing.