She froze as I pressed a kiss on the ink, brushing my nose against her soft skin.
“Ren…” Her head fell back as I kissed her again, slipping my tongue out and licking the length of the ribbon all the way to the cursive capital of my first name.
I nipped her.
“Holy…” Her entire body crackled and sizzled with desire.
My fingers tightened on her ankle, holding her still as I licked the length again. “You got this to torment me.”
Her foot arched in my hold, her legs widened, her hands fisted in the sleeping bag. “No—”
“You got this because you were in love with me.”
“Y-yes.” Her breath caught as I nipped at the R again, scraping my teeth over the fine bones of her foot, fighting the feral part of me that wanted to clamp down and bite hard.
“You fantasied about me touching you.”
“Every night.” Her eyes met mine, blazing. “All the time.”
I almost gave up there and then.
My body had never felt so wired or hot or greedy.
The little boy shorts and t-shirt she slept in could so easily be removed, and her body feasted on.
But as much as I cursed waiting, I fucking adored the anticipation, and I licked her tattoo once more before placing her foot down gently. “You very nearly ruined me, Little Ribbon.”
Unzipping my jeans, I slipped out of them and didn’t bother hiding the raging erection I sported.
She licked her lips, eyes locked on my tented boxers. “And now you’re doing the same by teasing me so badly.”
I didn’t say anything.
I just wanted to bask in the heady drunkenness of lust and the unbelievable knowledge that I’d earned everything I’d never dared hope to earn.
Crawling beside her, I wedged her back into my front and breathed as hard as her.
And we just lay there.
Trembling with need.
Cooking with desire.
Fully aware we were playing a very dangerous game.
And we were utterly addicted to it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
REN
* * * * * *
2018
BY THE SEVENTH day, that intense desire meshed with carefree laughing. We’d found a balance of friendship and chemistry that made me trip even deeper into love.
Every day, we tramped until our bones ached, and we’d make our home in the wonderful heart-warming high of being just us again. Whenever I looked at her, I wanted to explode with affection. Whenever she looked at me, my body begged to override my hesitation.
Her eyes had the power to send electricity fizzing down my spine and between my legs. Her laughter had the magic to make my chest ache and body throb. And when she stopped in a small clearing at twilight and shrugged off her backpack, she turned to me, not with relief at finding somewhere to rest, but with a demand I could no longer ignore.
I knew.
Even before she opened her mouth.
I knew.
With suddenly shaky hands, I pushed at the straps and let my bag slam to the forest floor.
The air changed. The trees froze. The creatures silenced.
“Della…” I didn’t know if I spoke in warning or acceptance or denial. Whatever I was feeling was drowned out by the overpowering appetite in my blood.
I wanted her.
I wanted her more than I could stand.
Taking a step toward me, Della reached up and undid the blue ribbon in her ponytail. The gold mass plunged around her face, making my mouth dry and my cock pay utmost attention.
“We haven’t put up the tent,” I groaned, breaking beneath the heavy pressure in my chest. The pressure that was done waiting. The pressure I’d been living with for so fucking long.
“I don’t care.” She bent and undid her laces, kicking her boots away, not fussed where they landed.
My knees trembled to move—either to her or away from her, I couldn’t quite decide. Thanks to the week of teasing, I didn’t trust myself around her. I didn’t know my limit of self-control anymore. I didn’t know how spectacularly I’d snap and what would happen if I did.
She’d always been my Della, but right here, right now, I was hers. Well and truly hers.
A slave to his queen, enraptured and caught and begging for her mercy. I was ready to kneel before her, but that final part of me that didn’t fully trust he could have this perfect life, the tiny sliver that still believed he ought to love her the way he always had, gave one last attempt at propriety.
“We’re dirty. We need a bath.” I spread my hands, revealing the mud-smudges and grime from hiking all day.
“I don’t care about that, either.” Her voice lost its sweet melodic tone, slipping straight into sin.
Goddammit.
I couldn’t compete with that.
I couldn’t deny her or myself any longer. She’d put a curse on me, deleting any other arguments or delays, keeping me pinned in her stare.
She stepped again, and my cock swelled to an agonising hardness. I coughed around a groan. “Della…you’re making this impossible for me.”
“Good.”
“What if we’re rushing—” Even to my ears that excuse was empty.
I was ready. So fucking ready.
“We’re not.” She wrapped the ribbon around her wrist, tying it quickly.
“At least let me put up the tent.”
“No.”
“We only get one first time, Della.”
“And I can’t wait any longer.”
“I’m not sleeping with you without a bed.” If there wasn’t something soft to support her, I didn’t know what sort of state she’d be in once I’d finished.
“Too bad we don’t have one.”
“If you gave me a few minutes, I could set it up.” I pointed helplessly at my bag. “At least let me—”
“I can’t wait another minute, Ren.” Her hair glittered in the fading light as she shook her head. “All day, I’ve been counting. Just another minute, just another minute. And now, we’re here. And I have no more minutes.
My heart lurched. “Our minutes seem to be up.”
“They do.”
“What does that mean for us?” My voice was smoky and hot.
“It means you made me do this. You made me this way. I promised I wouldn’t push you, but Ren…you’ve been torturing me. When you licked my tattoo…? God, I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m in a state of permanent wetness.”
I choked on the sudden avalanche of lust. “Della—”
“Too much for you? Too honest?” Her cheeks burned with the same sexual fever I suffered. “Too bad. You’re to blame.”
I chuckled darkly. “Me? It’s you I can’t keep my hands off. It’s your fault I constantly need to touch you, kiss you.”
“So do it.”
“I don’t know if I can be gentle.” I shook my head. “No, I know I can’t be gentle. Not after—”
“I’m not asking for gentle.” She smiled thinly, almost angry with me in her desire. “I’m asking for you to put me out of my misery. No more teasing. We face this. Together. Right now.”
I gulped as I stepped toward her, already lost. “Face what we’ve been running from for years?”
She nodded sharply. “No more running.”
I sucked in a lust-heavy breath, coughing once. “No more running.” I stepped again. Entirely entranced by the violent hunger lashing us together. It was so damn powerful it muted everything else.
No thoughts. No accusations. No fear.
Just us.
As it had always been.
My mind raced, already drunk on images of how good we’d be together. Of how she’d feel as I slipped inside her. Of how hot and wet and—
I was too far gone for more memories to find me. Too twisted to let echoes pull me back. But in some shred of rationality, a voice entered my ears with warning.
Not Della’s or mine, but Cassie’s.
Prot
ection.
The night I’d lost my virginity. The night I’d learned about condoms and STIs and unwanted pregnancies. Thanks to that lesson, I’d never slept with a woman without a condom. It was paramount. It was law.
Christ.
It took every strength, and then some I borrowed from the devil himself, to step back. “Shit, we can’t do this.”
“What? Why?”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I did my best to swallow back hot, hungry rage. The rage that very much wanted to forget about the rules and take her anyway. “We don’t have protection. I didn’t bring any.”
What was I thinking?
Why did I forget something so important—almost as if I’d banished the very idea of sleeping with her, believing it would never happen no matter how much I wanted it to.
I’d done this deliberately, even if I denied my moronic logic.
Della blinked calculatingly, holding up her hand. A single condom rested in her palm. “I did.”
“Where did you get that?”
“Does it matter?”
I ought to feel absolute horror that my last attempt at ensuring this was right had just been eradicated. But all I felt was relief. Sheer, indescribable relief.
It was the final straw.
The last hint to show I was ready.
So, so ready.
I dropped my hand, giving her a grateful smirk. “Thank fuck for that.”
She laughed unexpectedly, her lips spread over perfect teeth. “Even if we didn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to stop. Not now.”
“Me neither.”
“Good.”
“God, you’ve made me hard.”
She sucked in a breath. “And now you’ve just made me even wetter.”
If I thought the forest was quiet before, watching us shed away every shackle we’d imposed, I was wrong.
Now the trees vanished, the river disappeared, and all I saw was Della. We’d just been graphically honest, yet a joke mixed present with past, making me chuckle under my breath. “Thank everything holy, I taught you to always be prepared.”
Her laugh turned to a breathy moan. “Ren…if you don’t touch me soon, I’m going to combust.”
I lowered my head, watching her with half-hooded eyes. “I like seeing you like this.”
“Like what?”
“Desperate.”
She took another step. “So, so desperate.”
“You have no idea how filthy my thoughts have become.”
“If they’re anything like mine, I have some idea.”
“Fuck, Della.” I balled my hands, matching her step with one of my own. “Is this real? Are we really going to do this? It isn’t another dream? Because I’ve dreamed of this. So many times.”
“Touch me and find out.”
My hand raised, crossing the final distance, tingling with intensity to touch the one girl I’d loved forever.
I’d always known Della was special. But what I hadn’t known was every year I fought to keep her safe, I was ultimately protecting every dream I’d ever had. I’d had the privilege of raising her, but really, I’d been creating a future I’d never be able to deserve. Every winter snowstorm and summer rain shower, forest adventure and paddock picnic had all been leading to this.
I’d been searching for something all my life, and it had been under my nose the entire time.
Her.
My past, present, and future.
The only path I could have taken.
It wasn’t a choice anymore.
It had never been a choice.
I stumbled toward her as she stumbled toward me, both starving for touch. Even before my fingers landed on her arm, they stung with electricity so sharp it crackled between us.
Our eyes locked as I whispered, “If we do this, it’s no longer just a fantasy.”
“I know.”
“We do this, and everything changes. Forever.”
“I know.”
“If I touch you, I’ll never be able to stop.”
“God, touch me then.” Her eyes fell shut as we met in the middle of the small clearing.
Having her that close undid me to the point of forgetting everything else.
I didn’t care about the repercussions anymore.
I’d literally exhausted myself to the point of not being able to fight.
There was nothing to fight against…only something to fight for.
“Open your eyes, Della.” I growled as the savage part of me licked its lips for what it was about to taste.
I was seconds away from giving her every disgusting sin I’d lived with. I needed her to understand that by tempting me this way, I would no longer have any control.
Her eyelids fluttered upward, her gaze heavy and heated.
We stared into each other, stripping ourselves bare.
“Tell me to stop,” I begged. Even on the cusp of no return, I pleaded for salvation.
“I can’t.” She bit her lip, looking me up and down with such pain-filled greed, my belly clenched. “I’ll never be able to do that.”
Everything about me burned. On fire. Seconds away from erupting into fury. “You’ve always pushed me. Forever tested me.”
“And you’ve always indulged me. Forever protected me,” she breathed shallowly, her gaze locking onto my lips. “I’m sick of you protecting me.”
Our chests brushed as I sucked in a breath, knowing it would be my last one for a while. I was about to drown in her. And I didn’t care if I damn well suffocated. “If I kiss you now…it’s all over.”
“Stop trying to scare me off and do it.”
“So bossy.” I smirked.
“I don’t know how else to tell you I want you, Ren.” Her eyes flashed with temper. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to stop. I don’t want you to treat me kindly or gently or softly. I want you to show me. I want you to take me, just like you said you—”
I snatched her into my arms and kissed her so damn hard our teeth clacked.
I showed her.
And then I showed her again.
And again.
I kissed her harder than I’d ever kissed her.
I let our week-long foreplay drag us down and down, deeper and deeper where heartbeats and blood reigned and the only thing we needed to do was connect.
Connect in the most primitive way possible.
She cried out as I plunged my tongue past the seam of her lips, forcing her to accept me, commanding she dance to the same feral song.
We fought to get closer—her wedging into me and me bowing over her. My hands turned to claws, holding her cruelly.
Nothing was enough.
No scratch intense enough. No bite painful enough.
There was nothing civil about us.
We were animals.
Dirty, filthy animals that had reached a dirty, filthy level and had nowhere else to go.
Teeth and nail and sullied, snarling lust.
Lowering her to the ground, I didn’t care we had no tent or shelter. I didn’t care sticks and leaves would be part of what we were about to do.
I didn’t care.
I had no capacity to care.
The only thing that mattered was getting inside the one person I needed more than air.
Della went without a fight, letting me brush aside as many twigs as I could before pressing her onto her back and smothering her instantly with my weight.
She squirmed beneath me as I grabbed her jaw and kept her still so I could deepen the kiss to exquisitely harsh.
With my free hand, I shoved up her t-shirt and cupped her bra-free breast with eager fingers. Her back arched, revealing the perfection of bare skin. Her legs kicked out wide, welcoming; her hips raised off the ground, seeking.
My brain short-circuited.
A flicker of persecution needled me as my hand drifted down the delectable length of her belly, ripped at her belt, and tore at her zipper. Image after image of Della in similar undress. Of her cha
nging after late night baling and getting covered in prickly dried grass. Of her sitting on a rock by the pond in her swimsuit, pretending to be as worldly as Cassie but failing for being so young.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Caution. Caution. Caution.
Even though I loved that little girl with all my heart, I no longer bowed to her.
I bowed to this new mistress instead.
I wasn’t clutching that child or kissing someone I shouldn’t be kissing. I wasn’t committing some heinous act, or stepping over lines that should never be crossed.
This was Della.
Girl and woman.
A girl with a ribbon in her hair, and now a woman with a tattoo on her foot.
I was kissing my goddamn soulmate, and who fucking cared how we’d met or how long we’d known each other? Fate had decided to throw us an unconventional beginning by giving her to me the moment she was born.
Her lips parted as I kissed her with renewed violence, ignoring sudden breathlessness and overwhelming heat.
Moaning, she slung her arms over my shoulders as I managed to unzip her jeans and yank at them without finesse. Frustration bubbled as the tight material refused to move. “Are you trying to kill me?”
She smiled beneath our kiss, her lips stretching tight with the same kind of delirium I suffered. “You mean…you need help stripping me?”
“Don’t taunt me, Della. Now is not a good time.”
“Why? Because you’re a little worked up?”
“Because I’ll die if I don’t get inside you.”
“Oh.” She blushed, pleased and sexy. “In that case…”
I glowered as she pushed me away and hooked her fingers in her jeans. With a coy, almost shy look, she shoved them down her legs, leaving baby blue bikini briefs.
I groaned.
“Do you have to be so fucking gorgeous?” I fell on her again, kissing, attacking, worshipping. Her heat promised me all kinds of sinful things as I ran my hand between her legs, just once, unable to stop myself from claiming.
She jolted as my fingers trailed over her inner thighs, wrenching her knees apart to give me more room to settle between them.
Keeping my weight on my elbows, I fisted her hair, morphing the kiss from deep to downright devouring. My body ached with a fever born from needing her so badly. With our mouths locked, I pressed my hips into hers, surging upward, searching for every part she’d give me.