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 teaching 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.
I stood there wondering what the hell happened and how the fuck it all went so wrong.
I hated that we’d had yet another fight, but that wasn’t new. Our tempers always seemed to ignite around each other. But the fact that she’d curled up tight, fully clothed and hurting made me wince because she was right.
I’d been wrapped up in myself once again. She was Della. She was the reason I was alive—the sole purpose for why I’d been placed on this earth: to protect, cherish, and care for.
And I’d just made her upset.
Again.
Moving our belongings away from the fire and placing the pasta back into its pouch, I bent and undid my laces before kicking off my boots. I didn’t strip anything else. Not my belt, socks—nothing.
If I did this, I needed to be fully clothed.
Tonight was not the night we fell into sex. Neither of us were ready.
Unfurling my own sleeping bag, I crawled into the centre pod, unzipped it and spread it over the two yoga mats I’d brought with us. Once it was flat, I reached into the wing where Della lay curled up tight and grabbed her ankles.