“Can’t blame a girl for trying.” Her shoulders slouched. “Ugh, I’m being a bitch.” Rubbing her face, she moaned, “Forgive me, Ren. I don’t know what came over me. I just…I thought we’d come out here, and I dunno…act like a pair of bunnies.” She shrugged with a roll of her eyes. “I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy. I even understand why it’s not that easy, so just put this moment of weakness down to the fact that I’m madly in love with you, and it’s taking everything I have to keep my hands to myself.”
I laughed quietly. “Madly, huh?”
“Completely.” She smiled shyly. “Utterly. Totally.”
“I’m madly in love with you, too.”
“Now you’re just teasing me.”
A small smile tilted my lips, glad our fight had vanished, leaving us drained but connected. “There’s plenty of time for that. Teasing. Kissing. Fucking. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”
“Well, a girl only has so much patience before she goes a little crazy.”
“You’re already crazy. Crazy for me.” Moving closer, I pulled her into another hug, loving the familiar simplicity, grateful she swooned into me. “Believe me, Little Ribbon, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Saying no to you when you’re so damn beautiful and willing? God, it’s pure agony.” I nudged her chin up with my knuckles, staring deep into her eyes. “But when I take you, Della. I want my mind to be clear. I want to be with you, not the past. I want to fully accept us, not feel torn between right and wrong.”
Kissing her softly, I murmured against her lips, “When I’m inside you, Della Wild, I want to only have one thought, and that’s how much I fucking love you.”
She sighed into our kiss, snuggling closer. “When you say things like that, I can be patient. For just a little longer.”
And she was.
For a few more days, at least.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
REN
2018
SEVEN DAYS SHE gave me.
One week to accept the unacceptable and change our entire relationship.
We didn’t end up swimming that night; the river was too shallow, but we did manage to bathe and wash a few pieces of clothing. Although I wasn’t ready to sleep with her, it didn’t stop my eyes from roaming over every inch as she soaked herself in the swift current.
I’d stupidly blocked myself from finding the best pleasure in the world, but I clung to the hope that when I finally did let go, it would be entirely worth it.
That night, we slept in just our underwear, sandwiched together in the tent, nuzzling and kissing as if we’d always been so close. I loved that each time we kissed, it was a little easier, my mind a little quieter, my heart a little less confused.
In the morning, as we packed up our camp and headed back on the trail, I grabbed her and pressed her against a tree. My hands roamed to her breasts as I kissed her hard, driving myself against her, drowning with a sudden crippling need to take.
Her moan snapped me out of what I’d done purely by instinct.
Backing up, I waited to be persecuted beneath memories of Della as a baby and Della as a child. But…nothing came.
No sick sensation. No regret. Only awareness that, for the first time, it’d felt perfectly normal to grab and manhandle her because I wanted to, and she was mine.
There was nothing wrong with that.
In fact, there was everything right, and I froze because I’d held her, kissed her, and touched her—in ways I never thought I could—and not once had my thoughts tried to ruin me.
My capacity for change had finally started, and the sick sensation was taking a back seat to the rapidly growing lust I struggled to control.
“You can do that again…if you want.” Della smiled behind a golden curl, her lips still pink from my kiss.
“If I do, I won’t be able to stop.”
She groaned, “Say that again and I won’t be able to stop.”
Taking her hand, I chuckled. “Patience is a virtue.”
“Not when it’s making my heart work overtime and my body behave like a horny cat.”
Tugging her into a walk, I chuckled. “A horny cat? I have no idea what that feels like.”
She gave me a dirty look. “Oh, really? You want me to believe you’ve never felt like you want to jump out of your skin at the barest touch. Never wanted to scratch someone or pick a fight just so you can be attacked and have it lead into the roughest, sexiest moment of your life?”
I stared at her dumbfounded.
I’d known Della was passionate—I’d seen her kiss other men, for God’s sake—but maybe my waiting wasn’t just about putting the past in the past and accepting our new dynamic, but also about figuring out who she’d be in bed before I got her there.
Was she like me?
Was she aggressive or tame?
Did she expect our first time to be beneath a blanket of stars with gentle snuggles and sweet missionary, or did she secretly crave what I did?
A messy, filthy, violent affair that left us bloody and oh-so-fucking satisfied?
Letting her go, I stepped in front of her, following the narrow animal track. “I’ve been many things, Della, but I can’t say I’ve been a cat.”
More like a wolf.
A starving one.
Clearing my throat from thoughts full of thrusting and wetness, I said, “Let’s get going. Think you can keep up?”
She snickered behind me. “Think you can keep avoiding this subject for much longer?”
I scowled into the trees. “I’m fully aware I can’t.”
“Good.” She sniffed with a mixture of smugness and joy. “Because I’m going to be a good girl and not push you, but it doesn’t mean I’m not going to make you fully aware just how much I want you. How watching your butt right now turns me on so much. How your boots cracking twigs makes me hot. How your smell makes me we—”
“Della,” I snapped, spinning on her and pointing a finger in her face. “Thin ground, Little Ribbon. Behave yourself.”
With a flash of mischievous blue, she stood on tiptoes and bit my finger, running a warm, silky tongue around the tip.
I groaned.
Loudly.
My cock instantly sprang into the hardest, most agonising erection I’d ever had.
I dropped my hand as if her saliva was gasoline and her teeth the match. My entire finger burned and, fuck, it wanted more.
She licked her lips, her eyes hooded and hazed. “Okay, Ren. I’ll do what you say.”
The temptation and invitation behind that innocent, obedient phrase almost had me yanking off my backpack and shoving her onto her knees right there in the middle of the forest.
Brushing past me, incinerating my body with hers, she whispered, “I’ll behave. Guess we better get hiking, huh? The sun won’t last forever.”
Words vanished.
Humanity disappeared.
I was an animal, pure and simple, so damn hungry for the girl I’d always loved.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the way the sun dappled her hair, glinting on her ribbon, or the way her body glided through greenery as if she was part forest herself.
A quick flash of her bounding through the trees when she was nine or ten came and went, but instead of defiling the new love I had for her, it layered my heart with a heat that unravelled me and stitched me back together in an entirely different way.
Someone who was okay with this.
Someone who could finally admit Della Mclary never was a Mclary because she’d always been a Wild.
I wanted to tell her just how much I loved her. Just how much I would always love her. How I’d had an epiphany, and I knew within my very bones I’d never leave her, hurt her, or do anything other than defend, cherish, and adore. I pitied anyone who ever came between us. I feared what I’d do if anyone ever tried to—
“Coming, Ren?” She looked over her shoulder, nonchalant and willowy.
Her gaze met mine, playful and happy before they darkened in response to the shadows swirling inside me. The shadows of possession and dominion that clenched my fists, already angry with phantom ideals that might try to ruin this.
“Ren?” Her voice lowered, the expression on her face one of seriousness and trust. “Everything okay?”
I might’ve grunted something in response, but she’d well and truly won. She’d shown just how right she was. Sex was just an act. Because we’d already surpassed mere pleasure and flesh. We were joined on so many levels, and nothing else mattered but that.
“Fine.” Marching toward her, I coughed and pointed ahead. “Let’s keep going.”
I was fucking captivated by her.
Utterly bewitched.