Every muscle in my body locked.
He smiled; his lips swollen from prior kisses, and his jaw covered with dark stubble. “No one has because no one has pushed me as much as you do. I’m weak against you, Della.”
I licked my lips, loving his honesty. I was jealous of his past lovers, but I pitied them too because Ren never gave them what he was giving me. He wasn’t just giving me his body; he was giving me his life, heart, mind, breath, and soul. He was giving me everything, and I took, took, took. I took all of him because he’d already taken all of me.
“You made me,” I breathed. “I only exist because of you.”
“No, you exist because the universe knew a ten-year-old kid with nine fingers and hate in his heart was lonely.”
I cried out as his tongue licked me for the first time, stealing language, maths, history, and every other knowledge I possessed, leaving me empty apart from one thought. “Ren.”
“Enough talking.” His whipping whisper came just before his mouth sealed over me.
He didn’t ease me into this new sensation. He didn’t test and probe. He dined on me. He devoured me. He drove two fingers inside me all while his teeth nipped my clit, and the burning heat of his mouth never stopped.
I didn’t stand a chance.
I had no control over the typhoon swirling and building, sucking up debris, cleansing my heart from all its maybes and uncertainties and blowing them around, focusing the eye of the storm into my belly.
Up and up, I flew.
Tighter and tighter, I gathered.
And when his voice shared his tongue, spearing into me and murmuring against my searing flesh, he smashed the old Della apart and gave this new one wings. “Remember that wish—” Plunge, lick, bite “—you made when you were five years old?” Twist, tease, nibble. “At the diner with the cupcakes?” Thrust, consume, worship. “Answer me, Della.”
I shivered, unable to talk but desperate to reply. I nodded. I remembered, or at least I remembered the stories he’d told me. “I wished for us to never be apart. For you to take me everywhere.”
“I’m ready to ensure that wish comes true.” He licked me again. And again. “You’re mine, Della Wild. I’m going to take you places you’ve never been. Starting with making you come on my face.”
The crude snap, the dirty vow, the darkness of his voice—they all added matches to the swirling wind inside me.
His mouth settled over my core again as his tongue laved and fingers hooked and those tiny flying matches inside turned into a spark, a flame, a roaring fireball that took me with no warning.
“Oh—” It was the only word I knew as Ren dug fingers into my thighs, holding me down and wide as he gave me no safety, no sanctuary, no reprieve from the torture he brought between my legs.
“God, you taste—” He bit me again. “You taste like Della. Like everything I’ve ever dreamed of.”
And that was it.
I did what he said I would.
I exploded.
I unravelled.
I came and came and came.
And before the final breeze blew the fire out, Ren crawled up my body, slotted his hips into mine, and thrust inside me in one long, delicious impale.
We both cried out. Him low and guttural. Me high and needy.
This was truth.
This was us.
This was everything.
His hips pistoned into mine, driving me deep, shoving me into the sleeping bags, and the tent shook and creaked, and we clawed and snapped and bit, our hands never empty, our legs never untangled, our bodies as joined as they could ever be.
On and on, he fucked me.
On and on, I rode him.
And when a matching fire-breathing typhoon found him. When his body couldn’t withstand the pleasure. When our hearts exceeded too much love and thankfulness and joy, he reared up on his hands…
…and roared.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
REN
2018
IT TOOK A MONTH.
A month for me to trust that this was real.
That I hadn’t died and found my version of heaven. That I wasn’t asleep and living in my dream. That I wasn’t fantasising that Della was mine only to find I’d gone insane.
For four wondrous weeks, we stayed in the forest, swimming in chilly rivers, making love in glades, and eating the rest of our supplies before brushing off our hunting skills and living off the land.
Autumn well and truly arrived, turning the final mugginess of summer into the warning chill of impending winter.
T-shirts became sweaters and we snuggled for warmth as much as for sanity.
We walked far, sometimes leaving the river to climb up a hill for a better vantage point, and sometimes doubling back to a campsite where we’d shared a night beneath the stars, naked and writhing on a sleeping bag beside a cheery fire.
We didn’t care what time of day it was or where we were—when the urge to be close overtook us, we didn’t fight it. We’d spent far too long fighting it and were now making up for lost time.
Most mornings, I woke with Della plastered to my side—just like she did when she was little—her face tucked into my chest, her legs wrapped in mine. Those moments stabbed my heart with memories of a blonde cherub who always made me melt.
I found it hard to let such thoughts in—of Della playing with Liam when she was six or seven. Of Della launching on my back while I raked freshly cut lucerne when she was eight or nine.
The guilt was still there, but not because I’d slept with her. The guilt was because she was so damn pure and had an entire life ahead of her. By accepting what had always been between us, I’d stolen that future from her. I’d shackled her with me, and I still struggled to believe I would be enough.
She’d always been so bright and brave and capable.
I’d always been distrusting, untalkative, and stubborn.
I’d given her everything to ensure she had an education, enjoyed fellow humans, and was prepared for a career she could be proud of. But by giving in to my feelings for her, I’d made all those sacrifices obsolete. I should’ve noticed just how similar we were. I should’ve stopped to look at her, not just manhandle her into a life people were told they should want.
As far as I was concerned, I would never live in a city again. I doubted I could. I’d reached my people quota the day I ran from Mclary’s, and that hadn’t changed just because I’d fallen in love.
But I also couldn’t deny, I would live in a high-rise poky apartment if that made Della happy. If she wanted to work in an office and have overpriced drinks with her colleagues and become the bread winner, then I would agree, because I meant what I said: I was hers.
We’d stepped over every line we could, and there was no going back now. She was stuck with me, and no matter what sort of life she wanted—city or farm—I was limited to what I could offer her.
Wherever we ended up, I would forever be an unskilled labourer with no accolades to my name. I knew hard work, and I lived to cultivate and tend, but I would never be a man to wear a suit, own a laptop, or host dinner parties in his home.
At the moment, Della was as wrapped up in me as I was in her…but things always had a way of changing. When she grew sick of my overprotectiveness, or when she turned away my need to have her in my arms…what would happen then?
She was still so damn young—still forming into herself; unaware of her true wants and dreams. Compared to her, I’d always been the surly old man who would rather growl at visitors than welcome them. Would Della love me when she was my age and I was pushing forty not thirty? Would she still find me handsome with sun-weathered skin and a body that had seen better days?
At least those thoughts were few and far between—I could forget about any future worries because when I was with Della, she made me exist purely in the now. When her fingers touched my arm or her lips landed on mine, nothing else mattered.
Nothing.