Ren and Della: Boxed Set (Ribbon Duet Book 3)

by Pepper Winters

  Over adult terror that life wasn’t infinite like fairy-tales but a war for every moment.

  “Fuck.” He let me go only to wrap me in his strong embrace. “Nothing has changed, Little Ribbon. I promise.”

  “Prove it.” I stayed stiff in his arms. “Sleep with me.”

  A tormented chuckle bubbled in his chest. “I’m not taking advantage of you when you’re like this. We should talk. Why didn’t you tell me you were so worried?” The softness of his worn, blue sweater was warm, the thud of his heart familiar. My body responded to what it had always considered safe, and my spine relaxed even as I fought to stay angry.

  “You know I love you. How many times have I told you that? Nothing can drive us apart, Della. I know I hurt you with my knee-jerk reaction when we first arrived, but nothing has changed.”

  He ducked and kissed me sweetly, tasting my tears. “See? I love you. I’m in love with you. Everything is fine.”

  I blinked, lips tingling and heart smarting. “Kiss me again.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re worked up over something I don’t understand. I’m sorry about before, I truly am. But anything else you’re worried about is completely ridiculous, and I won’t be pushed into sleeping with you. Not when you’re like—”

  “My fears aren’t ridiculous, Ren.”

  “I didn’t mean they were.”

  “Is it ridiculous that I love you so much I can barely breathe at the thought of losing you?”

  “What?” Temper lashed through his voice. “Why the hell would you lose me?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “Is this about Cassie?” His eyes blackened. “Don’t you trust me?” His question was soft but lethal, daring me to give light to my terrors when, up until a few days ago, I trusted him with my life.

  I sighed, defeated and fully aware I was at fault. “Of course, I trust you.”

  “So, you’re not driving yourself insane thinking I’m going to leave you for Cassie?”

  I flinched. “I won’t deny it was hard at first, but I know what we have supersedes all that.”

  “Then…” His head tilted, hair caressing his forehead. “What is this really about?”

  “It’s about us.” I shrugged helplessly. “It’s about me needing you and…and I don’t like this distance between us.” I looked down. “I was wrong to keep our relationship a secret. The longer we don’t tell people, the more I worry it’s even real.”

  His finger tipped my chin up. “It’s real, Della. More real than anything in the world.”

  “I needed to hear that.” I half-smiled.

  He tucked a curl behind my ear. “You’re forgetting you’re the one who wanted to hide. I wanted to tell everyone the truth.”

  “I was wrong.” Reaching for him, I brushed my mouth on his. “Please…take me to bed. Let’s just forget I made a mess of this.”

  I chickened out.

  I’d picked this fight to address that annoying little cough.

  I’d stewed in stress so I would have the guts to order him to see a doctor.

  But, somehow, none of that mattered anymore.

  I just wanted him.

  Inside me.

  Around me.

  With me.

  Our lips touched before he shook his head with a soft groan. “I can’t sleep with you in this room, Little Ribbon.”

  My eyes snapped wide. “Why?”

  “There are too many memories here.”

  My heart fluttered, tasting progress. “So? Memories are just memories.”

  “Memories have a way of driving me insane.” His tongue wet his lips, his gaze drawn to my mouth. His voice denied me, but his body reacted. “So many memories of so many things between us.”

  “But don’t you see?” My hand landed on his chest, sliding down until I pressed my palm against his erection. “That’s why we need to make new ones.”

  He hissed between his teeth. “Stop.”

  My bravery at addressing so many things had flown out the window, but I wouldn’t let him deny me. Not in this. Not when we desperately needed to connect.

  “I want you, Ren.” Sinking to my knees, I tugged his jeans and boxers down in one smooth glide. They bunched around his knees as his cock bounced free.

  I didn’t hesitate.

  I licked him, inserting him into my mouth.

  “Fucking hell.” His hand fisted in my hair, holding me tight as he crippled under my control. “Della.” His belly clenched as he rolled over me, hugging my head as I licked and sucked, doing my best to shatter him.

  For a second, I thought I’d won.

  He sucked in a wobbly breath, his body swelling in my mouth.

  But then that damn side of him that protected me at all costs resurfaced and, with a savage growl, he pushed me away. “Della…no.” He staggered sideways, tripping to the centre of the bedroom, doing his best to hoist up and rearrange his jeans. “Are you trying to kill me, woman?”

  His anger and denial hurt, but not the same as before.

  I kind of understood now.

  I sort of finally saw.

  This wasn’t about me at all.

  This was about this room.

  This place.

  I thought I’d had it hard here.

  That lying in bed jealous and petty was painful.

  But really…I hadn’t.

  Yes, Ren had always been forbidden, but at least, he hadn’t been a mortal sin.

  Me…on the other hand.

  If Ren had felt the slightest tug toward me—a tug that overstepped even the smallest of margins…then I could understand why this room wasn’t just a room.

  Because I hadn’t just been a girl he wanted; I had been a child.

  A child who meant more to him than anything else in the world.

  A living, breathing nightmare.

  This room had become his judge and executioner, its very walls, furniture, and windows condemning him for every dream he might have had, for every fanciful wish, for every fleeting thought.

  God, I’m sorry.

  Pushing off my knees, I let go of my anger. I drowned in apology. I moved toward him as gently and as carefully as I could because he was spooked and hurting, and I’d been the one to do it.

  “You truly did love me, didn’t you?” I whispered.

  His gorgeous coffee eyes widened, his chest rising and falling. “Of course, I love you.”

  “That wasn’t what I said.” Pressing my fingers to his heart, I hated that he flinched. That his sun-bronzed hair shivered as he stayed tight and wound as if he’d bolt at any moment. “You loved me more than you should, even before I kissed you.”

  His face contorted. “I-I loved you as a brother.”

  “No, you loved me as something more.” Tears trickled down my face at the truth—the exquisite, agonising truth. I wrapped my arms around his waist, not caring he still had his jeans bunched in one hand, hiding his decency. “I’m sorry, Ren.”

  He rippled with stress, not hugging me back. “Della, I—”

  Those two words were an arrow, shooting from the bow of his mouth, ricocheting around the room until they punctured us through the heart.

  In their simplicity, they admitted everything.

  His head came down and his lips sought mine with a level of devotion and need that transcended time and logic. His arms banded around me, fierce and possessive. And the ice in his muscles cracked, melted, and cascaded away in a waterfall of released tension.

  “I didn’t realise until we’d left.” Burying his face in my hair, his entire body quaked as if this was his true confession. “I didn’t know. You have to believe me. I was a kid. You were mine. There was no other future I could think of that you weren’t there beside me.”

  “It’s okay.” I stroked his back, being the rock he’d always been for me.

  How had I not seen it? It wasn’t me or my kiss that made him realise there was something
more.

  There had always been something more.

  Our love hadn’t honoured boundaries fashioned by age or circumstance. Our love had thrown us together and told us the truth way too early.

  It had laughed in our face and said, ‘This is the person you will adore forever. This is the person designed, crafted, and perfected for you. But you can’t touch them. Not yet. Not for decades. Not until you’re worthy of the gift I’ve given you.’

  Time, it seemed, had a nasty sense of humour.

  Time had hurt Ren far worse than it had me.

  “Being back here makes me wonder if I ever overstepped,” Ren murmured. “It makes me second-guess everything. Every time I touched you, what was I thinking? Every time I kissed you, what did it mean? Every time I saw you naked, was I averting my eyes like I thought, or was I watching you when I shouldn’t?”

  He exhaled with a ragged groan. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t know if I did right by you, or if all along I was some perverted—”

  “Stop.”

  He sucked in a breath, his chest heaving as if he’d run miles.

  “Trust me when I say this, Ren Wild, you were and are the most honourable man I’ve ever known. I understand how you could second-guess. I know how time can play tricks and make you remember different things. But I need you to listen now because not once did you make me feel awkward around you. Your touches were strictly brotherly. Your kisses perfectly pure. I grew up so safe and happy because I knew you adored me. I knew we were special. I knew we had something that no one else could ever steal or share. So please, Ren. Please don’t let the past damage what we have or make you fear you did anything wrong. Because you didn’t. Not a single moment was wrong. Not a single—”

  He kissed me.

  He clutched me close and kissed me deep, shutting me up, telling me he trusted me, assuring me he was okay.

  I crumpled in his arms, submitting entirely to his hot mouth and skilful tongue.

  His fingers slid into my hair, cradling me as he bowed over me, tucking me into him, doing his best to join us together in all the right ways.

  On and on, we kissed.

  Heads dancing.

  Tongues licking.

  Hearts racing.

  Ren had always been a masterful kisser, but something was different about this one. Something new and honest and true.

  He held nothing back.

  He tasted me and let me taste him.

  He commanded possession and let me possess in return.

  And the entire time we kissed, I didn’t tell him what else I remembered.

  How, when he was eighteen, I knew he dreamed of someone he wanted because he’d cry out in his sleep, waking me to see his young face straining with want and misery.

  How, when he was nineteen, I knew he pleasured himself in the dark once our beds were separated and we could no longer touch, and I’d hear his soft groan as he came—the same groan I now recognised as a woman.

  Ren had kept everything he was going through a secret from me, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t aware.

  He was a boy.

  He was human.

  He was perfect.

  My lips tingled from his as I reached for his undone waistband.

  He shook his head, rubbing our lips together. “No—”

  “Yes.”

  His heart pounded harder as I pushed the material down. His face drained of colour as I broke our kiss and looked between us. There, on the bare flesh of his hipbone, with his boxers and jeans pushed low enough to reveal the splattering of hair but not enough to reveal his cock, was his brand.

  The same brand I’d kissed before, licked before, pressed my cheek to and cursed my parents for what they’d done to him, all while thanking them because, in a way, they’d bought him for me.

  Time had used them, too.

  Time had ensured they brought us together.

  The oval brand with its Mc97 glinted cruelly in the light. Running my fingertip over the scar tissue, I whispered, “This room is nothing more than a room. The only thing that means anything is you and me.” My fingers drifted to the dark warmth of his underwear, ducking down and fisting his hard length. “You can touch me, Ren. You can kiss me. There’s nothing stopping us. I want you to touch me. I need it…and I think you need it, too.”

  He shuddered again, his breath short and fast, eyes wild and black. “You’re pushing me too far, Della Ribbon. I don’t know how much longer I can keep saying no.”

  “Good because I want you to say yes.”

  “But it’s not right.”

  “It is.”

  “I can’t stop thinking, ah—”

  I squeezed him, making his head tip back, revealing a long, powerful throat with its five o’clock shadow and Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. With his eyes closed, he strangled, “But I nursed you when you had chicken pox in that very bed. I sat in that chair as you learned about sex, and I hid just how much I didn’t know. I watched you sleep when you were still a kid. I had dreams that—”

  “None of that matters now.” Pushing firmly, I backed him toward the single bed that used to be his. The one with black sheets and no colour. The one I’d curled into, when he wasn’t looking, to smell his pillow.

  He tripped backward, his jeans slipping to half-thigh. Landing on his ass, he snapped out of whatever trance I’d put him in and shook his head. “No.” Standing up again, he begged, “Let’s go rent a room somewhere. Or pitch the tent. Somewhere it’s just us. I want you, Della. And you’re right, I need you. But…this place is too much.”

  “Please, Ren.” Colliding with him, I dug my fingers into his hair and wrenched his mouth back down to mine. “Please.” I kept my fingers lashed in the soft copper strands, piercing my tongue into his mouth.

  And finally…he snapped.

  His hands clamped on my ass, hoisting me up with impressive strength and encouraging my legs to wrap around his hips.

  The moment I latched on, he moved until he slammed me against the wall. My spine bruised as he wedged me tight, rocking into me, his lips harsh and dominating as the kiss I’d given him turned into one of crushing need from him.

  His hands trailed upward, squeezing my breasts before cupping my cheeks and holding me steady.

  And then he kissed me.

  Truly, deeply, deliciously kissed me.

  His mouth opened wide, his tongue dancing with mine, our heads shifting and breaths hitching as he consumed my every thought.

  “You just had to push, didn’t you?” He nipped my lip, biting and licking his way down my jaw to my throat. There, he sank sharp incisors into my flesh, making me cry out and claw at his shoulders. “Had to make me do this. Had to make me accept.”

  My hands fell to his hips while he continued to rock into me, making me wet, ensuring my entire body throbbed for his.

  Luckily, I wore a skirt. My one and only skirt with a grey sweater with silver thread.

  His touch found my thighs again, swatting the material away, hooking his fingers into the cotton between my legs. “I can’t stop. I doubt I’ll ever be able to stop.”

  I expected him to put me down and wait until I’d removed my underwear, but I’d pushed him too far, and he merely yanked the fabric aside and drove two fingers deep, deep inside me.

  “See, Della?” He withdrew and plunged inside me again. “This is what happens when you push me.” He wasn’t gentle. He wasn’t kind. He was ruthless and merciless and I loved it.

  His hand cupped me as his fingers pulsed, dragging heat from everywhere. “Is this what you want? Tell me this is what you want. Tell me this is okay. Goddammit, Della, tell me you need me as much as I need you because I’m going out of my goddamn mind.”

  I convulsed as he rocked his fingers so deep, a sliver of pain cut through me. Pain that only made my pleasure all that more intense. “Yes. God, yes.”

  “This is what you pushed me for? This is what you’ve broken me for?”

  “Yes!”

/>   His touch rocked up, pulsating in the perfect way he knew I loved. I moaned as my body responded with tingling, tangling bliss.

  “You’ve always driven me wild.” He kissed me again, his tongue lashing and cruel. “Always been too bold.” His kiss turned deeper still, making me breathe him, ensuring my body wasn’t just made up of my cells, but his too. A synergy of bodies. A blending of him and me and past and present and the lovely, lovely knowledge that whatever distance had been between us was no more. “Always been too much for me. So much braver than me.”

  “No,” I cried out as he thrust his cock against my leg in time to the fierce drive of his fingers. “You’ve always been braver. I understand now how hard it would’ve been—”

  “Hard?” His teeth found my neck again, biting, licking, consuming. A small cough nudged my fear. “Hard is nothing compared to how hard I am now. How fucking hard I am for you.”

  I had no reply, only a boneless sigh and a desperation that had a will of its own.

  A desperation I’d always had.

  A desperation that had always wanted Ren in any way it could have him.

  This had always been our future.

  There was no way we could fight an attraction like this. No way of denying a connection like this.

  This was destiny.

  Pure and simple.

  Dragging my hips closer to his, Ren broke the kiss and stared down. His lips were red, skin flushed, hair a mess. He looked savage. Clothes were wrong on him when he seemed so primitive and free.

  In a flash, I saw him naked in rippled resplendent glory, standing in his chosen home—the forest where we’d shared our childhood. With the trees we called friends, and the river we called parent, behind him.

  That was where Ren belonged.

  That was where a man so much more than human should be.

  With fingers inside me, he cupped my cheek with his free hand, trembling even now, but this time with lust so vicious it tore pieces off our hearts.

  We stared at each other.

  Him and me.

  Us.

  And he said, “I told you I loved you, Della.”

  “I know.”

  “I told you I always have.”

  “I know.”

  Withdrawing his fingers, he grabbed his cock and lined up with my body. “Are you happy knowing I can’t deny you? Are you pleased with yourself that I have you pinned against the wall and can’t stop? Are you happy that after this, I’ll never know if I loved you the way I should have? That I’ll forever wonder? Forever think of fucking you here, in this room, and no longer care about any of it?”