I never looked away even though it was the most vulnerable I’d ever been around her. “I know it’s soon, and we agreed to wait…but I’m ready to come second best.”
Her lips parted.
I waited to see if she understood.
Of course, she understood.
She was my intelligent, beautiful Della.
She bit her lip, her chest heaving with tears. “A-are you going to leave me that fast?” Her fingers twitched around my erection. Her eyes closed tight as if barricading herself against my answer.
“I—” I groaned, fighting yet another cough. “I don’t know how to do this, Della. Don’t know how to hurt you when it’s the last thing I ever wanted to do.”
“Then don’t.” She looked up. “Lie to me. Tell me this is all a terrible mistake.”
“You know I can’t do that. I’ve tried. I can’t hide from you. Not anymore.”
“I know.” Her face held no colour, blood sinking inside to protect her heart. “Just…after. Tell me after.”
“Fuck, Ribbon.” I kissed her, tasting salt and misery and an end we both weren’t ready for.
As we kissed, my hands undid the buttons of her jacket and pushed it off her shoulders. Our lips disconnected as I fumbled for her jodhpur zipper. She hadn’t changed before trekking with me. She hadn’t done anything apart from follow me dazedly from the stables and over the fields to the forest.
Popping the button against her flat stomach, she watched my fingers undress her.
“I stopped taking my pill a week ago. I—” She gave me a guilty half-smile. “I didn’t discuss it with you. I threw it down the drain. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“For making that decision alone.”
I kissed her, jerking her close. “You made the right one. You made the only one.”
“I want your baby, Ren. But…I don’t know if I’m ready to share you. Especially now.”
My heart sank. “Then we’ll wait. I’ll respect that.”
I’d respect it and hope to God I survived long enough to make a child with her. Hope to heaven the drugs that would extend my life wouldn’t make me sterile before it was too late.
Her hand moved again, pulling me free from my jeans and boxers until I stabbed upright between us. “How long, Ren?”
“Della…” Using my knuckle, I nudged her chin upward. “Please, stop.” I bent to press my lips to hers, expecting a refusal but earning a soul-blistering kiss instead. “After, remember?”
“After.” She nodded, her fingers stroking hotly.
My body became corrupted by her touch. Part of me was no longer interested in sex after talking about such morbid things, but the larger part was ever more desperate.
Desperate to live.
Desperate to start a new life.
Desperate to tell the Grim Reaper to fuck the hell off.
Ignoring the unsaid things between us, hiding the secrets dripping with pain, I whispered, “I want a child with you. Even if it will drive me insane the entire time you’re pregnant. Despite what happened with the ectopic scare, I want a daughter like you. I’m selfish to risk everything to have that.”
She smiled sadly. “And I want a son like you.”
“Guess we’ll have to have both, then.”
“Do we have time?”
I winced, swallowing on my shortened longevity.
Do you want to know? Are you so eager for me to break your heart?
I sucked in a breath. “I—”
“Wait. Don’t.” She pressed her lips to mine. “Just kiss me.”
So I did.
I kissed her, undressed her, laid her on her back, and slid from my clothes. Snuggling into one sleeping bag, I pulled the other up and over us, trapping our body heat.
My hand disappeared between her legs.
She jerked as I touched her, feeling her silky flesh, hot with want. Her eyes glowed sapphire as I pressed a finger inside her.
I wanted to make this last. To touch her for hours and lick, taste, and worship, but a baser desire lived within me. The knowledge she wasn’t on the pill. The idea that we could create something bigger than ourselves.
I wanted to leave her with a legacy that was more than just money or possessions. I wanted her to have a piece of me. A child with my blood in its veins and a shred of my soul in its heart.
I stupidly wanted to find some way to always be there…even when I wasn’t.
Her hips arched up, welcoming me to touch her deeper. I inserted another finger, making her wet, encouraging her to forget her grief and only remember pleasure.
I found her lips again, kissing in time to my pressure, my tongue in rhythm to my finger, my body winding tighter the longer she fondled and stroked.
For so long, I’d known her body as intimately as anyone could. I’d seen her legs grow from chubby to elegant. Her chest from flat to full. And now, I knew exactly what pleased her and how to make her submit entirely.
As I thrust deeper, she gasped into my mouth. “If we’re lucky enough to have children, I promise to love them.” She cupped my cheek, holding me steady. “But I also promise I’ll love you more. I won’t be able to help it.”
My fingers stopped, wedged tight inside her. “That’s something I can’t agree to.” Sorrow balled in my heart. “Don’t you see? I need you to love them more, Della. I need someone else to hold your heart when I can’t.”
Her breath caught, body flinched, the precipice we’d been dancing over yawning. “I hate you for this.” The fierceness in which she said it broke me.
“I know.”
“I hate you so much, Ren.”
“Hate me if you must but love me, too. Please…” Withdrawing my fingers, I climbed over her, slotting my body into hers. When I felt her damp warmth, I pushed, spreading her, filling her, invading every last piece she could give me.
Tears cascaded down her cheeks, soaking into the sleeping bag below.
I rubbed away the droplets I could and licked at the ones I missed, cradling her as I made love to her.
How many times would we have this?
How many more moments of connection?
We rocked together—gentle and almost apologetic. Our touches safe and kisses guarded. But slowly…the hurt dissolved, leaving only lust and our bodies burning with desire.
Our pace turned faster, tame blending into violence.
Carnal hunger ripped through my veins, kicking my heart, coating my skin with need.
Della writhed beneath me, meeting me thrust for thrust.
Her face wasn’t soft or open but angry and revengeful. Without speaking, she ran her fingernails down my back, deep and deliberately mean.
I bowed, groaning in pleasure-pain, my cock hardening to excruciation.
A blackness encroached my mind, filling me with a mad kind of savagery.
She felt the change. She matched it with her own.
Our lovemaking turned to war, and my thrusts switched from rocking to fucking.
“Goddamn you, Della.” Fisting her hair, I held her down as I bucked inside her. She moaned as I yanked on the strands—the same strands I’d washed and braided and brushed. The hair I’d seen wet and tangled and even blue. The hair I’d inhaled while sleeping beside her in the tent and fought a love that couldn’t be fought.
“I hate you,” she whispered as I pulled out and pushed her onto her stomach. Gripping the back of her neck, I thrust back inside her, keeping her pinned and imprisoned. “You. Already. Said. That.” I growled, sweating and aching and forever fighting a cough.
“I hate you because I love you,” she cried as I hit the button inside her that added mind-bending intensity.
“Ribbon—” I grunted as her back arched, forcing herself onto me, ramming herself down my length.
“I hate you because I won’t survive.”
My body was stiff and awkward, every neuron locked inside her. “You will. You have to.”
“I don’t want to.” Her mou
th opened wide as I yanked her hair back and kissed her. My chest pressed to her back, riding her, knees digging into sleeping bags, and tent shivering with our speed.
I grunted, “You have no choice.”
“I do have a choice.”
I drove harder, deeper, crueller. “You don’t. I can’t face this if I believe otherwise.”
Her face twisted into anguish. “Fuck you.”
“I’ll fuck you instead.” Thrusting faster, I nipped at her ear. “I’ll always be inside you, Della.”
I rippled with the need to release. The toxic blend of punishment and pleasure was a dangerous place to be. I couldn’t treat her gently. I couldn’t keep my touch soft. I couldn’t be nice anymore.
She felt me losing control and tried to make me come, teeth snapping at my mouth, back hollowing as she speared herself deeper onto me.
I tried to kiss her, but she merely bit me, utter wretchedness tumbling from her soul. A second later, she moaned with joy as I gave her the fury she wanted.
I fucked her harder.
“Is this what you want?”
She moaned. “I want you forever. That’s what I want.”
“And you have me forever.”
She wriggled beneath me, activating predator instincts that planted a fist in her lower back, keeping her prone and open.
She groaned, guttural and feral, just like me. Fighting me for no other purpose than to piss me off.
She looked over her shoulder. “If you loved me, you’d stay.”
What a horrid thing to say.
What a disgusting slur to utter.
“Don’t you think I’m trying?” My anger turned to rage, and I fucked her with contempt instead of everlasting love. “You’ve pushed me too far, Della.”
She bucked and pleaded, and I lost myself to her.
I’m sorry.
So goddamn sorry.
She made me angry, so fucking angry. She made me sad, so eternally sad.
And I didn’t want to be either of those things because I had to be strong for her.
She squirmed as my rough palms caressed her spine, massaging with possessive strokes.
Grabbing handfuls of her ass, I forced her legs to spread wider, her feet kicking, flashing me her ribbon tattoo, drowning me in memories; painful, shard-filled memories of our shared childhood, stabbing me over and over, craving, wanting, begging.
A cough caught me unaware.
Another cough followed that one.
And I bent over, clamping my teeth into her shoulder, stifling any more.
I refused to be ill.
I refused to be a faulty clock deciding how many minutes I could have with her.
“I love you, Della.” My cock throbbed, hard as wood; my mind raced, a mess with desire. I looped an arm around her stomach, holding her tight as I thrust into her from behind. “Forever.”
Rage drenched my blood. Anger at life and love and loss.
My hips pistoned faster, taking out my sadness on her—letting her taste a little of the fury inside me. The grief and yearning for more.
Her head snapped up as my fingers found her clit, rubbing fast and hard. “God—”
Her body tightened around me, preparing for a release.
I loved taking her like this. Loved dancing on the border of animal and human, right and wrong, sexy and sadistic.
There were so many things I wanted to do to her.
So many, many things.
Would time give them to me?
“You’ve broken me, Ribbon. And now, I have to break you.” I reared up on my hands, driving my body into hers, unapologetic, untamed, unforgiving.
She wanted me rough.
She had me.
I was jerky and fierce.
I was lost and afraid.
I was in love and utterly in pieces.
I wanted to punish her for the life she’d have after me. I wanted to free her from the pain I was about to cause her.
I hated her.
I loved her.
I missed her so fucking much already.
“God, Ren.” Her cry unravelled the final parts of me, and I lost the remaining pieces that made me hers.
I fucked and thrust and layered her with bruises upon bruises.
And still, she begged for more.
My teeth found her skin, and my body answered hers. And our hearts clanged and pounded to the same song, the melody giving way to a crescendo, the crescendo exploding to the finale, and we rode that song until sweat glistened and moans echoed, and our bodies found the same pleasure as our hearts.
We came together, fast and spent.
We loved each other, even though it hurt.
We were bonded, so there would be a forever.
And not even death could stop us.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
DELLA
* * * * * *
2021
“WHAT ABOUT JULIE?”
I cracked open my gaze, shaking my head on Ren’s naked chest. “No.”
“Holly?”
“Nah.”
“Daphne?”
“Definitely not.” I peeled my face from his skin and rolled my eyes. “You’re bad at baby naming.”
“Those are common, nice names.”
“Yes, and they’re all girls.”
He smiled even though it didn’t erase the melancholy in his eyes. “We’re having a girl, Della.” His gaze travelled down my exposed breasts to my flat belly. “We made one. Today.”
Goosebumps sprouted over my arms. “Could it happen that quick?”
He pulled me back down onto him, our shared heat slightly sticky and too hot, but I had no intention of leaving his side.
We’d calmed from our orgasms and separated enough to lie side by side until Ren gathered me to spoon against him as if he needed me to touch him at all times.
“After the short straw I’ve been dealt, we better have made a baby today. I think I deserve that much.” He narrowed his eyes at the tent roof. “Hear me? Whoever you are? Impregnate this girl if you feel a shred of guilt for what you’ve done to me.”
Tears stung my eyes all over again.
I’d forgotten how much I’d cried in the past week, and I’d only shed more because we’d been avoiding the monster in the room.
The monster we came into the forest to face.
How long?
But before we did, I wanted to exist in light-hearted baby planning a little longer. “Okay, say I’m pregnant. Say you have magical sperm, and bam, I’m knocked up—out of wedlock, no less.” I tapped his chin, making him chuckle. “Say all of that happened? Well, I’m telling you, I’m having a boy.”
“Why do you want a boy so badly?”
“Because I want another you.”
He sucked in a breath.
The comment was meant to be blasé, but no truer words had been spoken. I wanted another Ren to replace the one who was dying. I wanted Ren to somehow clone himself, heal himself, and never die—not until he was one-hundred-and-two and ready.
Our joking bled away.
We sighed heavily with no small amount of misery.
Oppressive silence smothered us, and we made no move to lighten it.
Exhaustion spread over me even though it was still light outside. I felt as if I’d run every marathon there ever was and still had so many to go.
I suffered no anger anymore. No rage or fury.
Just heart-weary desolation.
I didn’t know how much time passed, but Ren squeezed me, rousing me from a strange, stressful doze. “Jacob.”
“Huh?”
“If you’re pregnant with my son. I want to call him Jacob.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I just like the name. It feels…right.”
My heart splashed into my stomach, annihilated by acid and circumstance. “Okay, Ren. I can live with Jacob.”
He gave me the sweetest kiss, his lungs inhaling and exhaling with a gentle cough.
&n
bsp; A cough that couldn’t be ignored anymore.
We tensed, once again on the same tattered wavelength.
“Della…”
“Ren…”
We spoke together and stopped together.
“You go,” I whispered.
He flinched. “I don’t know what to say. You’ve guessed the hardest part.”
“I didn’t guess. I overheard you. On the phone in the stable.” My voice wobbled. “You asked how long. I knew we didn’t have a lot of time.”
“Shit.” He kissed my forehead. “And you dealt with this for a week on your own?”
I brushed his concern away. “It’s nothing compared to you. When did you find out?”
His tone strained. “Does it matter?”
“No.” I burrowed into him. “Nothing matters now.”
“I’m so sorry, Della.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t apologise for something that isn’t your fault.”
“But how can I not? How can I not hate myself for what—”
“Stop, Ren.” Every muscle clenched. “Just tell me. Tell me what’s wrong with you.”
He froze, his heart racing against me. “I’ve had it for twenty years.”
I squeezed my eyes as if that would protect me from goblins.
“At Mclary’s. I was put at risk…”
I wanted to tell him to stop, to never tell me, to laugh this awfulness away. But I nodded and held on with all my strength.
“You’ll need to be tested too—just in case. But I’m hoping you weren’t exposed like I was.”
“Exposed to what?” I wanted to go deaf, to never listen to what devil hurt my love, but instead, my ears rang…waiting for his answer. And even though I knew it was coming. Even though I’d heard it in my head and watched it happen over and over in my nightmares, it still had the power to change my world.
To change me as a person.
To strip aside my remaining youth and make me so much older than I ever wanted to be.
“Asbestos poisoning.” He swallowed hard, his chest working. “I have stage one mesothelioma.”
I tried to speak, to be brave and ask questions, but I left him totally alone to explain.
A foreign word I didn’t know.
A title to a host of unrecognisable evil.
I was clueless.
I was shell-shocked.
Ren and Della: Boxed Set (Ribbon Duet Book 3) Page 79