The Boy and His Ribbon (The Ribbon Duet 1)

And then I did what stallions and bulls and every male animal did when he was given access to a female.

I fucked her.

No other words.

I fucked her.

I thrust as fast and as hard as I could.

I turned animal as I bit her neck, raged upward, held her down, and punished her for making me unravel so completely.

And when that tickling, tingling warning came and my balls tightened and my cock swelled, I locked my mouth on hers and rode her harder.

And I came.

I officially entered adulthood.

I was a boy no longer.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

REN

* * * * * *

2010

TWENTY and TEN.

This shared birthday was one of the more important ones because Della reached double figures, and I reached the milestone of any kid.

I was no longer a teenager.

I was a man.

A man who’d had sex—quite regularly, in fact—a man who still felt like a kid most of the time but was also no longer at the mercy of laws of minors or the judgment and pity of adults.

I was my own person, but it didn’t mean our life changed.

It didn’t matter the wanderlust in my veins switched from suggestion to downright obsession. It didn’t matter, as I sat in an echo-plagued school hall and watched Della play the role of a Sandy in a younger, less suggestive version of Grease Lightning, that I suffered both pride and bittersweet sacrifice. And it didn’t matter that as I grew older, the more I burned for something I hadn’t found yet. Something I didn’t know but wanted more than I could stand.

Even though my heart begged me on a daily basis to run into the forest and never look back, I knew I could never be that selfish.

The Wilsons had been nothing but good to us.

They’d given me the ability to grant Della the best foundation I could with her education and personal development. The fact that she had a surrogate brother and sister in Liam and Cassie meant the world because no way should she grow up with only me as her companion.

Not only had the Wilsons ensured that the hours I put into running their farm, increasing their bottom line, and turning a hobby crop where Patricia had to work part-time at a local accountancy firm and John picked up odd jobs here and there into a thriving income where they could retire, but they also taught me the basics in life.

Things like regular doctor and dentist visits.

The first time I’d taken Della and myself to the dentist, I didn’t know who hated it more. Luckily, I’d ensured she kept up with regular brushing, and I was a bit obsessive when it came to cleanliness, even while living rough, so we didn’t have too much wrong. A filling or two and we were done for another year.

Another year older.

Another year wiser.

And another year where I fought my lone-wolf tendencies and forced myself to stay for her.

For my Little Ribbon.

And it was the right decision because as the spotlight shone on her glossy blonde hair and her cherub cheeks glowed and her blue eyes twinkled like stars, she wasn’t just Sandy from Grease Lightning, singing a song about a boy and summer.

She was Della Wild, and she was perfect.

* * * * *

Two things happened a month later that proved to me just how far apart our worlds had become.

The first, Patricia and John believed it was time that our two pushed together single beds should be split back apart, now that Della was getting older.

I’d swallowed back the denial that always followed when someone remarked how tall she’d become, how willowy and pretty and strong. I’d also gulped back the sudden terror that I’d never be able to sleep again unless I could reach out in the night and touch her—to appease my fear that she might be hurt in the darkness just like those kids at Mclary’s barn.

The day when the bed we’d slept on for years was suddenly broken back into two singles and shoved to opposite sides of the room, the dynamic between Della and I switched again.

We’d been so used to our routine.

We didn’t think anything of it or stopped to think that it might be strange for others to see a ‘brother and sister’ sleep side by side.

Even though I’d raised Della, I never truly thought of her as my sister. Somehow, even all this time later, when I looked at her, I saw her as a Mclary…not mine.

She looked nothing like her mother or father—which was a blessing—but she also looked nothing like me.

I was dark and angles and broody desire to be left alone.

She was light and curves and infectious kindness toward everyone.

Ten years separated me and my slavery at the Mclary’s, yet it had carved something deep inside me, covering me with wariness, cloaking me with suspicion, and never letting me relax in company no matter how old I became.