The Girl and Her Ren (The Ribbon Duet 2)

Our chests brushed as I sucked in a breath, knowing it would be my last one for a while. I was about to drown in her. And I didn’t care if I damn well suffocated. “If I kiss you now…it’s all over.”

“Stop trying to scare me off and do it.”

“So bossy.” I smirked.

“I don’t know how else to tell you I want you, Ren.” Her eyes flashed with temper. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to stop. I don’t want you to treat me kindly or gently or softly. I want you to show me. I want you to take me, just like you said you—”

I snatched her into my arms and kissed her so damn hard our teeth clacked.

I showed her.

And then I showed her again.

And again.

I kissed her harder than I’d ever kissed her.

I let our week-long foreplay drag us down and down, deeper and deeper where heartbeats and blood reigned and the only thing we needed to do was connect.

Connect in the most primitive way possible.

She cried out as I plunged my tongue past the seam of her lips, forcing her to accept me, commanding she dance to the same feral song.

We fought to get closer—her wedging into me and me bowing over her. My hands turned to claws, holding her cruelly.

Nothing was enough.

No scratch intense enough. No bite painful enough.

There was nothing civil about us.

We were animals.

Dirty, filthy animals that had reached a dirty, filthy level and had nowhere else to go.

Teeth and nail and sullied, snarling lust.

Lowering her to the ground, I didn’t care we had no tent or shelter. I didn’t care sticks and leaves would be part of what we were about to do.

I didn’t care.

I had no capacity to care.

The only thing that mattered was getting inside the one person I needed more than air.

Della went without a fight, letting me brush aside as many twigs as I could before pressing her onto her back and smothering her instantly with my weight.

She squirmed beneath me as I grabbed her jaw and kept her still so I could deepen the kiss to exquisitely harsh.

With my free hand, I shoved up her t-shirt and cupped her bra-free breast with eager fingers. Her back arched, revealing the perfection of bare skin. Her legs kicked out wide, welcoming; her hips raised off the ground, seeking.

My brain short-circuited.

A flicker of persecution needled me as my hand drifted down the delectable length of her belly, ripped at her belt, and tore at her zipper. Image after image of Della in similar undress. Of her changing after late night baling and getting covered in prickly dried grass. Of her sitting on a rock by the pond in her swimsuit, pretending to be as worldly as Cassie but failing for being so young.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Caution. Caution. Caution.

Even though I loved that little girl with all my heart, I no longer bowed to her.

I bowed to this new mistress instead.

I wasn’t clutching that child or kissing someone I shouldn’t be kissing. I wasn’t committing some heinous act, or stepping over lines that should never be crossed.

This was Della.

Girl and woman.

A girl with a ribbon in her hair, and now a woman with a tattoo on her foot.

I was kissing my goddamn soulmate, and who fucking cared how we’d met or how long we’d known each other? Fate had decided to throw us an unconventional beginning by giving her to me the moment she was born.

Her lips parted as I kissed her with renewed violence, ignoring sudden breathlessness and overwhelming heat.

Moaning, she slung her arms over my shoulders as I managed to unzip her jeans and yank at them without finesse. Frustration bubbled as the tight material refused to move. “Are you trying to kill me?”

She smiled beneath our kiss, her lips stretching tight with the same kind of delirium I suffered. “You mean…you need help stripping me?”

“Don’t taunt me, Della. Now is not a good time.”

“Why? Because you’re a little worked up?”

“Because I’ll die if I don’t get inside you.”

“Oh.” She blushed, pleased and sexy. “In that case…”

I glowered as she pushed me away and hooked her fingers in her jeans. With a coy, almost shy look, she shoved them down her legs, leaving baby blue bikini briefs.

I groaned.

“Do you have to be so fucking gorgeous?” I fell on her again, kissing, attacking, worshipping. Her heat promised me all kinds of sinful things as I ran my hand between her legs, just once, unable to stop myself from claiming.

She jolted as my fingers trailed over her inner thighs, wrenching her knees apart to give me more room to settle between them.

Keeping my weight on my elbows, I fisted her hair, morphing the kiss from deep to downright devouring. My body ached with a fever born from needing her so badly. With our mouths locked, I pressed my hips into hers, surging upward, searching for every part she’d give me.