The Girl and Her Ren

by Pepper Winters

  We stumbled again, but this time in undiluted lust.

  Yet another thing that would become so much more. So much more than just sex and kisses and thrusts. Even as my mind imprinted her subtle minty taste and inhaled her light melon fragrance, I did my best to stop.

  To stop kissing her as if I were already gone.

  To stop remembering her as something I’d lost when she was alive and willing in my arms.

  Her teeth teased my bottom lip, making my thoughts scatter. Hunger for her coiled in my belly, and I latched onto the simplicity of desire.

  I’d wanted to be honest and clear the air.

  But Della had once again given me something I didn’t know I needed.

  I missed her so fucking much.

  I’d hurt her and driven her away and deserved her coldness.

  But standing there, surrounded by nature and no one, all that existed between us was heat and passion and devotion.

  There would be time for talking.

  After.

  Scooping her into my arms, I somehow managed to traverse the campsite with its leaf litter and hazardous tripping and carried her into the tent.

  Placing her onto her feet, we kicked off our boots in synchronization before slamming to our knees, praying to each other, sacrificing our hearts, offering up everything we had to be worthy of one more day.

  Her fingers landed in my hair, pulling my head to hers.

  I obeyed, kissing her hard and fast, deep and long.

  How was I supposed to stay strong when I had a girl like Della? How was I supposed to be okay with this?

  I had so many things I needed to do before I went.

  I needed to find a way to provide for her. To protect her future and know she was safe. I needed to have a family with her. To at least see one or two wrinkles on her flawless face.

  Our tongues met, then retreated. Our lips connected, then paused.

  Out of all the things I’d miss, kissing Della was the most.

  “Ren?”

  Her whisper physically hurt me. “Yeah?”

  More tears scattered down her face while she kneeled before me. “Promise me we’ll always be together.” Her hands clutched mine with crazed urgency. “Promise me this isn’t over. Promise me like you promised five-year-old me that you’ll never let me go. Never, ever leave me.”

  Jesus Christ.

  My heart squeezed, and I wrapped her in my arms, dragging her onto my lap.

  I wanted so fucking much to be able to promise. I would’ve given anything to assure her we had forever. That there wasn’t a guillotine already poised above my neck.

  I should do what I’d always done and protect her.

  Fuck, I should protect her.

  But my lungs burned, my back ached, and my body prodded me to be brave. “I will always love you.” My avoidance of her promises wrenched a sob from her lungs. Her legs squeezed around my waist, her breath hitching with sorrow.

  “I’ll never stop, Della Ribbon.” Her curls stuck to my lips as I inhaled her sweet scent. “Not until life rips me from your arms. And even then…it’s not goodbye.”

  A cough tumbled from my mouth. A cough that made her stiffen and arms tighten.

  Kissing her, I murmured, “I promise that every breath I take is for you. I’ve never loved anyone else and I never will.”

  She crawled closer, kissing me with a fury that threatened to make me snap. “My heart has always belonged to you.”

  “I know.” My voice broke, and I fisted her hair to kiss her hard.

  My body tightened, my heart pounded, and by the time the kiss ended, I was lightheaded and out of breath, and I didn’t know if it was from her or the disease inside me.

  The doctors had warned me that as I progressed, my strength would go. I’d lose weight. I’d struggle to breathe. I’d fade away piece by piece.

  That was my utmost terror.

  That Della would remember me that way.

  “I need you to promise me something.” I didn’t tear my mouth from hers, speaking directly into her. “Promise me that you’ll remember me like this. That you’ll stay with me. That you won’t hate me for dy—”

  “Stop. I-I can’t.” Her lips twisted beneath mine.

  “Can’t promise you’ll stay by me while I go through—”

  “Can’t hear you say the word dying. Please, Ren.” Her eyes met mine, so close and somber.

  The knowledge I was the one causing her so much pain crippled me. “I thought I could do this.” My neck bowed, my forehead touching hers. “But I can’t. Not yet.”

  “Me, too. I’m not ready.”

  “I need you, Della.”

  Her hands fumbled on my belt, ripping open the buckle and unzipping my fly. “You have me. Always.”

  I half-smiled, repeating what she said as if it were a vow. “Always.” As if that one word linked us beneath the eyes of nature, binding us better than any wedding ceremony.

  Her hand dove between us, slipping into my boxers and fisting me.

  My breath caught at the sudden shot of pleasure, and all I wanted to do was give in. We needed to lose ourselves from reality for a while, but I placed my hand over hers.

  “Wait.” I coughed quietly.

  Her eyes met mine, wincing. “Why?”

  Why?

  Because we had so little time.

  Because I needed so much more than I already had.

  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 be
came 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 mouth 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.”