“What is so great about kissing Cassie?”
I swiped a hand over my face. “I’m sure the book will cover that.”
“I want to know from you.” She bit her lip again, worry and unease painting her pretty face. “Please?”
“Ugh, okay.” I could never refuse her anything when she said that word. “Kissing is…nice.” I did my best to conjure how I felt when Cassie had her tongue in my mouth. “It’s different to normal kissing. It looks gross, but it feels warm and…comforting. And sometimes, my eh…”
God, I couldn’t say that.
I couldn’t admit that kissing made me hard and her wet and was the perfect prelude to sex. That would be too much, and I literally choked on the words. “Yeah, it’s…nice. That’s all you need to know.”
“Would you show me?”
“No!” I stumbled backward. “That wouldn’t be appropriate, Della Ribbon.”
“Why not?”
“Because…kissing that way isn’t done with family. It’s done with a mate…a lover.”
“Oh.” Her spine rolled then straightened as she said, “Think Liam could show me?”
My temper fired back into full heat. “If you ever go near Liam naked again, I’ll tie you to a tree and never let you come down.”
She giggled. “I like trees.”
“Believe me, you wouldn’t like this one. I’d make sure to find a wasp’s nest and put it up there with you. They’d sting you every time you thought about kissing someone.”
“You wouldn’t.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Just try me and you’ll see how deadly serious I am about you never being naked with another boy again.”
She pouted. “You’re mean. Why are you allowed to get naked with Cassie, and I’m not allowed with Liam.”
“Because I’m older.”
“So when I’m older, I can?”
“No.”
“But you said—”
“Never mind what I said.” Prowling toward her, I tapped the pornographic educational book. “Read this. It has all the answers.”
She eyed me before finally nodding and turning her inquisitive gaze back to the pages.
For the next few hours, I sat in the chair in the corner, clutching the handles with white knuckles, and instead of telling Della about sex and kissing and everything in between, she told me.
She read the words she knew and stumbled over those she didn’t.
She dashed across the driveway to see Patricia and came back armed with terms like Fallopian tubes and ovaries and clitoris.
And it was to my utmost mortification that she became the teacher on a subject she’d begged to be a student in.
A student who must never know she’d far exceeded the capacities of the boy who said he’d teach her everything.
The boy who now knew absolutely nothing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
REN
* * * * * *
2009
ANOTHER YEAR, another autumn, winter, spring, and summer.
Della and I celebrated our joint birthday where she turned nine and I turned nineteen. The day was simple and sweet, and we exchanged gifts that cost no more than ten dollars thanks to John giving me some cash from my salary instead of pre-empting what Della would need and spending on my behalf.
For the past year, Cassie had been dating a twenty-four-year-old mechanic who’d attended family dinners and been grudgingly approved of by her parents. She still hung out with Della, and they’d even gone to a local show jumping competition with Della riding Domino and Cassie riding HeatWave, earning a bunch of ribbons in the process.
Our lives had settled into the routine of living across the driveway from each other, and things couldn’t be better.
The itch to leave still came with the warmer weather and shorter nights, but now, instead of leaving to search for better things, I had things I’d miss by going.
I’d miss Patricia Wilson’s amazing lasagne and raspberry torte.
I’d miss John’s steady guidance and unjudging leniency.
I’d miss Cassie’s secret smiles and ability to make me mad and happy in the same sentence.
And I’d even miss Liam, even though I’d never truly forgiven him for what happened between him and Della.
Life marched onward.
One more year and I’d leave my teenage years behind.
And I was still a virgin.
These days, it wasn’t because of my unreadiness or fear that Della would catch me or even the fact that Cassie was in a long-term relationship—I’d met some of her friends when they’d come round for dinners and two of them blatantly said the offer was always open for a booty call—whatever the hell that was.
I was ready.
If I was honest, I was dying with readiness, but I still couldn’t take the plunge because I knew the consequences of sex, and as much as I loved Della and was grateful for her in my life and besotted with everything she did, I refused to raise another.
Sex talks and naked days and the terrible circumstances of watching her body turn from washboard to budding with breasts had drained me. Her body was no longer a kid’s and had to be covered in public, making her self-aware, and stealing the remaining days of her childhood.
I was tired.
Frankly, I was exhausted, and I just wanted to give in to the thick desire in my blood whenever I looked at a pretty woman and forget about rights and wrongs and pregnancies.
But I couldn’t.
Because I did not want to be a father.
And once I’d had sex once, I had no doubt I’d want it again and again and just like the stallion or bull who serviced an entire herd, delivering each mare and cow with a foal and calf, I did not want to have multiple Rens running around, killing me slowly.
That was my view on the world.
And because I never talked about my concerns, my beliefs became fact until one night when Cassie drove home with a squeal of tires in her second-hand red Corolla and bolted into the house.
Yells and sobs flowed from the farmhouse for hours, making me wonder what the hell happened.
Whatever it was made her angry and sad, and later that night, past midnight and almost at witching hour, a pebble dinged against the window above my head and I shot awake.
Della had always been a heavier sleeper than me, and just because she was flirting with puberty didn’t change that fact.
Shrugging into a t-shirt and pulling on some shorts, I stumbled from our room to find Cassie pacing like a caged ferret with her hair wild, white nightgown flowing, and lips pinched with an aura of hurt female bristling amongst the hay and horses.
“You okay?” I asked, clearing the scratchy sleep from my throat.
The moment she heard me, she barrelled toward me, snatched my hand and yanked me into a free stable. The moment the stall door closed, she shoved me against the wall, leapt into my arms, and planted her mouth on mine.
I stumbled beneath her weight, instinct causing my hands to cup her ass and my arms to bunch and hold her close.
Her legs wrapped around my waist as her tongue plunged deep, kissing me with a kind of passion I’d never tasted before.
It triggered something in me.
I went from courteous and willing to help to matching monster like she was.
Spinning around, I crushed her against the wall as hard as she’d slammed me.
Her moan only ignited me further, and our kiss turned savage.
We devoured each other with nips and thrusting tongues, struggling to breathe and spit slippery between us.
While our mouths attacked the other, our hands roamed.
Mine fisted her full breasts, kneading her with choking desire, being more aggressive than I’d ever been, unable to rein myself in.
I pinched her nipples, and she mewled.
I bit her neck, and she gasped.
I thrust the aching steel between my legs directly against her wetness, and she begged for more.
Her r
apid fingers slipped down my front, cupping me, squeezing, fisting, jerking me off until I thought for sure I’d come.
As quickly as she’d grabbed me, her touch was gone, focusing on tugging down my shorts.
My brain was mush. My heart smoking. My blood black and thick with uncontrolled need.
I couldn’t think or stop as she yanked out my pounding length and shoved aside the material of her nightgown.
The heat of her…holy shit.
The wet slick and tight promise pressed against my tip, and I groaned loud and long—a growl with every want I’d denied myself for so long.
I thrust upward, needing what she offered before my heart exploded and my life ended.
My aim wasn’t right, and we slipped apart.
I stumbled to the side, crashing against a spade and sending it clattering to the cobblestone floor.
The noise reverberated around the stable, freezing us.
My heart kept thundering, obscuring my hearing as I did my best to look in the direction of my bedroom where Della hopefully continued to sleep none-the-wiser.
My chest squeezed as if I was doing something against her wishes. As if I was breaking her trust. Ever since our sex talk, we’d had an unspoken agreement that sex was an open topic. If she had something she wanted to ask, she asked it, and I swallowed down my chagrin to answer her.
She knew exactly what kissing meant, and what it led to, and what sex was between two parties.
She’d come with me to the neighbouring farm to watch ducks mate and pigs and dogs and even fish in the farmer’s pond. She knew the mechanics now.
Therefore, she would understand what I was about to do with Cassie if she walked in.
Tripping backward, I unwrapped my arms from around Cassie’s waist, dropping her to the floor.
My cock stuck out, glistening and angry beneath my t-shirt hem.
Cassie looked one last time toward the door leading to my room, then hissed with frustration. “She won’t know.”
“That’s not the point.”
She clamped her hands on her hips, looking girlish in her white nightgown with pink flowers and all woman with her puffy lips and tight nipples. “Then what is the point, Ren? Why do you keep stopping this?”
“Stopping what?”
She laughed with a trace of rage. “This! Every time we come close to fucking, you stop. You act all guilty and shy and shut down.” She laughed again. “Do you know how many times I’ve returned to my bed, only to have to make myself come with wanting you? You’re like the prized horse no one is allowed to ride.” She smirked. “Get it? Not allowed to ride…” Her head lowered, brown hair cascading over one eye. “I want to ride you. I want to ride your dick so hard, Ren, and you shoot me down every time.”
Her words and thick invitation sent more blood pumping to my cock.
Normally, I could ignore the punching, clawing desire, but this time, I almost buckled beneath it.
I struggled for a reason we couldn’t do this. Any reason. I wouldn’t tell her I’d jerked off to images of sex too, but she wasn’t the one who starred in my daydreams. Some faceless female always did. Someone blonde and kind who didn’t mind my inexperience.
And the fact that my ideal partner was blonde just ate more chunks away at my soul because how fucking disgusting was I to want an older version of Della.
Not that I wanted an older version of her.
But I liked blonde hair.
And I liked kindness.
And I wanted so fucking much to fuck something, but I didn’t want to support more kids. I had no idea how Cassie had sex with so many men and never once got pregnant.
Maybe she was infertile.
And if she was, she was lucky she was human and not a sheep or cow; otherwise, her usefulness of reproducing would be replaced by the slaughterhouse and she’d end up on someone’s plate.
“Are you going to say something?” She paced in front of me, her breasts high and tempting, her steps short and full of the same urgent wanting I suffered with.
I clenched my hands as the need to squeeze my tortured cock almost overrode my brain. “What about Kevin or Calvin or whatever his name was.”
“Gavin and I broke up.”
My eyebrows rose. “When?”
“Tonight. Bastard was cheating on me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well.” She blew hair out of her eyes. “I wasn’t interested in him anymore anyway.”
“Oh.”
Stagnant desire turned the stables full of festering appetite.
Knowing she was single again shouldn’t add more fever to my already out of control yearning…but it did. I took a step toward her, only to take it back again as her eyes latched onto mine with a cat-like gleam and lick of her lips.
“There you go again,” she moaned. “You want me. I know you do.” Looking over her shoulder toward the door where Della slept, she did something she’d never done before.
I’d seen every part of her but only in glimpses and only with buttons undone or zippers half-mast. I’d never seen her fully naked.
But I saw her now as she tore off her nightgown and stood bare before me.
I swallowed hard, unsuccessfully silencing a desperate groan.
“See, you do want me.” She walked toward me, her hips swaying, breasts bouncing, and wetness glinting on her inner thighs. “Help me forget him, Ren. Just for tonight. You never have to touch me again. Just…please....”
I scrambled backward as another flush of rebellious lust made me so damn hungry I almost forgot how to fight it. “Can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
I shook my head as fast as I could. “You’ll get pregnant.”
She froze. “Wait…what?”
Shit.
Her tone layered me with self-consciousness. I hadn’t meant to say anything. I shouldn’t have said anything.
But Cassie's face lit up and her edginess melted into the kindness I needed. “Is that why you’ve refused me all this time? Refused my friends? Never once tried to fuck me? Oh, wow, you think I’ll get pregnant if we do?”
Her questions could’ve been condescending and cruel, but they weren’t. Cassie was intricate and had two distinct sides. One side was all about her and she could be harsh without thought, yet the other was sweet and doting. And when it was activated, she could be an angel sent from above.
“Wait here.” She scooped her nightgown off the floor, shook away the hay strands, and slipped it back over her head. “Don’t go anywhere. I mean it.” Slipping from the stable, she pointed a finger in my face. “I mean it, Ren. If you vanish, I’m going to tell everyone what a great lay you are and set up a revolving door of women. Won’t that be torture for you?”
She vanished before I could admit that that would be my worst nightmare to have so many delectable beauties and not be allowed to touch a single one.
Not that she would do that…would she?
I had no idea why I stayed in that stable, standing deathly still in the dark and nursing an agonizing erection, but I did.
I didn’t move to put my shorts on.
I didn’t move to return to Della.
No way in hell could I climb into a bed beside her in this state anyway.
I either had to make myself come or think such gruesome thoughts that it went away.
Thanks to Mclary, I had more than enough gruesome thoughts to deflate myself—just a glance at my missing finger or many memories of our living conditions was enough, but before I’d been able to delete a tenth of my lust, soft footsteps sounded on cobbles and Cassie slipped back into the barn.
She didn’t have anything.
She didn’t look any different.
It didn’t mean she was any less confident as she entered the stable with her chin high and nipples still pebbled.
“Come with me.” Taking my hand, she gently led me toward a pile of horse blankets that had been dumped there last winter. Pushing me down, she held out her ha
nd and revealed a tiny silver packet. “I can’t believe you don’t know about these things but…this is called a condom. It stops any sexually transmitted diseases and removes about ninety-five percent of risk of unwanted pregnancies.”
She’d just talked witchcraft, but all I could focus on was the word disease. I didn’t have a clue what sort of diseases you could catch through sex. Maybe it was another version of chicken pox, which I definitely didn’t want.
I managed to keep my mouth shut about that, but I couldn’t about the other fact. I stupidly asked, “Why only ninety-five percent?”
She sighed. “Not sure. I guess if you nick it with your teeth or fingernails or if it’s not held down when you disengage. Who knows? My point is…you can fuck me. No more excuses. I’m actually on the pill, and you’re clean, seeing as I’ll be your first time, but you should learn how to use one of these for the future, and I want to teach you.” She smiled softly. “I’ve enjoyed teaching you over the years.”
I looked away, my mind racing.
Pill and clean and condoms…she spoke a different language. Pill for what? Clean from what? But my brain had relocated to my cock, and it’d just been given a free pass to proceed.
No more fear of pregnancy.
No Della spying in the shadows.
No reason to say no.
Grabbing the hem of her nightgown, Cassie once again switched clothing for nakedness, and I no longer had any arguments not to feast my eyes on her flesh or allow the quaking desire to gather between my legs.
“I want you, Ren,” she murmured. “Do you want me?”
This time, there was no debate.
I nodded, licking my lips and reaching for her from where I sat on the blankets.
“Oh, thank God.” Kneeling before me, not caring about her knees on cold stones, she tore the tiny packet and pulled out something slimy and small. “This is going to feel a little strange, and you can’t come while I put it on because I only brought one, got it?”
I bit my lip as she came closer, doing my best to control my trembling and the bobbing of my overeager cock.
Shifting the condom in her hands, she fisted me and pressed it on my tip.
She was right.
It did feel weird.
Weird good.
Ren and Della: Boxed Set (Ribbon Duet Book 3) Page 24
