Ren and Della: Boxed Set (Ribbon Duet Book 3)

by Pepper Winters

  She sucked in a shallow breath as her eyes once again found mine. Only this time, they were hooded and darker, older and dangerous.

  The invitation.

  The truth.

  Shit.

  It was pure fucking hunger and it tore out my insides with how deeply she was starving.

  For me? For sex? For anyone willing to offer pleasure?

  I stepped back, combating the heavy pull to go to her, to touch her, to do things I never dared—

  Knock, knock, knock.

  The moment shattered as someone’s fist announced guests waited outside our front door.

  Della wobbled, blinking as if she’d transported far away and slammed back into reality.

  I exhaled hard, dragging a hand over my face and turning my back on her.

  What the fuck was that?

  What had happened?

  And whose fault was it? Mine or hers?

  The swish of Della’s skirts was the only noise as she bypassed the couch and headed to open the front door.

  “Hi,” she said, her voice breathy and papery, matching the shivery sensation left in my spine.

  I needed to sit down. I needed to figure out what the hell happened and how to prevent it from happening again.

  Turning around slowly, I ordered my body to behave as I glanced at the arrivals.

  “Hi, yourself,” a girl piped up dressed in another Victorian gown—hers in reds and blacks. Compared to Della, she was positively garish while Della was a powder blue angel tempting me straight to fucking hell.

  The girl’s gaze slipped from Della to me standing furious and dazed in the middle of the living room. She did a double take, her entire body slipping into sensual solicitation. “And hi to you too, handsome.” She blew me a kiss, making Della freeze with a frosty glare. “Della didn’t say how hot her older brother was.”

  I supposed I should be flattered, but all I felt was empty. She was so juvenile. So transparent and shallow and young.

  Shit, she was Della’s age, yet I’d never thought of Della sexually—

  You did tonight.

  You wondered…

  My heart skipped a beat, remembering what happened between us before the knock. I was grateful for the interruption. Thankful that I’d been reminded of who Della belonged with and what my role in her life ought to be.

  “Hello.” I nodded politely, clearing my throat, eradicating any sin I might have committed.

  Jamming both hands into my pockets, it was my turn to glower with hatred as another person entered my home.

  Tom.

  The boy from the diner.

  Della instantly stiffened, flicking me a look before allowing herself to be gathered in a hug from the boy I struggled not to hate. She refused to meet my eyes as he kissed her cheek and wolf whistled under his breath. “Holy crap, you’re gorgeous.”

  My hands turned into fists in my pockets.

  She blushed. “Thanks.”

  “Are you ready?” Tom glanced at me.

  My jaw clenched.

  It never occurred to me that they might be an item.

  That she might be dating already, right beneath my nose.

  Della nodded. “Yep. Oh, almost forgot.” Darting to the coffee table, she scooped up a little pearl bag and looped it over her wrist. Speaking to me, she said, “I have my phone and some cash. I can get an Uber or something home. You won’t be able to pick me up on the motorbike in this dress.”

  I didn’t trust myself to talk.

  I wanted to ensure she knew the curfew and my many, many rules, but my voice refused to work. It was still a gravelly mess with things I never wanted Della to know. Things I didn’t want to know.

  “Ren?” she murmured, coming closer to me. “Everything okay?”

  I nodded stiffly, stumbling back. I honestly didn’t know what I’d do if she touched me. “Go. Have fun.”

  Even though I wanted to lock her in her room and ban Tom from ever seeing her again, I almost pushed her out the door so I could breathe again.

  “Okay…” Her eyes danced over my face, a sliver of hurt hiding in them before she smiled, and it vanished. “My offer still stands. You were invited, you know. I don’t know if you were listening a few nights ago when I told you about the party, but everyone is welcome.”

  Fuck, everyone?

  “You mean…this isn’t just school kids going?”

  Tom grinned, self-important and making my life a lot more difficult by not punching him. “Nah, man. It’s a frat party. Local uni is putting it on. There’ll be booze and stuff, but I won’t let Della have any. I promise.”

  My ears rang.

  My temper slipped into an ice-cold single-mindedness.

  “You’re not going.” I narrowed my eyes at Della. “No way.”

  I’d never been to a party as a guest, but I’d been to enough of the dregs when collecting Cassie on those nights she’d snuck out and called me for a ride home. Della had accompanied me enough to understand why this was non-negotiable.

  The amount of used condoms and spewing kids. The reek of sex and trouble.

  No. Fucking. Way.

  I crossed my arms as Della looked back once at her friends then swooped toward me. Her perfume of something light and floral invaded my nose, her body heat made me sick with want, and her breath against my neck as she hissed into my ear made my knees almost buckle.

  I hadn’t expected her closeness or her fight, and my silence gave her the perfect battlefield to destroy me.

  “Don’t mess this up for me, Ren. I’m not asking this time. I’m going to this party, and you have my word I will behave. I won’t drink, and I won’t fool around, but this is my life. These are my friends, and I want to hang out with them.”

  Everything she said was for my ears only.

  The two strangers lingered by the door, giving us a confused glance.

  Della pulled away but not before I lashed out and grabbed her wrist.

  She gasped, her eyes dropping to where I held her, her soft inhale ripping through my defences and making my fingers squeeze against my command.

  I clutched her hard, unable to let go even though everything inside screamed to back the hell off. “Don’t threaten me, Della.”

  Her eyes widened then hooded to that sultry stare I had no power against. “I’m not threatening you. I’m telling you what’s going to happen. Come if you want. I want you to. If only to get out of the apartment and live a little.”

  “You know I don’t like crowds.”

  “Well, stay then.”

  “You know I can’t. Not now.”

  “Because you don’t trust me.” Her tongue licked her bottom lip as once again my fingers squeezed her wrist in reprimand. The feel of her tiny bones. The rush of blood in her veins. The electricity infecting both of us that wasn’t there before.

  Fierce.

  Forbidden.

  Off-limits.

  She shivered, leaning closer.

  It took everything I had, but I released her and stepped back, rubbing my fingertips from the residual burn from touching her. “Because I don’t trust them.”

  Or myself.

  “Fine.” She stood tall and any hint of being affected by our whispered conversation disappeared. “Come then. I’ll see you there. It’s the house four blocks away toward the campus. Follow the music and pumpkins.”

  Without another word, she grabbed Tom’s hand, smiled at the girl, then dragged them out the door, closing it with a slam.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  DELLA

  * * * * * *

  Present Day

  AH, DATING.

  So much fun, right?

  Wrong.

  The minute I met Tom in line at a local McDonald’s of all places while I did English homework with Tina, I’d been rather smitten.

  He went to a school not far from ours and regularly used our school’s facilities like the basketball court and track as part of the physical education offered.


  To be honest, the first thing that attracted me to Tom was his sable hair—almost the exact same colour as Ren’s in autumn just before winter made it dark and summer made it bronze.

  Instead of Ren’s dark soul-deep eyes, Tom’s were a startling green. Instead of Ren’s well-honed and work-hard muscles, Tom’s was gym perfected on a body still growing into manhood.

  But despite his youth, Tom was cute. And compared to Ren’s fine lines around his eyes and the aura of impatience and intolerance that came from hating people and growing up with the loner deep inside him, Tom was different enough to remind me I wasn’t dating him to replicate my fantasies of being with Ren, but he was similar enough to ease that ache in my heart.

  Sick, I know.

  Twisted, I agree.

  But…I always warned you I wasn’t a nice person. That the more I followed this road, the worse I became.

  I mean, most of the fights between Ren and me were my fault.

  Shocker, right?

  I know, I know, not a shock at all.

  Most of the days that were full of tension and miscommunication were because those days…I couldn’t hide how I felt about him, and instead of blurting out that I was madly in love with him, I made him think I couldn’t stand him.

  And those were the nights I fell asleep torturing myself with imaginings of what it would be like to share my first real kiss with him and be touched in places no one had touched and have him climb on top and—

  Anyway, back to Tom…

  He was sweet. There isn’t much more to say.

  I suppose, while I’m at it, I’ll confess everything else I did wrong while Tom was in my life. I was cruel to him because I knew he liked me more than I could ever like him. Not that I could ever tell him why. When he texted me pages of ardent affection and how much he missed me when we weren’t together, I focused on giving him something I could all while hiding the bits that I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t give him my heart.

  But I could give him my body.

  But even in that way, I used him again because my physical desires…well, Ren had nailed it when he accused me of being an animal wanting to get laid.

  I wasn’t quite ready for sex, but holy cow, I was ready for something.

  Just a kiss, a touch, a fumble in the dark.

  I’d been ready for months, but something had held me back.

  Ren.

  Of course, it was Ren, but not in the way you’d expect.

  His blurted, extremely surprising honesty that he hadn’t slept with Cassie until he was nineteen had effectively dampened my libido.

  I honestly thought he’d been screwing her for years as I slept stupidly in the room next to the barn. The looks they’d shared. The kisses they’d stolen—it all hinted at full blown sex.

  So how had he waited so long?

  Why had he waited so long?

  And just how the hell was I supposed to do the same?

  Look, I’m getting ahead of myself again, and there’s a reason I’m going to reveal exactly what happened that first Halloween.

  It was the first stepping stone to Ren walking out, and I think I’d always known it. I’d known it, and even though it lurked like a shadow between us from that moment on, I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

  You see…I used Tom to hurt Ren.

  Another terrible confession.

  What seven deadly sins does that fit into?

  I’m too brain-dead and emotionally exhausted to figure it out.

  Adultery perhaps? Even though Ren and I had nothing to cheat on.

  I was single. He was single. And I was ready to live a little, even if living meant existing in constant pain. Even if it meant seething in jealousy when Tina hit on him. Even if it meant, eventually, I’d have to smile away my heartache when Ren found someone else.

  God, I never thought I’d be so tired writing this. I didn’t think memories had such a power to strangle and soothe at the same time. All I want to do is delete this and go to bed. To forget I ever started this tale and spend the last few days before my assignment is due writing something I can actually hand in.

  But I also can’t end here.

  I’m so close.

  Just a few more chapters…and then, well, then I can rest, and perhaps the past won’t haunt me so much.

  Are you ready?

  Ready for more terrible Della?

  I’m not, but let’s see if I can remember exactly what happened that night.

  Some of it is a blur, and it’s not like you need to know it anyway.

  The typical party stuff.

  I arrived with Tina and Tom, dressed to my eyeballs in glitter and powder and two-hundred dollar Victorian gowns, wanting desperately to feel older and wiser and irresistible to someone, and realising that no matter how much cleavage I might have or how fluttery my eyelashes were or how I stared and licked my lips, Ren was immune to me.

  If anything, he just got mad and made me feel even more of a fraud than I already was.

  At least, Tom seemed to love my effort, and his hands never strayed from touching me, appeasing my jealousy over Tina’s constant whispering about how gorgeous Ren was and if he was available.

  I tried to ignore her. I wanted to tell her he was a monk or someone who despised being touched. I threw myself into Tom’s attention and encouraged his hands to rest in the small of my back and linger on my waist.

  I should’ve shivered at having him touch me in places that sent goosebumps leaping over my skin, but all I could think about was how Ren had snatched my wrist and held it so tight and unforgiving, leaving a circlet of his fingers for minutes after he’d let me go.

  Tom was so tame compared to Ren, and that taboo, forbidden factor just wasn’t there, either.

  Perhaps I’d become addicted to the fact that I couldn’t have Ren more than the actual reality that we weren’t actually compatible.

  Ha!

  Even now, that lie doesn’t work. I tried to convince myself that if Ren was my age and available, I wouldn’t truly want him. That I’d find him boorish with his rules and stuffy with his diligence.

  But yep… it doesn’t work.

  I didn’t want Ren because I couldn’t have him.

  I wanted Ren because he was everything that made me appreciate, adore, and burn for. He was utterly perfect from his snappish temper to his doting devotion, and yep…I’m back on the crazy torment-myself-with-falling-all-over-again-for-the-boy-who-left-me train.

  God, I’m crying.

  Why am I crying?

  This…ugh!

  No!

  I haven’t cried since the day he left. I didn’t let myself and now…now I can’t stop.

  I…I can’t do this.

  I need a break—

  * * * * *

  Sorry.

  Jeez, I seem to be apologising to an assignment a lot.

  I couldn’t finish yesterday. Not unless I wanted to drown my laptop in tears and have to buy another one. It seemed I had a weak day, made worse by a brain that refused to stop thinking about Ren, Ren, Ren.

  You know? Some days, I literally do hate him. I hate his damn guts. Those days, I feel somewhat normal and can honestly say I don’t want him to come back. Leaving was probably the best thing he could’ve done for me.

  Because I now have no choice but to get over this stupid infatuation and move on.

  But other days that hate transforms back into love and, holy ouch, it fills up my heart until it bursts with need, infecting my entire body until I feel as if I have the flu.

  Funny, huh?

  The love flu.

  Stupid man has made me eternally sick, and there is nothing I can do.

  Right, enough feeling sorry for myself.

  Today, I’m determined to tell you about Halloween.

  Where was I? Let me just skim over what I wrote yesterday and try not to roll my eyes at the patheticness of unrequited love.

  …

  Ah yes, okay, the party.

&nb
sp; We arrived.

  Tom got me some punch that unfortunately was alcohol free, and Tina and I bounced around in our skirts and fanned our pretty fans, enjoying the stares of young students and wiser university goers, steadily growing more and more silly as the night went on.

  For an hour, I refused to let myself think about Ren.

  I pretended I didn’t care if he didn’t come. I spun and laughed and flirted all for me, not to get back at him. So it killed me to realise how fake I turned out to be because I knew the moment he arrived.

  My skin prickled. My heartbeat quickened. And everything inside me slipped from chaos to calm.

  In the middle of a manic Halloween party filled with Frankensteins and vampires and zombies, I knew the second the matching piece of my heart arrived.

  Sad right?

  Poetic?

  Star-crossed?

  Screwed up?

  Probably all the above.

  But probably not as screwed up as the next part.

  You see, I knew the second Ren arrived, and instead of going to him, being a good hostess, and smoothing over the troubled waters between us, I grabbed Tom and clutched him close.

  We slow danced with werewolves and fairies, and when he gathered me closer, I mewled in invitation, and when he grinded his hips against me, I gasped in appreciation, and when his head lowered, and his eyes sought mine, and his lips crashed down, I dove my fingers into his messy sable hair and threw away all the decency and morality left inside me.

  I became a husk. A chewed-up disgusting person who willingly kissed a boy all the while pretending it was someone else.

  And by pretending it was someone else, I kissed harder, deeper, sexier than I ever had before. My first real kiss, and it was with a ghost of the boy I truly wanted.

  I let go. I lived my fantasy.

  I clawed at his hair, I tangled my tongue with his, and I fell so deeply in love with my illusion that when I opened my eyes and snuggled into his chest, I breathed the wrong name.

  “Ren,” I moaned with my body aching and breasts swelling and wetness gathering.

  And Tom had pulled me away with a terrified look in his green gaze. We’d stood motionless on the dance floor while others swirled around us as he stared into my ripped apart secret and knew.