Liam placed his hand in mine, and we shook hard. Still touching, we brought our heads together while our naked bodies stayed put.
He puckered his lips.
I copied.
He sucked in a breath.
I copied.
Our lips met in a flurry of pressure.
It was over.
It’d been the same sort of kiss Ren had given me time and time again. There were no secrets, no answers, no wisdom to be found.
“Again?” I asked, tugging him forward, bitterly disappointed but determined not to stop until I understood why others seemed to enjoy it so much.
“Ugh, you said only one.” Liam exhaled, yanking his hand back. “This sucks.”
“One more and then you can go.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.” I drew an X on my flat chest.
“Fine.” He leaned toward me, looking bored.
I leaned toward him, trembling eagerly.
And just as our mouths met a second time, our little experiment was shattered.
“Liam! Della! What on earth do you think you two are doing!?”
Liam squealed and took off.
And all I could do was turn around and stare at Patricia Wilson’s sandal-covered feet, naked as the day I was born and still just as lost.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
REN
* * * * * *
2008
“DO YOU WANT me to talk to her?”
I hugged myself against what Patricia Wilson just told me. “No. I can deal with it.”
How, I had no clue?
I had a mind to spank her. To pull her dress up like she’d done today and smack her bare backside until she understood that being naked around boys was never going to be an option for her.
I groaned under my breath, rubbing my face and trying to rid the images Patricia had put there.
Liam and Della.
Naked under the willow tree.
Kissing.
Goddammit, how the hell did I deal with this? She was eight, for God’s sake, not eighteen. It had never crossed my mind that she would be like me and start seeking answers to her feelings inside. I’d been older than her when my first urges appeared, and I’d had the benefit of already knowing that two animals climbing on top of one another equalled a baby a few months later.
I knew that lesson so well, it was the main reason I hadn’t let Cassie tempt me any further than fingers and tongues.
I did not want a baby.
I already had one.
And I’d ruined her by keeping information away from her.
Keeping my eyes downcast, I mumbled, “They didn’t…have sex, did they?” I winced, already dreading her answer. The thought of someone touching Della, even if it was Liam, made things inside me hiss and howl.
Did that mean Della was pregnant just like the Mclary’s ewes after one visit with his ram? And if she was, how the hell would we deal with this? How the hell would I get over the sick feeling inside?
“No, nothing like that. It was just kids being kids.” Patricia shook her head, clutching a tea towel stained with berry juice from making jam. “They’re curious, and it’s my fault that I left the talk with Liam so long. I’ll sit him down tonight and make sure he understands everything about sex and body parts and make sure it never happens again.”
The minute I’d come in from the fields, Patricia had asked me to share a cup of coffee with urgent things to discuss.
I’d wanted to refuse.
It’d been a long day, and I suffered a little of heatstroke and wanted shade, cold water, and quiet in that order.
But now, Della had screwed up my plans by being as loose as Cassie was.
Perhaps, I better pack a bag right now and leave.
If Cassie’s tendencies were rubbing off on Della, no way would we stay here. No way would I stand by and let her open her legs for the local boys and riff-raff in this town.
No fucking way.
My nostrils flared as my temper grew hotter.
The thought of it.
The images.
God—
Patricia noticed, standing up and moving into the sugary-smelling kitchen. “It’s not the end of the world, Ren, and I’ll gladly talk to Della as well as Liam. I’ve got a book with illustrations. I’m not embarrassed to answer any questions she might have.”
My heart pounded.
A book?
I still couldn’t read very well.
How the hell was I supposed to teach Della from a book?
As much as the thought of talking to her petrified me—worse than any farm incident or even a Social Services visit—I couldn’t allow myself to pass the responsibility onto Patricia.
Della was my problem.
I’d deal with her.
“Like I said, I’ll take care of it.” Stalking toward the back door, my hand barely wrapped around the handle before Patricia said, “Be gentle on her, Ren. She’s not being naughty. She’s being a young girl transforming into a woman.”
Great. All the things I’m not equipped to deal with.
Moving toward an overflowing bookcase by the fireplace, Patricia pulled a book free with a title in green and a man and woman smiling on the cover. “This is the book and has graphic pictures and explanations.” She practically had to force it into my hand, patting my knuckles as she moved away. “She wants to know what her body is going through. She needs to be prepared for when her breasts start growing and pubic hair starts appearing and periods start hurting.”
“Right.” I wrenched open the door, desperate to get away from words like periods and pubic.
I’d only just recently found out about periods myself thanks to Cassie turning into a dragon at certain times of the month. At first, I had no clue why she was such a bitch, but she wasn’t afraid to discuss what happened to her body or the by-product of not getting pregnant every month.
I knew animals came into season, but I’d never seen them bleed if they weren’t mated.
Frankly, humans grossed me out, and I didn’t want to know any more about it.
“Send her to me if it gets too much!” Patricia called after me as I jogged across the driveway to the barn and our one bedroom.
I waved once as I disappeared into the hay-scented building and prepared to do something I was woefully unprepared to do.
* * * * *
I found her curled up on the bed, her back against the headboard, her arms wrapped around her legs, her dress wrapped tight and tucked into her feet, and her face buried against her knees.
Her whole posture screamed ‘leave me alone’, and that was exactly what I wanted to do, but I had a job, and I couldn’t rest until I’d done it.
She looked so young.
Far too young for what she’d done.
But she was the same age as the girls that Mclary would abuse.
The same age to know that her body was fragile when a man wanted it for his own pleasure.
The same age to be protected at all costs.
Images of her naked and kissing Liam exploded back into my head, and my temper that’d been steadily simmering overflowed.
Marching forward, I growled. “What the hell were you thinking, Della?”
She burrowed deeper into her dress-wrapped knees, not replying.
Tossing the book onto the covers beside her, I paced at the end of the bed. “Do you have any idea what you could’ve done? Do you know what happens when a man takes from a girl? Do you know how badly you could’ve been hurt? What are you trying to do? Give me a goddamn heart attack? You’re a kid! You don’t need to know about sex or babies or—”
Her head popped up, tears staining her face and matching anger red on her cheeks. “I’m not a kid. I’m eight years old. I do want to know about babies and kissing and—”
“You know what kissing is. We kiss all the time.” I breathed hard, trying to get myself in check. “Kissing is a way to show love for each—”
>
“But you don’t love Cassie, and you kiss her more than you kiss me. You kiss her with your tongue!”
My jaw dropped. “When have you seen me do that?”
I’d been so fucking careful.
I’d made sure Cassie never surprised me around Della. If Cassie kissed me in front of her, it was simple and innocent and exactly like what Della was used to from me and Patricia; hell, even Cassie kissed her.
“I’m not stupid. I know if I wake up sometimes and you’re not here that you’re off kissing her. I know where to find you. It’s not hard. I’ve seen you touch her…” She gulped. “You know…down there. I’ve seen her kiss you…down there. I’ve seen so many things, and the kids at school tried to explain it to me but no one seems to know and it’s making me so mad not to know and I’m sad that I’m stupid and I’m angry that you don’t want to tell me and now I’m wondering if you actually love her more than you love me because you let her kiss you in more places and it hurts so much and I’m so confused—” Her rush with no punctuation or pauses ended as she burst into tears, wedging her face back into the wet patch already on her dress.
My temper switched from bubbling volcano to vast ocean full of condemnation and litres of painful guilt.
I exhaled slowly, letting the rage in the room seep through the door and cracks in the window until the only sounds were from my pounding heart and Della’s soft crying.
Perching awkwardly on the edge of the bed, I picked up the book and stroked the smiling faces of the cover. “I’m sorry.”
She hiccupped, her tears still loud.
I tried again. She deserved it.
Patricia was right.
I should’ve been gentler.
This wasn’t her fault.
I’d done this by sneaking off whenever my libido got the best of me and not thinking she wouldn’t notice.
“Little Ribbon…” I waited until she raised her head just enough for her red-rimmed eyes to meet mine. The moment she sniffed and stared at me, I let go of the aching fear I’d carried since hearing about her putting herself in harm’s way. I let her see just how much I cared and just how angry I was that I wasn’t prepared for her to grow up just yet.
I wanted to keep her for as long as I could, and now I’d been slapped in the face with the reality.
She wasn’t a little girl anymore.
And I couldn’t shelter her without serious consequences.
She had to know about sex, if only to protect her from men like her father.
“Can you forgive me?” I whispered. “And you’re wrong about me loving Cassie more than I love you. No one will ever come close. You have my heart. You know that, and it kills me to hear you doubt it.”
In a scramble of pink and purple splashes, she kicked away her dress and launched herself across the bed and into my arms.
Her weight was solid and warm and familiar, and it took everything inside not to give in to the wet ache to grieve over everything I was losing by saying goodbye to the kid I’d raised through impossibilities and miracles.
I kissed her hair, inhaling her scent; clutching her so tight, she squirmed for air but made no move to get away.
I wanted to smother her in hugs if it meant I could buy a few more innocent years, but when she finally sat up and her gaze fell on the book in my hands, I knew my time was up.
I felt the acres of distance that would slowly grow bigger and bigger between us as she read the title as easy as breathing and revealed that my sacrifices had been worth it.
“The Business of Babies and Everything in Between.” Her voice cut me deep because I’d refused to hear it until now—underneath the childish tone hinted a rich depth that would rival any woman’s.
Husky and melodic with just enough sweet and sour to drive boys insane.
And she could read.
Better than I could at half my age.
She could understand.
Better than me at any age.
She wasn’t just my equal anymore, she was my shooting star, sending her far out of my reach.
Keeping my arm around her tiny waist, I cleared away the heartache in my voice and smiled with all the light-hearted lies I could manage. “You want answers. Let’s get answers.”
She looked up. “Truly?”
“Truly.” Opening the cover, I schooled myself not to flinch against the first graphic image. A penis with muscles and tubes and scientific sketches but still a penis and something far too crude for her eyes. Clearing my throat again, I said carefully, “Well, this…is a penis. And…um, you already know that, eh, I have one and…um, you don’t.”
My head ached with pressure and embarrassment. “You have a, eh…vagina. And it will get hair on it one day like…um…my penis did…remember? You asked why I had hair between my legs and on my face?”
She soaked it in, her cheeks pink, but her eyes alive and desperate for more. “Okay.” She turned the page, reading aloud, “Males have penises that grow hard with blood in order to have int—inter—” She looked up, meeting my tortured gaze. “What’s that word, Ren?”
My entire body flushed with humiliation.
I couldn’t tell her that if she couldn’t read it, there was no way in hell I could. The word was nothing but jumbled up letters.
Instead, I flicked to the next page where the sketches of a woman’s vagina gave way to a detailed drawing of a penis inside it.
“I think they mean sex.”
“Sex…” She rolled the word slowly on her tongue. “Ssseeeeeexxxxx.” She insisted on making me suffer by asking, “What exactly is sex?”
I looked at the ceiling, wishing something up there would swap places with me, and this terrible evening could be over with.
I wanted to stutter. I wanted to stall. But I gulped deep and said quickly, “Sex is when a male animal puts his penis in a female animal. His hips thrust a little and then he comes and the stuff he releases makes a baby in the female, and she gives birth a few months later.”
I dreaded how uninformative that was and how many questions I was about to receive.
“Is there squirms in the stuff?” she asked, deadly serious.
“Squirms?”
“At school, a boy said his mum told him that squirms make eggs turn into babies that are delivered by birds.”
I groaned under my breath. “Sex has nothing to do with birds.”
“Bees?” Her eyebrows rose.
“Bees, either.”
“So all it is, is a man putting his worm into a woman’s pee place?”
I hunched into myself. Hell, this was my worst moment so far. “Something like that.”
She bit her lip, chewing over my terrible answers, obviously finding me lacking in the professor position. It wasn’t like I had personal experience yet. This was all theory and barnyard knowledge, and I was failing…drastically.
A few minutes passed while she read the book, flicking a few pages to more graphic images of a man on top of a woman and her hands on his ass.
My own body reacted, and I unwrapped my arm from around Della, putting some distance between us.
She didn’t notice, far too absorbed in her new friend.
“Ah! It’s not squirms, it’s sperms!” She tapped a line of text that looked like gibberish. “See, here? Men have sperms, and they swim like tadpoles up a woman’s something after he’s been on top of her.”
“Awesome.” I strangled, standing up and pacing again, anything to stop the sudden shyness about discussing this sort of stuff with her.
“Ren?”
I stopped, daring to look at her. “Yeah…?”
“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 conju
re 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.