‘You are so completely and utterly yourself in a time when most people are so busy trying to be someone, they don’t know who they are,’ I told him, practically yelling across the room. ‘You couldn’t be anyone else if you tried and when I’m with you, I feel like anything is possible, whether I’m jumping into a waterfall or hiking up a mountain or chasing you out of a party and standing in your bedroom to tell you how I feel.’ I paused to swallow down my emotions,my voice cracking. ‘I have felt so worthless for so long but when I’m with you, I feel like I’m enough.’
The room was full of shadows, muted shades of black and grey and blue, but the bedside lamp etched out his face in a warm orange glow and when he lifted his head I couldn’t read the look on his face.
‘You,’ Ren said. ‘Are more than enough.’
His voice was torn at the edges and the rough finish made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. He moved around the bed at an excruciatingly slow pace until the distance between us had melted away, the unmistakable smell of him mixing with the light, flowery perfume I’d borrowed from Myrna, turning the bedroom into a forest, a mountain. A waterfall.
‘The first night we met, I couldn’t sleep.’ He inched closer towards me until his words existed only in my ear, a secret between the two of us. ‘You were so funny and smart and quick, but I figured I’d blown it. Lecturing you about birds when all I wanted to do was kiss you.’
It was everything I could do to stay standing, my breath fast and shallow as his hand curled around mine.
‘When you invited me over, I thought maybe I had another chance, but all you wanted to do was set me up with your friend, then you gave me the letter and it was like you’d made my choice for me. You didn’t want me but someone else did. Someone who wrote the most beautiful words I’d ever read. I wanted to believe I could inspire those feelings in someone because I have been waiting my whole life to feel that way about someone.’
‘They were the easiest words I’ve ever written,’ I said, inhaling sharply as he slid his hand up my arm.
‘Jesus, Phoebe, what happened to you?’ He examined my cuts and scratches with genuine concern that only made me want him all the more. ‘Did you wrestle a coyote on the way over?’
‘I lost a fight with a rose bush when I was rescuing this.’ I gave him the second letter, pressing it into the palm of his hand. I knew he would keep it safe this time. ‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt.’
A truth and a lie. It did hurt but I couldn’t feel anything but him.
Ren took the letter across to a dresser pushed up against the wall and opened a glossy wooden box that sat on top, stowing it safely next to its predecessor.
‘When I read the first letter, I heard your voice in my head,’ he said, closing it carefully. ‘I told myself it was only because you were there, standing in front of me, but I should have known. I should have said something. There were moments when I almost did.’
‘When I brought Myrna to visit,’ I said. ‘At the waterfall.’
‘And the game,’ he added. ‘You can lie to yourself about a lot of things, but you can’t lie to yourself about a kiss.’
He raised my forearm to his mouth and gently touched his lips to the tender skin, trailing up my arm, onto my shoulder, up my neck.
‘I don’t want to lie any more,’ I told him as I leaned into the kisses, allowing myself to melt against his warm, solid body. Allowing myself to let go. With one hand curled around the back of my neck and the other travelling down to the small of my back, he held me close.
‘Tell me what you do want,’ Ren commanded. ‘I won’t do anything unless you ask me to.’
The promise of what might happen next was almost too much. For so long, my body and my self had been two separate entities and I’d forgotten how to connect the dots, but with his arms around me, safe and warm and protected, I knew there was no need to make this part difficult.
‘I want you to kiss me,’ I replied.
A slow, gratified smile spread across Ren’s face and he nodded just once before his mouth pressed against mine. It was hot and hungry, too desperate to tease me with gentle touches, and I responded in kind. A sharp, delighted gasp escaped from my lips as he pushed me back against the bedroom wall, the sudden shock of it cutting through to the bone, the urgency of his body on mine. It was electric.
‘Like this?’ he asked, his hands cupping my face as my hair worked its way loose, falling in my eyes and around my shoulders.
‘Exactly like that.’
My lips found his again, my mouth opening to his tongue, and I came undone. I tore at his shirt, clawing at the buttons as he pulled at the straps of my dress, both of us ignoring the sound of ripping fabric, neither of us sure what had been destroyed. I couldn’t speak for him but I didn’t care. I would have torn the entire house apart with my bare hands to get to him in that moment. The delicate, kindling chemistry between us caught fire, roaring into existence and consuming me in white-hot flames, scorching with enough heat to burn down the whole world.
His hands travelled down my body and I surrendered to the sensations, new and unfamiliar, that threatenedto take me. Heady, strong, dark desire, the absolute and undeniable need to be consumed by this man in whatever way he pleased. It was a want I didn’t recognize but I knew it was my own. I’d hidden myself away in a snarl of thorns for too long, scratching anyone who came too close. Only the thorns didn’t only hurt those on the outside. They pricked me every time I tried to move, keeping me safe and keeping me still. But Ren moved through them easily as though he’d always known the way.
‘I want this off,’ he gasped into my neck as he spun me around roughly and began working on the buttons that held the delicate silk to my body. ‘Congratulations on choosing the most complicated dress in America.’
Pressing my hands against the wall, I braced myself, surprised by the sound of my own laugh. ‘Myrna chose it,’ I said, breathless and aching. ‘So you’d think it would be the complete opposite.’
‘It’s a designer chastity belt,’ Ren replied as I pawed at the complicated straps, trying to remember how to unhook them. I had never hated a piece of clothing more.
‘Shred it,’ I ordered. ‘Tear it to pieces.’
‘It’s too beautiful,’ he argued. He gave up on the buttons and rained kisses across my back instead. ‘I’ll work around it, we already destroyed my shirt.’
