My heart raced. I didn’t know if I was wet enough for everything standing in front of me, but I’d fooled around before and had definitely never felt this hot or horny or excited. “I need to feel you inside me.”
“Lake . . .” I could see his instincts warring. If his guilt won out, I’d die on the spot, either of embarrassment or sexual frustration, I was sure of it.
“It’s okay, Manning,” I said, a little more timidly than I meant. “You can fuck me.”
He closed his eyes, frowning as if the words hurt him, but it only lasted a second. With a flare of his nostrils, he grabbed my ankle and pulled me back down the bed. My sweater rode up to my waist, and he impatiently yanked off my jeans without even bothering with the fly.
He climbed over me, spreading my legs with his knees. “You know what you’re asking for, Birdy?”
I didn’t. I’d never been fucked. I’d never been made love to, either. But I was afraid if I told Manning the truth, he’d only see that sixteen-year-old girl in front of him and talk himself out of this. I was a virgin, and I was scared, but more than that, I wanted to feel every moment of this, to give us both everything we needed. So I bit my bottom lip and said, “Yes.”
I barely had time to appreciate the expanse of his chest before he was fully on top of me, his hands inside my sweater, his length against me, this time with only the thin layer of my underwear between us. I was dying to touch him, to take in everything that was happening, but things moved fast. Where did I put my hands? Did he want me to be loud, quiet, rough, gentle? What did he like?
Reading my hesitation, he said into my mouth. “You can touch me. I’m completely yours.”
“Where?”
“Any-fucking-place you want.” He cupped the back of my head in one hand and lifted my butt with the other. “Don’t you know how crazy you make me? You never understood.”
“I did,” I said.
“No you didn’t. Whatever torment you thought I endured, times that by a hundred. I wanted so bad to just . . .” From behind, he pushed aside my underwear and rubbed between my legs. Only then did I really feel how wet I was. His fingers slipped over me and then inside me, and I arched my back with a sudden gasp.
“I want to see you do that every day until I die,” he grated out.
Forever. He was completely mine, he’d said, and I was his. Emboldened, I placed my hands on his shoulders and held on as he touched me for the first time. His tenderness surprised me after years of suppressing his desires, but as I looked into his eyes, I read the heat there—the same suppressed fervor I’d seen in the foyer years ago. I didn’t want him to hold back anymore. “I’m ready,” I said.
“So am I,” he murmured. “I could spend the day exploring every inch of you, Lake.” He took my panties off all the way. “But before I do, I want to feel you in a way I’ve denied us for so long.”
My heart skipped. I wasn’t yet used to this side of him, the one who gave me what I asked for. Manning and I were about to have sex. Manning. Me. Sex. I had wanted it so desperately for so long—did I know what I was asking for? “Now?” I asked.
“Yes, now. You want to wait another six years?”
I tried to catch my breath. I needed to relax. This was Manning, not some guy I’d picked up at a bar. That didn’t help, though, because this was Manning. He could hurt me in so many ways, physically the least of them.
I spread my legs wider as he adjusted his hips and began to enter me. I lost my breath and didn’t hear anything he said after that. The pain was real. Everything wonderful about the moment for which I’d waited so long was reduced to the pressure between my legs, the feeling of being stretched wider than I was supposed to.
“Fuck,” he breathed, pulling up my top, exposing my bra to kiss my chest. “Are you okay?”
I couldn’t speak, so I nodded hard and focused on the weight of what we were doing—and Manning, real and solid on top of me. I dropped a hand onto the feather comforter, satisfied with the way it compressed in my fist. For years, all he’d done was hold back. I wanted him unbridled. I wanted him as hard and as fast as he wanted to give it to me.
“You’re so . . . Jesus Christ, you’re tight,” he said, sounding almost surprised as he slid partway out and pushed back in.
Why, if it hurt, did I want him to do that again? And again and again? His most exquisite agony felt better than any other touch I’d received. “Please, Manning,” I said. “Just do it.”
“Do what?”
Take my virginity. “I want you all the way in, right now,” I said, pulling on his hips.
He looked between us. “You’re ready for me, but you’re really fucking tight, Lake. I’ve never felt anything like it. If I thrust, it’ll hurt.”
After all the times I’d claimed to be a grownup, I couldn’t stand the thought that Manning might see me as a child. I looked into his eyes, thumbing the tiny scar on his lip. “I want all of you. Now. I can take it. Haven’t I waited long enough?”
“Look at you.” He kissed me. “You’re so fucking beautiful. So sexy,” he breathed into my mouth. “Relax for me and know that you are giving me the world right now.”
With his reassurances, I released the tension in my legs, opening wider for him. It wasn’t enough to make it feel good, but when he looked me in the face, his brows furrowing with his own pain or ecstasy, my world opened up as well. No matter what, I’d never stopped loving him for a second. “Please,” I whispered.
Manning kept his eyes on mine and thrust deep, ripping me open. “Oh my God,” I cried as a searing pain burnt a path all the way to my scalp.
“What? What happened?” Manning’s voice sounded distant. “Lake?”
It took me a moment to realize I was squeezing my eyes shut, one hand tearing at the bedspread while I nearly drew blood from his back with the other. He pulled away, but I scrambled to keep him there. “Wait.” I blinked his beautiful face into focus. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Keep going.”
“You’re sorry?” he asked, incredulous, his forehead wrinkling. “What was that? You’re stiff as a board.” He took my chin, forcing my eyes to meet his. “Tell me what . . .”
My heart pounded so hard, there was no way he didn’t feel it against his chest. I hung on to him, trying to quell my queasiness. Realization dawned in his expression the same moment I opened my mouth. “I’m . . .” I started. “I’ve never . . .”
“Shit.” He pushed up. “Shit, Lake.”
“No,” I said, trying to bring him back on top of me. “I don’t want you to stop.”
He got off the bed, going pale as he looked at the sheet and then down at himself. “You’re bleeding. You’re fucking bleeding.” He paced the room. “Oh, God.”
“I-I’m sorry. I just wanted it to be perfect.” Things had moved so fast. I didn’t care—I didn’t want to slow down. All my friends had lost their virginity in high school. I was the only one who’d held out and for what? At twenty-two, I still felt exposed and childish. I pulled the sheet around myself and sat up. “Please don’t go,” I said, hiccupping. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“Stay right there,” he said, anguish on his face. “Don’t move.”
He left the room. Mortified, I kicked the stained sheet away, hurrying to put my underwear back on. I pulled my sweater down as far as it would go, afraid he’d return and see the truth—as far as I’d come, in many ways, I was still that same, inexperienced sixteen-year-old girl.
7
Lake
Manning returned to my bedroom, wiping his hands on a damp cloth before he ran it over his shaft to clean the blood away. “Why are you getting dressed?” he asked, glancing at my underwear.
Hadn’t I exposed enough? “Don’t leave, Manning.”
“Leave?” He kneeled at the foot of the bed, looking up at me. “Lake—I’m not going anywhere. Lie back.”
I did as he said, and he gently moved my underwear aside to wipe the blood away. Even if he didn’t mean it to, it fel
t good, the towel tepid and soothing. I moaned softly, and he lingered there, running it over me with a little more pressure. Just as the warmth started to build, he threw the towel aside. “Up.”
Cautiously, I rose from the bed, standing before him in just my sweater and panties. He was still hard, still tortured as he looked me in the face. “You’re a virgin?”
“This doesn’t change anything,” I quietly begged him.
To my surprise, he dropped to his knees and pulled me to him by my hips. “Sweet, sweet girl,” he said, his eyes intently on me. “It changes everything. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Unsure of how to put it, I spun the thin ring on my index finger. “I—I was afraid you’d think I was too innocent and not go through with it.”
“But you and Corbin—”
“Were never together,” I admitted.
“Yesterday it seemed like . . . and your mom said he was your boyfriend.”
“I never told her that. She assumed, and I think Corbin wants her to think so because he . . .” I closed my mouth. This didn’t seem like the right moment to upset Manning.
“He still wants you,” Manning said. “I know that; it’s hardly a secret. But he was all over you yesterday. I thought you were a couple.”
“I let you believe that because I wanted to hurt you.”
He ran his hands up my backside and under my sweater, squeezing my waist as he dropped his forehead on my stomach. His voice nearly broke when he said, “You waited for me.”
“Not waited. Hoped. I didn’t think it would ever happen,” I said, my heart in my throat, “but I couldn’t bring myself to do it with anyone else.”
“I don’t deserve it.”
I touched his hair, inky black softness sprouting through my fingers. “If not you,” I said, “then who?”
He turned his face up to mine again. “If I’d known, Lake, I never would’ve done it like that. I’m so . . . fuck, I’m so sorry. I want nothing more in this world than to worship you. To show you how much I love you because words aren’t enough.”
Immediately, tears filled my eyes. “Love me?”
“Was there ever any question that I do? Even with all the fucked-up things I did, you can’t tell me you didn’t know, for a moment, that I was in love you.”
Hearing the words I already knew to be true was validation for all of it. For the way I’d pushed him so many times over those two years I’d lived at home. My confessions had scattered on the beach the night I’d found out about the wedding—I’m all wrong without you, I’d said, and had gotten no response but waves crashing on the shore. This morning, though, he loved me. A tear slid down my cheek. “Show me, Manning, please. Don’t make me wait any longer.”
With a kiss to my chest, he sat back on his knees. Holding my hips, he brushed his lips down my stomach, then pressed them to the front of my underwear. It was an innocent kiss that felt anything but—and one that made me inhale a shaky breath. He kissed me there again, dampening the white cotton. Despite the gentle way he touched me, I felt the urgency in his movements as his fingertips dug into my skin, then a pull in my stomach so sharp, it almost hurt.
I tugged his hair. “I want this. You don’t need to go slow.”
“Yes I do. Let me savor this. It’ll hurt less if you’re wet and ready.”
“I am ready.” I couldn’t breathe fast enough. I only wanted to feel as close as possible to him. “It didn’t hurt that bad,” I lied.
He stood, tilting my head up by my chin. “Being your first means everything to me. I haven’t just dreamed about it, Lake. I’ve had nightmares about it.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” I said.
“I’ve hated myself for how badly I’ve wanted you.” He tucked my hair behind my ear, then slid his hands down my back, pulling me flush against him. “You were always the last person I should be fantasizing about. You were too young, and then you were too pure, and then you were gone. All those times I was tempted, I thought . . .”
He trailed off as he scanned my face. My nipples were already hard in my bra, but as his gaze darkened, they tingled. He had to know he had nothing to hate himself for. I stepped out of his embrace and pulled my sweater over my head. I wanted to press myself against his naked chest. I was nearly bared to him, my panties clinging to my pubic bone with his saliva, but I still didn’t know how to act or ask for what I wanted.
“You thought what?” I prompted.
“I thought it’d kill me to say no to you, but I did, and here I am.”
Early morning sun glowed through the windows, lightening the white walls. Now that we’d slowed down, I had time to think about what we were doing. The countless times I’d imagined sex with Manning, I never thought I’d be this nervous.
Manning set his dark eyes on me, and there was so much behind them, I couldn’t help asking, “Are you having second thoughts?”
“Not even close. I’m just having thoughts.”
“Like?”
He stuck his fingers under the straps of my bra and slid them down my shoulders. “Turn.”
I faced the bed. He pressed a wet kiss on one shoulder, running his mouth up the line of my neck. My hair stood on end. I closed my eyes to savor the brush of his knuckles over my back as he unhooked the clasp of my bra. I caught it before it fell off.
He put one arm around my stomach and pulled my back to his front. “It’s okay,” he said, gripping the bra between the cups and taking it from me.
He hummed against my skin and took my breasts in his hands. His long fingers met in the middle as he squeezed me to him harder, rolling his hips into my backside.
“I’m thinking about how I’ve dreamed . . .” he murmured. “And fantasized . . . of having this. How I’ve tortured myself over not having this.”
The fear in his voice calmed me a little. This wasn’t just a big deal to me. I put my hands over his, my insides tightening with the way his palms scraped my bare, sensitive skin.
“Let me see you,” he said.
I turned hesitantly, my face warming, my eyes on our bare feet. I remembered the night I’d stripped for him in the lake, me and him in the moonlight. I’d been young and foolish around Manning too many times to be that confident now. He stood there staring until he said, “You’re shaking.”
It wasn’t only that winter had seeped into all corners of my room, or that this would change everything for me. I couldn’t imagine a life in which I didn’t give myself to Manning, and at the same time, I couldn’t believe it was really happening. “Have you ever done this before?” I fought against the urge to pull my hair over my shoulders, the only means left to cover myself. “I mean taken someone’s virginity. Obviously it’s not your first time having sex.”
“It might as well be. Nothing’s ever mattered to me as much as this.”
“Nothing?” I asked. His words made me courageous, so I touched his chest. “Not your wedding day? Or the day your sister was born?”
He moved my hand over his heart. “Nothing. And no,” he added. “I haven’t done this before.”
I wanted to touch him more, but his other hand moved between my legs, stealing my focus. I swallowed up at the ceiling, my lids falling closed as his fingers firmed through the thin material of my underwear. I grabbed onto one of his shoulders, hanging on to him.
When I opened my eyes, he was watching me. “I can’t believe I’ll be your first,” he said. “And your only.”
“My only,” I repeated, still getting used to the idea. Not that I’d ever thought of anyone else that way, but I doubted any of this would seem real for a while.
The words affected him, too, his expression contorting as if it hurt him. “How many others did you turn down for me?” he asked.
I sucked my lower lip into my mouth. “Besides Corbin? None.”
“You don’t even realize, do you? How many asked you out? How many wanted to, but couldn’t? They never even stood a chance. You don’t even know what you do to us.”
<
br /> Focused on his words, I almost missed him slipping a finger under the elastic. With the skin on skin contact, I sighed, wanting more than his feathered touch. “You don’t have to hold back,” I said. “I can take it.”
“I need to go slow, otherwise I’ll destroy you, and I’d like if we could do this more than once before I die.”
“You were so excited, though. I ruined it.”
He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’m still excited.”
“But it’s not . . .” His finger slid right into me, all the way to the knuckle. I lost my train of thought, gripping his shoulders to keep myself upright. “It should be . . .”
He lowered his mouth to mine and whispered, “Should be what?”
“It was explosive before,” I breathed. “Fireworks.”
“Maybe you don’t feel what I do,” he said. “Just because we aren’t tearing each other’s clothes off doesn’t mean there aren’t fireworks.” With his free hand, he held the back of my head and kissed me. I couldn’t even handle that, his lips hungry, his tongue searching, his finger moving faster and faster inside me. Still holding my neck, he kissed the underside of my jaw, my throat, my collarbone. I salivated for him. I got wet for him. Nothing mattered but the way he held me in place, his grip strong on my jaw, my body against his. Manning wouldn’t have his fireworks any other way but this—burning a slow path through the night sky to an explosion.
“Christ, you’re incredibly wet, Lake,” he muttered. Was I supposed to be embarrassed by how much his touch excited me? I couldn’t tell if he was concerned or aroused until his next comment. “You’re going to slide right onto my cock.”
I gasped, so shocked that I bucked my hips on his hand. “Manning.”
He lifted a corner of his mouth in a half-grin. “What?”
“I’ve never heard you talk like that. You wouldn’t even curse around me.”
“There were a lot of things I kept myself from saying around you, but I won’t anymore. I’m gonna say them all.”
“Say something to me you wouldn’t’ve said before.”
Something in the Way: A Forbidden Love Saga: The Complete Collection Page 60