But it would soon. I had one semester left of classes before graduating in May, and surely that had crossed Manning’s mind. “I’m not going to dope him up on blueberry pie and ask him to ask me to marry him. Especially since I don’t even know if I want that yet.”
“You won’t let yourself want it because you’ve been burned in the past.”
“Not true. I want it eventually, but with our schedules—”
“Blah, blah, blah. Listen, if the pie doesn’t get him to drop to one knee, withhold sex until he caves. I assume you’re naked under your apron.”
I laughed. “I am not. And I don’t need Manning to cave. He and I have no secrets. If I’m ready for a proposal, I can just tell him.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” she asked. “In my plan, you get pie and sex.”
“I’m already getting those things. Since I was gone all last week for exams, I’m surprising him with a home-cooked meal and . . . other things.” I didn’t need an excuse to feed us both into a coma or climb Manning like the mountain of a man he was. Nor did I need one to broach the subject of marriage—should I decide to do such a thing.
“He thinks you’re still in Pomona?” she asked.
“Until tomorrow.” Blue raised her head to look at me with her signature turquoise eyes. I put my index finger over my lips. “Don’t tell Daddy.”
“Ew,” Val said. “You call him Daddy?”
“I was talking to Blue.” I squatted to scratch her stomach. Manning and I had decided to foster pets until after graduation when I’d be living at home full-time. Blue was a Border Collie-Australian Shepherd mix—or so we guessed—named after the striking color of her eyes. She’d been the third dog we’d taken in. I’d cried buckets when the shelter had placed the second dog, so Manning had suggested we keep Blue. He’d said it was to prevent more tears, but it was no secret Manning had a weakness for blue eyes.
When the front door opened, Blue perked up. “He’s here,” I whispered to Val. “I’ll call you later.”
“Tell him to put a ring on it,” she cried.
“I don’t even want to know how many times you’ve listened to Beyoncé’s new album,” I said before I hung up.
“Lake?” Manning called, stomping through the foyer.
I stood and smoothed out my apron before quickly scrubbing flour from my wrist. “In the kitchen.”
He came in wiping his temple on his sleeve. “You said you were driving in tomorrow morning.”
I had about two seconds to get a good look at him—flannel open at the collar, a week’s worth of beard, and hair pushed off his face—before he had me off my feet and wrapped in one of his strong bear hugs.
“I decided to surprise you,” I said.
“I hate surprises.” He inhaled my hair. “There’s ice on the roads and it’s dark out. If anything had happened—”
“Want me to come back tomorrow?”
He growled into my neck and set me on the counter. “A week’s too long, Lake.”
I let my head fall back as he trailed kisses up my throat. He pulled me to the edge, urging my legs around him. “Manning,” I said when his tool belt pressed my inner thighs. “Your drill.”
“That’s not my drill, Birdy.” He snickered as he unhooked his belt and let it hit the ground with a thunk that made me jump.
“Watch out for Blue!”
“She knows to get out of the way when Mama Bear comes home.”
I laughed as he tickled the underside of my jaw with his overgrown stubble. “Why are you still wearing all that anyway?” I asked.
“Huh?” he said, leaning in for a kiss.
I pulled back. “Usually you leave your belt in the workshop at the end of the day.”
“I was coming in to grab a bite.”
I pushed my palms into his chest, using all my strength to keep him from devouring me. “A bite?” I asked. “What about those frozen meals I left you?”
“That’s a bite for me. I was going to put one in the microwave—”
“You mean oven.”
“Right.”
“Then what?”
“Down the hatch and back to work. Can we talk about this after?”
I arched an eyebrow. I’d expected enthusiasm from him, naturally, but Manning was coming at me like I was blueberry pie. “After what?”
He sighed, relenting enough to let me push him back. “I missed you. You can’t expect me not to be eager.”
“Phone sex not cutting it?” I joked.
He leveled me with a glare. “You know it doesn’t. I’m just happy to have you to myself for more than a weekend.”
“Thank heavens for Christmas break.” I played with one of his shirt buttons while keeping my distance. “But it’s after seven. Why were you going back out there?”
“What do you think I do when you’re not here?” He licked his lips as he stared at mine. “I work.”
“Not tonight, you don’t.”
He squeezed my hips, bringing me against his crotch. “I never work late when you’re here. That was our deal. No matter what’s going on, if we’re both in town, we always eat dinner together.”
I kissed his forehead and slid off the counter despite his grunted protest. “First, we eat.”
“But it’s been almost two weeks.”
“It’s been eight days.” I picked up his tool belt and set it on the counter. “There’s lasagna in the oven, and I’m cooling a pie for dessert.”
As I’d predicted, that silenced him. Food was the one thing that had the potential to hold over Manning’s sex drive, at least for a bit.
“You were supposed to have dinner with classmates tonight to celebrate getting exams out of the way.”
“There was no dinner.” Bent over to check on the lasagna, I looked back at him and grinned. “I lied.”
“Lied?” He hooked a finger in my apron string and tugged me backward. “To me? Who do you think you’re dealing with here?”
I pushed his hand away and shuffled back to the oven. “Hand me the mitts.”
He put them on himself and pulled the dish out to set it next to the pie. “Nothing like your homemade meals,” he said. “My mouth is watering.”
“Patience. I won’t be responsible for yet another of your burnt tongues. Why don’t you go shut down the shop?” I asked, turning to get a spatula.
He took my elbow, pulling me back until I was against his chest. “Thank you,” he said.
Tucked into him, I let out a long breath. As much as I liked to tease Manning for his grumpiness when we were apart, I felt our distance, too. Every hour of every day. There were times I was tempted to drop out and leave Pomona so we could finally start our lives together, but it was the closest college to us with a veterinary program. “What’re you thanking me for?” I asked. “I haven’t done anything yet.”
Blue tried to nose between us. Manning scratched behind her ear while keeping me close. “You’re home early. That’s worth giving thanks for.”
“I wish I could be here more.”
“I want that, too, you know I do, but it’s not forever.”
Even though I knew our distance bothered Manning, he’d been nothing but supportive of my career. He’d stuck by me as I’d finished out my contract in Hollywood, then when I’d turned around and picked a university that was also two hours away. Over the last decade and a half, we’d gotten pretty used to being apart. Maybe what we needed now was a piece—or even a promise—of forever.
Damn it, Val. It was possible she’d known exactly what seed she was planting when she’d brought up marriage. That girl had always been wiser than she looked.
And then, any thoughts in my head vanished. Manning bent down and shook the ground I stood on with a slow, sweet kiss. “Should’ve done that as soon as I walked in the door,” he said.
“You were excited,” I teased, sliding my arms around his neck.
“Still am.” He thumbed the corner of my mouth. “Your lips are all red. If I�
�d known you were coming tonight, I would’ve shaved.”
I ran the back of my hand over the short beard he’d grown during the week we’d been apart. “You never let it get this long.”
“Because I don’t like to scratch you up.”
“So if I weren’t around, you’d go full Sasquatch?”
“Nah. All this hair itches. I’m just too lazy to shave it when you’re gone.”
Considering it was December, I kind of dug the mountain man look, but if he didn’t want to shave, I’d do it for him. He did enough for me on a daily basis; tonight was about him.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” I said, slipping out of his arms. “Go lock up. I have plans for you later.”
“Plans?” He patted my behind and picked up his belt from the counter on his way out the door. “Can’t wait.”
I turned back to Blue, who looked from me to the food as if I might finally break down and scoop a serving into her dog dish. A home-cooked meal, blueberry pie, and sex—that was a plan, wasn’t it? A good one, too. No sense in bringing up anything as serious as marriage tonight.
If only I could stop thinking about it.
2
While Manning did the dishes, I laid a towel over the counter in our master bath, filled a cup under the faucet, and got his razor from a cabinet.
Manning came in rubbing his stomach. “I think I ate too much.”
“I told you not to have that second piece of pie.”
He nodded at the scene unfolding in front him. “What’s all this?”
“Get a chair from the dining room.”
“You gonna shave me?”
“You said you needed one.” I glanced at him over my shoulder. “And you’re always raving about how much you love—”
“Shaving you? Mmm.” He came up behind me, catching my eye in the mirror above our sinks as he slid a hand down my tummy. “Speaking of, you should be due for one yourself.”
I relaxed against his front as he pushed his hand into the waist of my jeans. “Some of my friends at school have started waxing,” I told him as he toyed with the lace band of my thong. “Do you want me to do that? It’s cleaner.”
“And put me out of the job?” he rasped into my ear, his wandering fingers making my breath catch. “You know how much I love to do it.”
Manning was a true creative. It was something everyone else overlooked. He hadn’t just built our home. He didn’t just put furniture together. He designed with attention to every detail. And he’d designed me, too. We’d spent many nights in the clawfoot tub he’d chosen and installed. He shaved my legs, took his time on my bikini line so he wouldn’t nick me, and was never satisfied until it was exactly as he wanted it. It always led to sex. His focus and care, and the slow, controlled way he groomed me until he was content, was a special kind of foreplay.
Tempted to give in to him, I blinked away my haze and forced myself back to reality. I’d get mine soon enough, but first I wanted to pamper this man who worked way too hard. I urged his hand from my pants. “Later,” I said. “Right now, what I really need is a chair.”
“Coming right up.”
Once he’d left, I checked that I had everything I needed. Or at least what I’d seen Manning use in the mornings. He returned with a dining chair and sat facing the mirror. Behind him, I clipped a hand towel around his shoulders then tilted his chin back until he was looking upside down at me. “This is my first time,” I said. “How do I do it?”
“I don’t know. Just shave.”
“Do I go with or against the grain?”
“I go against but I never really thought about it.”
I went to stand in front of him. “You do this almost every day. It never occurred to you to make sure to do it right?”
“The hair’s gone each morning, isn’t it?”
With a sigh, I shook my head and filled my palm with shaving cream. I smoothed it over his jaw, careful not to get it in his hairline—or up his nose as I covered his upper lip.
“You’re being way too nice about this whole thing,” he said. “Slap on the cream and slice away.”
“Sit there a few minutes and let the cream soften the hair,” I said, ignoring him. “I’m going to look up how to do this properly.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“No? Is that how you shave me—slice away?”
He frowned. “Of course not.”
“Then let me do this my way.” I stuck out my tongue and went to our shared office, which had only a desk with a chair, a printer, and some lightweight file cabinets. It was the smallest room in the house and closest to the master—perfect for a nursery—but Manning had set up there temporarily because it let the most light in. I sat at the computer, ran a search on how to shave a man’s face, and returned to the bathroom with one of the articles.
Manning slow-blinked at me. “You printed out directions?”
“I want to do it right. Step one,” I read, “apply cream and let the hair soften.” I gave Manning a told-you-so look in the mirror and scanned the rest of the instructions before swapping them for his razor. “You don’t take care of yourself when I’m gone.”
“Where’s that coming from?”
I stood between his knees, tilted his chin up, and slid the razor down his jaw. “You don’t shave correctly. You’re supposed to go with the grain.”
“I’m a grown man, Lake.”
“Are you? When I’m not here, you don’t eat enough vegetables. You smoke more.”
“Nah.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t. Also, you work from dawn ’til dusk. Maybe it’s time to put an ad in the paper. If you had help around here, you could cut back. And you’d see a real human each day so you’d have to look presentable.” I pulled back to inspect my progress on his right cheek. “I worry you’re lonely up here all by yourself.”
“I am,” he said, running a hand up the outside of my thigh. “That’s no secret.”
“Even after I graduate, I’ll be working long hours. I can’t be here all the time.”
“Lake, I don’t need anything other than what we've got. I’m not looking to make more friends or hire someone who’ll be in my business.”
“They’ll be in your shed, working side by side with you. It doesn’t mean you have to give up any control.”
“I do have to give up money, though. I suspect this person’ll want to get paid.”
“The whole idea is that they produce more, and you make more.”
“Doubt that when I’d have to double check their work all day long.”
“That’s called trust. And letting go. And delegation.” I frowned at his purposeful stubbornness. “I know you don’t need a business lesson. I just want you to go easier on yourself.”
His eyes roamed over my face. “You should take your own advice.”
“I can’t.” I tilted his chin back even farther to get to his neck. “In my case, sometimes, we’re talking life or death. I have to be as prepared as possible before I start working with people’s pets.”
“See? We’re each getting established still. It’ll come. Give it time.”
I set down the razor and toweled off the remaining shaving cream. He shut his eyes as I wiped his jaw, then while I raked my fingers through the sides of his hair. If I was going to bring up marriage, this was about as good an opening as I could ask for. My palms got suddenly clammy. He looked so relaxed, probably for the first time since I’d left—and did I really need to pester him about why he’d suddenly dropped the subject? Manning was a deliberate man. Whatever they were, he had his reasons.
“Feels good,” he murmured. “I need you, Lake.” He pulled me between his legs by my hips, his eyes trailing up my stomach and over my breasts in a way that tightened my insides. “I have since you walked in the door.”
“Not yet,” I said.
“Now.” He stood and swooped me up before I could protest, carrying me toward the bedroom.
“I have one more thing planned,
” I said, pushing his chest. “Reroute to the den.”
“Mmm, yeah,” he said, pivoting and heading the opposite direction down the hall. “We haven’t done it in there in a while.”
I rolled my eyes as he stopped short in the doorway of the den. “When did you do all this?”
“While you were working. Put me down and get the fireplace going.”
Once on the ground, I set to work lighting the candles on the mantel I’d put out before dinner. In the middle of the room, near the fireplace on a sheepskin rug, I’d made a bed of pillows.
Manning looked back at me while stocking the fireplace. “Johnnie Walker Blue Label?” he asked as I poured us drinks at a side table. “What’s the occasion?”
“You.” I set his tumbler aside. “I know you weren’t happy I wanted to stay in Pomona and study last week. And I’m sure you worked yourself to the bone. I’m giving you a long massage to make up for it.”
He lit a roll of newspaper and held it up the chimney to warm the flue. “You think you’re strong enough to take on these knots?”
“Oh, yes.” I grinned, picking up massage oil and flexing my bicep. “Nobody knows your body like I do, Great Bear. I’m going to hit all your sweet spots.”
He actually shuddered.
I perched on the edge of the couch and motioned for him to sit on the floor between my legs. “Strip.”
He elbowed off his flannel, tossing it aside as he got to the ground. I squirted oil on his shoulders and rubbed it over his upper back and biceps. Massaging him was like kneading concrete and after a few minutes, with the fire in full effect, my hairline started to perspire. I readjusted on the couch, my thigh muscles aching from holding my legs open.
“Doing all right?” he asked.
“Yep.” I worked the back of his neck, running my fingers up to his scalp then down his spine. The California sun was strong, even in winter, and despite his naturally bronzed skin, he had a faint tan line at the back of his neck. “Is it making any difference?”
“Yeah, Birdy.” He laughed. “But you’re sweating on me.”
Something in the Way: A Forbidden Love Saga: The Complete Collection Page 87