by Ava Lore
And I loved meatloaf.
Before I could catch myself, I cut a piece off, stabbed it with my fork, and stuffed it in my mouth.
My eyes went wide.
“Oh my god!” I said. “This Spam is good!”
Everyone around the table turned their eyes on me, wide with disbelief, and if I hadn’t been watching for it I would have missed Manny’s tiny smile.
“Really?” Aylen said.
I nodded vigorously. “It’s delicious. I mean, it’s obviously terrible for you, but it’s like...like really well sauced bacon? Pork fat. Ham. And good sauce. It’s good.”
“You had me at pork fat,” Sonya—of all people—said, and she cut hers up and put a piece in her mouth. Within seconds everyone around the table was trying it. It was met with slightly mixed reception— “I feel my arteries closing as we speak,” Rebecca commented—but as if someone had flipped a switch the atmosphere relaxed, and suddenly everyone was laughing and passing the wine around. Pineapple wine.
Manny leaned over and poured some for me. “Not strictly traditional Hawaiian fare, but sometimes you have to take it one step at a time,” he said to me, and his eyes twinkled.
I took a sip and let the taste linger on my tongue—it was pineapple wine, just as he had said. I nursed my drink and watched the band banter back and forth, warm and familiar, just like my family at home, and for the first time in a long, long time I felt safe, and happy, and whole.
Chapter Six
“You ready for bed?”
My head snapped up and I blinked rapidly, disoriented, much to the amusement of the rest of the band, who, quite tipsy on pineapple wine, pointed and laughed at me, and I realized with embarrassment that I had been dozing off at the table. My face colored, but Manny stood up and stretched. “Since I made dinner,” he said, “I’ll leave the cleanup to you guys. I’m gonna turn in, too.”
I blinked with surprise and opened my mouth to protest, but Manny glanced at me and gave me a wink. He held one strong, calloused palm out to me.
Licking my lips, I took it.
Up until now I had managed to keep my attraction to him mostly in check, especially as I was adjusting to a new place. But now that my stomach was full and my mind at ease, the attraction came roaring back. I could hardly catch my breath at the roughness of his palm against mine, and as he drew me out of my seat with his strength, my mouth went dry.
“I’m gonna show Rose our accommodations,” he told the rest of the band.
“Wear a condom,” Rebecca suggested.
Everyone laughed as I scowled. “Rebecca!” was all I could muster. Ugh, I was so good at litigation, but when it came to comebacks I clearly had a learning disability. Next to me, Manny was laughing too as he pulled me gently out of the room and into the living room.
The moment we were away from the rest of the band, in the quiet of the house, in the dimness as the sun set, I realized how terribly, horribly tired I was.
“What time is it?” I managed to ask Manny as he pulled me through the living room, carefully navigating the instruments strewn everywhere. I watched dully as he bent down and scooped up our discarded bags, his muscles bulging as he carried them easily.
“Probably close to seven,” he said. “The sun’s going down.”
I yawned hugely. “So are we really sleeping on the porch?” I asked.
“The lanai,” Manny corrected me. “And yes we are. Don’t worry, you’ll like it.”
Then he pulled me through a short, dark hallway, turned a corner, and showed me what he was talking about.
I gasped at the vision in front of me. At the back of the house was a huge wall of sliding glass doors, and behind them was a wooden porch slung with hammocks and dotted with patio furniture. Beyond that stretched a short length of flat grassy land interrupted only by palm trees, and beyond that...
White sand. Blue water fading to purple, and the whole sky blazing with color as the sun sank down in the west.
“Oh my god,” I said. “We’re...are we sleeping out here?”
“Just as soon as you get ready, you can bed down in one of the hammocks.”
I eyed the hammocks dubiously. They weren’t like the normal hammocks I’d seen. They weren’t netted, instead woven from strong fabric, and there were no wooden pieces at the ends. Instead they slung happily in a smiling U shape from the ceiling of the porch.
“Is that...safe?” I asked.
“The Mayans slept in hammocks,” he said. “And, I must say, as someone who has slept in a hammock many times, you will love it. It is like...” He waved a hand. “Being in the womb again.”
“Ew,” I said.
He laughed. “You’ll like it, I promise. You just have to find the right spot for you.” Opening one of the glass doors he dumped his backpack on the wooden floor and let go of my hand. My fingers tingled where he had touched me and I closed my hand around the feeling. Manny handed my backpack to me and pointed back toward the hall. “That door back there is the pool bath,” he said. “If you want to take a shower, be my guest.”
I nodded and went to clean up. The bathroom was just as beautiful as the rest of the house, made with stone and granite, and the shower was so big I could have laid down in it and just let the hot water run over me.
Man, I thought as I cranked the water up and stepped in, this is the perfect shower for sex.
Like clockwork, a vision of Manny lying on the floor of the shower, his bronzed skin slick with water, came to me, and it wasn’t that far of a jump to seeing myself straddling him, riding him hard into the stone while the heat and the steam rose around us—
Heat surged between my legs, and I bit my lip. The bathroom door was closed and the water pounding on my skin suddenly seemed like a thousand massaging fingertips.
God, what is wrong with me? I wondered as I lathered up the washcloth with some sweet-smelling flowery soap. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d found a guy so sexy...
I touched the cloth to my arms and realized that I’d never found a guy so sexy. Oh, I’d been uncontrollably attracted to guys before, but usually that had been my signal to run far, far away. Uncontrollable attraction was not part of the Plan. Those kinds of relationship usually ended up in ruins.
Then again, my life was already in ruins, so it could hardly be screwed up further by giving in to temptation with Emmanuel Reyes. Not, mind you, that he’d seemed to take much interest in me past the parking lot other than a few glances here and there...and holding my hand far more than a platonic friend usually would...and inviting me to sleep out on the lanai with him...after, of course, inviting me to Hawaii and paying for me to join him...
I shook my head violently and scrubbed my skin as thoroughly as I wanted to scrub Manny from my brain, but it was too late. He’d seeped inside me, down into my blood, and the very thought of him sent that blood racing.
Stop it, stop it, stop it! I finished as quickly as I could and hopped out of the shower, grabbing a towel and drying myself off with rough, quick movements, but each one just stimulated me further, reminded me of his rough touches and soft kisses.
Desperately I yanked on my pajamas, doing my very best to shove my arousal and need deep down into the darkest parts of me, where they belonged. People made terrible decisions when they were blinded by lust, and I knew I was no exception. Deviating from the Plan...that had been my first mistake. I needed to keep Manny at a distance, just for a while, until we returned to the mainland and I could escape from his intoxicating influence.
I padded out of the bathroom, taking deep, cleansing breaths, and moved out onto the lanai. Manny stood there next to a hammock, wearing gym shorts and a loose, sleeveless shirt that showed off his intricate tattoos. He had clearly changed and was ready for bed, just as I was, but the realization that he’d been naked out here, changing his clothes, sent a bolt of red-hot want through me. Why hadn’t I walked out of the bathroom sooner?
“Hey,” I said. Manny turned and I saw a flare of interest
in his golden eyes.
“Hello, beautiful,” he replied, his gaze sweeping me up and down, lingering on my hips. My least favorite part of myself. I bit my lip and scurried toward my backpack and purse, stuffing my old clothes into the backpack and hoping that Manny wasn’t looking at my ass while I did so. I risked a peek behind me.
He was.
Oh, I thought. Okay. So. He’s still interested. Are you still interested?
Yes! Yes! Yes! my body screamed the words so loud that I thought they might be audible in real life, but to my relief Manny had turned away from me by the time I stood up. As I watched, he seemed to fold up and fall over into the soft embrace of the hammock he had chosen, the one closest to the edge of the porch, near the sea. Relatively speaking.
I studied him carefully as he worked his way into the hammock. It wasn’t like any hammock I’d ever seen before—it was huge, so large that he could lie perpendicular to the hooks that held it up and still be completely enveloped by the stretchy fabric. I had to admit that it looked pretty comfortable. I looked at the other hammocks and found the one closest to Manny, a beautiful blue striped fabric that looked like waves of the ocean.
I went over to it and got in. Manny was right, it only took a couple of seconds of adjusting before I found my groove lying askew across the fabric. I was still dubious that it would be a good place to sleep, but by god, it was comfortable.
I turned my face to the ocean and tried to concentrate on being one with the universe. The sun dancing across the sky enchanted me, thrilling me with the amazing ways it changed the deep blue sea that I had seen on my way up to the beach house. Instead of blue, it was now a strange, light lavender, a beautiful color I thought I could only see in flowers. But here it was before me.
Entranced, I stared at the sea, trying to discern where it had changed from blue to lavender, and then after a while I realized it had turned from lavender into a dark indigo. Frowning, I sat up in my hammock and squinted out at the ocean.
“Something wrong?” Manny said from his hammock.
I sucked my breath through my nose. “No,” I said. “I was just watching the way the water changes color.”
“Oh, right,” he said. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I answered truthfully. A soft breeze drifted across me, and I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. “Um, are there any blankets out here?”
Instead of answering me, Manny looked at me, then did a complicated half-flip backward out of his hammock and onto the deck. I heard the solid thump of his feet hitting the floorboards as he did so, and I tried not to think about how much hard muscle had gone into that sound. It made my mouth dry.
“Sure,” he said as he stood. “I’ll go get a blanket for you.” He turned and I heard the slish sound of the sliding glass door as he stepped into the house.
Ugh. I was such a square. How could I be lying on the porch of a Hawaiian beach house and still need a blanket? It seemed like that was the sort of worry someone should leave behind on the mainland.
Manny was back within seconds, and I turned my head to see him sliding the glass door closed, a thick, soft blanket in his hands. He was looking at me with a strange expression on his face.
“What?” I said, against my better judgment. Never ask someone what they’re actually thinking. They might just tell you.
Which was what Manny did then.
“I was wondering if you wanted to sleep in my hammock with me,” he said.
My whole body seized up, my nerves suddenly on high alert.
You should say no, I thought to myself.
So of course I said, “Yes.”
Manny grinned, brilliant white in the setting golden sun, in the gold of his face. I could hardly bear how beautiful he was. It made me ashamed that I wasn’t equally beautiful. But the damage had already been done.
“Well then, come here,” Manny said, gesturing that I should join him.
Licking my lips, I slowly rolled out of the hammock. I was wearing only a pair of yoga shorts and a t-shirt that said, “My Marxist-Feminist Dialectic Brings All The Boys To The Yard,” which, upon reflection, probably wasn’t the sexiest thing I could have been wearing. But it was what I had brought, so I turned to Manny and watched him as he stared me straight in the eye, his gleaming golden gaze holding me fast like the prey of a predator, as he climbed into the hammock nearest to the railing.
“Well?” he said, and opened his arms.
Oh god, I thought. There was no way I could sleep in a fucking hammock with a guy I hardly knew.
There was nothing between us but air and the wood of the porch.
I crossed over to him, my heart pounding, the blood in my body roaring, every synapse in my brain shorting out.
Would he touch me again? Not just hold me, but touch me, in the ways I knew I desperately needed? Would he put his hand between my legs? Would his mouth go to my throat? Would his cock find its way inside me?
God, yes, I thought, and then I was climbing into the hammock with him.
Manny didn’t make any sort of movement toward me that could have been construed as sexual. Instead he helped me curl up against him and then spread the blanket out over us, and I found myself curled up by his side, our legs entwined, my head on the hollow of his shoulder, his arms around me, my hand on his chest. The beating of his heart thrummed against the palm of my hand, and I had to bite my lip to keep myself from leaning over and kissing that beating heart.
I wanted to taste him, but something held me back. Prudence. Plans. Fear.
Manny gave me a squeeze. “How are you liking Hawaii so far?” he asked me suddenly, though his voice was low, as though he thought I might already be asleep. As if I could sleep with someone as hot as Manny Reyes holding me.
I swallowed around my dry tongue. “It’s amazing,” I said truthfully. “I’ve never been anywhere like it.”
He gave a little laugh, as though pleased by my response. “Good,” he said. “I knew you needed a change of scenery.”
“Yeah?” I said. “How’d you know? Was it the homelessness? Or the poverty?”
Another chuckle rumbled in his throat. “Neither,” he said, surprising me. “It was when you dragged Steve into the bathroom with you. I got to watch you while you thought no one could see you.”
From anyone else, that would have sounded creepy, but from Manny it just sounded as though he had been grateful, privileged. As though he had thought it was a beautiful secret that he would keep until the end of his days.
“Oh?” I said, not sure how else to respond. “You wanted to invite me to Hawaii then?”
“Yes,” he said. “And I wanted to fuck you, too.”
My whole body stiffened, and as though he were afraid of scaring me away, I felt him relax, his arms falling limp, so that if I chose to flee, I could do so.
I swallowed and stayed right where I was. “That’s...different,” I said.
“How so?” he wanted to know.
“Usually guys don’t want to fuck me period.” It was hard to get those words out. I could say them to other girls, or male friends, but to a man whom I desperately wanted inside me? It was painful.
To my shock, Manny said, “Good.”
I sucked air through my nose. “Thanks,” I said stiffly.
His arms reanimated, pulling me closer, and then his mouth was on my ear, his velvet lips brushing against the labyrinth there, his hot breath curling inside the delicate shell. “That means I have you all to myself,” he said.
I melted inside. My whole body seemed to meld to him, my breasts and cunt and legs and throat and all the soft, secret parts of me that longed to be touched, to be loved and lavished suddenly shivered and disintegrated, cleaving to the man next to me, and the smell of him filled my head.
“Oh,” was all I could say to that, my eyes closing in ecstasy, waiting for him to take my clothes off, to make me his.
His hand was on my hip, moving up my body, pulling shivers in its wake.
“I, um...” I said. I had no idea what I was trying to tell him.
“Yes?” he prompted. His hand found mine and gently enveloped it, pulling it up and over my head, wrapping my fingers around the ropes that held the hammock to the ceiling. I tightened my hold and held my breath as he let his fingers trail down the sensitive inside of my wrist, the soft underside of my forearm, the inside of my elbow, until he found the swell of my bicep and began to trace shuddering patterns there. Between my legs my pussy was molten, hot and slick and ready for his touch.
But he didn’t do anything else. We just lay there, his hand on my arm, his face buried between my cheek and the stretchy, tightly woven fabric of the hammock, his hot breath filling the space between us.
I squirmed in his embrace, wondering what I was supposed to be doing, or saying, or feeling.
“Um,” I said, my brain grasping for something, anything to get me out of this beautiful, terrible, wonderful, horrible position. “Why did you leave Hawaii?”
The hand on my inner arm stilled, and for a moment I thought I had offended him in some way. Then he drew back and frowned at me, not in an angry way, but puzzled. “What?” he said.
I swallowed and tried to rally again. “I said, why’d you leave this place?” I looked out over the water, desperately searching for something to talk about that wasn’t how much I needed him to fuck me. “It’s so...beautiful. If I lived here I could never leave.”
A few long seconds ticked by, but to me they felt like minutes. Manny had gone perfectly still and quiet, and I had no idea why. Then I felt him take a breath against me and relax his body. “Are you really asking me that?” he said.
I blinked, confused. His hand was still on my inner bicep, still making me shiver. The breast closest to his fingers ached, my nipple a hard little nub of agony. “Yes?” I said.
He chuckled, and the way his voice buzzed against my sensitive body made me squirm very slightly. “I was just wondering,” he said. “I don’t know how much you know about the band. Didn’t you read up on us?”
“A little,” I admitted. “But that was back when Rebecca was coming to work for Kent.” Forcibly I unhooked my fingers from the ropes above my head and brought my hand back down to my side, and Manny let me reclaim myself, though his hand drifted down to my waist. “I’m not up on all the members, though. Just Kent and Carter. I had to know what Rebecca was getting into.”