by Ava Lore
Manny stopped immediately. “Are you all right?” His voice was husky, aching, and I looked up at him and decided that even if I wasn’t okay in the future, even if I had to do something to get over what had happened today, I would not let it ruin tonight. No. I would not.
I let my body relax, from head to toe. “I’m with you,” I said.
A smile tickled the corners of his mouth. “Not sure that’s a straight answer,” he said huskily. The water rushed up and lapped at our toes, and I wiggled closer to him.
“Yes it is,” I breathed. “I’m with you. So of course I’m all right.”
Something in his golden eyes changed then, something soft and sweet, a revelation, a realization, and he bent his head to my throat as his hands began to work away at my shorts.
Oh god, I thought. Yes. The tip of his nose nudged the pulse behind my ear, his hot breath washed against my skin, his lips suckled and teased, nibbled and danced over the thick muscle between my throat and my shoulder as his deft fingers freed the button of my shorts.
I waited for the shock to come, for the fear to come, but there was none. All I smelled was the sea and the rich, sweet scent of him, beer and smoke and cloves and cinnamon. Warm. My hands tightened around his neck as I arched into him, and I heard him rumble with approval. His fingers found my zipper and slowly, achingly, eased it down as he dragged his teeth over my collarbone.
I whimpered, squirming under him as he slowly worked my cutoffs and thong from between my legs, down my thighs to my feet, then flung them up the beach, and at last I was naked and bared to him. The sand beneath me was cool and welcoming, the man above me hot and hard. The silver moon, the dazzling stars, the sea, the wind, everything made me wonder if I had been taken away to a whole other world, an alien world of peace and ecstasy...
Manny covered my body with his, and I felt his hot, hard length between us, cradled against the soft mound of my sex, lightly teasing over my clit as his lips met mine again, and I poured my whole heart into it, until at last he pulled back and gazed down at me, his breath fast. I tried not to fixate on the rise and fall of his magnificent chest...
“Rosalita.”
Oops. I tore my gaze from his pectorals, from the nipples I wanted to tongue, to rake my fingernails over, and dizzily refocused on his shadowed face. “Y-yes?” My heart pounded like the surf in my ears.
To my shock, he shifted until the soft head of his erection was...was just there...
Oh Jesus.
The slick, wet ache between my legs was in danger of flaring up into a wildfire. I swallowed hard as Manny braced himself above me, his strong arms gilded in moonlight.
“Rosa,” he said raggedly, “are you on the pill?”
Breath filled my lungs, disbelieving. Did he mean this?
His trembling arms told me he did. Numbly, I nodded.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
After everything that had happened? I nodded again.
Leaning down, he kissed my brow, and then he was inside me, just a little.
Oh. Oh god...
“Manny,” I said, my legs hiking up high around his waist. “Manny, please...”
The water rushed up around us, chilling whatever skin was exposed to the elements, but between us there was only heat, as hot as a pyre, burning away the past, burning away all the things that had kept us apart. His slick chest slid over mine and I heaved, my breath too big for my body. I felt as though if he did anything more to me, anything at all, I would explode.
His lips, burning like cinders, found my throat. Reflexively, my nails dug into his shoulders and then he was pressing forward into me, bare skin on bare skin for the first time, sweet and slick and burning. A dark, gritty stretch that made my whole body writhe as he pressed forward.
“Ah, mi Rosalita,” he whispered in my ear. “You are exquisite.”
Then he made one thick, deep thrust, and he was inside me, and I was drowning, drowning in sensation, of water rushing past my head, over my exposed skin, of my hair floating in the currents, of the man above me, in me, rock hard and sweet and good and oh—
He moved in me as the tides came in, our bodies grinding together as he filled me up over and over again. The water sucked at us, buoying us up and sucking us down, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I thrashed in his arms, my world alight as he fucked me long and hard. Beneath my heels I felt the perfect mounds of his ass pumping and flexing as he dove inside me.
His mouth was on my throat, open and hot. The cool salt water washed over us and he licked it away, tonguing it from my earlobes, lapping it from my nipples, tangling his hands in my floating hair as he pulled me up to him, keeping me from going under. His strong arm circled my back and keeping me immobile as he took me there beneath the moonlight as the ocean roared around us.
His cock inside me slid rough and ragged over my inner walls, just the way I liked it, and frantically I pushed myself up to meet him as my belly tightened and my clit began to pulse and ache. On his back my fingers curled, my nails digging into the hot, solid flesh there as I hung on for dear life.
“Manny—” I gasped, groaned. “Manny I’m going to come...”
“Do it then,” he ground out, his hips moving faster, his cock filling me to my limits. “Do it for me. Let me see you in the moonlight.”
His hand found my face, his thumb on my lips, and by instinct I parted my lips, sucked his thumb between my teeth, and bit down.
“Fuck! Rose!” His thrusting suddenly increased, went out of control, and then I was pressed into the sand as we strove together, me trapped beneath his body, he my willing captive as I swirled my tongue around his finger, tasting salt, slipping along the sharp edge of his nail, probing the pad.
His fingerprint pressed against my tongue, and I thought, for a wild, fanciful moment, that I could feel within him everything that made him Emmanuel Reyes, every quirk and swirl, every dip and dive of his thoughts and moods, every groove of his soul, as though his fingerprint were a record I could play. I closed my eyes and as my core tightened I thought of everything that made Manny unique.
Everything that made me love him.
The thought summoned my orgasm from deep within me, and I shrieked his name as I came, my inner walls clenching, drawing him further and further into me until I heard him groan, beyond words, and then suddenly, swiftly, he was coming in me, hot hard spurts of cum filling me up, and I never wanted it to end.
It did, of course. After his final thrust, his arms gave out, and Manny nearly fell on top of me, though he managed to roll away at the last second and flop down into the sand next to me.
For a moment we lay there, panting and catching our breath and staring at the stars while the waves came up to lap at our rapidly cooling bodies. I felt the salt water wash away the sticky evidence of our coupling from between my legs and felt strangely sad. I mean, it wasn’t like I could have saved it as a souvenir or anything, but I was disappointed that the sea cleaned me so quickly.
Then a wave, larger than the rest, washed over us and almost ran over our heads. I shot bolt upright as Manny did the same.
“Whoo!” he exclaimed. “Seems like we should get somewhere warmer and continue this conversation.”
“Conversation?” I asked.
He gave me the wickedest grin I had ever seen. “Maybe exchange is a better word for it?”
I raised an eyebrow and he lifted his hands. “Alls I know,” he said, “is that if we streak all the way down the beach back to the house, my blood’s going to be pumping again, and I wouldn’t mind putting that energy to good use.”
I warmed from head to toe, even though the breeze was now brushing against my skin, leaving goose bumps behind. Then my brain fully processed what he had said.
“Wait...streak?”
He was on his feet in a flash. My legs, still weak from the shattering orgasm he’d given me, were much slower in lifting me from the sand, and by the time I was vaguely upright Manny had already darted across the sand,
fetching our clothes. Bundling them up, he handed me mine with a wink.
“Yes,” he said. “Streak. Those clothes are all damp and full of sand anyway. You wouldn’t want to put them on, would you?”
“I—” I started to say, but then Manny began hopping from one leg to the other, like an Olympic runner getting ready for his big sprint. His cock, still at half-mast, bounced and swayed with him, distracting me from my objections.
Then he turned and took off down the beach, laughing.
“First one back to the beach house wins!” he called.
I looked at the bundle of clothes in my arms, at my naked body exposed to anyone who cared to look in my direction.
I didn’t have to follow him. I could put on my own clothes and walk, quite dignified, back up the beach to the house.
But Emmanuel Reyes was running, butt-naked, across the sand, and I realized I couldn’t let a sight like that just go to waste, so I laughed—happily, helplessly—and took off after him.
* * *
“You’re pretty clever,” Manny said as he adjusted the blanket around us. We were curled up together in one of the hammocks on the lanai, watching the sky turn gray. I’d actually managed to beat Manny back to the beach house, but I think he let me win because he wanted to watch my ass bounce and jiggle.
At the house we’d jumped into the shower immediately, soaking up the hot water and slipping against each other like eels until the heat became too much and I pushed him down to the floor of the huge chamber and rode his cock as his hands slid over my slick skin. Steam filled my lungs, making me lightheaded. I came before he did. The orgasm was so powerful that I shuddered and clamped down on him, wanting to take him in, all of him, and never let him go. When he bellowed his own release, his hot cum spurting inside me, I came again, my body milking him until he was completely spent.
Together we collapsed in the warm spray, my quivering core still sending aftershocks through my body, little ripples of pleasure . I’d come three times, and it still didn’t feel like enough, but I was starting to get the creeping suspicion that it would never be enough.
I would always want Manny.
This is...probably going to be a problem, I realized dimly as we dried each other off and pulled on some clothes before we retired to our old hammock. The security guys were still patrolling the grounds, but stayed at a discreet distance as we loaded ourselves into the hammock and wrapped up against the mild elements.
Now we were watching the sun rise. The band had to pack all their things, board a plan, and head to Oahu for the concert that night. Carter and Sonya had yet to come home, and now that my head was clearing I seemed to remember Kent, Rebecca, and Aylen showing up at the house some time after midnight. How they were going to get themselves up and running without a life-threatening amount of cocaine was a mystery to me, and Manny didn’t even seem interested in sleeping.
“Did you hear me?”
I blinked and started, realizing I was lost in my thoughts. “What?”
“I said, You’re pretty clever.”
I snuggled down closer to him and gave a little frown. “Well I can’t be all that clever because I have no idea why you’d even say that.”
A chuckle rumbled through his chest and I closed my eyes, trying to savor it. I knew Manny wanted to see more of me once we returned to LA, but my feelings for him were dangerous. Fierce and deep and probably mostly unrequited. And creepy and clingy. Ugh.
“I mean that you are very clever because I was trying to understand your thought processes concerning the whole Plant Drugs On Everyone plan, but you managed to distract me with your body. You are good at evading tough questions.”
I snorted. “Well, I am a lawyer. Or was.”
His arms around me tightened. “You are whatever you want to be,” he said. “You’re still dodging the question.”
A small smile tickled my lips. “I did not hear a query, your honor.”
Manny laughed out loud. “See? So good. It was implied.”
I turned wide, innocent eyes up at him. “What was implied?” I asked, batting my eyelashes.
He grinned. “Fine. Have it your way, Rosa. Here is my question: Why would a smart, capable lawyer come up with a plan of action that involved illegal drugs, entrapment, blackmail, and sundry other things that could get her arrested, disbarred, and possibly injured.” On that last word his grin faded, and suddenly I was seeing Serious Manny again. Thoughtful, intelligent, worried Manny.
Heaving a sigh, I shook my head. “You want to know the truth?” I asked him.
“Of course I do.” He reached up and ran a hand through a long, thick lock of my hair, and I shivered at the contact. “You could have been...” He trailed off, clearly not wanting to even voice aloud what could have happened to me.
I had to look away. “Truthfully?” I said. “I thought I should be a little more like you.”
There was a long silence between us, though there were plenty of birds singing to the lightening sky to fill it. Then Manny quirked a brow.
“Like me?”
I gave him a little shove. “Yes, like you.”
He stared at me blankly. “Why on earth would you want to be anything like me?”
“Because I want to be able to change!” I said. “To adapt. To be better than myself, just by deciding to do it. All my life I’ve planned and prepared and followed everything to the letter, and sometimes it worked and a lot of times it didn’t and I watched you be you...A person who just went with the flow and always came out on top, and I wanted to be like you.
“So I thought and I thought and I realized that if Yago really did have all the island cops on his side, that if he really could buy off the legal system, then I had to have irrefutable proof that Arturo was unfit to make decisions. And being a drug-addict, or at least getting caught doing cocaine or meth on camera, is definitely proof. I don’t know if it could have stood up in court, but most people only know what they see on Law and Order or whatever, and it would have been easy to scare him into doing what I wanted. Don’t forget, I wield the ancient art of legalese, designed to confuse and terrify the listener.”
I shook my head. “I was trying to go with the situation as it was presented to me. Like you do. Go with the flow. Attack problems from a different angle. Be more spontaneous. But you’re right, it was pretty stupid.”
He laughed at that. “Stupid, yes. But you can’t learn to be a free-wheeling devil-may-care jackass in a single day. It takes years of fucking things up.” He tilted his head until his cheek pressed against my hair. “Honestly, I’d say that plan had a seventy-five, eighty percent chance of working. Not bad for your first time, Rosalita.”
Despite myself I blushed at the compliment.
“I’m sorry I went behind your back,” I said at last.
I felt him shrug beneath me. “It’s no big deal.”
“Really?”
He gave a little laugh. “Really. And incidentally, why haven’t you asked me why I was there, Rose?”
I blinked. “Um,” I said. “That’s a good question...” My lawyer instincts were getting rusty.
“It is a good question, isn’t it?”
I rolled my eyes. “So why were you there?” I wanted to twist to look him in the face, but I was sleepy and warm, and I just wanted to hang here with him forever, suspended in time.
“It’s because I wanted to be more like you.”
Another silence.
“Are you joking?” I asked him. “Is this one of those hidden camera things?”
“Of course not. Why wouldn’t I want to be like you. You’re strong and steadfast, dependent, reliable, thoughtful...” He shrugged. “Brave.”
I couldn’t hide the disbelief in my voice. “Brave?” I asked him. “Are you serious?”
“What else should I call someone who chose to live in her car and keep going forward despite all odds?”
“Stubborn?” I said. “And scared.”
“Scared?”
> “Scared to deviate from my plans.”
He thought about that for a moment. “Perhaps,” he conceded finally. “But also, perhaps, because you are full of conviction.”
“That’s such a...a generous way of putting it.”
“But it’s true. You showed me I should stop being a wimp. When you wouldn’t let go of the problems with my family, you convinced me to stop being such a coward.”
I gasped. “Manny, I never thought you were a coward!”
“No? Well I did. I’m a huge coward. I’ve never been the sort of person who just keeps moving forward despite the obstacles I might face. I avoid them whenever I can.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But you know what? That’s not always a bad thing, either. You do this crazy kind of emotional judo or something. Using the strength of the universe to defeat it. You don’t keep banging your head against a wall. You just kind of...twirl out of the way and go with the flow. I like that about you.”
He stilled beneath me. “You do?” he asked.
“Uh, duh?” I said. “Why else would I want to hang out with you?”
He was quiet for a second. “Well, to be honest, there are plenty of women who would want to hang out with me regardless of whether or not they liked me.”
For a moment I wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about, but then I remembered. “Ooooohhh,” I said. “Because you’re a hot rock star?”
He gave a surprised snort. “What, did you forget that for a bit?”
I felt stupid. “Kind of?”
He laughed again. “And that’s why I love you, Rose.” And his arms stole around me and held me close.
For a moment my ears were numb. Did he just say...No. That’s not possible. Is it?
“Um,” I said. “What’d you just say?”
He chuckled, and the warm sound reverberated through my whole body. “I said, I love you, Rosalita.”
My hands on his chest clenched, tangling themselves in his shirt. “What?”
On large hand touched my chin and tilted my face up so that I could look him in his beautiful golden eyes. “You really need to hear it a third time?” he asked, but his smile was sweet and his voice was full of humor.