“Do you regret marrying her?” I whispered.
“I regret hurting both of you.” He smoothed his hand over my hairline. “When you asked me what I was thinking about earlier and I said marriage, I was thinking about you, not her. What do you want, Lake?”
Speechless, I stared up at him, the way I had many times since the day I’d met him. He’d towered over me on the street, blocking out everything else, consuming me, captivating me. Tonight was maybe the first time I began to feel like he and I were in this together, like I wasn’t a girl trying to keep up with a man.
Manning sat on the bench of the shower, pulling me to him by my hips. “What do you want?” he repeated, his eyes on mine. “What life do you dream about?”
I dreamed only of him. When the one thing I’d ever wanted hadn’t been within grasp, the details hadn’t mattered. Once I’d left California, I hadn’t really fantasized about marrying him or long walks on the beach or candlelight dinners. I’d just missed him and wanted one more touch, one more look, one more of the shared, private moments we’d done so well. I put my hand on his inky wet hair. “I don’t know.”
“Yes you do.”
I wanted him, at any cost. I wanted to make his wish come true and turn him into a father. That was the truth, but I couldn’t force it out of myself, even though he probably needed to know it with what lay ahead of him. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not here in this hotel. Not while you’re still with her.”
I thought he’d argue, but instead he said, “I understand.”
“Will you tell her about us?” I asked. “Or just that you want a divorce?”
“She has to know. They all do. But I don’t know how the fuck I’m going to do it. Not only do I have to think about her and your mom and dad, but there’s the legal side of things, getting a lawyer when I won’t have a job . . .”
He kept talking, but all I needed to hear was “dad” for my blood to boil. Much of the situation we were in was his fault. The more time that went by, the more convinced I was that Dad had pushed Manning and Tiffany together to keep me focused on school and away from Manning. “He’ll try to get you to stay,” I said, cutting him off. “He’ll do something.”
“Nothing can keep me away, Birdy. I’m coming back to you.”
“When?”
“If I could tell you, I would. I have no way of knowing that.”
I thought about how it would feel when he was back with Tiffany while I waited here for him. It would be impossibly hard. He’d be with her. He’d be hurting her for me. “Maybe I should come with you.”
“I don’t think you should.”
The soothing steam of the shower, the rhythmic beat of water drops against the tub floor, the utter pleasure just from being held by Manning—none of it could dislodge the pit in my stomach. Could I ask Manning to do this alone? Did Tiffany deserve the chance to look me in the face when I upended her life?
“But she’s my sister.”
“If you’re there, it’s a memory that will haunt you, Lake. I can give you the gift of bearing that memory for you.”
Manning was always shouldering the burden of us. I hadn’t forgotten his words that night on the beach, how he bore things I didn’t even know about so they wouldn’t fall on me. I touched his cheek. “You shouldn’t have to shield me all the time. I’m older now. I don’t need to be protected.”
“You know I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He pulled me closer, kissing the space between my breasts. He brushed his lips over my hardened nipples, down my waist. His hands wandered everywhere he could reach, from my lower back down to my ankles. His mouth became hungrier. Redness bloomed wherever his lips touched.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he said hoarsely. “What’ll get me through every night without you is knowing I won’t have to hold back when I return. I’ll be able to have you over and over until I’m forced to stop because another round can only kill you.”
“You can never kill me,” I panted. “Not this way.”
He kissed my stomach, then flattened both his palms over it. “Lake,” he murmured.
I stared at his hands on me as they softened. “Manning.”
“You know you could be pregnant already.”
I shivered, steadying myself on his shoulders. One time, we’d lost ourselves to the moment—was that enough to change the course of our future? It would be hard. I had no money; he’d have no job. There was a lot of pain ahead of us, and that was no environment for a child. But as all the things that could go wrong filtered through my mind, I realized Manning didn’t sound scared, or even surprised. “What if I am?”
“Then a baby will come out in nine months.”
“Manning, stop.” I tried to push away from him, but he had his hands on my waist now, his scruff scratching the sensitive skin of my tummy. “We can’t,” I said. “What would we do? I should take the morning-after pill.”
“I want the chance to make things right with the universe,” he said. “To be the opposite of my father.”
“You can have all that, but not now. We can’t have a baby, Manning.” The statement was so ridiculous, I had to laugh. “There are so many reasons we can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Have a baby.”
Manning stood suddenly, forcing me to step back. He shut off the shower and got out. His movements were abrupt, his mood darkening. I stepped onto the bathmat, soaking it as he leaned his hands against the bathroom counter and looked at himself in the mirror.
“Are you mad?” I asked.
His jet-black hair dripped water into the sink. He was as aroused as I’d ever seen him, his eyes hot, his knuckles whitened from his grip, his penis purple at the head. He opened an arm to me, and I went to stand in front of the mirror with my back to him, letting him cage me in. He raised to his full height. Barefoot, I barely came up to his chin.
He put his hands on my stomach again. “I know it isn’t the right time, but I can’t help that I want to put a baby in you. You’re the only one who’s brought out that primal side of me—protect, provide, mate.”
My stomach tightened so painfully, I sucked in a breath. I’d had no idea, until that moment, a sentiment like that could be erotic. “Manning.”
He bent his knees and slid himself between my wet thighs without entering me. “It’s just my instinct. Fuck you. Own you in all ways possible. Claim you in a way nobody can ever take from us.” His voice grated. “Close your legs around me.”
Breathing through my nose, I braced myself on the lip of the counter as he held my stomach and pushed back and forth between my thighs. “It’s too soon,” I murmured, but I couldn’t deny the truth. Pregnancy was already a possibility, however small.
He rose up a little, running his shaft through my ass cheeks. I tensed as he passed over my most intimate area, a spot it’d never even occurred to me to let him touch. He looked darkly at me in the mirror as he whispered in my ear, “Another time.”
Hair sprung alive on the back of my neck, his words slithering right down my spine. He spread my lips from behind and began to enter me. “I won’t come in you,” he said. “But I want you on birth control when I get back, at least until we’re ready for more.”
More. Manning and I would have and be more. My grip tightened on the edge as he entered me. I was certain I’d never get used to that initial penetration. It turned me on as much as any other part of sex, maybe more, but for now at least, it also felt like being impaled. “Don’t stop,” I said.
We watched each other as he worked himself inside me, all the way to the base. Then he took me against the counter, unbridled, without hesitation, like it was the first time again, like we hadn’t been doing this over and over since Monday. Manning took great care to make sure I climaxed first, slowing down his thrusts as he worked my clit, all while I watched in the reflection.
He’d unleashed in me a latent desire to be owned and claimed in all the irrevocable ways he’d described. For us to be,
as he’d said, irreversible. Maybe it was the fact that he was leaving or that I was overcome by this new unfamiliar instinct to give him a baby, but I held his gaze in the mirror and said, “Come inside me.”
“I can’t,” he said, but he pulled my elbows behind my back, getting leverage to take me even harder. His mouth was hot in my ear. “How can I do that to you?”
“Because I’m begging for it.”
“God, Lake. Fuck.” He released my arms to grab my hips and hold me in place as he came, growling from his chest. This time I was ready for it, and I felt his heat fill me. I’d never experienced anything like it, and I was owned—his through and through, just like I’d always wanted.
Bent over the sink, I watched as he came down. He held my head, his eyes closed as he whispered things I couldn’t understand into the back of my hair, as if in prayer. I knew I should feel guilty about the fact that we hadn’t used a condom, but Manning looked about as content as I felt. For the first time, it didn’t feel like the end of the week, but the beginning of our lives.
We got back in the shower. He washed my hair and between my legs. I soaped his body, gliding my hands over the planes of his chest, the hard lines of his muscled stomach and the curves of his biceps. I trailed my fingers down the ripple of his veiny forearms until I had him hard and eager in my hand.
“You’re ready to go again?” he asked.
I blushed, embarrassed by my hunger. “Aren’t you?”
He thrust a little into my fist. “Do you need more evidence?”
“I brought something to show you,” I said.
“What’s that, Birdy?”
“We have to get out of the shower.”
We dried off, and I toweled my hair dry as best I could. We’d had all the difficult conversations, and we were still doing this. Finally, it felt real, like Manning was coming home to me—like Manning was mine. I was so excited to show him my surprise that I pushed him out of the bathroom while he was still wrapping a towel around his waist. “Don’t look yet,” I said, dumping my overnight bag all over the floor, too impatient to rifle through it. When I found the pajamas I hadn’t worn in five years, I ran into the bathroom, changed, and came out to find Manning smoking through a small sliver of window.
I stood across the room from him, waiting for his reaction. I wasn’t sure if he’d remember. He looked me over, his eyes lingering on the thin straps, the lacy edge of my pajama shorts. He took a drag and blew it right into the room.
“Manning.”
“Huh.”
“The smoke.”
Absentmindedly, he waved his hands, his eyes still on me. When he didn’t speak, I glanced down at the pink gingham pajama set I’d bought to wear on prom night. It was the same thin camisole and matching shorts I’d been wearing when Manning had set me on his kitchen counter and almost kissed me while Tiffany had slept in the next room. “It’s—”
“I know what it is.”
“I sewed the strap.”
“What was wrong with the strap?”
“You tore it that night,” I said.
A low grumble from his throat. I’d gotten the sense during our time together that Manning liked to be reminded of my younger self. Our gentle interactions from that time in our lives could be changed into the most forbidden kind of sex we could have. I would think of all the times I’d had to restrain myself and imagine acting on them. If we had access to that truck we’d gone out in the night on the lake, I’d fuck him in it.
But, even if it were true that our unspoken roleplay did it for both of us, perhaps there was a line. Now that I knew about Manning’s father, and what had driven Manning to such extremes in the past, it was possible he could use this as an opportunity to beat himself up. “Did I go too far?” I asked.
Skyscrapers rose behind him, lit windows dotting the darkness. He didn’t make a move, but the look in his eyes said come. Barefoot, I crossed the room. “Is it okay?” I asked. “I’ll change back.”
He took another hit of nicotine, adjusting his towel with one hand.
“Manning?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to say anything?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He put out his cigarette on the exterior windowsill and stood. With his hands on my shoulders, he walked me backward until the backs of my legs touched the bed.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He untied the string of my shorts. “I’m making love to you in your sweet pink pajamas, Birdy, that’s what I’m doing.”
17
Manning
I woke up with a pink-pajama-clad princess in my arms. After I’d made love to her well into the night, I’d had her put the pjs back on. Even now, as I opened my eyes and took in the outline of her breasts under the thin fabric, the sliver of skin under the hem of the top, my greedy dick twitched. I hadn’t been inside her for a few hours, and I wanted more.
Lake’s hair was tangled between us since she hadn’t brushed it after the shower and I’d had my hands in it all night. It also smelled fucking amazing. I buried my nose in it, and that led to nuzzling her neck, pressing kisses to her cheek. We’d only just gone to bed, but my time with her was limited. I had a flight to catch this afternoon.
I squeezed her close. Months of winter had made her pale, while my skin was brown and darkened with hair, like some kind of beast. I had a moment of panic that I wasn’t supposed to be in this hotel, that I’d actually sleepwalked into her bedroom, unable to help myself any longer, and taken her against her will.
She sighed and snuggled her ass into my crotch. “Manning?”
“Yeah, Birdy.”
Her cheeks went a little pink and she shook her head. “No, nothing. I just wanted to tell you how happy I am.”
“Hmm.” I didn’t buy it. There was something behind every sweet little “Manning?” and I wasn’t letting her get away with it. “You want something, but you have to tell me what,” I said. “I can’t read your mind.”
She was trying not to look giddy. After a moment, she repeated, “Manning?”
My chest rumbled with a chuckle. The sleepy, sated expression on her face made her seem even more adorable. Fuck, the obscene things I had done to her, and still planned to do . . . I really was a beast. “What is it?”
“You remember the other night how you made me, you know, with your mouth and hands?”
I kept laughing. “I remember.”
“Can you do that again?”
“I’ve corrupted you.”
“It’s just that it felt so good.”
“Aren’t you sore?” I asked.
“A little. That’s why your mouth feels nice.”
I’d gone overboard last night. I hadn’t meant to take her more times than I could count, but I wasn’t able to get enough. I’d come and be hard minutes later. I was so fucking scared of what would happen once I got on that plane. I wanted to stay and not deal with all the shit waiting for me at home.
“I don’t care,” she added. “I don’t know how long it’ll be before we’re together again.”
Panic tightened my chest once more. It wouldn’t be any easier here for Lake as she waited for news from me. “We should probably take a break for a little while,” I said.
“Oh. Are you sore, too?”
She was too cute this morning, and maybe that was intentional, to torment me for leaving. “No,” I said. “I just want to lie here with you for now.”
She ran her fingers along my forearm and I fought to keep my eyes open. After last night, after the past few days, I thought I could sleep for a week.
“You know all those things you said last night?” she asked. “Did you mean them?”
I knew what she was referring to, and for better or worse, I meant all of it. Begging for me to claim her pussy, no matter the consequences? “Fuck yes.”
Her cheeks rounded, as if she was holding in laughter. “So you’re really going to move into my shitty apartme
nt? That dump?”
“It won’t be a dump once I’m through with it.”
“What about Val?”
I swung my leg over hers, trapping her against the bed. “What about Val, goddamn it?”
“She can stay with us, right?”
I scraped my stubble against a part of her neck that made her howl. “It tickles,” she screamed, trying to get away. “Fine, fine. Val can’t come!”
I released her. She hopped up and started jumping on the bed. “I can’t believe it’s finally happening,” she said, her top billowing enough for me to get quick glimpses of what was underneath. “You and I are going to live together.”
I watched her, mesmerized by her golden hair, her sparkling blue eyes. I would’ve agreed to anything she asked for in that moment. I hadn’t seen her this happy since I’d gotten here, as if the dark cloud hanging over our affair was lifting. “Yes we are.”
“And buy groceries together. And paint the apartment. And sleep in the same bed. Every night.”
“You got it.”
She jumped so high, she reached up and touched the ceiling. “This is the best day—no, no, no. It’s the best morning of my life.”
“I don’t get a full day?” I asked.
“No, because you have to leave.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I wished I had a cigarette so I could just lie here and drug myself and watch her jump all morning. “You know, now that we’re together,” I said, “when you do things like this . . .”
She was out of breath and smiling as she stopped and looked down at me. “What?”
“You can do them naked.”
She hid her face with her hands, but I caught the redness creeping up her neck. “You don’t think I’m being childish?”
Maybe she was, but didn’t she know I loved her like this? Hadn’t I fallen for her before any of this, when she’d been naïve and silly and prudish, as Tiffany had liked to call her? Hadn’t I gone overboard again and again trying to protect this side of her? Childishness was allowed. “I love you,” I said.
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