by Alison Kent
He rubbed at the fuzz on his chin, which had a whole lot of white hairs mixed in with the black, and looked from her to the booth and back. “I get a choice?”
She came very close to flouncing out. It was his smile hiding behind his hand that stopped her.
But not her sarcasm. “Yes, you get a choice.”
“About what I eat, too?”
The man was asking for it. “Left or right? Choose one, or I’m going to.”
“What if I want to sit next to you?”
She swallowed, her stomach tumbling. “Why would you want to do that?”
But instead of answering he shook his head and scooted into the seat on the right, leaving her the left or the extra room beside him. She chose the left, then opened the menu the hostess had set on the table.
“I don’t bite, you know,” Manny leaned forward to say.
“Actually, I don’t know,” she said. And then, to see how he would react, and for no other reason, she said, “Though biting’s not such a bad thing. When done right.”
“I’ll remember that,” he said, opening his menu without looking at it at all, his gaze having room for only her.
Laid back. Unflappable. Did nothing ever bother the man? Not that she wanted to bring sex into the equation, but his even keel bugged her more than it should have, and she didn’t know why.
Carey came then to take their order. She decided on a nutty brunette brown ale and a bacon-and-blue-cheese burger. Manny listened to her choices then told their server to bring him the same. Once the kid collected their menus and left, Becca said, “They have a whole lot of other things to eat, you know. If you’d looked at your menu, you would’ve seen that.”
“I know what they have. I’ve been here before.” He leaned into the corner, stretched out one arm along the back of the booth. “What you’re having sounded good.”
“If you say so,” she said, reaching for a sugar packet and tapping it against the table.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know you. I don’t know what I believe. You could be serious. You could be mocking me. You could be scamming me because you want something, the least of which is sex.”
He waited for a long moment, Carey arriving with their beers as if he’d been hovering and waiting for Becca to take a breath before delivering them. Once he’d set the two foaming glasses on their napkins, he left, giving Manny the floor.
“I have no secrets, Becca,” he said and reached for his beer. “And I don’t expect you to tell me yours. Ask me anything. And tell me whatever you want me to know. It’s really not that hard.”
“Fine.” She started where she had no business going, but they couldn’t do this on a regular basis if he didn’t know where she’d come from. “Do you know why we all live on Dragon Fire Hill? Together?”
“I don’t know the particulars,” he said, returning his glass to the table and leaning forward, one arm on the table. “But I’ve seen the doors and the windows, and I can take a guess. And I’m sorry you have to live like that. No woman ever should, no child, no man.”
She nodded. The words sounded nice anyway. “You work with criminal types, don’t you? Like Frank?” she asked, having heard some of Frank’s history from the man’s own mouth. “And Dakota?”
“I’m Frank’s parole officer, yes. And I was Dakota’s years ago. The men I work with, that I send to Keller Construction, are men who’ve done things they shouldn’t have, but for reasons that, quite frankly, are often hard to argue with.”
“Like Dakota protecting his sister.”
“You know Dakota’s story?” Manny asked, and when she nodded, he went on. “Then you probably know that his choice wasn’t the best one he could’ve made.”
“Because it was more about avenging than protecting,” she said, and Manny remained silent as their food was placed in front of them, giving Becca a chance to continue once they were alone. “Sometimes avenging is the only thing you can do.”
He shook his head as he spread his napkin over his lap. “It may feel that way. And it may feel better that way. But answering one act of violence with another is never the only thing you can do.”
Uh-huh. “You work for the system. Of course you’d say that.”
“You’ve got that backward.”
“How so?”
“I work for the system because it’s what I believe.” He lifted his burger. “That there’s no need for violence to beget violence. Encouraging that mind-set only makes things worse,” he said, biting in.
“And I guess you hug trees, too,” she said around a bite of her own.
He shrugged. “I’ve been known to sing to my plants. Or at least sing along while playing them some Boz Scaggs.”
“Who’s Boz Scaggs?”
He set down his burger, reached for his napkin, and pointed as he said, “And that right there is why I’m way too old for you.”
She ignored him to say, “You probably wouldn’t believe that if you’d had a family member victimized, or been a victim yourself. The violence thing. Not the Boz . . . whatever.”
He was slow to respond, taking a long swallow of beer, returning his cup to its napkin coaster, finally letting it go. “I have been a victim. My wife was murdered less than a year after we were married.”
His words sucked the air from her lungs. She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t even look at him. But neither could she stay where she was and let him think he was alone, think she didn’t care. She might come across as a bitch, and she admitted to cultivating the skin, but that’s all it was, and it was suddenly important for Manny to know the real Becca York.
She scooted off her bench and scooted onto his, moving as close to him as she could without touching him. Then moving another inch as she pulled her plate in front of her. “Manny—”
“I’m okay,” he said before she could get out more than that. “I survived. It was more than a decade ago, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about her, about Alisha. But I don’t base every move I make on what happened to her.”
Then it hit her, and she had to turn on the booth to face him. “But you do. Because you chose to work with ex-cons because of her. Didn’t you?”
He arched a brow as he looked at her. “You’re not supposed to be that smart.”
“Oh, yeah?” God, but he was really gorgeous this close. “What am I supposed to be?”
“You tell me,” he said as Carey returned with their check. Manny tossed cash on the table to cover it. She waited for him to nod, then she left, heading out the front door to his car.
What was happening to her? This was why she didn’t need to be in a relationship. It was so much smarter, so much safer, so much easier on her nerves to keep things simple and stick to being friends. But she knew even as the words tumbled through her head that being friends was not what was happening here, and it frightened her even more than her past.
“What do you want from me Manny?” she asked, hearing him walk up behind her.
His laugh was a throaty threat. “I’m not sure you want to know.”
She wanted to. She desperately wanted to. She clenched her jaw so tight she thought her skin might pop. Arms crossed, she looked out into the night, seeing the twinkle of lights in Hope Springs.
Hope was such a stupid emotion. Hope never came true.
Manny moved in closer. She heard his steps on the pavement, felt the heat of his body when he came near, smelled the aftershave she hated that on him she’d grown used to.
“I want you, Becca York. I’m crazy for you. But I’m not going to sleep with you until I know without a doubt it’s what you want, too. Not the sex. Me,” he said, and set his hands on her shoulders. “I’m not about to screw up what we might have here by rushing it.”
Her voice shook when she said, “I’m so scared.”
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“Don’t be.” And then he lowered his head, and parted his lips against her neck, right where it met her shoulder.
It felt so good to be wanted. To be more than wanted. To be treasured, because that’s what he made her feel.
His hands slid down her arms, squeezing her biceps, cupping her elbows, finding her wrists, then lacing their fingers, keeping the whole length of his arms against the whole length of hers. He nuzzled the skin beneath her ear, tugged on her earlobe with his lips, rubbed his nose against her jaw.
She was shivering everywhere, shaking where she stood, and still he held her, pulling her into his hips where she felt cradled and sheltered. Where she felt safe. And as securely as he held her, she knew she could step free at any time. He wouldn’t keep her against her will. He wouldn’t force her.
Moving away was the last thing she wanted, but she did so she could turn and lean into him, and wrap her arms around him. She found his jaw with her lips, setting them there, then kissing his stubbled skin. He was warm, and she was growing warmer, and parts of her body that had been asleep for so long were waking up, and oh were they suddenly demanding.
“Becca—”
“Shh,” she said, laying her index finger against his lips. “Please don’t talk. Just be here with me. Please.”
“Becca—”
“Manuel. Manny.” She stopped, swallowing her fear and misgivings and every doubt she’d had. “I’m so tired of looking behind me. I want to look ahead.”
“Then you’ve come to the right man,” he said, slinging an arm around her and covering her mouth with his.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Dakota had just turned off the kitchen light, having rinsed out the sink after cleaning the ketchup from the plate he’d used for dinner, when he heard the car outside. He hadn’t cooked. He’d picked up a bacon cheeseburger basket at Back Alley Pub after work. Unfortunately, the pickles and tomatoes had soaked the bun and the wrapper both, and when the paper had torn under duress, he’d slid everything onto a plate.
He walked to the front door. It stood open in the early summer night, the breeze cutting through the house to exit through the screen in the kitchen. If he’d been home during the day, he would’ve run the A/C, but since he was only here to sleep, he gave himself the luxury of fresh air and a tiny little power bill. Looking outside, he saw the blue Subaru. Then saw Thea talking to herself as she walked toward the cottage.
Thea, climbing the steps to the porch.
Thea, holding his gaze while his heart cracked behind his ribs.
Thea, planting a hand in the center of his chest right where he was breaking, and pushing him into the room, kicking the door shut behind her. She took one of his hands in hers and turned toward the bedroom.
“What—”
She spun to press her finger to his lips, whispering, “Shh. Don’t say a word or I’ll change my mind. Unless you want me to change my mind,” she added, letting her finger slide down his chin, his neck, over his Adam’s apple and into the hollow of his throat. Then she hooked it over the band of his T-shirt and pulled.
He went willingly, silently, desperately, and anxious, wanting to ask her what had brought her here, but he feared the answers even more than he wanted to know. And so he kept his mouth shut and walked through the darkness to the only bed in the house. The window was open in here, too, the curtains fluttering, light from the moon shining in on the sheets he’d left crumpled this morning.
They weren’t exactly dirty, though they certainly weren’t clean, but Thea was toeing off her shoes and slipping off her tank top, taking away that particular pleasure he would’ve loved for himself. He reached for the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it off. Then he moved his hands to the waist of his jeans. Thea stopped him.
She released the top button with shaking fingers, then freed the rest until his fly parted, dragging the backs of her nails from his boxers through the hair on his abdomen and up his chest. Once there, she spread out her fingers, flexing them against his pecs, then slid her hands to his neck and pulled him down.
He groaned, wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her against him. She hooked one leg behind his hips and leaned back. They fell to the bed together, and lost the rest of their clothes in a flurry of hips wiggling and hands tugging, and Dakota didn’t even bother with his socks. He was naked enough, and she was beside him, and nothing else mattered.
He rolled to his side, facing her as he brought up his hand to cup her face. He remembered this, touching her softly, being gentler than he’d ever known he could be.
She smiled, a tentative movement of her lips, then she turned her head and kissed the center of his palm, holding his hand in place with her own, hers so small, her fingers so slender when she threaded them through his. He’d forgotten so many things about his past, but he still knew every bit of Thea, even though what he knew belonged in the long ago when they hadn’t known shit about making love.
Leaning close, he brought his mouth to hers. Her lips were soft, and they parted without reservation, and she squeezed his hand until it felt as if she would cut off every bit of blood flow to his fingers. He wiggled them and pulled free, running his palm from her shoulder to her elbow, then sliding over the curve of her arm to her waist, to her hip, to the back of her thigh which he lifted and draped over his.
She ran her foot up and down his calf. “I don’t remember these muscles.”
“And I don’t remember these,” he said, his hand once again at her shoulder and squeezing.
“I still can’t do but one or two pull-ups, but I can kill a punching bag.”
“I’ll bet,” he said, pushing her down and crawling over her, then pinning her arms above her head. “Something tells me this would be a really good time for a pair of handcuffs,” he said, then wished he hadn’t, and waited to see if he’d ruined everything.
But all she did was laugh, sliding her feet along his legs and tucking them next to his. “A real punching bag, silly. I’m the last person you’ll ever see using another person instead.”
Because she’d been used as one. Maybe not literally, but emotionally, mentally. Though for all he knew some of her damage could be found on her body in scars. He wanted to run his hands over her, to find them, to feel how deep they ran, to learn how she’d been marked.
But he didn’t. Instead, he held her wrists with one hand, and slid his other between their bodies, finding her wet and ready, and guiding his sheathed cock between her legs.
She gasped when he pushed into her, rising up against him, then taking him with her as she settled back onto the bed. She hooked her heels beneath his rump and held tight with her legs as he stroked, shoving deep, pulling free, sticking with a rhythm he knew well. A rhythm that had always worked for Thea. A rhythm she’d taught him she liked.
That had been so many years ago, yet looking into her eyes now he saw the girl she’d been as well as the woman she was. It left him confused, left him aching. He closed his eyes and dropped his forehead to hers, breathing in the air she breathed out as they moved. Their hearts pounded as one, their body heat rising, their skin growing slick in the warmth of the room.
It was hard not to give in and let go. They had all night. They didn’t have to make this more than it was or needed to be. Not this first time after so many years and so much history. Not after living for a third of his life with the memory of their last time and how it had saved him, kept him sane, left him wrecked for every other woman he’d known. Not—
“Dakota?”
“I’m here.”
“Hurry.”
He chuckled, and lifted his head from hers, and looked into her eyes. “I can do that.”
“Then do it now,” she said, squirming beneath it. “Make me mindless. Make me disappear. Make me forget everything. Make me come.”
Her hands roamed his back, one reaching his head and her fingers th
reading into his hair to urge him down. She opened her mouth beneath his and kissed him, catching his bottom lip between hers, and tugging playfully until he was gasping for breath and had to pull free.
And that was it. They moved as one until neither of them had any reason left to hold on, and they both let go, coming together, coming apart. Coming to know nothing after this would ever be the same between them. Coming. Coming.
Coming.
“Tell me something,” Thea said, snuggling up to Dakota’s side. All these years later, and here they were, warm and comfortable, like a coat taken out for the winter, or a favorite childhood blanket that smelled of home. It was as if there had never been prison or Todd or the need to buy the house on Dragon Fire Hill for a shelter. As if nothing had come between them. As if they’d been here together all along. It was a wonderful feeling, and she never wanted to let it go.
Strange how she knew his body so well, yet didn’t know it at all. This wasn’t the body she’d curled up against all those years ago, the body she’d allowed into hers, the body she’d taken with hers. His differences made her wonder about her own, or at least the ones she couldn’t see.
She was narrower in her waist, heavier in her hips. That much she knew by the fit of her clothes. Her bustline hadn’t changed much, though gravity was doing its best to drag things down. Fortunately, weight lifting had given her some pretty buff shoulders, and her triceps weren’t anything to laugh about. Funny the toll life took on joints and muscles.
“What?” he finally asked after a long minute of thinking and breathing and little else.
“Pick something. Anything.” She wanted to listen to him talk. To hear what he had on his mind. Doing so had been one of her favorite parts of their past: sex first, every other thing in the world that mattered next. It was almost as if they’d needed to make that visceral, physical connection to allow the rest of what they shared to find a way out.