Move the Stars (Something in the Way 3)

A pit formed in my stomach. I’d never asked how long his trip was. What if he’d only been here two nights and I’d missed my chance? Worse, what if something had happened between the theater and his hotel? As defensive as I’d been of my city, it was true—this wasn’t the safest place. I knew someone who’d been hit by a cab, and I’d read news stories about people falling onto subway tracks. A friend of one of my classmates had been mugged not far from the theater where Manning and I had just been.

I traded my sheet for the first things I found, baggy jeans and a white sweater warm and fuzzy enough to face a wintry day. I grabbed my purse and boots on the way, but I didn’t even make it into the hall.

Manning stood at my front door, still in his suit, his hair as disheveled as it’d been after a hot day on the construction site. I didn’t need to ask why he was there. By his hungry eyes, I knew the answer. He stepped into my tiny doorway and I flinched, my heart pounding, the silence growing thick between us as he dominated the space.

“I . . .” I choked. Overcome, I tried to tell him I’d been coming to find him. He was so large, so there, impatience rolling off him. I knew what he wanted, what I wanted, but faced with the reality of it, I wasn’t sure how to ask for it. “I called the hotel . . . I . . .”

“You better find your words, Lake, because I’m going to need to hear you say it before I take a step into this apartment.”

My chest rose and fell faster as I tried to catch my breath. The gap between us lessened, growing tenser. Hotter. He was here. He’d come for me. I just had to say it. “I thought about it all night. I thought about you.”

“And?”

“I know there’ll be consequences, but . . .” I bit my bottom lip. “I want this anyway. I want you.”

He kicked the door shut. My breath caught with its slam and before I could even exhale, Manning had my face in his hands, his mouth landing hotly on mine. He walked us backward while I tried to keep up, grabbing his shirt, touching his stubbled cheeks. I reached my arms around his neck, but he was so big—had he always been this tall?—that I stumbled. He caught me by the waist, pressing my back up against a wall.

I lost all sense of where we were in the apartment until he drew back. As he held my face, steps from my bedroom, there was nothing but the heated breath between our parted mouths, and then his thumbs as he grazed each one to the center of my bottom lip.

“Lake.” His voice was sweet and thick as syrup, all the intensity of the moment poured into my name. How could it not be that way? There were a million things I wanted to say and do. All that made sense right then was him.

“Manning,” I responded.

He touched my hair, gentle and reverential, then fisted the hem of my sweater, pulling it with a ferocity that made my insides tighten. “I’ve never done this,” he said.

My stomach was already flipping, my hands shaking, my thoughts giddy, so his unexpected words provoked a nervous giggle. “Done what?”

“I want to feel every part of you against me.” He returned his hands to my cheeks and pecked my forehead, then the tip of my nose. “I want to know all the ways you fit me.”

I tilted my head to meet his mouth.

“No,” he said. “Hold still.”

It was harder than it sounded not to move as he pressed his lips to mine, slow, damp, then kissed his way around my mouth, each contact growing more urgent. When his hips connected with my stomach, we each inhaled a deep breath. Manning was kissing me. The roughened mouth I’d dreamed about was opening me up. His solid, strong, slightly crooked nose pressed against mine. He made love to my mouth—that was the only way to describe it. Maybe he’d really never done this, because this wasn’t sex. It was an act of pure love.

His grip tightened and the kiss turned greedy. He became demanding, hard, almost angry. I was willing, soft, almost terrified. If he was as scared as I was, he didn’t show it. I tried to take his shirt off, but I couldn’t even get a button through its loop. His big body trapped me to the wall, and I felt nothing from the waist down except his erection against my stomach. Things suddenly became real—I was sixteen again and unsure I could keep up with such immensity. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I blurted.