Move the Stars (Something in the Way 3)

“Shit.” He pushed up. “Shit, Lake.”

“No,” I said, trying to bring him back on top of me. “I don’t want you to stop.”

He got off the bed, going pale as he looked at the sheet and then down at himself. “You’re bleeding. You’re fucking bleeding.” He paced the room. “Oh, God.”

“I-I’m sorry. I just wanted it to be perfect.” Things had moved so fast. I didn’t care—I didn’t want to slow down. All my friends had lost their virginity in high school. I was the only one who’d held out and for what? At twenty-two, I still felt exposed and childish. I pulled the sheet around myself and sat up. “Please don’t go,” I said, hiccupping. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Stay right there,” he said, anguish on his face. “Don’t move.”

He left the room. Mortified, I kicked the stained sheet away, hurrying to put my underwear back on. I pulled my sweater down as far as it would go, afraid he’d return and see the truth—as far as I’d come, in many ways, I was still that same, inexperienced sixteen-year-old girl.

7

Lake

Manning returned to my bedroom, wiping his hands on a damp cloth before he ran it over his shaft to clean the blood away. “Why are you getting dressed?” he asked, glancing at my underwear.

Hadn’t I exposed enough? “Don’t leave, Manning.”

“Leave?” He kneeled at the foot of the bed, looking up at me. “Lake—I’m not going anywhere. Lie back.”

I did as he said, and he gently moved my underwear aside to wipe the blood away. Even if he didn’t mean it to, it felt good, the towel tepid and soothing. I moaned softly, and he lingered there, running it over me with a little more pressure. Just as the warmth started to build, he threw the towel aside. “Up.”

Cautiously, I rose from the bed, standing before him in just my sweater and panties. He was still hard, still tortured as he looked me in the face. “You’re a virgin?”

“This doesn’t change anything,” I quietly begged him.

To my surprise, he dropped to his knees and pulled me to him by my hips. “Sweet, sweet girl,” he said, his eyes intently on me. “It changes everything. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Unsure of how to put it, I spun the thin ring on my index finger. “I—I was afraid you’d think I was too innocent and not go through with it.”

“But you and Corbin—”

“Were never together,” I admitted.

“Yesterday it seemed like . . . and your mom said he was your boyfriend.”

“I never told her that. She assumed, and I think Corbin wants her to think so because he . . .” I closed my mouth. This didn’t seem like the right moment to upset Manning.

“He still wants you,” Manning said. “I know that; it’s hardly a secret. But he was all over you yesterday. I thought you were a couple.”

“I let you believe that because I wanted to hurt you.”

He ran his hands up my backside and under my sweater, squeezing my waist as he dropped his forehead on my stomach. His voice nearly broke when he said, “You waited for me.”

“Not waited. Hoped. I didn’t think it would ever happen,” I said, my heart in my throat, “but I couldn’t bring myself to do it with anyone else.”

“I don’t deserve it.”

I touched his hair, inky black softness sprouting through my fingers. “If not you,” I said, “then who?”

He turned his face up to mine again. “If I’d known, Lake, I never would’ve done it like that. I’m so . . . fuck, I’m so sorry. I want nothing more in this world than to worship you. To show you how much I love you because words aren’t enough.”

Immediately, tears filled my eyes. “Love me?”

“Was there ever any question that I do? Even with all the fucked-up things I did, you can’t tell me you didn’t know, for a moment, that I was in love you.”

Hearing the words I already knew to be true was validation for all of it. For the way I’d pushed him so many times over those two years I’d lived at home. My confessions had scattered on the beach the night I’d found out about the wedding—I’m all wrong without you, I’d said, and had gotten no response but waves crashing on the shore. This morning, though, he loved me. A tear slid down my cheek. “Show me, Manning, please. Don’t make me wait any longer.”

With a kiss to my chest, he sat back on his knees. Holding my hips, he brushed his lips down my stomach, then pressed them to the front of my underwear. It was an innocent kiss that felt anything but—and one that made me inhale a shaky breath. He kissed me there again, dampening the white cotton. Despite the gentle way he touched me, I felt the urgency in his movements as his fingertips dug into my skin, then a pull in my stomach so sharp, it almost hurt.