Move the Stars (Something in the Way 3)

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.