Move the Stars (Something in the Way 3)

“I’ve waited much longer, Birdy. You know that. A lifetime, it feels like.”

“Whose fault is that?” I licked my palm and closed my hand over his head to stroke the length of him.

He closed his eyes. “You know everything I built, I imagined fucking you in or on. Our bed. This boat. Every surface in the house I made to fit us.” He glanced down, and I watched him as he watched my hand around him. “Put me inside you.”

I lifted up, not bothering to remove my skirt. He pushed my underwear aside, and I took my time sinking onto him. I had to go slow. He filled me inch by inch, the stretch so exquisite that I could only drop my head back and beg the stars for mercy.

But mercy wasn’t theirs to give. Manning took my waist to guide me up and then back down. I removed his hands to see if he’d let me take charge. “Sit back,” I said.

He relaxed against the stern, stretching his arms along the sides. Slowly, feeling every sensation, I made love to him for the first time. He took off his shirt and I leaned on him to swivel my hips faster, my hands looking a doll’s, small and pale against his sprawling, tan torso.

“Fuck, Lake. Let me touch you. This is torture.”

Though I didn’t mind torturing him all that much, I consented. “All right, Great Bear. You can put your paws on me.”

I could’ve sworn he growled as he stood in one swift motion. With my legs wrapped around him, he stepped out of the boat and lay me on a workbench that seemed to be made for us, only wide enough for me and just tall enough for him. The wood’s roughened surface scraped against my back. After Manning’s restraint all these years, I welcomed the desperate way he grabbed my hips, his strangled groans. Manning fucked me like I hadn’t been fucked since New York, a mix of love and anger, adoration and profanity. He bent over me and took my mouth the same way, his fingers between my legs sending me to the moon.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he breathed.

I squeezed my arms around his neck as he rubbed my clit faster, with more pressure. “Now?”

His gaze burned. “I have always, from the day I saw you, wanted to know all your thoughts.”

I was exposed underneath him, flayed by his hand so many times over the years. “I think you feel so good . . .” I whisper-panted, “and so right . . . that I . . . can’t . . . stand it.”

I writhed under him as I climaxed. He held me to him with a hand around the back of my neck, breathing into my mouth. I felt the lock and release of his muscles as he came, too, the brokenness of his thrusts, and then the slippery way he filled me.

I ran my fingers through the sides of his hair as he hovered over me, staring while he labored for breath, looking almost pained. “Manning?” I asked, concerned.

“I love you, Lake,” he choked out.

Although it wasn’t the first time he’d said it, it felt that way all over again. I smoothed the droplets of sweat from his hairline, holding his stare. “I know.”

“Thank God. You had me for a minute there.” He kissed my forehead and eased out of me. Rounding the workbench, he sat me up to run a hand over my sensitive back. “You’re all red.”

“I’m perfect,” I said.

He hugged me from behind with one arm and urged my legs open to touch me. “What are you doing?” I asked, fascinated by the gentle way he massaged me.

After a few seconds, I felt a surge of wetness. His fingers came back slick. “You don’t know what this does to me. I could have you again right now just knowing you’re filled with me.”

My heart skipped a beat hearing the possessiveness in his voice. Protect, provide, mate. I hadn’t forgotten. “I feel the same.”

“But I keep forgetting to ask before I do that . . . are you on birth control?”

I relaxed against his back. “This time I am, yes.”

“Figures.” He nipped the shell of my ear. “We’ll have to do something about that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Manning.”

He laughed in my ear. “Too soon?”

I dropped the back of my head against his chest to look at him. “For a baby? I think so.”

He kissed the top of my hair. “It doesn’t have to be now. When we’re ready.”

He said it with such confidence, it was almost as if it were already true. Manning and I would be a family.

“Well, fuck.” He came back around the bench, buckling his belt. “I didn’t plan for all this. I thought I’d bring you here and convince you to give me a second chance. Now we’ve gone and had sex in a boat.”