Move the Stars (Something in the Way 3)

“It’s me, Lake. Focus on me.” He took my trembling hands in his steady ones and moved them around his neck. With a hand under my bottom, he lifted me, and instinctively, I wrapped my legs around his middle. As he ground into me once, a need I’d never felt took over.

“Manning.” I didn’t know what else to say during the best moment of my life so I just let him kiss me dizzy. Except that wasn’t right, because I was kissing back, my own mouth hot and insistent, eager to consume him, to take everything I’d ever wanted. It got ugly, our noses mashed, teeth clinking, lips burning.

Manning held me so tightly, I didn’t notice we were moving until my back hit the mattress. With the urgency of his hardness rubbing my most sensitive spots, his hands everywhere all at once—my hair, my face, my hips and legs—my fear fell away like a robe, baring my naked self, flushed with acute longing. I bypassed his buttons, gathering the fabric of his dress shirt in my fists as I tried to get it over his head. He yanked it off by the collar and stood. Watching me from the foot of the bed, he undid his pants. “If only you could see yourself right now,” he said. “You are my fantasy come to life, you’re so . . .”

As he stripped down, my throat closed. His tender words couldn’t distract me. It was not humanly possible that penis would fit inside me. I scooted back on the bed and away from him until I saw it there in his face—he was afraid, too. Here I was, underneath him for the first time, when he’d fought so hard to keep me at a distance. No matter how many years had passed, or how much I’d matured, I couldn’t expect Manning to switch gears this fast. I knew him. Part of him would still feel like he was tarnishing something pure.

“Manning?” I said.

“You’re scared,” he said. “I’ll slow down.”

Now, the only thing that alarmed me was that he might change his mind. I reached out for him. “I’m not,” I said. “Not at all. I’m ready.”

“Are you?” he asked, staying where he was. “Nothing’ll ever be the same afterward.”

Words could not express my need for him. It would take more for me to break through this wall Manning had put between us, this sense that I was too pure for a man like him. So I channeled my inner-Val, since she was the most confident, experienced girl I knew. In the steadiest voice I could manage, I said, “I want you so much, Manning, please—I need you to . . .”

His jaw ticked. “Need me to what?”

My heart raced. I didn’t know if I was wet enough for everything standing in front of me, but I’d fooled around before and had definitely never felt this hot or horny or excited. “I need to feel you inside me.”

“Lake . . .” I could see his instincts warring. If his guilt won out, I’d die on the spot, either of embarrassment or sexual frustration, I was sure of it.

“It’s okay, Manning,” I said, a little more timidly than I meant. “You can fuck me.”

He closed his eyes, frowning as if the words hurt him, but it only lasted a second. With a flare of his nostrils, he grabbed my ankle and pulled me back down the bed. My sweater rode up to my waist, and he impatiently yanked off my jeans without even bothering with the fly.

He climbed over me, spreading my legs with his knees. “You know what you’re asking for, Birdy?”

I didn’t. I’d never been fucked. I’d never been made love to, either. But I was afraid if I told Manning the truth, he’d only see that sixteen-year-old girl in front of him and talk himself out of this. I was a virgin, and I was scared, but more than that, I wanted to feel every moment of this, to give us both everything we needed. So I bit my bottom lip and said, “Yes.”

I barely had time to appreciate the expanse of his chest before he was fully on top of me, his hands inside my sweater, his length against me, this time with only the thin layer of my underwear between us. I was dying to touch him, to take in everything that was happening, but things moved fast. Where did I put my hands? Did he want me to be loud, quiet, rough, gentle? What did he like?

Reading my hesitation, he said into my mouth. “You can touch me. I’m completely yours.”

“Where?”

“Any-fucking-place you want.” He cupped the back of my head in one hand and lifted my butt with the other. “Don’t you know how crazy you make me? You never understood.”