He’d wanted to fuck me. Badly.
He’d been locked up a year-and-a-half and seeing me had inspired some kind of carnal reaction in him. It was the fantasy, the one that got me off like no other. Imagining he’d put me over his shoulder and carried me right out of that house, past my dad, past Tiffany. He’d take me in the backseat of Tiffany’s car because he couldn’t make it longer than that. I’d masturbated over and over to that, and to the night I’d found him at his kitchen sink in nothing but his boxer-briefs. That rawness in his face, his terrifying grip on my wrists, the way he’d pinned me to the counter with his hips—it was the stuff my dark fantasies were made of.
My heart raced, lust and memories coursing through me. I moved into him a little, and his hand tightened around the fabric. A horn blared outside, and as if startled, Manning bent his head, coffee and toothpaste on his breath, and lessened the great height disparity between us.
There was so much unsaid. So much that needed to be said. Whatever was happening had to be stopped, but only heat existed between us at that moment, unleashed after years of being bridled.
Manning tossed his coat out of the way, scanning my face. When he touched the hem of my sweatshirt, I flinched. He lifted it slowly. Underneath was the little black dress I’d worn out to the bar the night before, bunched around my hips. He ran his hand up the cheap satin, stopping under my breasts. With that one touch, my nipples roused, my skin pebbled, my hairs stood on end.
I was putty in his hands, but I didn’t want to be. I didn’t know if I could have him, so I didn’t want to look at him, much less feel his hands on me. “Why are you here, Manning?”
“I never stopped thinking about you, not for a day. I needed to come here and see with my own eyes if you were better off without me.”
I shivered. And if I wasn’t better off? Then what? The answer scared me more than his thumb pressing into my rib, setting free a kaleidoscope of butterflies inside me.
“I’m here because you . . . this . . .” His voice lowered and scraped from his throat as he slipped his other hand under my sweatshirt to take my waist. “It keeps me up at night. It makes me insane. And some days I think I’d kill for it.”
With the word kill, my insides pulled deep. This was it, the carnal side of him I’d seen glimpses of. My focus wavered with his hands on me, but I only just remembered what a mess I was, wearing a dress I’d partied and slept in. I hadn’t shaven my legs in days. “Manning . . .”
His hands moved slowly, hidden by the sweatshirt as they explored me. “Want me to stop?” he asked.
Like that night on his kitchen counter, I still couldn’t believe Manning was just touching me. I wanted it, but I was older now. Smarter. I knew how dangerous his hands were. “I . . .”
“Just say the word. Say stop.”
I breathed hard. I quivered. I thought about the times I’d felt him hard against me and hadn’t been able to do anything about it.
I didn’t tell him to stop.
He cradled both sides of my ribcage, moving his hands upward until I was forced to raise my arms. When he pulled off my sweatshirt, one of my thin dress straps fell over my shoulder. He touched my hair, drawing the long strands through his loose fist and over his palm. He still hadn’t kissed me. It’d been over six years since the day we’d met, and he still hadn’t kissed me. What was he waiting for? He looked anywhere but into my eyes, clearing my hair from my neck, running a thumb along the hollow of my collarbone. He pulled down my other strap and wet his lips, undressing me the same torturous way he’d dismantled my heart, piece by piece, slow and painful. It felt simultaneously natural and unnatural. I’d spent years telling myself, being told, this wasn’t allowed. I gripped his dress shirt. “I hate this suit.”
“Why?”
Was Manning really here? It had to be him. The man in front of me bore a small scar on his upper lip and the faintest crook to his nose, evidence of his time in prison. But now he looked like he belonged on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. “It’s not you. It’s not the man I knew.”
“What if it’s who I am now?”
Maybe it’d be better that way. He was different, and so was I, and if anyone needed to be different people in order to continue down this path, it was us. I didn’t want polished Manning, though. I wanted his roughness, the man who’d been to hell and back, who had callused hands to match his hardened heart. “It’s not you, I know it isn’t, please, Manning . . . just—”
He put his arms around me, hovering his lips above mine. “Just what, Lake?”
Take it off. Kiss me. Love me. Choose me.
I couldn’t do this. I’d asked him for all of this before, and he’d denied me. It would destroy me to have him and lose him again. My heart raced as much out of fear as desire. “Stop.”
He tightened his hold on me, but then, he did as I asked. Manning let me go. “You’re right.”
My nipples, hardly sheathed by my little dress, hardened with the loss of his heat. I hugged myself. Knowing I was right didn’t ease the hurt. “It’s better this way,” I said quietly.
Without looking at me, he shook his head. “It isn’t. I know that now. But I can’t expect you to let me in just like that.”
“Let you in?” If Manning was here to do more than check on me, he had to know what that meant. He and I could never just be alone in a room. We could never touch and kiss and then walk away unscathed. “You need to go before I make a huge mistake.”
“My being here is not a mistake, Lake. I came to see, and I saw, and now I know.”
There was only one thing to say to that, to a truth I couldn’t accept, despite how desperately I wanted to. “You came too late. You wasted your time.”
“Time is never wasted on you,” he said. “You told me that once, the day I—”
“Got out of jail,” I finished. “Did you think I could forget? You barely looked me in the eye after all that time apart. Why was that, Manning?” I asked, even though I knew.
He blew out a long breath. “Because I wanted you,” he admitted. “And I was ashamed.”
“You didn’t need to be.” I picked up his coat and handed it to him. “But you were, and you made decisions you can’t take back. So go. Go home to her.”
He withdrew as if I’d slapped him. “You think I can return to that life after this?”
I crossed my arms, not to make a point, but because my hands shook. My stomach churned like I was going to be ill. I wanted nothing more than for him to break down all the walls between us, but what I needed was for him to be sorry he’d ever stepped foot on a plane. To feel the unrelenting sting I had when the one person I didn’t think I could live without had rejected me. “After what?” I asked. “What could seeing me have possibly changed for you? You’ve been here less than an hour.”
“I’ve been here years,” he said. “Sick over losing you. Tortured that Corbin might make you happy. Wondering if you might still want me. I’ve been stuck in this place, unable to move on. It’s not my feelings that’ve changed, but—”
We jumped apart at a knock on the door, as if we’d been caught doing something wrong—because we had.
“Lake?” I heard from the hallway. “Is everything okay?”
Corbin.
Manning set his jaw. “What’s he doing here?”
“I’m coming in,” Corbin said.
Manning looked from me to the door. “Lake, tell him to go.”
I yanked my sweatshirt back over my head. “He has a key.”
Corbin breezed into the apartment the way he had hundreds of times before. This was as much his domain as it was Val’s. Considering Val spent so much time either with Julian or at work, Corbin was here nearly as often as she was.
He stopped in the hallway as his eyes landed on us. “What’s this?” he asked me.
I cleared the grit from my throat. “Manning’s in town.”
“I see that.” Corbin looked between us. “We were supposed meet for brunch half a
n hour ago, Lake. I called, but . . .”
The tension in the room thickened. It might as well have been Tiffany who’d walked in, because if Corbin suspected anything, he wouldn’t let Manning get away with it.
Tiffany. I’d gone this long not thinking of her as a real part of all this. Not letting the reality of her, my sister, into the room. But I couldn’t ignore the facts any longer—Corbin made everything real. I had almost kissed my sister’s husband.
I wiped the heel of my palm over my warm hairline. “Corbin and I have plans,” I said.
Manning shrugged into his suit jacket. “I could eat.”
“Didn’t you just have breakfast?” I asked.
“I’m hungry again.” He glanced at me from under his lashes. “Starved, even.”
Starved. Food had been, over the years, one of the only ways I could show Manning I loved him, and he knew that.
I should’ve told him no, but I knew Manning would find a way. I didn’t want to make a scene in front of Corbin anyway. Even though he and I hadn’t talked about Manning in years, I was almost certain Corbin had suspected my feelings for Manning before, during, and after the wedding. He had to have known, deep down, that all my suffering when I’d moved here wasn’t simply because of the fights I’d had with my dad leading up to my departure.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“Better change,” Corbin pointed out. “Can’t go having breakfast in what you slept in now that you’re no longer a college student.”
“What?” Manning’s face fell. “You dropped out?”
“Graduated.” I straightened my shoulders as I glanced from him to Corbin and back. “Last Thursday.”
“But it’s December. Your Mom was planning on flying out for the ceremony next June.”
Since I’d made my decision to leave California right before fall, I’d missed the first semester at NYU and started in the spring instead. I wasn’t sure I would’ve been able to handle school anyway on top of moving to such an overwhelming place with no money and a battered spirit. “I didn’t tell Mom,” I said. “I knew it would hurt her that I didn’t want any of you there. Not even her.”
“You had me and Val, though,” Corbin said. He came and threw an arm around me, turning to Manning. “Tell Cathy not to worry. I was there every step of the way.”
Manning and Corbin exchanged looks that could melt steel, which was my cue to duck out from under Corbin’s arm and into my bedroom to change clothes.
3
Manning
Corbin led us from Lake’s apartment to the restaurant where he and Lake had planned to have breakfast. I stayed a few steps behind them. When he put an arm around her shoulders, I had to refrain from stopping him. The urge to separate them hadn’t lessened since I’d last seen them together. Even at my own wedding, I’d watched Corbin like a hawk. The difference was he had her attention now, and I didn’t. What apparently remained the same was that I wanted her as fiercely today as I had back then.
Seeing how she lived, hearing what I’d missed, touching her, getting a taste of what I’d dreamed about, had nightmares about, had tortured myself over . . . it confirmed that coming to New York was the right decision.
I’d been a patient man. I’d been a good husband. I’d provided for Tiffany, and she’d helped me understand over the years I probably wasn’t destined to become my father. But there existed a divide between us that I hadn’t been able to cross while I still had feelings for Lake. When my parole had ended, I’d starting planning this trip, but even then, I’d fought myself. After what I’d put Lake through, it wasn’t fair to just show up. It’d killed me slowly, though, the not knowing—what she was like now, how she lived, who she loved.
I weaved through crowded city sidewalks, bounced off puffy coats, tripped over dog leashes, and sidestepped trash bags on every curb of Manhattan. The company had flown me out here for a week to work, but for months I’d been preparing myself to face Lake. In that time, I’d begun to realize—if I got here and had even the slightest doubt that Lake was better off without me, I’d be unable to walk away. I needed to let her go or make her mine for good. I couldn’t handle the in between anymore. She’d stumbled out of the cab this morning looking anything but perfect, and still, my mouth had watered for her. I’d remembered how hungry I was. No matter how close Tiffany and I had gotten, no matter if I’d been good for her and she for me, she’d never feed my deepest hunger. Not the way Lake could.
And while Tiffany slept in Egyptian cotton and liked to eat out three or four nights a week, Lake had next to nothing. The question was no longer whether I was good for her. It was how I’d atone for my mistakes, from earning her forgiveness to untangling myself from the life I’d built on the west coast.
Corbin took Lake’s hand. She glanced back at me. Lake wasn’t the wide-eyed girl I’d once known, begging for me to destroy her. She wasn’t pure as watermelon Chapstick on never-been-kissed lips. She wasn’t perfect anymore, she wasn’t young and naïve, and that meant I could act on all the things I’d fantasized about doing to her. And that was definitely a fucking problem considering I was still a married man.
In the restaurant, Corbin took Lake’s coat and scarf and went with the hostess to hang them up. It was a stupid thing to get jealous over, but I did. I leaned in to Lake and said, “Tell him to go. I need time alone with you.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear, glancing after Corbin. “I gave you enough time already.”
“Look at me,” I said.
Hesitantly, she shifted her eyes up as I dropped mine to her lips. I’d almost kissed her and now it was all I could think of. I’d never be this close to her again and not burn for it. To sink into her smell, feel her downy-soft hair against my cheek, tangled in my fingers, spread over my skin as she slept on my chest . . .
Up until this morning, all that had been an impossible fantasy. Maybe she’d thought our conversation in her apartment was the end of this, that I’d stay in New York this week and not see her again, but it wasn’t. All it’d done was make me realize that before I could even think of kissing her, I needed to earn her trust again. I needed to tell her what she still meant to me.
But as long as Corbin was around, I had a problem on my hands.
The hostess led us past a Christmas tree with winking multi-colored lights and tables of crayon-wielding kids to a blue vinyl booth. Corbin gestured for Lake to sit first. I would’ve had to push him aside to be next to her, so I was forced to take the seat across them.
I’d barely glanced at the menu before a waitress approached. “Morning, you two,” she said to them. “Want the usual?”
“Yeah, but bring Lake a Coke and hash browns, too.” Corbin passed the waitress his menu and his eyes over me. “She likes that when she’s hungover.”
“Corbin, don’t,” she said quickly. “I’m not hungover. I barely drank anything last night.”
She didn’t want me to think she had, anyway. I didn’t like hearing about it, either. I couldn’t really pretend she didn’t do those things—she had a new life here. She’d grown up. We were both different, but deep down, wasn’t she still the Lake I knew? Wasn’t I still the same man? Without that, who were we? While I looked forward to learning more about the girl sitting across from me, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the one I’d known just yet.
“So no hangover remedy?” the waitress asked.
Lake flicked her nail on the edge of her menu, biting her lip. “You can bring the hash browns.”
The waitress knew them, and Corbin knew Lake. What she liked to eat, at least, but I could learn that. Knowing mundane details wasn’t anything compared to reading her the way I did—it didn’t rival how she anticipated what I needed and when. Maybe Corbin thought he knew her, maybe she thought he did, but not like me.
I could’ve sat and watched Lake all day, but the waitress cleared her throat at me. “Do you need another minute?”
Lake took my menu away and gave it to the waitres
s. “He’ll have the number one. Add avocado.” As she said it, she avoided my eyes, color high in her cheeks. Well, that was all the evidence I needed. Food was an expression of her love. Ever since the day we’d met and she’d made me a monster sandwich, she’d liked to feed me, to watch me eat, to be the reason I was content.
Corbin leaned back in the booth, stretching his arm behind Lake. “How’s Tiffany?” he asked.
Reality cut through my adulation. If I could’ve, I’d have asked Corbin to leave. I wouldn’t put it past him to tell Tiffany he’d found me in Lake’s apartment, though. I didn’t want her to find out that way. Until I got my shit sorted, I’d have to play nice. “She’s fine.”
“And the family? Charles? Cathy?”
“Everyone’s good,” I said, trying to keep the irritation from my voice. “You know that. You were over for Thanksgiving.”
Lake turned in the seat to gape at him. “What?”
“I only stopped by to say hi,” he said to her. “They miss you. They want to know about you.”
Cathy was the only one who’d admit it. Lake’s dad went beet red at the mention of her name, and Tiffany had never been good at expressing her emotions, so she usually clammed up when it came to Lake. That didn’t mean they didn’t miss her, though. I knew they did.
“How could you not tell me?” Lake asked.
“I knew you’d freak, and I was only there ten minutes.”
That was true. Since I’d already booked my trip to New York, and Tiffany had been acting strange about that, I’d disappeared to the backyard during Corbin’s visit. I didn’t want anyone thinking I cared to hear about Lake or the New York trip would be off for good. But after he’d left, all Cathy could talk about was how she’d had a feeling Lake and Corbin might be getting serious.
And if I hadn’t already had my plane ticket, that would’ve been enough to get me to buy one. How serious was it, though?
Something in the Way: A Forbidden Love Saga: The Complete Collection Page 55
