Somebody Else's Sky (Something in the Way #2)(62)

Manning just stared at the running water until he finally flipped off the faucet. The drain gurgled and burped. Mesmerized, I reached up to touch the tattoo. He turned his head a fraction and spun. Within a second, my wrist was in a vice-like grip, my neck in his other hand as he pinned my back against the counter with his hips.

"What are you doing?" he whispered, voice hard, eyes black.

I forgot to breathe. His anger coursed through me like adrenaline, making my heart race and my nipples harden. "What's wrong?" I asked.

His grip remained strong, even as his fingers loosened. He pressed one thumb into my wrist and the other at the top of my throat. "You snuck up on me."

"Are you okay?"

The darkness hadn't left his eyes. He kept me caged against the counter like he'd caught me breaking in. He shifted his thumb up my neck, under my chin, as if checking for a heartbeat. "You know what I'd do to a man inside who tried to come at me while my back was turned?"



       
         
       
        

I swallowed against his hand. For all the times I'd tortured myself wondering what it was like in there, I said, "Tell me."

"It'd give you nightmares."

For some reason, that made my stomach tighten, my insides clench. It turned me on, even as realization dawned on me-Manning was the one with the nightmares.

When something twitched against my stomach, his eyes dropped. From this angle, he could see down my camisole, and he did. He looked right at my breasts. "Did you dress like this while I was away?" he asked, his whisper angry.

I sobered. "Like what?"

He put his hands at my waist, bunching up the cotton and exposing my midriff. "Why do you do this to me?" he asked. "Why can't you just . . . stop?"

My heart pounded. I knew what he meant without asking. Being around each other was as hard for him as it was for me. I hated that it took fear and nightmares to get anywhere with him, but at least he was here now. "I'm sorry," I said, because I didn't want to torture him, but I didn't know any other way.

He lifted me onto the counter and slid me back until my head touched a cabinet, like he was hiding a doll on the back of a shelf. He didn't let me go. His breathing labored, even though I knew lifting me was no effort for him. Something else made it hard to breathe. I put my hand on his bare chest, and it rose with his inhale. I ached to explore every inch of him. When he didn't pull me off, I traced the dip his collarbone created. He had the expansive torso of a man, unlike the boys I'd been around, and his stomach flexed into a six-pack. I was in awe. Breathless from the world opening up to me. As I went to touch, though, he stopped my hand and put it on his face. I scraped my palm along his stubble. I was touching him without asking. He'd touched me, too. I wanted to rejoice in that, but I couldn't ignore the anguish in his face. "What are your nightmares about?" I asked.

He kept his eyes down but pushed his thumbs into the soft space in the middle of my ribcage. As if he'd pressed a button, my insides melted like butter, warming my lower half.

"I'm fine," he said. "Don't worry."

"I do worry. I can't help it. I think the worst."

"What's the worst?"

"I worry that they hurt you. I worry they changed you. I worry you hate me."

"Hate you," he repeated, not a question. "There are some things I hate about you."

I was too wrapped up in him to be hurt. He could say anything to me when we were like this, and I'd take it. I shuddered. "Like what?"

"That you're not the girl you were when I went away. That you still are. That I could," he squeezed my middle, "ruin you in one stroke. That I could give you nightmares." He got closer, as if he were going to tell me a secret. "Cuts and bruises, broken bones, they heal, Lake. They're nothing." 

"What doesn't heal?"

"Everything else."

My chest ached with the weight of my regret for what I couldn't change or take back. No matter how much time passed, no matter how life turned out, it would never be right what I'd done. "My mistakes hurt you. They did this. They're why you hate me."

He didn't say anything, but the way he avoided my eyes was answer enough. He put one large hand on my chest, spreading his fingers and wrinkling his brow as if trying to see if he could reach both my shoulders. "That's not what I'm talking about," he said finally. "There are things I can't share with you."

"You can," I whispered, locking my hands around the back of his neck. He was pushing me away by my chest, but I held on. "You can tell me. I'm stronger than you think."