The Comfort of Favorite Things (A Hope Springs Novel) (23 page)

She wanted to. She desperately wanted to. She clenched her jaw so tight she thought her skin might pop. Arms crossed, she looked out into the night, seeing the twinkle of lights in Hope Springs.

Hope was such a stupid emotion. Hope never came true.

Manny moved in closer. She heard his steps on the pavement, felt the heat of his body when he came near, smelled the aftershave she hated that on him she’d grown used to.

“I want you, Becca York. I’m crazy for you. But I’m not going to sleep with you until I know without a doubt it’s what you want, too. Not the sex. Me,” he said, and set his hands on her shoulders. “I’m not about to screw up what we might have here by rushing it.”

Her voice shook when she said, “I’m so scared.”

“Don’t be.” And then he lowered his head, and parted his lips against her neck, right where it met her shoulder.

It felt so good to be wanted. To be more than wanted. To be treasured, because that’s what he made her feel.

His hands slid down her arms, squeezing her biceps, cupping her elbows, finding her wrists, then lacing their fingers, keeping the whole length of his arms against the whole length of hers. He nuzzled the skin beneath her ear, tugged on her earlobe with his lips, rubbed his nose against her jaw.

She was shivering everywhere, shaking where she stood, and still he held her, pulling her into his hips where she felt cradled and sheltered. Where she felt safe. And as securely as he held her, she knew she could step free at any time. He wouldn’t keep her against her will. He wouldn’t force her.

Moving away was the last thing she wanted, but she did so she could turn and lean into him, and wrap her arms around him. She found his jaw with her lips, setting them there, then kissing his stubbled skin. He was warm, and she was growing warmer, and parts of her body that had been asleep for so long were waking up, and oh were they suddenly demanding.

“Becca—”

“Shh,” she said, laying her index finger against his lips. “Please don’t talk. Just be here with me. Please.”

“Becca—”

“Manuel. Manny.” She stopped, swallowing her fear and misgivings and every doubt she’d had. “I’m so tired of looking behind me. I want to look ahead.”

“Then you’ve come to the right man,” he said, slinging an arm around her and covering her mouth with his.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

D
akota had just turned off the kitchen light, having rinsed out the sink after cleaning the ketchup from the plate he’d used for dinner, when he heard the car outside. He hadn’t cooked. He’d picked up a bacon cheeseburger basket at Back Alley Pub after work. Unfortunately, the pickles and tomatoes had soaked the bun and the wrapper both, and when the paper had torn under duress, he’d slid everything onto a plate.

He walked to the front door. It stood open in the early summer night, the breeze cutting through the house to exit through the screen in the kitchen. If he’d been home during the day, he would’ve run the A/C, but since he was only here to sleep, he gave himself the luxury of fresh air and a tiny little power bill. Looking outside, he saw the blue Subaru. Then saw Thea talking to herself as she walked toward the cottage.

Thea, climbing the steps to the porch.

Thea, holding his gaze while his heart cracked behind his ribs.

Thea, planting a hand in the center of his chest right where he was breaking, and pushing him into the room, kicking the door shut behind her. She took one of his hands in hers and turned toward the bedroom.

“What—”

She spun to press her finger to his lips, whispering, “Shh. Don’t say a word or I’ll change my mind. Unless you want me to change my mind,” she added, letting her finger slide down his chin, his neck, over his Adam’s apple and into the hollow of his throat. Then she hooked it over the band of his T-shirt and pulled.

He went willingly, silently, desperately, and anxious, wanting to ask her what had brought her here, but he feared the answers even more than he wanted to know. And so he kept his mouth shut and walked through the darkness to the only bed in the house. The window was open in here, too, the curtains fluttering, light from the moon shining in on the sheets he’d left crumpled this morning.

They weren’t exactly dirty, though they certainly weren’t clean, but Thea was toeing off her shoes and slipping off her tank top, taking away that particular pleasure he would’ve loved for himself. He reached for the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it off. Then he moved his hands to the waist of his jeans. Thea stopped him.

She released the top button with shaking fingers, then freed the rest until his fly parted, dragging the backs of her nails from his boxers through the hair on his abdomen and up his chest. Once there, she spread out her fingers, flexing them against his pecs, then slid her hands to his neck and pulled him down.

He groaned, wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her against him. She hooked one leg behind his hips and leaned back. They fell to the bed together, and lost the rest of their clothes in a flurry of hips wiggling and hands tugging, and Dakota didn’t even bother with his socks. He was naked enough, and she was beside him, and nothing else mattered.

He rolled to his side, facing her as he brought up his hand to cup her face. He remembered this, touching her softly, being gentler than he’d ever known he could be.

She smiled, a tentative movement of her lips, then she turned her head and kissed the center of his palm, holding his hand in place with her own, hers so small, her fingers so slender when she threaded them through his. He’d forgotten so many things about his past, but he still knew every bit of Thea, even though what he knew belonged in the long ago when they hadn’t known shit about making love.

Leaning close, he brought his mouth to hers. Her lips were soft, and they parted without reservation, and she squeezed his hand until it felt as if she would cut off every bit of blood flow to his fingers. He wiggled them and pulled free, running his palm from her shoulder to her elbow, then sliding over the curve of her arm to her waist, to her hip, to the back of her thigh which he lifted and draped over his.

She ran her foot up and down his calf. “I don’t remember these muscles.”

“And I don’t remember these,” he said, his hand once again at her shoulder and squeezing.

“I still can’t do but one or two pull-ups, but I can kill a punching bag.”

“I’ll bet,” he said, pushing her down and crawling over her, then pinning her arms above her head. “Something tells me this would be a really good time for a pair of handcuffs,” he said, then wished he hadn’t, and waited to see if he’d ruined everything.

But all she did was laugh, sliding her feet along his legs and tucking them next to his. “A real punching bag, silly. I’m the last person you’ll ever see using another person instead.”

Because she’d been used as one. Maybe not literally, but emotionally, mentally. Though for all he knew some of her damage could be found on her body in scars. He wanted to run his hands over her, to find them, to feel how deep they ran, to learn how she’d been marked.

But he didn’t. Instead, he held her wrists with one hand, and slid his other between their bodies, finding her wet and ready, and guiding his sheathed cock between her legs.

She gasped when he pushed into her, rising up against him, then taking him with her as she settled back onto the bed. She hooked her heels beneath his rump and held tight with her legs as he stroked, shoving deep, pulling free, sticking with a rhythm he knew well. A rhythm that had always worked for Thea. A rhythm she’d taught him she liked.

That had been so many years ago, yet looking into her eyes now he saw the girl she’d been as well as the woman she was. It left him confused, left him aching. He closed his eyes and dropped his forehead to hers, breathing in the air she breathed out as they moved. Their hearts pounded as one, their body heat rising, their skin growing slick in the warmth of the room.

It was hard not to give in and let go. They had all night. They didn’t have to make this more than it was or needed to be. Not this first time after so many years and so much history. Not after living for a third of his life with the memory of their last time and how it had saved him, kept him sane, left him wrecked for every other woman he’d known. Not—

“Dakota?”

“I’m here.”

“Hurry.”

He chuckled, and lifted his head from hers, and looked into her eyes. “I can do that.”

“Then do it now,” she said, squirming beneath it. “Make me mindless. Make me disappear. Make me forget everything. Make me come.”

Her hands roamed his back, one reaching his head and her fingers threading into his hair to urge him down. She opened her mouth beneath his and kissed him, catching his bottom lip between hers, and tugging playfully until he was gasping for breath and had to pull free.

And that was it. They moved as one until neither of them had any reason left to hold on, and they both let go, coming together, coming apart. Coming to know nothing after this would ever be the same between them. Coming. Coming.

Coming.

“Tell me something,” Thea said, snuggling up to Dakota’s side. All these years later, and here they were, warm and comfortable, like a coat taken out for the winter, or a favorite childhood blanket that smelled of home. It was as if there had never been prison or Todd or the need to buy the house on Dragon Fire Hill for a shelter. As if nothing had come between them. As if they’d been here together all along. It was a wonderful feeling, and she never wanted to let it go.

Strange how she knew his body so well, yet didn’t know it at all. This wasn’t the body she’d curled up against all those years ago, the body she’d allowed into hers, the body she’d taken with hers. His differences made her wonder about her own, or at least the ones she couldn’t see.

She was narrower in her waist, heavier in her hips. That much she knew by the fit of her clothes. Her bustline hadn’t changed much, though gravity was doing its best to drag things down. Fortunately, weight lifting had given her some pretty buff shoulders, and her triceps weren’t anything to laugh about. Funny the toll life took on joints and muscles.

“What?” he finally asked after a long minute of thinking and breathing and little else.

“Pick something. Anything.” She wanted to listen to him talk. To hear what he had on his mind. Doing so had been one of her favorite parts of their past: sex first, every other thing in the world that mattered next. It was almost as if they’d needed to make that visceral, physical connection to allow the rest of what they shared to find a way out.

Oh, but they’d shared a lot.

“The earth is round.”

So it was going to be like that, was it?
Not that his reticence to be revealing surprised her.

This Dakota, older and wiser and broken in ways that went far beyond her ability to deal with, wasn’t much for talking. Even with her understanding of damage, she hadn’t been very successful in finding a chink in his armor. Crazy how much she wanted to.

She prompted him. “Tell me something about your life. Where you’ve been. What you’ve done. More than the barista, cattle wrangling, and construction stuff.”

“I thought we agreed not to revisit the past.”

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

“This,” she said, spreading out her fingers over his belly, threading them into the coarse hair growing low there.

“The way you showed up out of the blue, I thought this might be no-strings-attached sex.”

“It is,” she said, trying not to think about the promises she’d made to herself, that sex, when she was brave enough to explore such intimacy again, would be wrapped up in glittery ribbons and bows. That it would tie her tightly to the man she found deserving. That strings would be everywhere. Hundreds of them. Thousands. She wanted to know the emotional ties were tight, and that she was safe before indulging.

Yet sleeping with Dakota . . . She didn’t feel like a sellout at all—a thought she tucked away to look at later. For now she chalked up the urge that had sent her here to finding comfort in the favorite and the familiar. Dakota Keller was both. He’d always been a part of her. She thought he always would.

He grunted in answer. “Not sure I believe that, but it’s your party.”

“Then that means I should get my way,” she said, pushing a tangle of sheet from between her feet so she could find his. “Talk to me like you used to. I loved that, you know. Listening to you after sex. It was the only time you really talked. About things that mattered anyway.”

“Except that last time.”

The one place she hadn’t expected him to go. The one place she wasn’t sure she wanted him to. “I fell asleep. When I woke up you were gone. If you talked to me, I didn’t know.”

He raised one arm, tucking it beneath his head. The other he wrapped around her shoulders, securing her against him. “When I got back home, that last night before prison, my lawyer was waiting there with my parents. My dad was pacing the kitchen. Tennessee and Indiana were sitting on the stairs, like they’d been in bed and heard me come in so had gotten back up. I guess my folks were afraid I had split. That I was regretting what I’d done and didn’t want to have to pay for what was a big fat mistake.”

“Did you?” she asked softly, spreading her fingers over his chest. “Regret it?”

“No. And it was never a mistake. Tennessee knew that. When I picked up the bat that night, we looked at each other. I didn’t say anything, and all he did was nod, but he knew I was asking him if going after Robby for what he’d done to Indiana was the right thing to do.”

“And it was?”

He didn’t answer her question, continuing on as if she hadn’t said a thing. “My lawyer took me outside, away from my folks. They were absolutely useless. Nothing new there, but that was the first time I realized the extent of that particular truth.” He went silent for several seconds, as if reliving the moment of awareness. “He told me I had to be strong, and I thought
what a worthless piece of advice
, but then he grabbed me by the arm and wouldn’t let go.

“I jerked, trying to get away, but I didn’t really fight him, and he held tight. He wasn’t a big guy, not much taller than me, but obviously a whole lot stronger. Yeah, I knew how to swing a bat, but that was nothing. And that was his point. I was going into a place where men waited for fresh meat. Especially young meat. And pretty meat.” He snorted. “First time I’d ever hated my looks.”

Thea shivered. “Oh, Dakota.”

“He didn’t just tell me I had to be strong. He showed me why, just by holding me there, then he explained in very crude detail what I was going to be up against. Once I’d finished hyperventilating, he went into the how of making it happen. A very specific how. Crunches and push-ups and squats and running in place. Jumping with an imaginary rope. I started the first day, as soon as I rolled out of bed. I earned a rep as a crazy man not to be messed with. I went in with one body, came out with another. Indiana said the day I got out that she didn’t recognize me until I’d walked past them and gotten into a cab.”

She raised up on her elbow, wanting to see his face. “You didn’t know they were coming? You didn’t look for them?”

“I knew,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “But I didn’t want to see anyone just then. It wasn’t just the shape of my muscles that had changed.”

“You weren’t the same man mentally or emotionally either.”

He shook his head on the pillow and tightened the arm holding her. “I needed to find out for myself who I was on the outside before I could be of any use to either of them.”