Well, I could find something to do but I wasn’t in the mood to go out. I kind of felt like staying in and just relaxing instead. I tended to get a little carried away sometimes, going out and partying or going out and shopping, but after the few exciting days I’d had I figured it was best to take some time to myself.
For one thing, my morning had been full of excitement and looking at my bed only allowed for those fascinating memories to come rushing back. My body temperature rose as I recalled how good Dakota’s body had felt and even more so when I remembered the way he kissed me back. My only complaint was that we were not able to take things further. I would have loved to see or rather experience whatever happened next.
Sighing, I grabbed a notebook and set it in front of me, intending to read the notes I’d written when I caught sight of the blue envelope Dean had given me earlier in the day. Setting the notebook aside, I reached for the envelope instead. I opened it and took out the entrance admittance and studied it.
Dejected, Dean’s band, seemed to be the main entertainment for Saturday night, a little over a week from now. I had known Dean was part of a band for a while now. The guy’s overall look practically screamed it, but I had never been tempted to go see him play.
Over the years I’d known him I pretty much avoided him. Dean McCarthy was hot from head to toe. That much was true. He had an amazing physique and his face, well, his face was beyond gorgeous. But it had been his constant display of conquests that had put me off for a long time. I refused to be used as he had probably used dozens more.
He had shown an interest for me the moment he first saw me. He had voiced it out the first chance he got, but I ran the other way as soon as I could. I had fallen for a pretty face and killer smile once before and that turned out to be my biggest nightmare.
If I were to categorize guys in general, Dean would go under the will-use-and-abuse-you file. He could very well break a girl’s heart into a million pieces in less than three seconds flat. That had been one of the main reasons I’d begun to date Kirk in the first place. Even though Kirk really wasn’t my type, I thought I’d be safe with him, but that assumption came back to nip me in the butt too.
Maybe, I just didn’t know how to read guys at all. Maybe, just maybe, I was reading Dean the wrong way. I mean, if what he had said was true, and he had always been honest with the girls interested in him, then the term being used really didn’t apply to him. Or maybe it did. I wasn’t sure.
As I stared at the ticket with the band’s name in bold black letters and wondered if there was something up to promote the band in the restaurant’s website, I browsed through the search engine and was instantly rewarded when a picture of the band popped up in the home page, followed by promotional information including details to their upcoming performance at their site in a little over a week.
I enjoyed reading about the band itself, but what really caught my attention was the picture. Dean was the lead singer and standing right in the middle holding a mike in his right hand, but what really impressed me was the display of muscles clearly visible by the fact that he wore no shirt. In the picture, he was nice and sweaty and had a large tattoo of a set of piano keys with a pair of black wings spread opened behind them as if they planned to take flight directly on the left side of his chest, over his pectoral muscle. He had a couple of other tattoos on his arms but because of the angle he stood in, I couldn’t make them out clearly.
It was an image that got immediately imprinted in my head. I was accustomed to seeing a high maintenance kind of guy not this sweaty, shirtless, and muscled God dominating the whole rock and roll star look. It was sexy as hell.
Sighing, I clicked off of the site and decided to concentrate on school work. With so many good memories haunting my every thought that soon turned out to be an ordeal all in itself. How was a girl expected to concentrate when all I could really recall was two equally hot bodies of two different men?
I shook my head hard to keep from straying from the work in front of me and forced myself to concentrate. After about an hour of struggling through notes, reading, and researching I finally gave up and decided to go to bed and try to get some sleep. I’d never gone to bed before ten but after the day I had getting a full night sleep seemed like a good idea.
I must have lain in bed for another hour, fighting to find solace in sleep, but even that proved to be difficult. Honestly, it almost felt as if the world was against me. Why couldn’t I just fall asleep when I felt like it?
Just then my phone jingled and vibrated, alerting me that I had just received a text message. Plying myself off the bed, I walked back to my desk and dialed the passcode to unlock my phone.
The message was from Dakota and it read, Sorry that I couldn’t take time to talk after classes.
I replied right away with, That’s okay.
Maybe we can work something out tomorrow, he texted back.
I certainly hope so, I smiled and wondered what exactly we could work out.
We’ll talk tomorrow then.
Sure. I look forward to it.
Good night, Janessa.
Good night, Dakota.
Having heard from Dakota, my anxiety level dropped right away and I felt renewed once again. I had not realized I was a little off because I hadn’t heard from him at all, but that was no longer an issue.
I had wrongly assumed that since he had left in such a hurry after classes that perhaps he’d gone to meet with Margaret, but I didn’t think that was the case since he probably would have told me or at least would have mentioned something about it.
At least I wanted to believe he would. I wasn’t too confident about that.
Placing my phone back down on top of my desk, I walked to bed and climbed on it to lie on my stomach. Reliving my morning with Dakota, I squeezed my eyes shut and allowed myself to get lost in that memory.
Within minutes the sleep that had eluded me so far finally came.
***
For most of Wednesday I followed the usual routine of sitting through boring lectures, talking to Audrey whenever I could not stand another second of endless speeches from the dullest instructors I’d ever seen, and meeting up with the gang during our forty minute break for lunch.
Being that Dakota was now associated with me he tagged along, and so did his cousin Uziel, and ass of a best friend, Demarco. Uziel I liked. He was funny and had a good sense of humor. Demarco, well, let’s just say I tolerated him because of Dakota. Even so, I made sure to communicate my dislike for him every chance I got.
After classes, the gang met by my car and after much debate, they agreed to go out for some frozen yogurt. Dakota and I, on the other hand, thought it better to part ways and spend some time together, so I drove to his apartment.
“Make yourself comfortable.” Dakota motioned to the couch. “I have a couple of hours before I have to report to work, so I’m going to shower.”
I walked in and glanced around the living room. It was as clean and organized as the first time I had been to his place. For three guys living alone the apartment sure was spotless.
“Do you need a ride to work?” I asked as I strolled over to the couch and sat.
“Why, are you offering?” He gazed down at me and smiled.
I lifted my shoulders. “If you play your cards right.”
He laughed softly. “Right. Well, um, do you want something to drink?”
I shook my head. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
Dakota picked up the remote control sitting on the coffee table. “If you want to watch TV while you wait, we have the premium channels.” He clicked the TV on and browsed through the Starz channels until he stumbled upon The Call with Halle Berry.
“Oh, wait, I haven’t seen that one.”
He looked at me as if a third eye had popped out in the middle of my forehead. “Really? How come?”
“Believe or not, I don’t watch much TV.” My days were usual spent doing something more useful, like shopping, eating out with my fr
iends, plotting to get payback, etc. “And when I do bother to turn on the TV I usually watch reality shows and that kind of thing.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Dakota handed over the remote. “I’ll be back.”
“I’ll be here.” I winked at him and smiled.
He returned the smile before walking off in the direction of his room.
While Dakota showered and got ready for his shift at the nightclub, I paid attention to the first movie I’d seen in like three weeks. I don’t know how long Dakota was in the shower. To be honest, I’d forgotten where I was as I became fully engrossed in the movie’s addictive plot. When Dakota finally joined me, letting me know he was back by placing a hand on my left shoulder, I jumped up and a squeal escaped from my lips.
“Oh, Jesus!” I glanced up and found him smiling, amused. “You just took about half a year out of my life.”
He walked around the couch and sat next to me. “Sorry.”
“Don’t ever scare a girl when she’s in the middle of watching a thriller. You’ll scare her to death.” I slapped his thigh playfully.
“My apologies.” He raised his hands in surrender mode. “I’ll make sure to remember that next time.”
I lay back against the couch’s back rest and folded my arms below my breasts. “Are you always this cheerful?”
“Define cheerful,” he teased, then laughed when I frowned at him. “I don’t let the bad things get to me.”
Well, damn. Was I the only person on earth that didn’t let things slide?
“I like that about you.” I liked a lot of things about him. He was everything I wasn’t. Normally that would put me off, but when it came to Dakota it only made me want him more.
He glanced forward toward the TV. “We’re very different, you and I.”
I tipped my head down. “Yes, I agree.” I wasn’t sure where he was going but I was curious. “When you really think about it, that’s what makes our coming together so interesting.”
“You think so?” He looked at me and arched an eyebrow.
I sat up straight. “We have different backgrounds. We have nothing in common—well, unless you count our cheating significant others that is. And we have totally different ways of looking at things. But far from discouraging, it lures me even more to you. I have to be honest; I really enjoy your company. You’re nothing like the guys I’ve gone out with and I appreciate that more than I ever thought I would.”
“That makes two of us.” His gaze fell back on the TV. “You’re nothing like Margaret.”
“Thank God!” I sighed dramatically. “I wouldn’t want to be compared either.”
Far from being offended, he merely smiled. “You’re direct. You say exactly how you feel and don’t put up a front for anyone. If you’re mad, frustrated, or even offended, you don’t hide it. You speak your mind even if it bothers others. As far as it is to believe I like that about you. No matter what happens, I know I can count on you being straightforward with me.”
I wasn’t so sure I would be entirely straightforward with him. I had been doubting my ability to mess around with someone without falling for him for a couple of days now. Because I’d never just fooled around with some guy before, the qualities he seemed to enjoy about me might be compromised. After all, I had tried to convince him our coming together as a team was nothing more than a means to get back at our partners, but even now I doubted that was entirely true.
If it came down to letting him go, could I? Was there a chance I’d get so involved with him my heart would ultimately give in and I could find myself committing sacrilege by falling in love with Dakota?
“To be honest, I have tried to hide how I feel sometimes,” I admitted.
“Yes, but you don’t hide it very well. That’s how I can always tell how you feel.”
That was one of the things that unnerved me the most. He could read me better than Kirk ever did.
I kept my gaze locked on him as I asked, “Weren’t you able to read Margaret as well as you do me?”
He released some air. “No. Margaret always put up a pretense—she acted as if nothing bothered her, but now I know something obviously did or we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“You know, there is something I don’t get.”
“What?”
“What did she mean when she mentioned you never get angry? That you are hard to talk to because of this?” I pried, hoping he’d be able to close that chapter for me.
Dakota rested his back against the couch’s cushions and wrinkled his nose a bit. “I’m not really sure. I think she might have hated that I understood her too well. Maybe she hated that whenever her frustration grew and she came to that boiling point, I wanted to talk it over and come to an understanding of why she was so upset. Maybe she got bored of me never raising my voice, or of me not arguing back. Maybe in my effort to become a better boyfriend I became dull and not much of a challenge instead. I’m still confused on what she meant exactly, but it might be all those reasons put together.”
Dull? Dakota? No way. He was anything but dull to me.
“Weren’t you always this way?” I inquired, gazing at him with interest.
He dipped his head. “Not really. No. When Margaret and I met, I was…well, I was more of an adrenaline junky. Let’s just say I underwent a rebellious stage during my late teenage years. I mean, yes, I helped my mother out. Was home to take care of my responsibilities and all of that, but I got in my fair share of fights, vandalized a property or two, and even got arrested once.”
It really felt as if he was describing a completely different person. It was hard to associate his past behavior with the man sitting beside me. If he had not revealed that information, I would have never guessed he had a bit of a wild streak himself.
“What changed?”
“After I was arrested, my mother was really upset. She told me how disappointed my father would be if he saw me acting like a fool. My father always wanted me to make something out of myself and stay off the streets and I was doing the exact opposite. After that reality set in and I calmed down, I went back to school and graduated with honors. I was dead set in getting a good education and help others like my father did and I couldn’t do that behind bars.”
Now I understood things a lot more. Dakota had made his share of mistakes just like the rest of us. The difference between him and others was that he opted for changing his life around. While he was a rebel, he might have seemed a lot more interesting to a girl like Margaret who appeared to be a bit of wild child herself. But once Dakota changed, and was serious about doing things the right way, she must have gotten bored.
“I guess Margaret isn’t too fond of the new me.”
“That’s her loss. I happen to like this Dakota very much.”
He turned his head to look at me. “I like you too.”
“Well, well, well. I believe you’ve grown fond of me.” I grinned and reached out to touch the side of his face.
“Fond? Yes. Troubled? That too.” He grabbed my hand and tugged on it, pulling me closer to him.
“Troubled? I don’t like the sound of that.” I snuggled next to him, placing my head over his chest. “Tell me, why are you so troubled?”
“I never thought I could possibly be so conflicted over another woman.” He toyed with a lock of my hair. “For a long time there was only Margaret. Now you’re here.”
I would have given anything to know exactly what was going through his head. It would have been nice to know what he really felt.
“In my opinion, you think too much.” I glanced up to look at him. “You should just let things flow.”
“I can do that, but I think about you,” he said. “And what the consequences might be.”
“What is it exactly you’re afraid of?”
“The thing I’m most afraid of is hurting you.”
How hurt could I get? As long as there were no feelings involved, I should be fine. Or was I lying to myself by believing my connec
tion to him was merely physical?
“It’s not like I’m going to go psychotic if things don’t go anywhere.” I know that was hard for anyone to understand, especially when considering the whole reason I had approached him in the first place was to exact revenge on my boyfriend and his own girlfriend, but somewhere along the line things had changed. That no longer mattered to me as much. Dakota mattered a lot more than any need to get some payback.
He smiled. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Dakota, I have already told you that if something does happen, and it works out, great. If not, we’ll have nice memories of our time together.” I shifted so that I was on my knees next to him. “I’m an adult, you’re an adult. I’m not asking for commitment or for you to fall in love with me. If you feel like you want to spend time with me, I’ll take that. If you don’t want to see me anymore, I’ll respect that. It’s really your call,” I said. “My only wish is for you to be comfortable with us. With me. I certainly have no problem being around you, but I don’t want to scare you away either.”
“I’m comfortable around you. Well, now I am. At first I was…”
“Nervous.” I laughed softly.
“Yes,” he admitted sheepishly. “Only a little though.” In a move that both surprised and turned me on, Dakota placed his hands on my waist and pulled me to him so that I straddled his waist.
“Only a little?” I flattened my hands over his shirt and leaned in closer to him.
“Okay. I’ll admit that you still do.” He gazed up at me.
“Oh, really? Why is that?”
“You test my self-restraint.”
I arched an eyebrow. “What is there to be restrictive of?” Slowly, as to entice him, I allowed my fingers to glide up from his hard abs to his pectoral muscles where I outlined each one deliberately with the tips. “Isn’t there something you want?”
“There is something I want.” His hands traveled up my spine, and exerted pressure as they pulled me down so that our faces were but a few inches away from each other’s. “I want a kiss.”
“Now there’s something I can help you with.” I wasted no time complying either. I sealed his lips with mine, giving into not only what he desired but what I did too. He tasted of mint, cool and refreshing and I savored the kiss as much as I did having his hands caress my back.
Payback is Sweet Page 20