Love, Me

by Tiffany White

  He tapped his pen on the pad of paper on his lap, jotted down words, then crossed them out. Frustrated, he plumped the pillows bracing him against the brass headboard, and rested his feet on Pokey.

  He ripped the sheet of paper from the pad and began again. It looked as if it had snowed balls of crumpled paper around him. They were littered everywhere—on the bed and all over the hardwood floor.

  A knock sounded on the bedroom door.

  Pokey’s ears pricked up.

  “Go away,” Dakota called out.

  Pokey whined an invitation.

  Chelsea ignored Dakota’s inhospitality and entered the room.

  “You’re writing!”

  “No, I’m not,” Dakota said. His tone was surly.

  “But of course, you are. What’s all this paper, if you’re not?” she asked, picking up a crumpled ball. “Are you and Pokey having a paper-ball fight?”

  “No, I’m trying to write. If I were actually writing, there wouldn’t be any crumpled paper, just a nice stack of songs in various stages of completion.”

  “But at least you’re trying….”

  “That’s all I’ve been doing for the past six months.”

  Chelsea reached to scratch Pokey behind the ears, then picked up one of the crumpled balls of paper lying on the floor beside her. She began uncrumpling it, but before she could finish the task, Dakota lunged to grab it from her.

  “Was there something you wanted?” he asked, tossing the paper ball across the room.

  She shook the bottle of red nail polish in her hand. “I want you to paint my toenails for me.”

  “What?”

  “You know, put polish on my toenails. Don’t tell me you’ve never painted a woman’s toenails before.”

  “Does Tucker do that for you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “So why don’t you get him to do it for you now?”

  “Because he’s not here. He left a note that he was going out with a couple of members of his band who’re going to help with the Hood-Aid concert.”

  “Well, I’m not going to polish your toenails, you can forget that.” He could almost feel himself blushing.

  “I’ll do something for you. What would you like me to do for you, Dakota?” she asked. She sat down on the bed.

  She had to be blind if she didn’t see what he really wanted her to do for him. Instead he said, “Leaving would be good. Forget that you want me to write you a song.”

  “How about a foot massage?” she suggested. “Maybe it will make you forget getting banged up when you fell.”

  “How is massaging my feet going to help that?” he demanded. She sat cross-legged on the bed and hauled his foot into her lap.

  “There are nerves below the surface of the skin that are sensitive to touch. When you stimulate them they block pain in other parts of the body,” she explained, rubbing and applying pressure to the sole of his foot.

  “Did you work in a massage parlor? Is that how you know all that?”

  “No, Tucker taught me.”

  Dakota groaned.

  He closed his eyes and let her fingers work their magic.

  “Relax,” she said as she worked her fingers around his ankle. “I swear you’d think no one had ever given you a foot massage before.”

  He didn’t think anyone had. And certainly not holding his foot in their lap while wearing a short silky dress that allowed the occasional glimpse of white panties. Lord, there was no way he was going to be able to hold her foot in his lap to paint her toenails.

  “Here, give me your other foot,” she said, when she was finished with the first one. He wondered if she knew what the hell she was doing. Probably. She had one thing right—he wasn’t feeling any pain.

  Except in one place.

  Her touch was velvety soft.

  And he was rock hard.

  She’d been right. The scrape on his knee was no longer throbbing. The throbbing had switched to another part of his body.

  “That’s enough,” he said, struggling for some semblance of his sanity.

  “Okay, your turn,” she said, tossing him the nail polish.

  He had to do something quickly before she decided to plop her foot into his lap and discovered the effect she was having on him. He reached behind him, grabbed a pillow and tossed it at her. “Here, let’s trade places,” he said, levering himself from the mound of pillows.

  For once she didn’t give him any argument, and they switched places.

  He braced himself on one elbow and opened the bottle of red polish.

  Pokey got a whiff of it and leaped off the bed. “You’re right, this stuff does stink, Pokey,” Dakota said, making a face. He made a little dent in the comforter and nestled the open bottle so it wouldn’t spill, then pulled Chelsea’s foot to rest against his chest.

  Chelsea laughed as he began painting her toenails.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked, intent on what he was doing.

  “You’re concentrating so hard your brow is breaking out in a sweat.”

  “I am not—” He glanced up and then quickly looked away from the sleek expanse of her sun kissed legs and the juncture where her dress pooled.

  “Damn!” he swore, looking back down at what he was doing.

  She sat up and demanded, “What’s wrong?”

  “I painted the edge of your baby toe.” He wiped at the wet polish with his finger, but only made it worse.

  She leaned back against the pillows, unconcerned. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get it off later with some polish remover.”

  He set her foot back down on the bed, and motioned for her to give him her other one.

  She slid her foot toward him as he dabbed the brush back into the bottle of polish.

  “Oopsies…” she said, lifting her polished toes beneath his nose. “You forgot to blow on my toes.”

  “What?”

  “You need to blow on my toes so they’ll dry quicker,” she explained with a playful grin.

  He grudgingly complied, and she giggled.

  “What’s so funny?” he demanded.

  “Your breath is hot.”

  Dakota had the look of a man going before a firing squad, but he gamely took her other foot and began dabbing the red polish on her toenails.

  “I was thinking we could go out to dinner,” Chelsea said boldly. “I feel like dressing up.”

  “I’d rather not.” He lifted her foot to blow on the polish.

  “Well, that’s blunt enough.” Chelsea pulled her foot from his grasp and started to get off the bed.

  “I’d rather not go out….”

  “I got it. You’d rather not go out to dinner with me. Fine. I’m a big girl. I can have dinner alone. Don’t worry about it,” she said, standing.

  “No, you don’t understand. I meant I’d rather not go out to dinner,” he explained. “The cook made my favorite meal and I’ve been looking forward to it. I thought we could eat in, but you can dress up if you’d like.”

  “I think I will,” she said, brightening. “What time is dinner?”

  “As soon as you can get dressed. The meal is keeping warm in the oven for us. Come on downstairs when you’re dressed.” He screwed the cap back on the nail polish and tossed the bottle to her. “After all, it’d be a shame not to get dressed up with your toes all ready to party.”

  “You have to dress for dinner, too,” she said, eyeing his ragged jeans.

  “Of course.”

  After she left, Dakota went to his closet. He stood looking through it, faying to decide what would dress up his jeans.

  CHELSEA SMOOTHED THE body-hugging red dress she wore one more time before going downstairs to join Dakota for dinner. She didn’t know why, but she was nervous. Maybe it was because a half hour ago he’d been blowing on her toes. The sexual chemistry between them still hummed, as unresolved as the issue of his writing a song for her.

  T
he first thing she saw when she entered the warm, country-style kitchen was Dakota’s jeans encased tush and bare back as he bent to reach into the oven.

  “I thought you were going to dress for dinner,” she said as she came up behind him.

  He withdrew a sheet of flaky biscuits and set it down on the tile counter, next to a covered casserole in a basket holder. He turned and flipped the tie around his neck. “I did dress for dinner.”

  She shook her head. “Wrong. No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service. Didn’t you read the sign?”

  “What sign?”

  “Go and dress for dinner. I’ll take care of setting the table .”

  Dakota rolled his eyes. “Yes, ma’am. When you’re wearing a dress like that, I’ll do anything you ask me to.”

  Ten minutes later she had the small bistro table in the kitchen covered with linen and set with silver, and had put a candle in the center of the table. She found some chamber music on the radio and was just lighting the candle when Dakota returned.

  “So, what do you think?” he asked, bowing.

  She turned, her eyes raking the elegant tuxedo he’d donned. “I think you look like a maître d’.”

  “In that case, madame,” he said, and with a flourish pulled back her chair and shook out her napkin.

  Chelsea sat and allowed him to bring the food to the table. “I guess tuxedos weren’t that unusual at your dinner table at home, were they?” she asked, when he sat down.

  “Let’s just say, jeans and a tie wouldn’t have cut it with my mother.”

  After ladling out a bowl of stew for each of them, Chelsea tried again. “I’m sure you know everyone has read about your family background and is aware they don’t approve of your becoming a country singer. But don’t you think that now you’ve become such a big success, they’d accept you?”

  “Then what would I have?” he asked, flippantly.

  “A family…” Chelsea’s voice held an undisguised note of longing.

  “A family? You’ve got to be joking. That’s not what my idea of a family is. To me a family accepts you for who you are, not what you have or what you do.”

  “Are you sure you’re not being a little hard on your family?”

  “Oh yeah, I’m sure. You see, the reason my family’s blood is so blue is because it’s icy cold. That’s why country music appeals to me. It’s music about feelings. Real emotion. That’s something my family is clueless about. They were only concerned about appearances. How they appeared was much more important than what they actually were.”

  “You sound pretty bitter.”

  “No, I just resent what they did to me.”

  “You can undo it, you know. You don’t have to live the rest of your life closed off from your feelings as they were.”

  “I’m not closed off from my feelings,” he retorted, taking an angry bite of the biscuit he’d buttered.

  “Then why don’t I have a song from you?”

  “What about your family?” he asked, avoiding her question.

  “What about them?”

  “Are you close to them?”

  “No.” Her answer was short and final, and did not invite follow-up questions.

  Dakota ignored the door she’d closed. “Why not?”

  “I’m just not.”

  “Look who’s talking about being closed off from their feelings….”

  Chelsea laid down her fork, and looked at him consideringly. Finally she made up her mind to discuss with him something she’d never discussed with anyone but Tucker.

  “I ran away from home when I was a teenager.”

  “That’s a pretty dangerous thing to do, especially for a girl.”

  “You’re right, it is. But it wasn’t something impetuous. My parents were abusive. I knew there was a very real chance I could end up dead, so the risk of running away was relative. I took care of myself by leaving.”

  “Didn’t your parents try to find you?”

  “For that they would have had to sober up,” she said, getting up to clear the plates. Dakota sensed that it was painful for her to talk about her parents so he dropped the subject.

  “So how good is this pecan pie?” Chelsea asked as she brought it to the table.

  “Sinfully good,” Dakota assured her. He served them each a slice.

  “Mind if we change that funeral music?” he asked. “It reminds me too much of dinners at home. Let’s see if I can’t find something a little more up-tempo.” He got up and played with the radio until he found a decent pop station.

  “Rock and roll, Dakota? Isn’t that heresy in this house?”

  He made a mock bow and returned to his seat. “It’s in your honor—Southern hospitality, you know. So, what do you think of the pecan pie?”

  Chelsea took another bite of the still-warm pie. “Mmm… you were right. It is sinfully good. I can taste the rich, dark syrup.”

  “I don’t know about that. All I know is that I like it.”

  “Close your eyes,” Chelsea instructed.

  “Why?”

  “Just close them.”

  He complied. “Now what?”

  “Tell me what your senses tell you.”

  “I smell food.”

  “What kind of food?”

  “I don’t know. Food.” He opened his eyes. “What did you expect me to say?”

  She closed her eyes.

  “I smell the wine in the stew gravy, the sweet fragrance of the geraniums blooming on the window-sill, the acrid burning of the candle wick, and the spicy scent of your cologne. I hear the radio playing a golden oldie, the whisper of the ceiling fan overhead, and your breathing. I feel the breeze from the ceiling fan and the light scratch of lace across my breasts.”

  She opened her eyes to see Dakota’s gaze on her cleavage. He looked up into her eyes.

  “You can’t write the kind of song I want, Dakota, if you don’t allow yourself to really feel. When I sing, I sing from my heart. I can’t sing a song that isn’t written for me from the heart.”

  On the radio Rod Stewart’s raspy voice began one of his sexy ballads.

  “Dance with me,” Dakota said, rising from his chair. “Let me show you how I feel.”

  Chelsea melted into his arms. In her high-heeled sandals, she fitted against him perfectly.

  Dakota was a good slow-dancer, his lead authoritative, his hold on her loose, yet possessive. As they swirled around the kitchen she drank in his seductive scent and reveled in the feel of his lean, hard body brushing hers.

  He pulled her in closer and purposely slowed their steps until they were rocking gently together. She quivered as his lips caressed her earlobe, then kissed the spot where the curve of her neck met her shoulder.

  There was no question that the dance was foreplay.

  No question where the evening was leading.

  No question how Dakota felt.

  Until he bent her back into a low dip when the song ended. A dip that flashed the red teddy she wore under the body-hugging dress.

  When he brought Chelsea out of the dip, she could see that his mood had changed. He released her abruptly and stepped back from her.

  “What’s wrong?” One minute she’d felt the heat of his full-out sensual assault; the next, she felt the iciness of his anger.

  “There are a few things about you that are common knowledge, too, and the truth is I don’t see myself writing a song for a woman with a tattoo no telling-where on her body.”

  Chelsea went very quiet. So that was it. He’d come to his senses, remembering she wasn’t good enough for him.

  Her dark eyes flashed a white-hot fury. “It’s not hard to tell where, Dakota. I’ll show you.”

  With that, she kicked off her heels, one of which bounced off his shin.

  “Ouch!”

  Ignoring his complaint, she peeled off her red dress and tossed it at him.

  He caught it with one hand.

 
“What are you doing?”

  She slid the straps of the red teddy from her shoulders, pushed it down and stepped out of it. She kicked it aside and walked toward him, completely naked.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded, his eyes wide, drinking in her beauty.

  “I’m satisfying your curiosity. You were speculating about where the tattoo is on my body. Now you don’t have to speculate. She turned her leg so he could see the tiny rose and delicate script on the inside of her ankle.

  “What does it say?”

  “It’s Tucker’s nickname.”

  “How charming.” His tone was condescending, a deliberate put-down. “And I suppose it’s true that he has your name tattooed on his body.”

  “That’s right.” She did her best not to let the bright smile she flashed him quiver.

  “How about you, Dakota?”

  “What about me?”

  “Aren’t you going to show me your tattoo?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “You mean like you don’t have a heart?”

  “That’s right,” he retorted. “But at least I don’t get my kicks playing one lover off against another.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Chelsea demanded, still too angry to be embarrassed that she was standing naked in Dakota’s kitchen.

  “It means you trying to seduce me while you and Tucker are lovers. Does it give you some kind of kick to wear his gift while doing it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Dakota nodded at the teddy on the floor.

  So that was it. He’d seen the card. Dakota had been snooping in her room. And then he had the nerve to challenge her with his holier-than-thou attitude. She found herself wanting to strike out at him, wanting to hurt him as he’d hurt her.

  “What’s the matter, Dakota, you afraid you won’t measure up to Tucker?”

  That got to him. He gave up any pretense of control. He reached out, shoved his hand into her long curls and drew her to him, then lowered his lips to hers in a punishing kiss.

  His mouth took total possession of hers, staking a claim that meant to erase any other. The hunger of his kiss was urgent, demanding her response.

  She felt herself responding shamelessly, even knowing his kiss was one of anger and sexual jealousy. His kiss revealed a man capable of strong feelings.