He shrugged. “We've been having a little trouble agreeing on some things around here and since we're all ... equals nobody's keen on anybody else making a decision for him. Luck of the draw seemed like the only way to keep a little peace."
That was a dismaying bit of information—the peace part and the fact that they hadn't been able to agree on who had to watch her without drawing straws. “I'm sorry you lost,” she said a little stiffly. “You don't have to go with me. I have my tranq pistol for emergencies and, anyway, I don't actually
plan
on doing anything stupid."
He caught her arm as she stalked past him, swinging her around to face him. “I said I won. I didn't say I lost."
"Yes, but you looked.... Y'all weren't drawing to see who
had
to go with me?"
"Not likely,” he said dryly. “I looked, what? Pissed off?"
She nodded.
He glanced toward the other cabin and rolled his shoulders as if trying to throw off the tension. Apparently, it didn't work. He stepped closer. “I've never marked a woman before, and I'm not real crazy about sharing,” he growled, his eyes blazing now with the fire she'd only caught a glimpse of before.
Danika felt her face turn fiery red before all the blood rushed away, leaving her cold and shaky. “Marked?” she echoed blankly, searching her chaotic mind a little frantically for some reference that made sense to her. “You mean the sex?"
The question threw him. She could see that it cut the fury right out from under him. “Fuck!” he growled. “Let's go."
Danika was still feeling more than a little weak kneed. She got in the truck, but then sat staring out the windshield, trying to sort through her thoughts. The sudden urge to cry assailed her. She wasn't certain, though, if it was because Dakota's anger had scared her or because he was implying it had meant more to him than she'd thought it did.
Maybe it was a little of both?
She'd had a bad feeling that pursuing ‘the fling’ was going to turn out badly for her, but in all honesty she couldn't see that it could've turned out any better if she'd just settled on one of them to have a fling with. It was a dead end. She already had a life and a well established career. She couldn't just throw everything she'd worked for out the window on a ‘maybe it would work out, maybe it wouldn't’ proposition, especially when the chances were next to zero that it would.
What could she do? Give up everything and ride around with him on the back of his bike until another ‘groupie’ took his fancy? Then what? Try to pick up the pieces and make her old life work again? Try to start over from scratch at thirty something?
What was she even supposed to
say
after something like that? I'm sorry? You should've told me if you expected me to ‘save all my loving’ for you? You're too young for me to take you seriously? I thought you were all just playing a game with me?
She swallowed with an effort against the hard knot of misery in her throat and started the truck. Tears burned her eyes, making her vision blur. She dragged in a steadying breath and blinked until she could see, though, determined not to give in to the urge.
"Pull over,” Dakota growled as they reached the highway.
She cleared her throat, refusing to look at him. “Did you forget something?"
"Just pull over."
She did, hoping he would get out and leave her to conquer her wayward emotions in peace.
"You're too upset to drive. I'll drive."
She set her jaw. “Like hell! It's my fucking truck! If my driving's bothering you, get the hell out. I didn't want you to come and I don't
need
you. I'm a big girl. I've gotten along just fine all these years by myself. I think I can manage a few more!"
He struggled with his own temper. She could see he was, even though she refused to look at him. “It meant something to me, gods damn it!"
The tears she'd managed to keep at bay felt like they would suffocate her. She turned to glare at him furiously. “Don't even go there! Don't you
dare
make me feel like I did something wrong! Like I've wronged you!
All
of you have been trying to nail me since I met you ... like it's some kind of contest! There was no reason at all for me to think it meant any more to any of you than that and I went along with it. You
dumped
me out of your lap when you finished and dashed out the door like your ass was on fire!"
"I told you what happened and I apologized!” he growled.
"You told me a lie I could swallow and I accepted it in the spirit it was intended—to smooth things over in case you wanted to come back and fuck me again before you climbed on your bike and rode off into the sunset! Don't tell me it meant something to you when you never had any intention of doing anything else! I wasn't born yesterday! Just because I was willing to play the game it doesn't follow that I didn't have enough sense to know that's what it was!"
He studied her in angry silence for a several moments and finally reached across the space that separated them and grasped her arm, tugging on it to urge her to come to him. She resisted, but she'd burned her own anger off and she didn't want to fight with him. If they didn't climb on their bikes and ride into sunset, she would certainly be climbing into her truck and leaving them behind in a few days. Either way, she didn't want it to end in fighting.
She yielded after only a token resistance, allowing him to draw her up against his chest. He let out a shaky breath. “It's not a game, baby,” he said raggedly. “I know you don't understand and I can't explain it, but you're wrong if you don't think I'm deadly serious."
Danika felt like crying all over again. “Don't make me want what I can't have, Dakota. It's not fair."
He pushed her hair behind her ear and slipped his hand down to catch her chin with the crook of his hand. “What do you want, baby?” he asked her when he'd forced her to look at him.
She stared at his face, trying to picture him in her life and couldn't. She closed her eyes when he wouldn't let her look away. “I don't know."
"No?"
She shook her head. She
didn't
know. Con had given her so much passion she'd convinced herself that it was for her alone and she'd thought, believed, hoped that there would be more to it than just fabulous sex. And then Balin had made her feel much the same way and he'd let her down just as Con had and now Dakota. She wasn't sure anymore what she felt for any of them, but she'd begun to hope that she would discover when it was all over that it was nothing after all but a wonderful fantasy that she'd thoroughly enjoyed and never regretted. She hoped the other feelings would go away and she would discover that she'd just convinced herself she cared for them so that she wouldn't have to feel guilty about having meaningless sex with strangers.
She didn't know how she felt about any of them anymore so she
couldn't
know what she wanted.
He expelled an irritated breath. “You're as confused as we are, aren't you, baby?"
"I think, maybe, it's a hormone thing,” she muttered.
He uttered a harsh laugh that lacked humor. “You think?"
She settled her head on his shoulder when he released her, in full agreement with him. It was a hell of a thing to still be at the mercy of instincts and chemical drive when intelligence ought to be able to overcome such things. There was no
thinking
, though, when they kicked in, especially when they were so powerful. A minor twinge might be surmountable but nothing like the rollercoaster ride she'd been on since they came into her life.
Dragging in a calming breath after a few minutes, she pulled away from him as reluctantly as she'd gone to him to start with. She knew he had to still be angry if what he'd said was true, but he didn't seem as angry with her as he had been. That was heartening, at least. It gave her the hope that they might be friends instead of enemies and she knew that was really all that had ever been in the offing—whatever he thought.
She wasn't entirely sure she believed what he'd told her, maybe because it so closely reflected the fantasy she'd briefly entertained. She might not have had a lot of experience with the opposite sex—certainly not in her recent history—but she had plenty of first hand knowledge with the juvenile male.
She knew how they operated. The first thing out of their mouth when they wanted sex was ‘I love you’ or some variation on that theme—and, if you loved me, you'd let me fuck you—and then fuck you over by having sex with your best friend the next night—or the next week, however long it took them to get what they wanted and move on.
She didn't really believe Dakota was like that—he was a grown man, not a kid, and had certainly had time to develop a better line—but she knew she didn't want to believe it and that meant she couldn't really trust her intuition where he was concerned—where any of them were. Their track record so far wasn't anything to recommend them. Beyond being fabulous in bed, they weren't doing terribly well
outside
of it if any of them had actual romance on their mind.
If
they felt anything beyond a burning desire to get laid, why was it that they had at least given her the impression that they were willing to take turns? Until the day before, Con hadn't even approached her for seconds. Balin still hadn't, and barely spoke to her. It hadn't seemed to put Dakota off that she'd had sex with both Con and Balin before him. Was she supposed to have instantly been attached to him at the hip because he was such a fabulous lover? Or was she supposed to have somehow read his mind and figured out that, even though he'd charged out like he couldn't get away from her fast enough, he really hadn't meant it?
He'd
forgotten
what he'd done!
Either that or he was laboring under the impression that
she
was so stupid she wouldn't remember his grand exit.
That was what had really hit her like a building falling on her. She could see the moment she looked at him that he either didn't remember the incident at all or he just couldn't figure out why she'd been so pissed off about it.
Talk about wham bam, thank you ma'am!
She still didn't know which it was, would probably never know, but she couldn't think of anything that could possibly have happened that would've wiped it so cleanly from his mind if it had actually
meant
something to him.
Dakota was so deeply submerged in his own unpleasant thoughts that it was a while before he emerged sufficiently to notice that Danika was not only really quiet, but she was thinking.
In his experience, that was
never
a good thing, especially directly after a fight.
She was making a list. He could see it in the expressions flickering across her face, the tension in her shoulders, and the way she was gripping the steering wheel as if she meant to strangle it.
Well fuck! he thought angrily. What was she pissed off about now? Something new? Or was she rehashing the fight they'd just had and looking for all the little flaws in his side of the argument?
He couldn't think of a time he'd been in a more frustrating, infuriating situation. He couldn't even defend himself, for fuck sake! Not that there was any telling whether she'd forgive him or not if she knew why he hadn't gone back, but at least he wouldn't look like a total fucking jerk!