Payback is Sweet

by Kristy Centeno

  “It’s pathetic, I know.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “You do realize that if you hang out with me more often, that will change.”

  “I kind of figured that out.”

  “And you’re going to have to trust me.”

  Dakota shifted on the mattress so that he could look back at me. “What do you mean, trust you?”

  I took a step back and allowed for my hands to fall to my sides.

  “Trust that no matter what happens, I won’t hate or resent you.” I gave him the green light, but I really shouldn’t have because I needed to sort out my feelings first. Because, even when I tried hard to deny it, there was something about Dakota that I couldn’t just walk away from. There was something about him that I found irresistible. I had no idea what that was or why I insisted on putting myself in a position I might come to regret later, but nothing was lost without a gamble. The deck of cards was in my hands, I just needed to figure out when to make the first move.

  “Janessa, this could really turn out to be something neither of us is expecting or is ready for,” he said cautiously. “There’s only so much of me I can give.”

  “Yes, and that doesn’t mean it’ll be bad.” Staring directly into his eyes, I added, “Besides, nothing needs to happen. If it does, I’m sure we’re both adult enough to handle it.”

  It was not like I was asking for commitment or anything. And nothing was written down so I could either end up with a really good friend, or a good memory of a once lover—hopefully anyway.

  “We’ll just have to see,” he finally replied.

  “Good. Now take off your shirt and lie down.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I’d never met such a cautious man as Dakota. The moment I asked him to take off his shirt he stared as if I’d grown a second head.

  “What?”

  Needless to say, my inner she-devil did enjoy—probably a little too much—his discomfort. He wasn’t used to girls throwing themselves at his feet and every time I said something that made it sound as if I was, he didn’t know what to say or how to react.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” I shook my head, amused by the look on his face. “You’re tense and I want to help you out so I’m going to give you a massage.” Walking to the opposite side of the bed, I removed the extra pillows I always stacked against the headboard and piled them on top of a wooden bench sitting in front of a bay window to the right side of my bed.

  “You’re treating me to a massage?” Dakota asked behind me.

  “I’m feeling especially kind tonight,” I said with a shrug of the shoulders. “And you really need it.”

  “No one has ever given me a massage before.”

  Surprised by his statement, I spun around to face him only to stop dead at the sight of him shrugging out of his button down shirt. His perfectly sculpted bronze chest, and well developed muscles had my full attention and I soon forgot what I’d been meaning to ask. Dakota was tall, lean, and delectable to look at.

  I wanted to touch him. To run my hands over that smooth chest and washboard abs for hours, but I fought the impulse to do just that and instead asked, “Ready?”

  Though he’d noticed me gawking, he didn’t react to it. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s late and—”

  Run my hands over his back? Oh, hell yeah, I wanted to give him a massage. “Don’t worry about the time. And yes, I want to do this.” I motioned toward the bed. “Lay on your stomach. I’ll be right back.”

  Before he could respond, I was out the door and in the bathroom, looking for something I could use on Dakota’s skin. Since I didn’t have any massaging oils lying around, I opted for the next best thing, moisturizing lotion. With bottle in hand, I walked back into my bedroom and spotted Dakota lying on his stomach, his shoes were neatly stacked next to the chair where his jacket and shirt now rested.

  Closing the door, I climbed on to the bed and crawled to the middle where he laid, waiting for me. Boy, if I was ever delighted to have a half-naked man on my bed, this was definitely that time. For a man who might give out a geeky vibe he sure had an admirable physique.

  Dakota was definitely temptation at its best.

  “I don’t have massaging oil but this should do.” I waved the bottle in front of his eyes for emphasis.

  He let out a quick rush of air. “You’re going through a lot of trouble for me.”

  “It’s no trouble.” I straddled his lower back and uncapped the bottle. “Besides, I’m sure I’ll enjoy this just as much as you will. It should be relaxing to you and at the very least, very fun for me.”

  Dakota smiled. “Do you even realize what you do to a man when you say stuff like that?”

  “Whatever do you mean?” I feigned innocence. “I only said I’m going to enjoy touching you as much as you’re going to enjoy feeling my hands on your body.”

  “Like that” he practically shouted, glancing over his right shoulder to look at me. “Do you always flirt this much?”

  “No. I never flirt period. I just have a special weakness for you.” I grinned.

  “There’s nothing special about me.” Dakota laid his head back down on the pillow.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “I might just be bothered into showing you just how wrong you are.”

  He buried his face in the pillow.

  Laughing, I turned the bottle of lotion upside down and gave it a little squeeze. A few drops landed on his broad back and he jumped up.

  “It’s cold,” he muttered as he turned his head sideways again.

  “Sorry.” Squeezing more lotion on to his back, I set the bottle aside and started spreading cream evenly over his skin.

  Truth was, seeing him squirm a little under me was invigorating. And fun too.

  Gently working on the knots on his back, I dug the tips of my fingers in his skin and moved my hands up and down, smiling in satisfaction when he groaned aloud.

  “Tell me a little about yourself, Dakota.” I placed my right hand over his lower back and my left hand on top of the other, extending my arms forward I began to move in circles up and down on one side of his spine.

  “What do you want to know?”

  By this point, Dakota’s eyes were closed and he was lying contently with his head turned to my right. He appeared a lot more relaxed than when he first stepped inside my bedroom.

  “Well, where do you come from?” I continued the process a couple of times before moving to the other side of his spine.

  “I used to live in the Pine Ridge Reservation with my family, but my father moved us out when I was eight. My grandfather died and left us a small chunk of change so my dad took that as the opportunity he needed to better our lives.”

  “Your grandfather was a business man?”

  “He’d owned a few shops during his lifetime and had saved up a part of what he’d been able to accumulate over the years.”

  “It sounds like a smart thing to do.” God only knew how much I spent without thinking about my future. With a rich father who provided everything I needed I never had to worry about money. Which served to remind me just how different Dakota and I were.

  “It sure helped us out a lot,” he replied.

  “Was it good? Being out of the reservation, I mean?”

  “For the most part.”

  Picking up on the sudden hitch in his voice, I asked, “Things didn’t go well?”

  “Not exactly. Everything was great for a while. My father…he had a passion for music. When he was younger, before he married my mother, he was in a band. Nothing big. Just a small rock and roll band with members from the rez. When timing and our financial situation coincided, he set up a music shop at the outskirts of town. It paid the bills and he loved going in the shop to play his favorite guitar.”

  As he spoke, I began to have a clearer picture of what kind of person Dakota was. And so far, I liked what he described. It gave me the impression he was a family man, mature, and had bee
n brought up in a nice, possibly loving and caring atmosphere.

  “What kind of things did he sell?” I asked to keep the conversation going.

  “Everything from cassettes tapes, CDs, instruments, and even old records.”

  “You mentioned that your father played the guitar, did he ever offer lessons?” I asked in order to keep him talking. The more I knew about him the better.

  “He did, but he didn’t charge. The majority of the people he taught were kids who couldn’t afford lessons,” he explained.

  “It sounds like your father enjoys helping others.” Which could explain Dakota’s easy going, sweet nature.

  “He did.”

  “You’re talking in past tense, Dakota.” And that caught my attention. Had something happened to cause that sudden hitch in his voice?

  He opened his eyes. “My father died when I was sixteen. He was hit by a drunk driver who didn’t care enough to call for help before taking off.”

  My hands stopped moving instinctively. “God, Dakota, I’m so sorry.” I reached down and touched the side of his face. He’d lost someone who obviously meant a lot to him. I knew how that felt. I sympathized with his pain because I’d been through the same thing. More than once.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, squeezing his eyes shut once again. “It was hard on us for a while. I was too young to take over the business and Mom didn’t know how to either. We had no choice but to sell and live off that money until Mom found a job. To help out I started working part time and eventually, we got back on our feet. Mom was a trooper though; she made sure we had everything we needed,” he said. “And back then eating everyday was priority.”

  My stomach clenched for a second or two. While my teenage preoccupations had been centered around making sure I had a new outfit for everyday of every month throughout the year, Dakota’s main concern was having something to eat. That fact really made me feel like an inconsiderate extraterrestrial being unable to comprehend the finer things in life because I’d never missed out on anything.

  Things had always been handed down to me. I’d never had to work hard for anything—unless I counted my father’s attention and even that had turned out to be totally mission impossible, which is why I gave up trying a long time ago.

  “We?” I asked hoping to push the direction of the conversation into something less sad and depressing.

  “I have a younger sister,” he replied, his voice low and barely audible.

  “That’s right. You mentioned her a little while ago.”

  My hands began a slow and gentle trek up Dakota’s wide back as I listened to him respond.

  “She’s coursing through her junior year in high school right now.”

  Allowing my thumbs to slide upward, careful not to apply too much pressure, I watched his fluttering eyelids as he groaned softly before growing suddenly quiet. He was exhausted. Whether just physically or emotionally too I had no idea. But maybe speaking about his father hadn’t exactly helped.

  “Do you have plans for when you graduate?” I asked.

  “I was hoping to go back home and start a business.”

  “Sounds like a nice plan,” I murmured. I had no idea what I wanted to do. By this point in my life I was unsure of everything when it came to my future.

  “Yeah. I hope to go on with my father’s dream to teach the less fortunate.”

  He wanted to fulfill other’s dreams of being able to learn how to play instruments? That said a lot about his character.

  “Would you teach them how to play?”

  “Some,” he replied. “But I’m talking about helping the kids from the rez better their lives through education too.”

  “How?”

  “I haven’t figured out all the details yet, but I’m hoping to start some kind of instructive program that’ll keep our youth from dropping out of school and follow an educational program that will keep them on the right track. Maybe music will be part of the curriculum.”

  If I hadn’t been impressed with Dakota before, I definitely was now.

  “I like your plan.” I smiled, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “What instruments do you play?”

  Dakota shifted on the bed, turning his head to the opposite side. “The guitar, the drums, and the base.”

  “Acoustic or electrical guitar?”

  “Both.”

  “Did your father teach you too?”

  “I was his first student.”

  I had to admit the man was a box full of surprises. My immediate assumptions were quickly being proven wrong. He obviously wasn’t what I’d originally considered a full blown geek. He was, perhaps, a bit nerdy looking, but his personality said something else about him.

  He was someone I would enjoy getting to know simply because he pretty much broke all the stereotypes I seemed to stand for. He was the total opposite of me and yet, I couldn’t help but feel drawn to him. This confused me. It unsettled me. It startled me. I wasn’t used to being attracted to guys who I shared no common ground with.

  He came off as a sweet natured, calm, selfless individual that cared much for others. Whereas I was the biggest, most selfish drama queen the world had the misfortune to see. We were so different. Yet the attraction between us was undeniable.

  I asked nothing else as I continued to work on his back. Words failed me for some reason. Trying to come up with a logical explanation as to why he had such a profound effect on me proved difficult. No matter how much I tried things just didn’t make sense. From one day to the other I’d been thrown into a loop that seemed to have no end. And, it seemed, I wanted to keep going to see just how far I could get.

  If that meant I was a poor human being, then so be it.

  Reaching for the bottle of lotion, I poured some more cream on his skin before setting it aside on the mattress. Dakota’s only reaction was a quick flutter of his eyelids. Because he really looked like he could use a nice rest, I continued to apply pressure on his muscles to ease some of the stress in his body without talking. I figured he probably had enough of that anyway.

  For about ten minutes I worked on his back, painfully aware of every muscle and the fact that I was sitting on top of his tight buttocks. That alone played havoc on my senses and touching him only added to my discomfort.

  When the sound of his deep, heavy breathing drifted toward my ears, I reached for the bottle, capped it, and scrambled off of him. He’d fallen asleep on my bed, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and white socks, and I only hoped he was wearing underwear. Shit. Did he wear any underwear?

  What am I thinking? I’m such a pervert.

  I should have woken him and offered him a ride home. It was the least I could do. But the sight of his features locked in a peaceful expression as he slept kept me from doing just that. It was obvious he got very little rest and it felt wrong to wake him up and possibly force him to lose sleep because of it.

  I had no choice but to share my bed with this amazing specimen of a man and force myself not to touch him. That wouldn’t be easy. Every time he came near me I felt the urge to touch him and most times I could barely hold back.

  Remembering I’d left my cell on the bed before rushing out of the room, I glanced around, looking for it and spotted it on top of my nightstand next to Dakota’s glasses. He must have put it there before climbing on to the bed.

  Scrambling off the mattress, I set the bottle of lotion next to my cell, spared a glance at the clock to take note of the time, and sauntered over to the light switch next to the door to flip off the light.

  Since it was almost midnight and I had eight a.m. classes, I opted for getting some shut eye. The last thing I needed was going to class half asleep and cranky. Although, how I was going to squeeze some sleep with Dakota lying half naked on my bed was beyond me. It was the first time ever that I would share a bed for an entire night with someone and that really made me more nervous than I would have thought possible.

  Though we dated for three years, I’d never allowed
for Kirk to sleep over and I’d never stayed with him for an entire night. Cuddling wasn’t my thing and he had always been fine with that. He had not been into cuddling much either. But with Dakota everything was different. I wanted to do wickedly naughty things with him that I’d never done with anyone else before and the worst part of it all was that I had no idea if I felt this way because of my need to get payback or because of something else entirely.

  In spite of my reserves—and the urge to kiss Dakota senseless—I slipped out of my slippers and climbed onto bed, making myself comfortable next to him without allowing our bodies to touch. Let’s just say I was very grateful for my king sized bed, which allowed for us to lie next to each other without our extremities touching. Because, I was pretty sure that if he touched me then, I wouldn’t be able to control myself.

  Okay, so maybe I sounded like a rowdy teenager. But who could blame me? I was sharing my bed with a nice looking guy who I really liked and suddenly, straying from touching him, was more of an effort.

  Shifting on the mattress so that my back was to him, I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated on the sound of his heavy breathing. It had been a long day and I, too, was exhausted. I’d been on an emotional roller coaster for most of the day and my body felt the effects of it.

  Concentrating on finding solace in sleep, I sighed, stretched my legs, and listened to the quietness inside the room. Oddly enough, the lack of sound actually helped lulled me to sleep.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I woke up to the sound of a door being slammed and my eyes immediately popped open. At first, I was a little disoriented. Something felt off, weird, strange and I had no idea why. I was confused and damn near turned on, which, of course, startled me even more. Since when do I get turned on just like that? For no particular reason. I wasn’t the type of girl that could be physically manipulated so easily. Then again it had been a while since I’d last engaged in any type of sexual activity.

  It wasn’t until the strong muscular arm draped over my waist tightened its hold on me that something clicked into place. There was a man in my bed, holding me tight against his hard body—Dakota was still in my bed, holding me to him. His firm body pressed intimately against mine.