"I'm fine, Jake. I'm sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep."
"No." I'd let this go on long enough. Time wasn't making it better.
She turned fully towards me. "What?"
"The nightmares have been happening for weeks now. I want to talk about them."
"Well, tough shit. I don't, and they're my dreams." She looked down. "Besides, there's nothing to talk about. I don't remember."
I brushed her dark hair back over her shoulder, looping the ends through my fingers. "I don't believe you."
She turned towards me sharply, and, even in the faint light from the half moon and the streetlights coming in the windows, I could see her fiery anger. "Fuck you." She lay back down, her back to me, as far to the edge of the bed as she could get.
I wasn't going to give up so easily. I knew what she needed. I got out of bed and walked to the side she was balanced on. I squatted down, face to face with her. "I'm not letting this go. Something's wrong. I want to help you, Dakota." I put my hand on her shoulder.
She shook it off, kicked the blankets aside, and jumped out of bed. She left the room, slamming the door behind her. I grabbed my jeans off the floor and followed.
She was in the garden. She'd left the patio door wide open, but I'd have known to look for her there regardless. It was her private place, even now. I was welcome there–usually–but I'd always be a guest beyond the archway.
Little solar lights traced the edges of the pathways through the garden, so I made my way easily. I found her sitting on the stone bench in the new nook we'd made in the spring, staring at the ground between her feet. I sat down next to her; she didn't move. It was chilly, and she was wearing only a little tank and my boxers, with the waist rolled. I could see the goose bumps even in the pale light. I didn't touch her, though–she'd already flinched twice when I had.
"Dakota. You can’t run away from me as much as you can’t run away from the truth. Babe, please. It’s me."
She turned her head towards me. For a few seconds, she just looked at me stonily. Then she said, "Why can't you just leave it alone?"
"Because it’s you. And it's happening every single night, usually more than once a night. It's not normal, babe, and I'm worried. Maybe if you talk about it then they'll stop."
"Or maybe if I talk about them, they'll be more real!"
She stood up and took a couple of steps away. "Dakota..." I began.
She huffed a frustrated sigh. After a minute, she sat back down, but she didn't say anything more.
"Are you remembering what happened?"
"No. At least… I don't think so. I don't know. They don't feel like memories. They feel like nightmares. But they're the same every time."
"What are they, Dakota?" I tried to take her hand, but she stood up and took a couple of steps away again. I hated this distance between us. And, I knew the gang–my family–was the reason for it, and it was tearing me at the fucking seams.
She didn't go far, just a couple of steps. She wrapped her arms around herself, whether for warmth or protection I didn't know. She kept her back to me. "They're... sensations. Images. Vivid, but disjointed. I really don't know what they are. But they hurt."
I wanted her to describe them, I thought she needed to, but I was afraid to push too hard. I wanted to hold her, but she didn't want that. So I just waited.
It took awhile, but eventually she turned around to face me and started talking again. "I'm scared that maybe they are memories, even though they fade in the day, like dreams do. I'm okay until I sleep. But I don't want them to be real."
She squeezed her arms tighter around herself, and took a deep breath. "Mostly what I see is just... bright. Flashing lights, shadows. They scare me, but I wouldn't be able to tell you why. The worst part is what I can feel." She stopped again, and this time she turned and took another step or two away. "I feel"–her voice cracked, and my stomach clenched–"hurt. Hands on me. In… me."
I stood up without thinking, and she flinched and turned around to face me. I wanted to hold her so badly. This thing would just not let her up. This thing I'd let happen to her. "God, I'm so sorry." I took a step towards her; she retreated the same distance. "Dakota, babe, will you let me hold you?"
"Are they memories? Did that fucker put his hands inside me?"
I took a step; she didn't back away. I took another. She stayed. I reached her. Before I tried to touch her, I said, "No." I took a shaky breath, remembering her torn clothes. Her bruises. I tried to steady my voice. "No.” My voice shook anyway.
She turned and puked into a bush. I put my hands on her back, gathered up her hair. She flinched away yet again, but this time I stood my ground. I had her hair. I would've let go if she'd wanted to get away, but she didn't fight me. I held her while she wretched.
When she was finished, she wiped her mouth and stood up, breathing heavily. Her face was wet with tears. Enough already. I pulled her into my arms. At first, her whole body was rigid, but then she relaxed, and I felt her hands come around my waist. I wrapped her tighter and kissed her head. "Oh, babe. Oh, babe. I love you so much. I'm so sorry."
She let me hold her. She wasn't crying anymore. She was shivering, but otherwise she was just still, in my arms. After a little while, I pulled back a bit and tipped her face up so I could look into her eyes. "Will you come back inside with me? You're so cold." She nodded, and I put my arm around her shoulder and led her inside.
I walked her to the living room, grabbing a blanket from one of the big chairs and wrapping it around her shoulders as I set her down on the couch. I sat next to her and pulled her close. She rested her head on my shoulder. I combed my fingers through her hair.
"Are you sure he didn’t…” she murmured.
"No. No, Dakota. No." I knew that was true, though the thought that it had almost happened, that it might have happened had Dakota herself not been so strong and capable, that I would probably not have been able to prevent it, still kept me up in the night.
"How do you know?" Her voice was so low.
I shifted on the couch so I could look at her directly. "When I got to the truck, you were awake and on your feet, stomping the shit out of him. You'd already done a lot of damage. Your"–I had to force the next words out–"Your jeans were open, but they were on. There just wasn't time for him to do anything more. I'm sure of it." I could feel my throat tighten, tears welling up behind my eyes. "God, Dakota. I'm so fucking sorry I couldn't keep him away from you. I got to you as fast as I could. I did. I did..." My voice broke.
She grabbed my face. "Jake, I know. It's not your fault. You know I don't blame you at all, right?"
I took her hand in mine and kissed her palm. "I know. I don't know why you don't, but I know you don't. I just…" I stopped and shook my head. "…It doesn't matter."
"Tell me."
Again, I shook my head. "I don't want to make this about me. I want to be here for you. Just you."
She gave me a small, lopsided smile. "I know I’m fantastic, but I don't want to talk about me anymore. So you can help me by changing the subject."
I laughed sadly, and let out a much needed long breath. Then I met her eyes and held them. "The most important thing in the world to me is keeping my family safe. And Jesus Christ, I just can't do it. I've never been able to fucking do it."
"You fought off, what, five guys to get to me? Is that right?" I hesitated, and then nodded. "Christ, Jake, that's like the Hulk. Of course you did everything you could. You did a lot more than almost anyone could do." She nestled back against my bare chest. "The world is fucked up, Jake. You know that. Bad shit happens no matter what. As far as I know, the only way to find peace is just to let that be true and try to live around it. That's what I made myself learn to do after I lost Joshua and Jon."
I squeezed her close. I didn't understand how she could be so strong, so level, despite everything she'd gone through in her life. After I lost Tina, I knew I'd hit the limit of the pain I could deal with. I'd needed to wall myself off. Lo
ving Dakota was not in the plan. Loving her like this–a complete and consuming love beyond anything I'd ever known–was definitely not in the plan. It scared the crap out of me.
I didn't know how to just accept that the world was shit and everything could be gone in an instant. I didn't know how to let her go out in that world and never be sure I'd see her again, and just be cool with that. "I can't lose you, Dakota. I just can't."
She sat up and faced me. With the fingers of one hand, she traced the tattoo on the top of my chest: 'The center cannot hold. Anarchy is the only hope'. "You had this inked into your body, Jake. Do you believe it?"
I took her hand in mine. "I did. But Tina was alive then. I hadn't done time. Nothing bad had really happened to me. Now I don't know what I believe."
"Well, a lot of bad has happened to me, and I believe it completely. And it's more than just my life that makes me believe it. I've built a career studying the ways the world has always laughed at people trying to shape it to their liking." Dakota sighed and squeezed my hand. "Okay, lecture time. Listen up; the teacher has something to say.
"Here's what I believe. The only thing we can do is our best, in our own lives, and the rest of the world has to sort itself out. Morality, law, all that societal bullshit is just people trying to make meaning out of meaninglessness. The world can't be anything but chaos, no matter how people try to constrain it. No matter what we do to make sense and order, all things tend towards entropy."
I looked down at our linked hands. Such a gloomy outlook seemed at odds with the lively woman I loved. "That's pretty bleak, Beauty."
She pulled on my chin so I'd meet her eyes again. "It's not, though. I don't think it's bleak at all. To me, it's freeing. If control is impossible, then there's no need to fight for it. We have to be true to our truth, we have to love who we love as fully as we can. Do our best. Let the rest sort itself out.
"Then we have to accept that none of it means anything to anyone but us. We have to accept that it totally can go to shit in a heartbeat, no matter how hard we try to be snug and safe. We have to accept that we can–we will–lose what we love, because otherwise we become obsessed with trying to protect it rather than actually loving it."
I looked up at that; it sounded like it was meant for me. "Dakota. Do I not make you feel loved?"
"No, Jake, that's not what I mean. I know you love me like I love you. I feel that every day. I've told you that. But I don't think you really let yourself enjoy loving me. You let anxiety drown happiness too much. You spend too much of your time trying to keep me safe and berating yourself for not doing what you think is a good enough job. There's too much guilt in your love."
That hurt, but I knew it was true, so I didn't say anything. She went on. "I had a 'safe' life before I met you. In that 'safe' life, my mother died giving birth to me. Then I came home from fifth grade one day to find my stepmother in the bathtub, naked and dead. Blood fucking everywhere, her wrists wide open–longwise, to make sure she'd get it done. The really sick thing is that she knew I'd be the one who would find her. A nine-year-old. She knew. Her parting gift to me was to let me find her corpse and then be alone in the house with it, waiting for someone to help me.
"My dad was killed on duty... I fell pregnant and my beautiful baby boy"–her voice broke hard and she started to cry–"was taken away from me... Then I had to watch my husband get ravaged from the inside out by his own mutant cells. Jon was the only one I got to say goodbye to, but he didn't know who I was by then. That was my 'safe' life. Nothing you and the Fire Birds have brought into my life compares to the hell I’ve already been in. Nothing."
I was stunned. It was far more than she'd ever revealed before about losing the people who were the roses, and the thorns, on her back. To survive all that and still be the spectacular woman she was? Jesus…
She'd been quiet for a little while, but her lecture wasn't over. "By the way, unless you're holding something back, what happened to Tiffany and me at Pinn’s had absolutely nothing to do with the gang. That could have happened to anyone, anywhere. Except there's no way any two unarmed regularguys could have taken down so many attackers. Who you and Dixon are, what you know, what you've experienced–that's why neither Tiffany nor I was raped–without you it would have happened. And we both know that it wouldn't have been just one guy or just one time."
Tears were running down her face now in streams. All I could do was hold her hands; the thought of what she was suggesting paralyzed me with rage and pain. "Maybe all those assholes would have lined up for their turn. I was able to fend one guy off, but I was obviously badly hurt. Without you, what I was able to do wouldn't have been enough. So you did save me. A lot. Thank you." I felt the prick of tears again and swallowed down the lump in my throat. I'd never thought of it like that.
"You're the best person I know, Jake. You're an outlaw. You're a killer." I winced at that, and she framed my face with her hands. "And you have the best, biggest heart of anyone I've known. You define your tattoo for me. The love I feel for you is enormous. Loving you makes me happy. It makes me calm. If I died right this second, I would die happy, because I've known you, and I've known this great, amazing love.
“My life is complete right now. If you died right this second, I would grieve hard. My pain would be as big as my love. But I would still feel glad that I had the time with you I had. The love we've had is already protected by the past. Nothing can make it un-happen. No asshole in a pickup can make me forget how it feels to love you."
She took a couple of long, deep breaths and composed herself, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I would like for us to stop talking so much about guilt and fear and just be happy we have each other. Can you let yourself be happy we're together right now and leave tomorrow to figure its own damn self out?"
I threaded my fingers into her hair and cupped her face in my palms. "For you, anything." I leaned in to kiss her, but she pushed me back.
"Um, hold up, Bad Boy. I have puke breath."
I laughed, glad for the dial to turn down on our raw emotions. "I don't care."
I leaned in again, but she straight-armed me. "I do, you sick bastard."
"Hey, we were having a moment. You blew it."
She smiled brightly. "Oh, well. Why don't you go to bed, and I'll be in in a second, and we can have another moment." She stood up, dropped the blanket, and headed for the bathroom. Feeling much lighter than I had in weeks, I went to the bedroom, took off my jeans, and got into bed. I sat up against the headboard and waited.
Dakota came in, brushed and a little preened, looking fresh. She leaned against the jamb and smiled at me, then walked to the side of the bed. She made a show of pulling her tank over her head, slowly, then wiggling out of the boxers. She put a knee on the bed and crawled to me. She straddled me. I put my hands on her hips. She leaned in and feathered tiny kisses all across the tattoo that had featured so prominently in her lecture. I moaned, and took her chin in hand to pull her up.
"Can I kiss you now?"
She smiled and pressed her lips to me.
I pushed my tongue against her lips and she opened her mouth to take it. She tasted cool and minty. Clutching her face in my hands, kissing her deeply, I rolled us so that I lay on her, her legs around my hips. My hard cock was pressed against her belly; she flexed her hips and pressed me even closer.
I moaned and trailed kisses along her jaw, down her throat, pausing to suck on her sweet collarbone. I pushed up on my hands and started to move down between her legs. She pulled on my hair to stop me. I looked up and was surprised to see a serious look on her face. "Babe?"
"Wait. Wait." I waited, my curiosity becoming concern. She took a breath. "Your hand. Use your hand first."
Christ. I understood right away what she was trying to do, but the thought that my touch might upset her...
"Dakota..."
"Please, Jake. I want to feel your hand in me. Yours. Please."
What else could I do? I came back up, my fac
e even with hers, and kissed her gently. "I love you, babe. You tell me if you need me to stop." I leaned on one elbow and caressed her face with my free hand. I combed my fingers through her hair. I trailed my thumb down her neck, tracing it along her collarbone. I curved my hand around the ball of her shoulder, gliding down her arm and back up.
I pressed the flat of my palm over her shoulder, at the crook of her neck. Her pulse was rapid, her breathing shaky. I slid my hand slowly down to her breast, lightly squeezing, running my thumb over her nipple. She made a tiny, almost inaudible moan.
I was watching her carefully. Her eyes were closed; she was concentrating. I continued downward, sliding my hand over the ridges of her ribs and down. Her belly was twitching nervously. I lingered there, gently massaging, trying to calm her.
Fuck, I hated this. I fucking hated what had happened to her. I hated her anxiety now. Why did she have to fucking remember this? Why did she have to remember anything at all? Maybe I shouldn't have pushed her to talk about her dreams. My erection had gone. I just wanted to hold her; I was really worried that she wasn't ready to be touched like this. She should have let me use my fucking mouth now. I should have kept my fucking mouth shut earlier.
I curled my hand over her hipbone and slid back to cup her ass. I moved down the back of her thigh, around her knee. I was running out of room to delay this. Still watching her face, I slid my hand up her thigh and, finally, over her soft mound. I gently pushed my fingers between her legs.
She was completely dry. And then I saw a tear leak out between her lashes and down her temple. I pulled my hand away as if she'd burned me.
"Jesus, Dakota. I can't. I can't." She started to really cry then, and I gathered her up in my arms. "I'm sorry, babe. Christ."
She choked off her tears quickly. "Jake, I need his hands not to be the last ones on me. I know nothing happened but I can feel his fucking hands inside me. I need to stop dreaming about it. I need it. I need you. Please."
Beauty and the Bad Boy Page 22
