Dakota's Claim (9 page)

Tawny
felt the humor in that. She watched as Hope stood and went over to the doorway.
“Have fun tonight, and I hope you both figure out what you want.” And then her
mom left her alone to think about what she had just said. There was no one else
for Tawny but Dakota, and she knew that with everything inside of her. But she
was also smart enough to know that just because that was how she felt, and what
she wanted, that wasn’t always how things worked out.

****

The
pizza shop they were at was in River Run. She had met Dakota here, because even
though they had told each other they cared for the other, she was still nervous
about how things would play out. A part of her wanted to be able to escape if
she needed to. It was cowardly, she knew, but this was something she had never
envisioned actually happening. Sure, she had fantasized about what it would be
like with Dakota, because no matter how many tattooed and pierced bad boys she
went out with, tried to be with, too, they never compared to her Brothers MC
member. He was the epitome of what a dangerous, tall, dark and handsome bad boy
should be like. She loved him, and wanted this to work.

They
were sitting in the corner both, the small twin candles in the center of the
table half burnt down, their check sitting beside him, but Dakota seemed
completely focused on her. Since meeting him at Romano’s pizzeria in River Run
an hour ago, they had stayed in neutral conversation. No relationship talk,
nothing about how they felt for each other. It was just about what they had
been doing in their lives. Although she had known for the past few years he had
been taking any and all runs for The Brothers of Menace, it was interesting to
hear about his time away. He wouldn’t go into club details, even all these years
later, but she was used to the secrecy and tight knit brotherhood of a
motorcycle club. Even her father didn’t say things about the club to her mom,
even though Hope had been in the life with him for over two decades.

The
silence stretched between them now, and she knew it was because the
pleasantries they had been talking about for the last hour, the things that
really were just fillers for why they were here, had been used up. Dakota
looked at the table. She stared at his hands, ones that were big and strong,
and tanned from working outside on his bike during the summer months. He had
hardworking, masculine hands, ones that had her picturing being held down, of
him touching her with them, stroking her body under she was a wet, aroused mess
for him. Twisting in her seat, she crossed her legs, thinking it would stem off
her desire. But it had the opposite effect as it pressed her lips to her clit,
and caused a spark of pleasure to fill her.

“Tawny,”
Dakota said, not lifting his head, and still staring at his hands. After a
second he finally lifted his gaze, his head still downcast, and stared at her.
“There is a lot I want to say, a lot I should have said a long time ago.”

She
swallowed, licked her lips, and nodded, because she felt the same way. The
music overhead was soft, low, and Italian sounding.
“Dakota.”
She took a deep breath, and knew that she just wanted to get it all out. She
wanted to move past this all, to see if they could actually move forward as a
couple. “I love
you,
have loved you for years now. I
remember one time when you were at the Grizzly clubhouse working on bikes.”
 
The smile on his face after she spoke
told her he knew what she was talking about.

“Your
mom had dropped you off, and then not long after that you got into the car of
some douchebag with his nose and eyebrow pierced.” He sounded fierce, angry
even, but then he shook his head and smiled. “Even thinking about that, years
later, still pisses me off and makes me feel like this jealous asshole.”

She
reached out and covered his hand with hers. “The fact that you are like that
with me makes me feel…” She looked at where her hand covered his much larger
one. “It makes me feel wanted and loved.” Lifting her gaze to his again, she
saw that he wore this very serious expression on his face.

“I
feel a hell of a lot stronger than that for you, Tawny. In fact, I am trying
very hard to calm the need to go over to that asshole sitting in the table
across the room, and punch him right in the fucking eyes.”

She
knitted her brows and glanced over at the side, trying to see who he was
talking about. “Who…” She stopped speaking when she saw a guy at one of the
tables with three of his friends. He was staring at her, and when he saw she
was looking at him this smile slowly spread across his face. Tawny looked over
at Dakota again, saw that he was watching the guy in question, and applied
pressure on his hand. “Hey, he’s not worth it, and I don’t think he means any
harm.”

Of
course she knew that wasn’t right, because even from this distance, with the scents
of pizza, sauce, and others in the room, Tawny’s bear scented the male’s lust.

Dakota
looked at her, his jaw clenched tight, and the muscle under the scruffy skin
jumping. “You and I both know that that little asshole over there has been
eye-fucking you for the last hour.”

She
actually hadn’t even noticed because she had been in her own world, wondering
how this night would play out. “Dakota, you want me, and I want you. What
difference does it make if another woman looks at you, or vice versa?” Of course
she’d feel jealous as well if another girl was checking Dakota out. But she
wasn’t a male, and although he was human and not a shifter, therefore not
having those feral urges, Dakota proved he wasn’t much different from her
Grizzly family. “If he wants to mess with you, the male that I am here with,
and one wearing a Brothers of Menace cut, then let him be a stupid fool who
gets his ass kicked.”

Of
course she wouldn’t want anything being started in her honor, especially not
for a guy looking at her, but she figured stroking Dakota’s male ego might
simmer him down. It worked on her
father,
and even
some of the other Grizzlies from time to time.

“Tawny—”

Before
he could finish his sentence, she rose up, bent over the table, and pressed her
lips to his. That shut him up, and even had this low sound of need leaving him.
He cupped the back of her head, tangled his fingers in her hair, and tilted her
head to the side to deepen the kiss. Their tongues moved together, and she felt
her heart start to beat faster. But she pulled back before they really made a
scene. Staring at Dakota, just inches apart now, she saw the way he had this
hard, heated look on his face.

“Why’d
you stop?” he asked in a low voice, and looked down at her lips.

She
looked down at his mouth, wanting to continue, but started chuckling at the
need in his voice, and the way he tried to pull her back to his lips. “Dakota,
we are going to get kicked out for causing a scene.” She grinned when he made
this grunt.

“Let
them.” He pressed his lips to hers again. “I can’t let you go, Tawny.”

She
stared at him, their mouths only an inch apart because she had pulled back, and
this flutter in her belly intensified. “I don’t want you to let me go.”

He
pulled her forward again, slammed his mouth on hers, and kissed her like he
meant every word he had said. Before she could stop it, or maybe she planned on
just saying the hell with it all and causing one big ass scene, the sound of
deep male voices came through. They broke away and turned to stare at the front
door. Walking in, loud and with too much energy coming from them, were Marcus,
Gabriel, and Link.

The
pizza parlor was popular in River Run for their homemade sauce and crust, and
it tended to get a lot of the younger population in town coming in on the weekends
and evenings. Tonight it just so happened that three members of The Brothers
wanted something to eat and given the state of Gabriel and Link, and how drunk
they acted, it was clear they were in for a pit stop of food before moving on
to party more. Seeing Gabriel after him kissing her was more uncomfortable than
she thought it should be.

“Shit,”
Dakota said under his breath, and turned back around to face her.

“Everything okay?”
The way Dakota acted angry all
of a sudden told her his sudden change in mood had nothing to do about the guy
that had been watching her, and strangely having to do with his brothers that
had walked through.

“I’m
good,” he said in a kind of gruff, detached voice, but she saw the way he
clenched his hands on top of the table.

“You
sure, because you’re acting like you might go off the handle right now.” Did he
know about the date she had gone on with Gabriel, or that it was only as
friends? Hell, did he know about the awkward kiss? It wouldn’t have surprised
her since she knew members of the club talked about shit like that, even when
there was not anything to really talk about. But given the way Dakota was
jealous over even some strange guy just
looking
at her from across the pizza place, it was safe to say something like this would
make him even more territorial.

Dakota
stared at her for a second, his blue eyes seeming especially bright right now.
He exhaled loudly and ran a hand over his short dark hair. “No, that’s a lie.
I’m not good.” He glanced behind him again and stared at the guys. She followed
his gaze, watched as Marcus was leaning against the
To Go
counter flirting with the cashier, and how Gabriel and Link
were swearing and talking loudly. But no one in the restaurant would say
anything to them, or dare toss them out. This was River Run, Brothers of Menace
territory, and the club had a wicked reputation here.

“You
know about me going out with Gabriel and the kiss, don’t you?” She wasn’t going
to explain herself, because the truth was whatever she had done, even if it hadn’t
been more than friends going out on her
part,
had
happened before she and Dakota had even been in this place in their lives. But
she could tell him how she had felt.

He
clenched his jaw, removed his hands from the top of the table, and leaned back.
“Yeah, I heard that he went out with you, kissed you, too. And although you and
I weren’t anything then, I still wanted you, still fucking loved you, and that
shit pissed me off.”

She
licked her lips and flicked her gaze to the guys again. “We are just friends. I
don’t feel anything more for Gabriel,” she looked back at Dakota, “or any other
male for that matter.” Tawny gave him a smile, because right now she hoped any
little act of emotion she gave him or said would lessen his jealousy. This kind
of emotion from a man might be too intense for a woman, even seem crazy and
overly possessive. But if they had never grown up in either an MC, or around
shifter males, they would never fully understand that yes, the men were
intense, but they had to be like that. It was not only the way they lived,
survived, but also an act of how much they cared, of what they would do for
their families and the women they loved.

“Come
on, let’s get out of here and go some place where we can talk in private.” She
was thinking thoughts that had nothing to do with talking, and maybe that need
was shown on her face because the expression Dakota gave her was pretty damn
powerful. The heat that came off of his body, and the fact her bear picked up
on the scent of his rising arousal and his lessening rage told her this male
was hers. They hadn’t really spoken a whole lot about what they wanted with
each other, but they didn’t need to. Saying they cared, loved each other even,
was enough for both of them.

The
truth was she didn’t want to talk. She wanted him to take her away from here,
strip her naked, and show her with his body how much he really did want her.
She was a twenty-one year old virgin, had been waiting for this moment her
entire life, and this male was the one she wanted to give her innocence to.

He
leaned forward, cupped her chin in his hand, and stared at her lips. “Talk,
baby?” he said and lifted a dark eyebrow. He was aroused, she could smell it,
and she knew that his dick was probably hard right beneath his fly. She
certainly was wet enough that her panties were soaked clean through.

“Or
other things,” she said in an equally low voice. Everything else faded away
except her and Dakota. “I just want to be alone with you, without all these
people watching, without drunken MC members and other guys making this animal
inside of you want to rip off heads.” She smirked, knowing maybe she shouldn’t
have been aroused by the fact Dakota wanted to inflict bodily injury on other
guys for even looking at her, but she was a woman, and it did turn her on. He
was just so … male.

He
didn’t respond, just moved out of the booth, grabbed her hand, and together
they walked toward the front door. He stopped when he came up beside Marcus.
The other member seemed to be the one that wasn’t drunk, most likely their DD,
and when he turned around and saw Dakota standing beside her, his arm around
Tawny’s waist, he lifted a dark eyebrow.

“Hey,
man,” Marcus said, a toothpick in his mouth. It was freezing
outside,
snow already falling, yet Marcus only wore a long sleeved Henley and his cut.
His sleeves were pushed up his muscular forearms. The sight of the five thick
bands of ink tattooed into his flesh on his right forearm flexed as he lifted
his hand and removed the toothpick from between his lips. His other arm flexed
as he did the act, and tattooed on the inside of his forearm read in bold Old
English script was “Ride Free, Stay Loyal,
Fuck
Hard.
A Brother for Life.”