He started walking again, and people were staring at us now but I really didn’t give a shit. My entire being was attuned to Dakota and only Dakota.
His hot arm around my legs, his hair tickling my arm, the smoky sweet scent of him.
And he was so damn tall. Was this what being tall was like? The ground was so far away.
“Because I don’t trust you not to run after them and I’m gonna be really pissed off if you get yourself arrested or expelled for punching Chad Delroy. You can’t just hit people. Especially notthesepeople. You’ll be in jail for life just for sneezing in their direction.”
“Well they can’t just trip you! Fuck that, I’m not letting those cockwipes fuck with you. They don’t get to do that shit.”
He choked out a laugh. “Cockwipes?”
“Dickballs. Asscocks. Shitfucks.”
He laughed again, and I felt it through his back. “Now you’re just combining random words.”
“Shut up.” I wanted to bite his neck, to slide his hair to the side and suck his skin between my teeth. To feel him buck against me like he had in the laundry room, to make him lose control.
He’dreallyliked that. I’d almost come as soon he started moaning in my ear, and I wanted him to make those sounds again.
“Why did you hit him?”
Why?
Because I have no self control? Because no one gets to hurt you like that? Because you were going to just let it go? Because I’m an unhinged, violent freak?
The fact that he was still here, still holding me, still talking to me, that I hadn’t scared him away with my awful behavior…had to mean something, right?
“Because…it really pissed me off to see someone treating you like that. You didn’t do anything to them. You don’t deserve that shit.”
Dakota slowed down for a moment, then started walking even faster. “You don’t have to do that for me.”
His voice was thick and saturated with something I couldn’t identify, and the arm around my legs tightened.
He was right, in a way. I didn’t have to do that for him. But fuck, I wanted to. I didn’t really care if people did that to me; I was used to it and had spent half a lifetime defending myself against ignorant assholes.
But there was no way,no fucking way, I was letting anyone treat Dakota like that.
I didn’t know how often that happened for him to be so unaffected, and I didn’t know why he just ignored it. His dad was the dean, it seemed like everyone around here knew that, and those guys still thought they’d get away with it.
I wanted to go find them and punch them all. Make sure they never fucked with Dakota again. If I had to stick to his side every second of the day to make sure?—
“But thank you.”
I stared down at his ass, an image of me slapping it like he’d done to mine flashing through my mind. I wanted to touch it. Squeeze it. Bite it. Lick?—
“You got a nasty little temper, don’t you?” The amusement in his voice irked me, but I also didn’t miss the affection there.Thatslid under my skin and curled around my bones likethe sweetest, softest touch. It sent an explosion of butterflies through my stomach and made me feel like I was weightless.
He made me feel like I was worth something, and that…
There was an ache in my chest, a painful tightness that was mixed with hope and a longing so profound that if Dakota wasn’t holding me, I didn’t think I’d have the strength to stay on my feet.
“You can put me down,” I said softly.
“Not yet.” He paused and hitched me higher, making me grunt. “So this is, what…the fourth time I’ve saved your life now?”
“Third.”
A sudden sharp pain in my thigh made me cry out, and when I realized Dakota had bitten me, I smacked his back. “What the fuck! Thathurt!”
