She didn’t think that was the reason. She thought he’d told her the truth, but she didn’t know. It could just as easily be another mind fuck to see how she would react, because she’d figured out that that was what that conversation with Mel had been about.
She knew why they’d done it. She knew Mel had probably only been following orders from Dax, but she hadn’t forgiven either one of them for scaring her out of her wits.
She blamed Mel most, even though she knew it was unreasonable and that she should’ve been blaming Dax.
And that worried her. Wanting to be with him plus wanting to forgive him for anything and everything equaled stupid female falls for totally inappropriate male, because he was dark, dangerous, wounded, sexy as hell, and she’d been itching to mount his rod since the first moment she’d laid eyes on him.
Morris would have had a brain seizure if he’d ever heard anything like that come out of her mouth, let alone discovered she thought that way. He certainly would have had a stroke if he’d had any clue that she’d thrown ‘lady’ Lena to the wind the moment she’d gotten the chance to get into Dax’s bed.
And Dax was a cauc. Morris had expected her to respect her heritage and find some nice, wholesome, well educated neg who was a gentleman to settle with and make babies.
If Dax had been a neg, Morris would’ve been furious about her taking up with him, because he wasn’t a gentleman, he was probably self-educated at best, and he was never going to hold an upper class job or live in an upper class neighborhood.
Dax wasn’t going to be hanging around long enough to produce any breeds, though, and Morris wouldn’t be around to see it. He wasn’t going to be around to enjoy any of the grandchildren he’d always talked about, but she didn’t doubt for one moment that Morris had loved her without reservation. He might have been disappointed in her if she’d chosen to marry outside her race and produce breeds, or even if she’d decided she was in love with a man that wasn’t upper class, but he would still have loved her and them.
As long as it wasn’t Dax.
She had known Morris well enough to know that he must have loved his son deeply and been proud of him, but he’d never spoken about Dax to either her or Nigel, and he wouldn’t allow Dax anywhere around them. That couldn’t have been because he was worried about anything happening between her and Dax because she wasn’t old enough for that sort of problem to cross his mind. The only reason that she could think of was because he’d made up his mind that he was going to keep her and Nigel away from the sordid side of life that was the only thing Dax knew.
Except for worrying about pleasing or displeasing Morris, on a personal level, she didn’t care. She never had cared in spite of the fact that Morris had tried his best to instill a class snobbery upon her and Nigel, sent them to the best schools, made sure they got the education they needed to find positions that would place them in the upper class economy and social hierarchy.
And she hadn’t cared because Morris, bless him, didn’t fit into that society. She supposed he’d never figured that out, never realized that if he’d succeeded she would have been ashamed of him and her beginnings.
She’d assumed a façade that would please Morris. She had walked, talked, and behaved like a lady because he was determined she was going to be one, but, deep down, she was still Morris’ baby girl. She was shy, but she wasn’t particularly squeamish about the more sordid side of life because as carefully as Morris had tried to shield her, there probably hadn’t been a whole lot that she’d missed about the world she’d grown up in.
Drugs or no drugs, if she’d been a ‘real’ lady, she should have been revolted about the incident in the jail cell--maybe not at the time because she hadn’t had her wits about her, but certainly afterward. She’d had plenty of time since to piece it all together and feel shame if she was going to feel any, or horror. If she hadn’t been drugged, she probably would have been terrified at the violence. She knew she would’ve been humiliated past bearing to be mounted in full view of so many men, as if she was no more than an animal, but she hadn’t really been aware of that at the time and she supposed that was why it still didn’t particularly bother her.
Not that she supposed it really mattered how she felt about it or that Morris wouldn’t have liked it if he’d discovered she was mooning over Dax.
And it didn’t really matter how she felt about it, because she knew Dax lived by the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, not the laws of societal man. He wasn’t going to feel any sort of obligation to make things right because he’d taken what he wanted--which she didn’t mind because she would’ve hated that. But sex probably didn’t mean any more to him that relieving bodily need and he also wasn’t very likely to think he just couldn’t live without her only because it had been good.
For that matter, she didn’t know if it had been particularly good for him. She’d been too busy enjoying it herself to think much about pleasing him.
That anxiety occupied her mind for a while, but she discovered trying to recall wasn’t very helpful. Details were hazy and mostly centered on how she’d felt about everything.
Besides, dwelling on it very quickly had her nearly as on edge and needy as she had been before she’d been thoroughly pleasured by the man.
Deciding when she saw that it was meal time that it would be better to brave meeting up with Dax in public view than to stay in his cabin and dwell on her mostly unpleasant thoughts, Lena left the cabin and went to the mess hall. There were a number of people gathered there, some already settled, others still selecting their food, but she didn’t see Dax among them. Disappointed, and finding that she wasn’t nearly as comfortable about joining the crew as she’d thought she would be, she was tempted to turn around and leave again. Unfortunately, she knew she’d been noticed and she didn’t want them to think that she’d only come to look for Dax.
Her paranoia had kicked in, and she was instantly certain that they’d know that food was the last thing on her mind.
They’d probably spend the rest of the day ribbing Dax about his conquest with the mousy wall flower.
Stiffening her spine, she entered the mess hall after only a brief and, she hoped, largely unnoticed check at the door. She wasn’t certain of where to sit once she’d filled the tray, but finally she spied the tino man she and Dax had sat with before.
He didn’t flag her over, but there were two empty seats at the long table and she decided to take the corner seat that she’d taken before.
She had only managed to swallow a couple of bites of food when a sort of tension seemed to ripple through the room. Glancing up, she saw that Dax had just stepped through the doorway. Their gazes collided. Without thought, she smiled at him tentatively. He stopped as if he’d hit a brick wall. For several panicked moments Lena thought he was going to reverse engines and leave again.
Her cheeks flamed.
Hastily, she averted her gaze to her tray, trying not to look as horrendously uncomfortable as she felt. There was no way to look unconcerned. She knew that, and she could just imagine what sort of thoughts were running through the minds of everyone that had noticed that byplay.
She was so focused on trying to pretend to be unaware of Dax that she jerked all over when his tray landed on the table next to her, spilling the water she’d just picked up to drink all down the front of her suit.
Setting the glass down again quickly, she grabbed her napkin and dabbed at the water before it could soak through. When she looked up from drying the puddle that had formed at her crotch to see if Dax had noticed, she looked him right in the eye … sort of. His gaze was actually on the dark spot on her crotch.
As if he wasn’t even aware that he’d been sitting perfectly still, staring at her crotch for long enough that everyone sitting at the table had noticed, he finally glanced at his tray and picked up his fork.
