Chapter Twelve

DAKOTA

Dakota stood in front of the door to the cabin and focused on screwing the broken hasp back into the splintered shingle. He’d had to move the whole thing up an inch. There was no way to hide the fact that someone had broken in, but he didn’t see any video cameras, so maybe they wouldn’t get caught. Plus they hadn’t stolen or vandalized anything.

No, they’d just broken in to have sex, like a pair of horny sixteen-year-olds.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bryce fingering the bruises Dakota had left on his neck during their second round. He wanted to push Bryce’s hand away and replace it with his mouth.

The marks Bryce had bitten into his skin stung, and he hoped they lasted. Bryce had been almost as surprised to find he liked biting Dakota as Dakota had been to find he liked being bitten.

Dakota really needed Bryce to leave now, or he might do something really stupid, like ask him to dinner. He knew there was nowhere for them to go from here. They knew way too much about each other now.

“You don’t have to stay while I do this,” he said without looking at Bryce.

“I know,” Bryce answered staring off into the street. The temperature had dropped precipitously with the cloud cover and the canyon looked less welcoming without the blazing blue sky. “It’s just, well, I’m kind of nervous about driving back down. What if the other tires blow? I mean, they are all the same age and from the same place.”

That thought had crossed Dakota’s mind as well. He tightened the final screw and stood up. “Where are you going?”

“Fort Collins. I have a hotel room there.”

“Do you have any friends you can call?”

“No one. I don’t know anybody in Colorado.”

Shit. Why was the guy even here? October wasn’t exactly prime vacation season in this part of the country.

Dakota’s heart was still pounding from whatever it was that had happened between them in that cabin. Cabin number three.

The breeze picked up, and Bryce shivered. Dakota was struck with a ridiculous urge to wrap Bryce up in his leather jacket. Ridiculous because Bryce wouldn’t be able to get it up his arms. His shoulders were twice as wide as Dakota’s.

Spreading out on top of him had been amazing. What would it feel like to be under him? To feel all that power and strength pushing into him?

Fuck. Dakota had to get rid of the man.

Bryce shivered again, and he looked like an abandoned puppy. A six-foot-five, two-hundred and twenty-pound puppy with a porn-star dick.

Dakota felt trapped in the Chinese curse where if you save someone’s life, you are responsible for them. He couldn’t leave the guy on the side of the road, injured, scared, and having a mid-life sexual crisis.

Dakota was an asshole, sure, but even he wasn’t that much of an asshole.

Dakota sighed. “Fort Collins isn’t too far from where I live. I got a buddy who lives close to here. Let me get in touch with him and see if he can pick up my bike and take it back to his house. Then I can at least drive you back down the mountain.”

“Really?” Bryce’s smile lit up his face.

The guy was thirty-four years old with a full beard and long hair down to his incredibly wide shoulders, how could he look like a little kid and why did it turn Dakota’s crank so hard? “Get in the car,” he said gruffly.

Dakota walked up the road until he found a spot with some cellphone reception and made arrangements for his friend to pick up the bike. He left the keys under a rock in front of cabin three.

Tomorrow after the hell of meeting the new owner at the lawyer’s office, he’d drive his pickup back up and get the bike.

God knew he’d need the ride to calm his nerves. The best-case scenario was that he ended up with an uneasy agreement with some city boy who knew nothing about farming or running an orchard. Worse-case scenario, he ended up homeless.

Wouldn’t just a tiny bit of the money Bryce was talking about go a long way towards solving Dakota’s problems?

By the time he slid behind the wheel of the 4Runner, Bryce’s eyes were closed, his head resting against the window. His face was pale again, the wrinkles around his eyes from pain, not laughter.

Money certainly didn’t seem to be solving all of Bryce’s problems.

Dakota reached over and pushed Bryce’s hair from his forehead. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”

Bryce’s shoulders lifted in what could have been a laugh or a sob. “Just a long strange couple of days, you know? Not sure I know who I am anymore.”

There wasn’t anything to say to that, so Dakota eased the SUV back onto the road and headed down the mountain.

Dakota certainly didn’t want to hear that crap heavy metal, so he left the radio off. Neither of them spoke, and five minutes later, Bryce was asleep.

Dakota stopped at the entrance to his driveway. Bryce was out like a light, his head pressed against the window, mouth hanging open. Dakota snapped a quick picture with his phone before gently shaking Bryce’s arm to wake him up. “Hey. This is where I live. Can you drive from here?”

Bryce blinked and looked around as if he might know where he was. “Are we far?”

“From Fort Collins? No. Give me your phone, and I’ll call up the directions. Where are you staying?”

Bryce told him, and Dakota punched in the info into Google Maps. “You’re eleven minutes away. Think you can make it?”

Bryce scrubbed his face with both hands, dragging his hair back into a ponytail before dropping it with an exaggerated exhale. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. What time is it?”

“About four-fifteen.”

Bryce laughed. “Feels like midnight. I’m beat.”

Dakota nodded. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. They both got out of the car. Bryce hesitated as he passed Dakota. Dakota shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket, and Bryce slid into the driver’s seat, lifting his bad leg with both hands to get in. He left the door open. “So,” he started.

“Oh,” Dakota interrupted. “Take this thing to a Toyota dealer tonight and get them to look at the tires.”

“Yeah. Yeah. For sure.” Bryce looked a little lost again, a little distant, and a lot tired.

Dakota rested his arm on the top of the door and looked in. He resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck. Seeing each other again wasn’t part of the plan. Even Bryce had assumed their hooking up was a one-time deal. So why was he so reluctant to let Bryce walk away?

The guy was a closet case, probably had a girlfriend waiting for him wherever he lived and was going to have a nice long freakout when he got back to the real world and realized he’d had a dick in his mouth and liked it.

What did it matter? Not like Bryce was asking for Dakota’s number anyway.

Dakota didn’t even know what Bryce was doing in Colorado or how long he’d been in town. The new car said he was staying, the hotel said otherwise. Maybe he was just here on vacation despite the bad timing.

On the other hand, Dakota had contributed to the guy’s sexual crisis. Who was Bryce going to process the whole thing with?

It didn’t seem like playing pro-hockey would give you a good pool of gay men to go to for advice, and Bryce had said he had no friends in Colorado. It wouldn’t be right to emotionally abandon him.

“How long are you going to be in town?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Bryce said. “A month at least. Maybe longer. I’ve got to get some stuff settled. My mom is moving out here and I’m helping her.”

With a sigh, Dakota stuck his hand out. “Give me your phone.” He waved his hand impatiently when Bryce hesitated. If he didn’t do this right now, he never would, and then he’d feel like an ass for a long time.

Bryce handed over his phone. Dakota entered his number into it and then handed it back. “There. Call me tomorrow and let me know what they say about the truck.”

Bryce gave him that incongruous little boy smile of his. He really was just too fucking good-looking to be real. “Yeah?”

“Unless you don’t want to. I get it if you want to pretend this never happened. I mean, the whole point of it was that you’d never have to see me again, right?” Dakota smiled to show he had no hard feelings about that. Who wouldn’t be disappointed at not having another shot with a hot professional athlete? The guy was built like a Greek God.

“No. I mean, do you think it’s awkward? I’ve never done anything like that before.”

Dakota laughed. “Yeah, I know. That’s why it happened.”

“I mean even with women. I’m not a random hookup kind of guy.” He looked embarrassed, as if were a character flaw.

Dakota leaned in the window. “Don’t tell anyone, or they might take away my gay card, but I don’t either. You are officially only the second stranger I’ve ever fooled around with.”

“So, does this mean you want to see me again?” He looked hopeful.

“Yeah. I do. But in the afternoon. I have some bullshit to take care of in the morning.” Dakota’s good mood evaporated as he remembered what waited for him in the morning. Well, this day hadn’t gone exactly to plan, but it certainly had cleared his head for a while.

“Okay.”

“Well,” Dakota said. “Welcome to Colorado.”

Bryce laughed loudly. “Day one is going to be hard to top.”

“See you tomorrow, city boy.” Dakota straightened up and gave a little wave, then turned to walk up the long driveway to his tiny house on the edge of the apple orchard.

When he finally gave in to the urge to turn around, Bryce’s truck was still sitting at the bottom of the driveway.

Dakota’s phone beeped with an incoming text.

It’s Bryce. Now you have my number, too.

He smiled as he added Bryce to his contacts, using the picture he had taken of Bryce sleeping as the icon.

Oh, I got your number, baby he texted back, and then smacked himself on the head with his phone. What the hell was he getting himself in to?