The Outlaw Stakes His Claim (5 page)

They must have stared at each other for a solid
minute before one of his other biker friends nudged him in the shoulder and
started speaking to him. But even though Dallas was talking to him he kept his
focus right on Hope. She contemplated going over to him and talking to him, to
say thank you once more, because last night felt like she had offended him. He
had certainly gotten away from her quickly enough. His uncomfortableness when
she had first woken up had been tangible, and then she had called his club a
gang, and everything else just kind of felt awkward. Yeah, she should go say
thank you or apologize, hell, anything at this point. The easy way out was to
just head back to her Jeep, but this was where she was going to be living, and
if this MC ran things around here, she didn’t want to have to feel like she was
avoiding them because of some awkward bar encounter.

She tossed her bag in the trashcan and looked over
at him again. This time he had his back to her and was speaking to one of the
other guys in leather. She was nervous, because she didn’t want him thinking
she was this persistent woman that couldn’t take a hint, and he had all but
roared out that their time together was finished last night. But Hope had
always grown up to repay kindness with kindness, and Dallas had not only saved
her from some asshole, he had also watched over her in her room.
Okay, don’t think about how potentially
creepy that was. He helped you, was uncomfortable doing so, but helped you
nonetheless.

A car drove past, and she quickly made her way
across the street. She stopped at the small grass landing that separated the
two streets, and then she made her way closer to him. She heard their deep
voices rumbling, and then the man talking to Dallas tilted his head to the
side, so he could see her approach around Dallas’s broad shoulder, and stopped
talking.

“Well, hey there.” Through his thick brown beard she
saw the flash of his straight white teeth. He wore a pair of dark sunglasses,
too, and the same attire as she had seen the rest of the bikers wear: faded
jeans, long sleeved t-shirts, and their leather vests with that same motorcycle
and claw mark patch on the back.

She saw the way Dallas tensed before he even turned
around, and she wondered if he could smell her before he saw her.
He’s a bear shifter. He can probably do a
lot of shit that would blow your mind.
Those thoughts had her cheeks
heating.

“You lost?” The biker with the beard slid the
glasses down the bridge of his nose and grinned broadly at her. Hope didn’t
miss the way he let his gaze travel up and down her body.

“No, she’s here to talk to me.” Dallas spoke in that
deep baritone voice right before he turned around and faced her.

She couldn’t gauge his emotions because he kept
those dark sunglasses on, but she suddenly felt very small by him, and that was
saying a lot since she had never felt small in her whole life.

“Girl, you got some curves on you.”

Instantly Hope got uncomfortable and tugged at the
hem of her loose top. She had never been the girl that was skinny or had the
model type frame. She had curves, ones she hadn’t always liked but that she was
trying to deal with as she grew older. But it had been those insecurities, and
name calling by her peers that had made her go to extreme lengths to try to be
that “perfect” woman she had never felt like. Now she didn’t starve herself
anymore and didn’t purge when she binged on food. To say there were not times
when she struggled would be a lie, but each day was a new one, and she used
that strength to move forward. However, there were these times, ones where
someone would inadvertently say something to her, and she was thrust back into
that part of her life that she was trying to move away from. These men didn’t
know her past and couldn’t possibly know that an “innocent” comment about her
curves could make her see herself as anything but beautiful.

But now wasn’t the time for this shit, and so using
all of her strength she pushed it back and tried to calm herself. Could they
sense her increased heart rate, smell the sweat that had started to line her
temple, or get an overall sensation of how on edge she suddenly was? Yes, she
knew they could, and it made it all that much worse.

“Drevin, get the fuck out of here.” Dallas spoke,
and it was harsh and commanding.

The other man made a grunt and murmured something
profane, and then he turned and headed inside to the auto parts store. The
other biker was leaning against the side of the building with a cigarette
hanging from his lips, and his attention on something across the street.

“What are you doing here?”

Hope was so startled by his harsh voice that she
actually took a step back. She had calmed, somewhat, and now all her focus was
on Dallas. “I’m sorry?” She hadn’t meant to make it sound like a question, but
it had come out that way. “I just…” She looked at the guy that was still leaning
against the wall, and although she didn’t care she couldn’t deny that she was
embarrassed by the coldness that came from Dallas, and the fact this man was
watching the whole thing.

Dallas turned and looked at where the other biker
was. He sighed, grabbed her hand, and started leading her away from the shop
and the bikes. When they were several feet away and standing under a large
tree, they stared at each other for a few seconds. He crossed his arms over his
chest, and his long sleeved shirt rose up slightly on his forearms. She saw
intricate tattoos peeking out from the dark material and wondered how far it
went it and how much ink covered his muscular body. He was certainly a beast,
with those broad shoulders, a massive torso that hinted of
power,
and thighs the size of tree trunks. She tried not to look at the impressive
bulge of his crotch, but how could she not notice it when it was right there in
her face? Her cheeks heated even further when she dragged her gaze up his chest
and looked at his face. He stared at her with this almost angry expression on
his face. His nostrils flared, and this flash of heat slammed into her.

“What are you doing, Hope?”

Hearing him say her name should not have had this
tingling sensation moving through her, and it really, really shouldn’t have had
her nipples tightening like he had just reached out and stroked her.

He took a step closer. “Answer me, female. Didn’t I
frighten you enough last night? Didn’t you learn how dangerous I am?”

He was so close to her now, and a sane person would
have stepped away, but she stayed still, unable to move away from his presence
that was so commanding. In her twenty-three years she had never felt this kind
of attraction—and that was exactly what it was—to any man, let alone one she had
just met last night.

“I—I just wanted to say thank you again. I didn’t
really get to say it last night.” Of course she had said it but the night had
been such a collective mix of uncertainty and weirdness that everything had
been this blur.

“You had said that already and I thought I had made
it clear that if you needed anything to call Mara.” He was trying really hard
to act intimidating, she could tell, but the thing was she could also sense
this uncomfortableness in him because of it. He was pushing her away, but she
didn’t know why.

“I just wanted to say that, and thought maybe I
could repay the act of kindness and buy you dinner, or lunch sometime?”

He blinked several times and even took a step back.
For a second she wondered if he was just going to turn around and leave her
standing here because there was this almost skittish quality to him, and in a
man as big and clearly powerful as he was, it was very off-putting and had
her
on edge.

“You want to go out with me?”

Now it was her turn to blink at his question.
“Um.”
He probably hadn’t meant it how she took it. “Well,
yeah, I suppose. It would be you and me going out for something to eat. I’d
like to show you a small amount of kindness like you had shown me.” She found
herself twisting her fingers together. He made her nervous, terribly so, but
she was also out of her element. She
hadn’t
 
asked
a man out, even if it was for
something as innocent as a platonic meal, but then again this man didn’t make
her feel platonic things. It felt like a really long, uncomfortable time before
he answered.

“I don’t think that is a good idea.” He ran his hand
over his jaw that looked like he hadn’t shaved it in a few days. The blond
stubble along his cheeks was a shade darker than the short hair atop his head.
His bicep flexed as he moved his hand up and over his head, making those
strands stand on end.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” That thought would
have been laughable because how could she make someone like him uncomfortable?
But his body language suggested just that.

“No.” And just like that he was back to being this
hardened machine that showed nothing in the form of emotions or expressions.
“You’re a smart female, and can sense danger even though you’re a human,
right?” Was this a trick question? She didn’t quite know how to answer. But he
started speaking again, saving her from analyzing that question further. “Your
instincts tell you that I’m not a good man, yet you came up to me.”

“Yeah, to offer you lunch.” Her former tepidness was
vanishing. She wasn’t going to be intimidated or bullied because he had inner
demons and hang-ups and thought that she should stay away. “I’m not asking for
your life story. I’m not asking you to give me your undying love. I am just
asking if I can buy you dinner one night. That’s it.” Clenching her jaw because
it was mostly the truth, she stared up at him and brought all of her strength
to the surface. “I know who you are affiliated with, can see it right there on
your vest. I may not be versed in the MC lifestyle or the rules, and I am
certainly not an expert on shifters, but I know you have to eat.” She took a
deep breath, but he didn’t look like he was about to say anything in response.
“Now, can I buy you something to eat and properly thank you for helping me last
night? If not, then just come out and say no.”

Several seconds passed where they just stared at
each other.

He had his arms crossed over his wide chest, and his
dark t-shirt stretched over his muscles. God, he had a lot of them. “Okay.” The
corner of his lip twitched.

He thought her annoyance was funny? Well, so did
she
. Hope started smiling and shook her head. “Sorry about
that assertiveness. It was a bit much, and I normally don’t get on people like
that.”
But it felt damn good to stand up
to someone.
Yes, yes it did.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “You have a lot
more spark in you than you let on.” The small lifting of his mouth didn’t move
into a full blown smile but there was this lightness that suddenly came from
him.

“So … dinner sometime then?”

It took him a few minutes to answer. “Okay.”

Her smile grew, but she tried to tell herself that
it had nothing to do with spending more time with this man, and more so that
she was trying to repay him. “Great.” She reached into her purse and grabbed a
scrap piece of paper and pen. She wrote her number down and handed it to him.
Once he grabbed it he looked at it for a moment. Her cell vibrated, and she
grabbed it and saw that it was a call from Parker. After rejecting she looked
up at Dallas and saw him watching her, but he had that ever-present wall over
his emotions, the one she had seen so many times in the last twelve hours.

He reached out and took her phone out of her hand.
She was so surprised by his blatant action that for a few seconds she could
just stare at him as he started tapping out something. He handed it back to
her.

She looked down at the screen. “You took my phone to
enter your phone number?” The word DALLAS was in bold letters above the number
he had entered. When he didn’t answer right away she looked up.

“Yeah.
There is probably something you should know.” He didn’t say anything for
several seconds and she didn’t know if she should be nervous about what he was
about to say.

“Okay.” Even she could hear the slight hesitation in
her voice.

“I tend to do a lot of shit that pisses people off,
do things that are blatantly offensive,” he pointed to her phone, “kind of like
the shit I just did.”

Hope could do nothing but stare at him, and inside
she felt a twinge of amusement that he was actually explaining his actions to
her. That had to count for something, right?

“I act before I think, but there isn’t any way
around that, and I won’t change.”

Dallas spoke with this hardness in his voice but she
also heard a different kind of emotion in his voice, one that she couldn’t
quite place, but it almost felt … apologetic.
 
“So, you’re telling me you can be a big asshole at times?”

He chuckled softly, and his light green eyes seemed
to brighten. It was a nice look on his ruggedly handsome face.
“Most of the time.”
He chuckled again. “I’m an asshole most
of the time.”

She smiled and felt this twinge in her belly. “You
never told me your whole name. Is Dallas your first name or a nickname?” Hope
honestly didn’t know what had gotten into her. She had also been the shy and
quiet type and never spoke out, not even in a teasing manner. She had started
to grow stronger as an individual and there was no doubt that being around
Dallas made her feel like she shouldn’t have to be afraid of what she said to
others. How strange that no one but this man, this very big shifter that had
stepped up and helped her when just because, had made an impact on her life
almost instantly. He made her feel this kind of inner power, and that she
didn’t have to care what the repercussions were, even if she was teasing with
him right now. He was being honest, and she had to admire a man that did that,
even if that honesty was brutal and didn’t make apologies.