64. 🌶️🔥🌶️Inch-by-Inch🌶️🔥🌶️

“Are you Bi-”
“No Emara, I am not bi.” Dakota instantly corrects me.
“I am a completely straight man, one hundred percent into females. Cute ones, if I have to add.” He says defensively.
I blink at him numerous times, trying to process his rapid response, before realizing the misunderstanding.”
“No.. That’s not what I was trying to ask..” I say, setting my burger down and adopting a more serious tone. “I meant to ask if you might be..”
But just then, his phone rings on the table, breaking the moment. Dakota glances at the screen briefly before silencing it, then turns his full attention back to me.
“You were saying something.” He reminds me.
I gulp hard, before finally asking him, “Dakota, are you Bi-polar somehow?”
Green eyes stare at me sharply, as if I stepped on a *you-should-have-not-gone-there* nerve.
His phone rings again, but this time, he raises his hand to silence it without taking his penetrative eyes off me. I feel a hit of déjà vu, as he keeps me under his pissed off predatory gaze, unflinched and unwavering.
“I know it’s not my business to question you.” I swallow under confidence. “But it’s just, after spending the last several days with you, I have observed your strange, contradicting behaviour and sudden, extreme mood swin-”
“I do not have bipolar disorder.” Dakota cuts me off abruptly, as if he had and heard enough.
“I had myself tested, and it’s not what you or other people think of me.” He says curtly, changing his cool demeanor into that of a cold-guarded person.
And suddenly, I feel the knot of guilt tightening in my stomach for probing into his personal life. It almost sounded like I was accusin-
“But, I have something else.”
Dakota’s words abruptly halt my train of thoughts.
I watch him take a deep breath and meeting my gaze. There is a fluctuation of emotions flickering in his eyes, almost like he is struggling to mask his inner turmoil.
“What is it?” I question him with heavy beats.
Dakota leans towards me with raw seriousness.
“Something which is very critical.” His voice barely above a whisper, as if revealing a secret he has never uttered before.
“And dangerous.”
My insides turn and twist at the sound of his low voice, with the growing anticipation of what he might say.
“I have..”
Suddenly his phone vibrates on the table, drawing his attention to the message popped up on his screen.
I watch his eyes get narrow to slits as he reads the text, and instantly, his jaw clenches so tightly that I can almost hear it grind.
“Is everything alright?” I ask, my voice spiked with concern.
In return, his hand grips the phone with such a force that the veins on his wrist stand out starkly.
“Emara.”
Green eyes, which appeared gentle and vulnerable seconds ago, now appears dark and piercing. “I need to go meet someone. I’ll drop you home first.”
I feel a dip in my stomach as he stands up, tall and straight with a look of seriousness in his eyes.
“Okay..” Clutching my adorable sloth tightly against my chest, I follow him.
Dakota unlocks the car, and I quietly get inside myself while his thumbs fly furiously on the screen, typing with an urgency that seems to echo his troubled state of mind.
Eventually, he tucks his phone back into his pocket, and gets behind the steering wheel with an expression as hard as granite.
“Everything okay?” I ask him with concern laced my tone. I can’t help but worry about the sudden change in him.
It’s like someone provoked him, for a battle.
Bright green eyes draw at me, sharp and intense. There is a storm brewing behind those eyes, a chaos he is struggling to keep at bay.
Then, suddenly, Dakota leans towards me.
I inhale sharply at his sudden close proximity. His hot breath fans on my neck, as he reaches over, not for me, but for the seatbelt and with a click, secure me in it.
My heart pounds, not only from his unexpected move, but also from the erratic intensity he exudes, which is both alarming and compelling.
Dakota leans back to fasten his own seatbelt, then ignites the car and begins to drive.
The ride back to home is oddly silent, with brewing tension oozing from him. I sit there, holding my plushie a little tighter with a whirlwind of questions running through my mind.
I want to ask him what he was about to say before the message interrupted him. I want to know what is troubling him so deeply that he suddenly changed.
But I don’t want to be the one to poke the bear.
The car slows down to the villa and stops right in the driveway.
“I’ll ask Martina to come over to cook for you. Tell her I’ll be dining out and will be late, so don’t wait for me.” His tone cold, yet his words seemed more like a notification for me rather than a message to pass on to Martina.
“Okay.. Thanks for today.” I offer him a smile, but he only replies with a curt nod.
With a slight sense of unease, I slide out of my seat with the sloth. The car reverses and soon disappears from the driveway, leaving me all alone in his empty castle.
True to his words, Martina arrives and with the help of Eve’s translation skills, I could request her to bake chocolate muffins for me, along with Mexican tacos.
*She is such a sweetheart!*
After she finishes cooking and cleaning, Martina leaves me with my dinner to Netflix and chill. About an hour later, the distant hum of a car engine reaches my ears, and I glance outside.
It’s pitch dark.
It’s that time of the night, when something awakens in Dakota.
A dark shadowy aura seems to take hold of him, transforming him into someone darker than Black.
That is both sinister and disturbing.
My heart sinks into my stomach, heavy with dread as I hear the front door slide open and the sound of footsteps echo to me in waves.
He is here.
My fingers dig into the softness of couch as Dakota appears in front of me with a cold-hearted expression. Something I have seen every night.
Fear grips me as his dark eyes meet mine and a chill runs down my spine at the thought of his violent alter ego surfacing again. It still haunts my skin.
Don’t tell me he acted nicely all day, just to fuck me over ruthlessly for his revenge.
*Please no, no, no!*
Dakota takes a lazy stride towards the kitchen, before glancing briefly at the TV which is playing an episode of Rick and Morty.
“Had dinner?” He asks, fetching a glass of ice water and gulping it down almost wearily.
He looks extremely tired, like he is under bags of stress and workload.
“Yeah. And you?” I retort, turning off the television, in a hope to continue that conversation, which he left abruptly.
*What exactly is he going through?*
“Hmm.” Dakota hums, twisting the empty glass in his hand, as if admiring its beauty, while chewing on the ice.
I watch him closely, trying to study his mood, but I couldn’t decipher the climate in his head. All I sense is this an unsettling energy radiating from him, exactly like watching an electric sparking wire hanging closely to the water.
“Emara.”
And then his gaze finds me.
“Do you want to watch a movie together?”