ARROGANT BRIT (A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE) (9 page)

“Pete, I thought you said Clara was–”

He looked surprised when he saw me on the
couch. “Wait. Clara, why didn’t you just come back here?”

“I, uh, was pointed this way?”

His face settled on his roommate. “Look,
Pete, the next time I tell you to
let
someone in and send her my way
, I’d like you to
actually
let them in and send them my way.”

Pete shrugged, his eyes glued to the screen.

Covering his face and sighing, Dalton
motioned for me to follow him. He led me down a long hallway and towards the
light of an open door, presumably his bedroom.

“You’ll have to forgive my, uh,
guest
,” Dalton replied tersely.

“Is he your roommate?” I asked.

“For a little while, I guess,” he conceded.
“This place is mine alone, but Pete is an old marine buddy of mine. He’s
suffering from some flashbacks from his days in the service… something I can
sympathize with.” He paused a moment, changing his tone. “Pete’s getting back
on his feet, and I told him that he could stay here a month or two. Turns out
that he’s a bit skittish of unfamiliar company, I guess.”

“He was giving me the third-degree, that’s
for sure. Ignored me when I knocked. I thought that was
you
peering at me through the curtains.”

“It was that bad?” He sighed. “Alright… I’ll
have a word with him about that. I don’t need my weird friend scaring away the
company and not opening the door for guests…”

Dalton held his door open for me, and I
stepped into his bedroom. A large king-sized bed dominated the space. The walls
bore a couple of posters – mostly models, sexily strutting for the camera. In
the corner, there was a desk, set up with a computer; a display nearby had some
awards on it, along with what looked like his Marines graduation gear.
 

There was another flat-screen TV on an
entertainment stand, facing away from the bed. Although smaller than the living
room set, it was still almost as big as our own television in Natalie’s
apartment. He had it paused on some sort of nature documentary.

“I know it’s not much, but with this whole
house to myself, I never know how to fill the space,” Dalton shrugged.

“No, I mean, it looks nice.”

He smirked. “Yeah. Nice.
This
looks nice. I’d hate to see what you think
bad
looks like. Anyway, what are you
doing here?”

“I wanted to apologize for earlier,” I told
him quietly. “Sorry if I came off a bit rude. And I just wanted to see you.”

“You wanted to
see me
, huh?” Dalton chuckled, although his eyes told me that he
was pleased to hear this. “Come on over, then. The bed’s warm. Hope you don’t
mind a little
Meerkat Manor
.”

“You’re watching
Meerkat Manor?
” I asked, amused. I didn’t really know that much
about the show. From what I recalled, it dramatized the lives of a pack of
meerkats in the Serengeti.

“Totally. This is my jam when I need a
pick-me-up,” Dalton smiled. He kicked out across the huge bed, his back up
against the wall. I settled down beside him, keeping just enough distance
between us.

“This is so plush,” I thought aloud as I got
comfortable on his bedding.

“Memory foam,” he chuckled.

“You’ve got a rental house, expensive TVs,
and
memory foam mattresses? What kind of
crazy inheritance do you have?”

Dalton coughed involuntarily.

“Oh, I just have a big bank account, thanks
to eight back-to-back years in the Marines,” he answered. “I mean, yeah, I
probably splurged a little much, but I figured I’d treat myself now and get it
all out of the way.”

“I see that,” I replied, looking around
briefly.

The computer in the corner didn’t look
particularly impressive, and besides some nice furniture and the televisions,
it seemed like everything else was just here to fill the space attractively.
Even the vehicles outside weren’t too crazy, although I was guessing now that
the car probably belonged to his roommate.

“So, what do you wanna do?” Dalton asked,
peering at me from the corner of his eye.

“I dunno,” I answered truthfully.

There was no way that I’d come here to fuck
him, especially with the
complication
between
us… but here I was, seated beside him in the most comfortable bed I’d ever
beheld. We were watching some nature show together, the silence between us
already starting to crackle with desire.

“Well, I’m fine with us just continuing to
watch
this
for the moment,” he
shrugged, letting the next episode queue up.

“Okay. That sounds good.”

The show continued on, and I found myself
questioning what I’d hoped to get out of the night. This was my first time in
his home, and I was here in his bed… pretending that I didn’t want his strong,
handsome arms around me.

But we haven’t been seeing each
other for long,
I
tried to reason to myself.
And then there’s
the matter of our parents… no reason to fuck THAT up.

No matter what, my logic couldn’t stand up
against the feverous
craving
that was
building up inside me… the yearning need to take things further.

Although he thought he was being coy, I could
tell that he was watching me more than the show. His eyes kept subtly tracing
my body, and I knew that he was itching to pull me up against him.

“I’m glad you came,” he quietly told me.

“You know, I’m glad that I came, too,” I
nodded. My lips started to betray me when they continued: “I’ve been dying to
see you.”

“Is that so?” He subtly dragged the words
out.

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s been on my mind all
weekend. That’s why I didn’t understand earlier… I just wanted to be around you
again.”

“You’ve been on mine too,” he confessed,
pulling me a little closer. “And there’s something I’ve been wanting to do that
entire time…”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, feeling my cheeks go
flush with pleasure. “What might that… be…?”

I let the words drift as he tenderly gazed
into my eyes, leaning forward. He pulled me into a deep, passionate kiss that
felt as if it was setting off every last nerve ending across my skin, and my
arms wrapped around his neck as he pushed me down into his comfortable bed…

Chapter 9

Kissing Clara again proved to me that the
sensations I felt the first time weren’t just some fluke. I felt
alive
when my lips were on hers, in a
way that I hadn’t experienced before… not with previous girlfriends, flings, or
one-night stands.

It was
real
.

The moment that I realized this, pulling her
down into the bed with me, I felt significantly both better
and
worse about not telling her about
the proposal. I wanted to get everything out of this that I could, regardless
of what our parents
did
or
didn’t
do.

Yeah, it was selfish. But guess what?

You might have noticed that I’m actually kind
of a selfish guy.

I didn’t push any further moves on her that
night. Time wasn’t on my side; there was no way I was going to scare her off
before she found out about the impending wedding.

We simply enjoyed ourselves together, keeping
all of our clothes on and basking in their collective warmth and the emotion of
our bodies. I tasted her mouth, nipping her bottom lip between my teeth and
sliding my tongue along hers, biting at her earlobe...

When daylight streamed through the crack in
my curtains, pouring along my face, I realized that we had fallen asleep
together. Clara was nestled up against me, her ass pushed into my hips as I
woke up spooning her.

I realized that I was nursing one
hell
of a morning erection. Oh, what I
would have given to rip her jeans off and plow that rock-hard pillar of demand
straight into her wet, willing pussy…

Instead, I struggled to will
that bad son of a bitch down, focusing
on how angelic she looked in the semi-darkness. Her chest was slowly rising and
falling with her deep slumber, and with every exhalation came a very subtle,
almost inaudible groan of air.

Tenderness overcame me. Feeling the pressure
of her sleeping body, and the delicate sound of her breathing… it was all
casting a spell over me.

I feared that I was falling in love with her.

Fate be damned, I can’t let this
girl become too important to me,
I thought to myself. But it was no use. As it
just so happened, I loved every stupid little fucking thing about Clara
Campbell.

She didn’t come willingly into my presence,
and she clearly wasn’t going to put up with any shit from me. To someone used
to effortless pussy on a platter, whenever I wanted it… I reveled in the unexpected
challenge.

Besides that, she was diligent, clever, and
rather intelligent. As we’d talked into the night, she’d told me about the
stresses and complications of her banquet server job; I’d related a few old war
stories to her from my days in the service.

It had been an eye-opening night for the two
of us, and when we
did
slowly drift
to sleep, we had great, big, stupid smiles on our faces. We had peered into
each other, learned about one another, and were only pushed closer together by
what we had learned.

From one perspective, that was scary.

From another… it was
empowering.

Either way, I couldn’t just watch her sleep
all day, no matter how much I really wanted to. Reluctantly, I nudged her
awake.

“C’mon, sleepyhead. Time to get up.”

Clara looked up at me groggily, stifling a
yawn. As she slowly came to, alertness gripped her.

“Wait – Dalton? Where am I?”

“My bed,” I replied with amusement.

“What? I fell
asleep
here? What
time
is
it?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, growing slightly
annoyed now. “My phone’s on the charger. Why, is something wrong?”

Clara rolled onto her back and fished her
phone out of her pocket. Flicking it on, the time blared brightly into the
room, temporarily distorting my vision.

“Hey, could you give me a little warning next
time, love?” I asked with aggravation, shielding my eyes with a hand.

“Oh
fuck
,
I was supposed to pick my work shifts last night!” She grumbled loudly. “Great.
I completely fucking forgot about that, and now all the good ones are taken… I
can’t believe this happened…”

“Clara, look, it’s not a big deal,” I
muttered. “Just pick them later. You want to grab a bite to eat or something?”

She jumped up from my bed, grabbing her keys
and wallet up off the floor. “I’ve gotta get going,” my guest unceremoniously
muttered as an afterthought.

Before I could respond, she was darting out
the door and down the hallway.

Well, that’s fucking great,
I growled inwardly.

I wasn’t going to let her bullshit cloud up
my day, so I climbed up and locked the front door, noticing that her car wasn’t
out front.
Wow, she left in a REAL hurry
there,
I bitterly thought to myself. Traipsing back towards my room, I
swiftly made my bed before turning on the faucet and stepping into the
piping-hot shower.

What the fuck was THAT all about?

I wasn’t a fan of taking long showers. By the
time I’d rinsed the traces of oil and grease out of my hair, scrubbed my entire
body down, and begun toweling off, I was still plenty furious with her. The
wound was fresh, but it was also irritating that I’d let her damage my
typically bulletproof ego.

There was no getting around it: Clara’s
sudden departure had rattled my cage more than I’d anticipated. But when I
threw on some jeans and a casual tee and lifted my phone up off the charger, I
noticed a text from her.

> Sorry to leave so quickly.
Work stuff. Had a good time with you.

“
Work
stuff
,” I murmured to myself angrily. “Well,
no shit, Sherlock.
I still think that could have probably waited…”

I tossed the phone onto my couch and started
picking up after Pete. While I was questioning why I let him stay with me for
free, I scooped up the forgotten bag of potato crisps, the half-empty can of
Rockstar, and the dishes he’d left on my coffee table.

At least his mess is always
centralized,
I
thought to myself. If he’d been one of those people to make a disaster zone of
the
entire
house, I’d have him out on
his ass faster than you can say
Semper
Fi.

Focusing on
his
bullshit took my mind off of Clara, and when I finally wiped my
hands clean and started wondering about
her
again, I realized that my subconscious had done that little trick with
problem solving.

You know how, when you’ve got a problem, and
you distract yourself with something else for a little while, when you come
back to the problem it’s sort of worked itself out?

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.

My gut reaction had been to just ignore her
for a few days, intentionally this time. Put her on the defensive. She knew
she’d fucked up, given the apologetic text she’d sent.

But I reminded myself:
time isn’t on your side.

That’s why I sauntered back over to my phone,
snatching it up off the couch as I flicked the living room set on. I queued up
some mindless drivel from my personal list of saved shows for some background
noise as I contemplated how to word my response:

> Not gonna lie, it kinda
pissed me off.

It was a bit of a gamble, but I remembered
how she felt about learning that my grandfather was on the way out. A few
minutes later, her response came through:

> I know. I’m really sorry. I
think I just freaked out over waking up with you. Is there any way that I can
make it up to you?

I smiled to myself slyly, although the longer
I thought about her message, the less confident I grew in my intended response.

Throwing caution to the wind, I typed:

> I want you to meet me again
tonight. But you’re going to have to be okay with us. There’s no telling how
soon our parents will take things to the next level, and I want one solid night
with you. I want both of us to ignore them, ignore the future, and just share
one awesome night together.

I hesitantly hit
send
, and let the phone clatter to the couch. That was one
hell
of a dice roll that I was taking on
her, and I knew that, in all likelihood, I was just shoving away my only chance
at something with her before she got the news…

When she didn’t respond, I dedicated my time
to some history homework. Being in school was useful as a distraction, and a
little more engaging than sitting in front of the screen and slowly losing
muscle mass.

It was after I knocked out my assignment that
I noticed that she’d responded. Although my phone had been off of vibrate, I
must have missed the ring of the notification.

> Okay.

Relief flooded my veins.

Okay?
I thought to myself, letting a
triumphant grin crawl across my face.
Oh,
I can DEFINITELY work with ‘Okay.’

With victory growling out from my throat, I
thrust a punch into the air. The hard part was over… and now I just had to set
the mood for the evening.

You only get one shot at this,
I told myself.
Hell, Father or Sarah might ring her up and
break the news beforehand, anyway…

I brushed the thought aside.

Well, if that happens… then it
happens,
I
shrugged. There was no point in focusing on that right now, not with this
opportunity bared out before me.

I didn’t want to come off too strongly, so I
paused for a little while and collected my thoughts. I took stock of the house
and realized bitterly:
This place is a
fucking pigsty.

Luckily, Clara hadn’t spent much time out of
my bedroom while we’d been together, and she’d darted straight out when she’d
left.

I’m going to have to have a word
with that guest of mine,
I thought to myself with vexation. After I’d made up my mind about
my afternoon, I whipped my phone back out and fired off a reply.

> Cool. See you tonight. 7ish?

A few minutes later, she replied:

> Sure thing. I’ll text you
later so that we can figure out the details. See you then.

With that groundwork laid, I focused my attention
back on cleaning up the mess that had become my rental house. He’d only been
around a collective several days out of the last month, but he’d been
surprisingly present the last couple in a row.

I got to work, putting my military cleaning
regiments to good use. Arming myself with bleach, disinfectant, rubber gloves,
and some solid washrags, I gave my house the entire drill from top to bottom:
sweeping, dusting, mopping, vacuuming, scrubbing, polishing, soaking, buffing…