Roomies (A Standalone Novel) (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (6 page)

At
least I have Dane to go home to.

Chapter Six

The
Building across the Street

Dane

She doesn’t really talk
to me, so I can’t be sure, but I’m starting to get the feeling that Leila
doesn’t like me.

It probably didn’t help
that I only learned her name last week when I was going through her mail. Maybe
it wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t caught me in the act.

After knocking that lamp
off the table in the living room last night, it’s probably best if I don’t go
home tonight. As I open my eyes and take in the gorgeous view that is this
naked redhead, I think I’ll be fine.

“You know,” she says,
pulling me down to her mouth, kissing me softly, “I
never
do this.”

They never do.

“Well, I’m glad you made
an exception,” I tell her.

The next thing I know,
she’s somehow pulled me down onto the bed, rolled us both so she’s now on top,
and she’s sliding me inside of her with a greedy look in her eyes.

Her muscles wrap around
me, holding me tight, and I kiss her neck as she breathes, “You feel amazing.”

“So do you,” I respond.
It’s not the most romantic or clever option, but it’s close enough.

She leans back slightly,
positioning her breasts directly in front of me, and I take her nipples into my
mouth, each in their turn, drawing little circles with my tongue.

She leans back further
and now I’m running my hand between her breasts and down the front of her body,
her skin so warm to the touch.

“I love the way you fill
me up,” she moans, and I place my hands on her hips, guiding her smoothly up
and down my erection.

I meet the motion of her
hips with my own and we move in sensual harmony, our only goal to bring each
other to that release that just makes every problem in the world seem so
trivial.

“Can I ask you
something?”

“What’s that?” I ask.

She continues to rock her
hips, and she throws her head back, her long, red hair flipping with the
motion.

Her eyes are closed as
she utters, “There’s something I’ve always wanted to try, but I’ve never had
the courage to ask anyone.”

“Sure,” I said. “What is
it?”

She leans forward and
presses into me hard. She’s reaching for something with both hands, but from
where I’m lying, I can’t tell what until I feel the cold metal around both
wrists.

I snicker a bit.

“A bit kinky,” I tell
her, “but that’s all right.”

“Shut up, bitch!” she
yells and slaps me hard across the face.

I can feel her growing
wetter, and I think maybe it’s time she and I have a little talk.

“I’m really not into any
rough stuff,” I tell her.

“Oh,” she says, pulling
off of me. “I’m so sorry.”

A moment later, my hands
are free and she’s sobbing uncontrollably.

I haven’t the slightest
idea what I’m supposed to do here.

“It’s all right,” I tell
her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“No, it’s not,” she says.
“I’ve just always wanted to make someone my bitch.”

Okay, now I really don’t
know what to say. I honestly didn’t think people talked like that.

“Really,” I say. “I’m
fine with the handcuffs, but maybe we just don’t do the slapping or the
name-calling.”

“Oh, what do you know?”
she asks.

I’m at a loss.

“I really don’t know what
you mean,” I tell her.

“You think it’s so easy
for a woman to open up sexually. Well, it’s not. Everything we do either makes
us a prude or a freak-slut. It’s such bullshit.”

I actually agree with
her, but am having a bit of trouble expressing that with half of my face still
numb.

“Why don’t we,” I start,
standing up and discreetly looking for my pants, “just get dressed and talk it
out. I bet it’ll make you feel better.”

“Oh,” she says, her tone
changing completely, “so now you don’t think I’m good enough to have sex with?”

“I really—”

“No, see this is what all
you guys do. The handcuffs go on and your balls just shrivel up because you
can’t handle letting a woman be in charge for once.”

What’s the word I’m
looking for?

“Seriously, if I’d known
you were such a pussy, I never would have picked you up—I mean seriously, how
do you get out of bed in the morning?”

Flummoxed: that's the
word I’m looking for.

“Fucking say something,
will you?”

I open my mouth, but
can’t find any words to adequately describe my surprise or my terror in this
moment, so I do the only thing that my body will allow.

I laugh.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her
as soon as I can catch my breath. “Really, I am. I’m not laughing at you. I
just have no idea how to even begin to approach this conversation.”

Her eyes start going wide
again.

“No, no, no,” I say.
“It’s all right. We can figure this thing out. Now, there are some things you
want to do, some of which make me uncomfortable, some of which I’m okay with.
What would be the ideal situation for you? Let’s start there, and I’ll tell you
what will work and what won’t work for me. I’m sure we can find a consensus
somewhere here.”

“I don’t know,” she says
in a creepily normal tone. “I guess, when I saw your tattoos, I just kind of
figured that you were into some freaky shit. Maybe I went overboard without
seeing if you were cool with everything.”

“That’s okay,” I tell
her. “Now, what would be ideal for you?”

“What I
really
want to do is tie you to the bed,
ride you like a bull and, I don’t know…”

“It’s okay,” I tell her.
“Just tell me what you want. That’s how we’re going to find a compromise here.”

My goal for the evening
is to find some way to sleep with her and not end up with a black eye.

“I just want to make you
my bitch, you know? I want to have you do what I tell you to do and maybe smack
you around a little if you don’t do it right. Is that so much to ask?”

“Wow,” I chuckle. “You
know, that’s a bit much for me,” I tell her. “Not that it’s weird or anything,
it’s just not my particular cup of tea.”

I wonder what Yoga Chick
is up to.

“Well, what do you want?”

“Me? I don’t know, I
guess I’m a bit more old-fashioned when it comes to the bedroom. I like a nice,
pleasant evening where we fuck like bunnies, maybe take a few pages out of the
Kama Sutra and see if we can get your neighbors to file a noise complaint.”

“Okay,” she says, giving
the situation the kind of thought one would put toward what college to attend
or whether or not space-time is a fixed or mutable concept. “Well, I like what
you’re saying, but I’m going to need a little more than that.”

“I can offer you light
spanking.”

“Who’s spanking whom?”
she asks, surprisingly articulately.

“I guess that’s really up
to you,” I tell her.

“Oh, I’d definitely be
spanking you,” she says.

I’m starting to get the
feeling that we may be trying a bit too hard to make this work, but I’ve
already put so much into it, I don’t want to just give up.

“I can live with some
spanking—some
light
spanking,” I tell
her. “But I’m talking with your hands. No paddles or whips. A riding crop might
be acceptable, but that’s really going to come back to the force of the blow.”

“Okay,” she says. “I
think I can live with that, but that’s still not quite enough for me. I mean,
you’ve
really
taken me out of the
mood here.”

If I didn’t know any
better, I’d say that she’s enjoying this more than she was enjoying the sex.

Actually, I don’t know
any better.

“What did you have in
mind?”

“Well,” she says, “you
seemed to be okay with the handcuffs, but you weren’t okay with me slapping
you.”

“Yeah,” I emphasize. “Not
into the slapping. While we’re at it, I’m also not into either of us drawing
blood, head-butting or any phrase that starts with donkey—just not my thing.”

“Well, you’ve got to give
me a little more than some light spanking and handcuffs,” she says, her voice
most of the way back to what it was when she uttered those memorable words:
“Shut up, bitch!”

“This isn’t your first
time with any of this, is it?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “Most guys
like to hear that sort of thing,” she says.

“Isn’t it funny the
things we say to each other, never really knowing if it’s what the other person
wants or not?”

“I know, right?” she
smiles.

I feel like the term
emotional rollercoaster is too slow a metaphor to capture this particular
moment.

“Okay,” she says. “How do
you feel about adding someone else? If you’re going to veto the fun stuff, we
could at least switch gears.”

I lightly clap my hands
together. “Okay,” I tell her. “That’s something we might be able to—”

“Yeah,” she interrupts.
“I have a friend who’s a
dom
—”

“You know, maybe we
should figure this out between the two of us before we bring a third party into
the equation?”

“Okay,” she says and
shrugs.

About a minute goes by in
awkward silence with me sitting with my pants on but undone, her still naked
beside me.

“I know!” she shouts,
clapping her hands hard in triumph.

A few minutes later,
we’re on top of her roof, she’s up on the ledge, leaning back and my arms are
wrapped around her lower back, just trying to figure out a way to get through
this without her falling.

Don’t misunderstand; I’m
definitely feeling the draw.

Her hands go above her
head and she leans back even farther. I have to move my grip from around her
back to around her legs, but she’s quick to pull them together and rest them on
my shoulder.

She’s not quiet, but that
only adds to the thrill of the moment as I enter her, the sound of our skin
hyphenating every movement as she falls again and again onto my hard, throbbing
cock.

“This is fucking great!”
she calls into the night, and I can’t help but agree with her.

I tighten my grip around
her thighs as her legs begin to quiver in my arms, and as she erupts into
screaming orgasm, I’m checking the windows of the building across the street to
see if anyone’s filming this.

We’re in public, so it’s
not really an invasion of privacy.

Really, I’d just like a
copy for myself.

No luck, though. There
are plenty of people nudging their friends and pointing but not one of them is
holding a camera.

Lame.

I’m not much of an
exhibitionist, but it is a bit of a rush being on display like this, bringing
this gorgeous woman to orgasm on the very edge of the building.

As her contracting
muscles relax again, I reach up and put a hand on her shoulder.

She gets the idea and
grabs my arm with one hand and pulls herself up. Without a word, she hops down
from the ledge and turns around, placing her stomach over the towel we set on
the ledge—which, by the way, only made keeping her from slipping that much
harder—her breasts hanging just over the side of the building.

A few drapes have shut in
the building across the street, but even more have opened.

That’s one thing about
New York: almost everyone’s a voyeur.

I run one hand down her
back while, with the other, I reach around her front and write the alphabet in
cursive, print and at one point,
I’m
pretty sure,
Cyrillic over her clit with the pad of my middle finger.

She’s using the ledge as
leverage to push herself onto me so hard that I have to hold onto her hips not
to lose my balance.

“Say my name!” she
shouts.

Okay, this is awkward.

“Come on,” she says. “I’m
almost there again. I want everyone over there watching us to know who you’re
fucking!”

I’ll be the first to
admit that she’s a lot more hardcore than I am.

It’s not even a contest.

“I don’t—”

“I don’t know yours
either!” she pants. “Just think of something!”

It’s not dignified and
it’s not romantic.

I have no illusions
there.

It is, however,
surprising that the name that I call out as I feel that rising pull in my body
is Leila.

It’s not that big a deal,
I guess. She told me to call out a name and I called out a name. There’s no
reason to read anything more into it than that.