Roomies (A Standalone Novel) (New York City Bad Boy Romance) by Claire Adams Read Free Book Online Page B

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