AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah, definitely better I’m not there,” I say with exaggerated sentiment.
He laughs as he walks into the room and removes his blazer. I eye the muscles in his arms and the way his shirt fits his body.
“Well, I pulled a Bridget Moore on Eric Drumm tonight,” he says, sitting down on my bed.
“Really? I’m sorry I missed that. What happened?”
“I started asking him about why the Drumms rarely ever contract with the same company twice, why they never go with the larger, more well-known construction firms.”
“Because it’s easier to bully smaller firms.”
“And you’re right: even though they talk about cracking down on immigration, a lot of the companies the Drumms use hire illegal immigrants.”
I can’t help but beam.
As if wanting to put the brakes on my enthusiasm, he adds, “Before you go signing me up as some kind of progressive, I don’t care about his immigration policy. What I don’t like is how Drumm says one thing but then acts differently.”
“They’re hypocrites.”
“JD doesn’t see it. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.”
“It amazes me how many people are like that when it’s so obvious to me that the Drumms lack a moral compass. They don’t care about anyone except themselves. They’ll help others as long as it suits their own purposes.”
“I don’t have a moral compass, but I have principles: one of them being that I don’t deal with douchebags.”
“That sounds like a good principle to me.” I look at him quizzically. “Why don’t you think you have a moral compass?”
He leans back against the wall and thinks. “Because I don’t do the kind of crap that makes the world a better place.”
“First of all, making the world a better place isn’t ‘crap,’ and just because you aren’t proactive in something doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. You don’t have to be a saint to have a moral compass.”
But he doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. Staring at me, he says, “Come here.”
My pulse quickens immediately. Looking at him, I feel like a mouse about to go after cheese, only it’s part of a trap, and I’m about to be devoured.
“Why?” I ask. I put in a lot of effort this past week to forget about him, now all that’s going to be for nothing.
“Because I said so.”
I almost laugh, but then realize he’s serious. He can’t expect me to obey because he “said so.” Only I do. I reason to myself that I’m simply picking my battles and because I’m curious.
Tentatively, I rise from my chair and sit down on the bed next to him. His gaze follows me the whole time like he’s a panther stalking its prey.
He doesn’t say anything right away, and I’m about to call him on his staring, but I’m not fast enough. His hand is at the back of my neck and his lips are on mine.
The trap is sprung, and I can’t escape. I don’t want to escape. What I want is to melt and thrill to his kiss. He claims every part of my mouth, more roughly than before. My senses reel at the force of his kiss, his nearness, his scent.
I hear a noise from Simone’s room and manage to disengage myself. “My roommate’s here.”
“So? She’s an adult.”
“But…”
Darren rises and goes over to close the door. I gulp. Closing the door means he intends to do more kissing, and maybe more than kissing. I’m okay with kissing, but I don’t want to have sex with my roommate just a few yards away. Amy once had a guy over last year on a weekend when I was away. Simone had been furious with all the noise they’d made.
“This is an old building,” I explain. “The walls are thin.”
“So we’ll be quiet.”
