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

instead.
    Close enough.
    “Maybe we should get you
to bed,” I tell her.
    “I’m not tired.”
    “Yeah, but I think you
should lie down before you fall down. You seriously only had four drinks?”
    “Hey, man, four drinks is
a lot for me,” she says.
    “Oh, I get that.”
    “Maybe help me over to
the couch?”
    “I think that’s a good
idea,” I tell her. “I’ll put on a movie for you.”
    “You know, Dane,” she
starts.
    “Do we have any gum in
the house?”
    “I almost had sex today.”
    “That’s wonderful,
Leila,” I tell her and help guide her to the couch.
    “No,” she laughs. “It’s
really not. This guy was so stupid.”
    “Yeah, we’ve established
that men are stupid. You’re going to want to sit down, now.”
    She doesn’t sit so much
as she falls onto the couch.
    “I was ready, though,”
she says. “I wouldn’t say I was really turned on, but I was ready to just get
in there and get it over with so I could get back in the game.”
    “Sometimes that’s what
you need to move on,” I say absently. “So, are you good? Do you want me to put
on a movie or something?”
    “Dane?”
    Deep breath. “Yeah?”
    “Do you think I have a
big butt?”
    “No,” I answer
mechanically. I really don’t know why women ask that question anymore. Everyone
knows that there’s only one correct answer.
    “Oh, come on, you didn’t
even look at it,” she says, rolling onto her side.
    For a woman trying to
show me her ass, this isn’t the most attractive scene.
    “Be honest,” she says. “I
need to know.”
    I chuckle.
    “It’s fine,” I tell her.
“So, do you want a thriller? Comedy?”
    I turn and walk toward
the bookcase where she keeps her movies.
    “A foreign film?” I ask
as I try to decipher the various French, Italian and Swedish titles. “Do you
actually speak these languages?” I ask.
    “Ja,” she says, “ sì , oui .”
    “That’s pretty
impressive.”
    “You never answered my
question,” she said.
    “What question’s that?” I
ask, turning around.
    Her knees are on the
couch and her upper body is resting against the back. Her pants are pulled down
around her knees. She’s wearing underwear, but the way she’s trying to fix it
to get the best result isn’t doing much to hide her skin.
    “Yeah, I think we should
get you to bed,” I tell her, shocked. “This isn’t you right now, Leila.”
    “Just tell me if I have a
nice butt or a dispropriarportionalately …” she sighs.
“Is it too big for my body?” she asks, giving up on the word.
    I breathe in and out.
    “Fine,” I tell her. “You
have a very attractive posterior.”
    “Yeah, like I believe it
when you say it like that ,” she says,
laughing through her nose. “That’s not how you talk.”
    Drunk or not, she’s
hilarious right now, and I can’t help but laugh with her.
    “I don’t know,” I tell
her. “What do you want me to say? You’re my roommate and—”
    “I’m not your roommate
right now,” she says. “Just answer the question and I’ll let you go back to
whatever it is that you do.”
    “Honestly,” I tell her,
trying to find that line between looking enough to form an opinion and staring,
“it’s pretty perfect. Not too big, not too small. Good curvature.”
    I really hope she doesn’t
remember any of this.
    “Yeah?” she says. “Chad
told me that I had a huge butt,” she sputters.
    “Why don’t we just get
your pants on?” I ask and walk closer to the couch.
    “He said a lot of things,
actually.”
    “Well, I don’t know who
this Chad guy is, but he sounds like an asshole,” I tell her. “Now, you’re
going to need to turn around so we can pull these up, all right.”
    Like a foal or a drunken
toddler, she slowly makes her way to her feet, her legs shaking and unsteady
beneath her.
    She turns around to face
me, her pants falling to her ankles.
    Sure, I may sleep with a
different woman every night, but I’m not completely without respect, so I avert
my