Cocky Roomie: A Bad Boy Romance Novel (Cocker Brothers of Atlanta Book 1)

by Faleena Hopkins

  His erection expands in both girth and length.

  Jake pounds me so desperately that I’m in danger of tearing straight up the middle.

  My inner walls shudder uncontrollably.

  I grip his head and scream as cum shoots into my body. We moan together as he tenses in jerking thrusts, latching our lips in an aching kiss. He grips me to him and pounds between my thighs until I am full and there is nothing left for him to give me.

  I throw my arms around my roommate, completely undone. He shudders and presses gasping kisses into my neck. After-shocks tremble from his body into mine as we hold each other.

  I never knew it could be like this.

  I never knew a man could feel this perfect inside of me.

  I am in deep shit.

  JAKE

  I hear him before I see him. “How’d it go with Mrs. Charles today?” Uncle Don’s smiling face appears in my doorway. I’m sitting behind the desk with everything back in its place. “Not qualified for much but seems eager to change that. You know I like to give people a shot.”

  Maintaining my sobriety I shuffle a few papers that don’t need it. “I like her. I think she could do well here.”

  My uncle’s eyebrows go up slightly. “That’s high praise coming from a picky bastard like you.”

  On a shrug, I lean back to tell him with total candor, “She’s got no experience, but she’s never really been given a chance. Husband was old school. Didn’t want her working. She’s smart. She’ll learn fast.” It’s fucking hard as hell not to grin as I add, “And you’re right…she’s surprisingly eager.”

  “Good.” He smacks my doorframe and heads back to his office, calling over his shoulder, “We’ll need someone to learn paperwork now that you’ll be gone.”

  A sucker-punch to my gut robs me of a verbal response. I’d forgotten I was leaving. Drew’s willing, open body and that sweet little mouth of hers begging me to take her right here where I work, knowing the guys would be back soon, let’s just say it gave my mind something better to think about than moving to Denver and leaving my family behind. Way better.

  I grab the phone, dial and wait for him to answer. “Jake, my boy! What’s up?”

  “Hey Dad,” I say, rubbing my forehead as I close my eyes against the unlikable future. I’ve got nothing wrong with Denver except it’s not Atlanta. “I’m being transferred to Colorado.”

  “What?! Why?” He calls to my mom, “Don’s sending my son to fucking Denver!”

  I can’t help but smile at my father swearing. The Congressman rarely does it. But he’s a smart man and he put two and two together fast. All I had to do was say the state and Dad knew where I was going and who was responsible. My family is tight. None of them are going to like this. Especially with Jett and Jeremy already gone.

  “You mother wants to know why, too!”

  “There’s a guy running the place now who can’t keep his hands off the bottle. He’s been given chances but he’s not taking them. Death in his family. He’s a mess. I have to go run the place until…” I pause and stare off. “He didn’t say how long.”

  My dad’s quiet. The shared silence makes this harder for me because I know he’s feeling what I am – he doesn’t want me that far away. Another son gone is not welcome news. Jeremy just left for Syria after finishing the intense training at Parris Island, South Carolina. And Jett is in a motorcycle club called The Cyphers that travels all over the country raising hell, a fact that kills Dad to his core. He feels Jett’s betrayed him by living outside the law and tries to pretend he doesn’t exist. What my older brother does with his days isn’t exactly bragging material in the White House.

  I guess that’s another reason I like staying nearby – for my old man. And Jason and Justin are my best friends. Then there’s Mom. Uncle Don.

  This is gonna suck for me.

  “Let me talk to him,” he finally grumbles.

  “Dad, don’t. I appreciate it, but I’m a grown man. I can handle what comes to me. I just wanted to tell you.”

  He exhales long and low. “Jake… Never mind. Okay, I won’t talk to Don. When are you going?”

  “A couple of weeks? A week? Shit, I don’t know.”

  “Watch your mouth.”

  “Sorry, Sir. Will you tell Mom the details? And make sure she doesn’t try to talk Don out of it. I don’t want her doing that.”

  Another sigh. “Yes. I don’t have to tell you how she’ll feel about this. If we had an end date, it would be easier to take. Maybe I could just—”

  “Dad! Don’t talk to him. I mean it. I’ll be angry if you do that. I take care of my business, and I’ll just stay there longer.”

  He’s silent before he finally grumbles, “Fine,” then his voice picks up some levity as he adds, “I guess this means we need to have a family BBQ.”

  Leaning back on an oh-shit grin, I answer, “Oh man, you had to throw that at me, didn’t you. Yeah, I guess I’d have to go.” As if I would miss it.

  We both chuckle. We have the same laugh. After we say goodbye, my smile quickly fades. I know exactly how my mom will react, and she’ll tell all my brothers. I can just see her face right now as she’s listening to the news.

  And Drew.

  Flashes of her on my desk, clawing into my back and letting me kiss her like I’ve never kissed anyone, hit me. I take a deep breath and push her out of my mind. She needs to focus on her fresh start, she said. I agree with her. She wants more than I can give anyway. I wasn’t planning on falling for the woman so I think my leaving right now is perfect timing on that front.

  But for the rest of the workday, she keeps sneaking back in. I keep seeing us fucking, or flashing images of my face in her quivering pussy.

  I don’t want anything serious. I know that. The problem is I live with her. That’s about as serious as you can get.

  When Uncle Don sees me heading home, he admits with a wary smile, “I expected to hear from Michael today.”

  I chuckle and confess, “I told him not to call you.”

  “Thank you for that.”

  “It’s not his business,” I shrug, crossing my arms. “But he likes having control.”

  “Runs in the family,” Uncle Don smirks.

  “Yep. Listen, I don’t think I told you that Drew is my roommate. No, don’t look like that. I didn’t know she applied for a job here. She’s been applying everywhere since she moved here, and I had no way of knowing it was her coming in, and she didn’t know where I worked. Just that I worked in construction.”

  Matching my stance, his eyes narrow, “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

  “I was really shocked to see her, I guess. And truth be told, we’d gotten into a fight this morning.”

  He nods and blinks to the ground. “Is that going to be a problem?”

  “Nope.”

  “If you’re fighting at home, how’s it gonna be here?”

  I breathe in through my teeth with a low hissing sound. “I think we smoothed things out today.” He nods like that’s good news, and I add, “And I’m leaving, so it won’t matter at all. She needs the job. You were right about how she’ll be eager to learn and do her best.” This time I’m not inwardly smiling or thinking about sex. I really do believe it when I tell him, “Drew will want to stay on and will do whatever she has to, to make that happen.”

  “Good,” he says, thinking about it before he turns and heads to his office.

  Yeah, I guess the timing of this is working out really well for her. For me? Not as well.

  The apartment is dark when I get back.

  “You home?” I call at her bedroom door, glancing to find the lights off in the bathroom, too. “Where is she?” I mutter, dropping my keys on the kitchen counter and grabbing myself some water from the fridge. The kitchen sink is empty and clean. Did she even come home after the interview?

  It’s so strange that I live with a woman I just fucked. In my office. During her job interview.

  Really hard to
distance myself, too, because living with her is starting to feel normal.

  A smile tugs at me and I find my feet heading to her room. A rap on the door provides confirmation that she’s not here. “Drew?” I crack the door a little. I haven’t been inside here since before she moved in. Leaning on the doorframe, I take it all in. She made it really homey in here. She must have had that bed delivered because she never asked me to help put it together.

  I walk in and touch the goose-down comforter. She’s got a small table with a single chair in the corner and a book lying on it titled: Resumes For Dummies. Lifting it up I find four personal-development books all related to business –success manuals. Thumbing through them I discover she’s scrawled notes in pen on tons of the pages, circling parts, dog-earing others.

  “Shit! So this is why you spend so much time in here, huh?” I mutter as I read a quote she double-underlined.

  You are a summation of the five people you spend the most time with. Choose wisely.

  Can’t deny that I’m impressed.

  I stack the books back how I found them, and glance over to a coatrack with her hats and necklaces hanging on it. In doing so, I land on a framed photo on a small four-level bookshelf next to the rack. A frown spreads over me as I walk over to it and lean down. I inspect the face of a smiling man around Drew’s age who’s got his arm around her. They’re at a party from the people and lights in the background – an outdoor celebration. She’s smiling at the camera. He’s gazing at her like there’s nowhere else better in the world to look.

  I know who this has got to be. But why would she keep a photo of her husband after…?

  The soft turn of her key in the front door lock makes me nearly drop the photo. I shove it back on the shelf, rapidly aligning it with the dust outline its absence left behind.

  The click of heels sounds for two steps and the door closes. I know she’s taking off her shoes.

  How the fuck am I going to explain being in her room?!

  Shit! My heart is pounding.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  This is so not cool, Jake.

  Running an unsteady hand through my hair I take a big breath and walk out, ready to face my own weakness head on. Better to just fess up. This ain’t gonna be fun.

  Her gaze drifts over to me from where she’s slipping out of her heels at the mat. Her eyes widen with surprise and she glances from me to her room. Before she can say anything I grin. “Hey, I was just looking for you.”

  Her frown flickers and then fades away. “Did you just get home, too?”

  “Yep. Two seconds before you did.” So much for honesty. But looking at her reminds me of when I saw her last, when I smacked her ass on the way out of my office. She was grinning from ear to ear and trusted me in that moment. I’m not ready to give that up, just because I got a little curious about her.

  “Where ya been?” I smile, shoving my hands in my pockets.

  Her eyes flicker to them and her smile becomes forced. “Jake, we have to talk.” She sets her purse down and wrings her hands.

  I exhaled and mutter, “Shit. Not this again. Just so you know I was going to tell you we have to talk, too.” She stares at me, and I admit, “Okay, that came out sounding childlike.”

  She smiles. Fuck, she’s beautiful. I didn’t think so, at first. I knew she was fuckable but now the woman is growing on me. Except for these fucking talks.

  “Okay, go ahead,” I grumble, leaning on the wall and crossing my arms.

  She glances to my biceps and pauses. I flex them just to fuck with her. She smiles wider. “Nice. Stop that.”

  “Stop this?” I pump them back and forth to make them dance for her. “This thing? Stop being charming? Have you seen my cock? Because that’s the finale.”

  She stifles a laugh. “Okay, come on. I really think we have to discuss things between us because this is very weird living with you, doing what we did.”

  “Fucking like wild animals in a man-made cage?”

  Pushing her tongue into her cheek, Drew looks at me like the memory has her fired up again. She sighs and adjusts her blouse. “Yes, that.”

  “It was hot,” I growl.

  “It was very hot. And it’s not going to go anywhere.”

  I already know this, but that she’s saying it, irks me. I know why I think it has to stop, and why Denver isn’t an altogether bad thing when it comes to Drew and keeping my hands off her. I know I’ve never had a desire to really love someone, and give them everything.

  But why is she putting the brakes on?

  “Why not?” My nerves ball up, expecting her to bring up my age again. I really don’t want to hear that shit again. What does age matter? That’s not our problem.

  “Why not?” she asks like I should know the answer.

  “Yeah, tell me why.”

  After a long sigh, she crosses her arms, too. “Do you want something serious? Do you want to be in a relationship?”

  Struck silent, I stare at her. “No.”

  Unblinking, we hold each other’s look before she slowly nods. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Why does it have to be serious?”

  “Because it does. Because it is,” she sighs, releasing her arms to run her fingers through her long hair. I can still remember how it smelled when I buried my face in her neck. “Sex is the most intimate thing two people can do together outside of giving birth and killing one another. Acting like it’s casual is lying to yourself.”

  “Lots of people have casual sex and are just fine with that,” I argue.

  “Not me,” she whispers. “I can’t do that. After I left today, I drove around the city and I went to Piedmont Park and just sat and thought about things. Today was incredible, Jake. Too incredible. And that’s how I know I can’t keep sticking my hand in the basket thinking the cobra won’t bite. Sooner or later.”

  “Are you calling my cock a cobra? I’m thinking more python.”

  She smiles. “I’m being serious.”

  “I know. I really do agree with you, I just don’t like it.”

  “Me neither.” She runs her hands through her hair again and shakes it out. “I will fall for you, if we continue to do what we did today.”

  “Fuck like our lives depended on it?”

  She smiles. “You’re ridiculous.”

  “You like it,” I mutter, pretending to be having fun, but there’s no smile in my gut or on my face. Losing the jokes, I look at the floor and confess, “I’m not used to this, what you’re doing right now. I’m used to games and attempts to manipulate me.”

  Drew laughs a little. “I’m sure. But isn’t it better this way?”

  “Harder to hear. You have to face it.” I inhale and push off the wall, shoving my hands in my pockets. “You got the job.”

  Her eyes go wide and her jaw drops open with happy surprise. “I did?”

  “Your interview was spectacular. That’s what I told my uncle.”

  She runs over and smacks my arm. “Shut up! Are you fucking with me? I really got the job?”

  “Yeah. I told him you were eager.”

  She hits me again and I can’t help but laugh.

  “Jake!!!”

  “To learn! Eager to learn! No, seriously. You got the job. Congratulations.”

  Her smile disappears in an instant. “Is it just because we…”

  “No! No, I think you’ll do great.” My mind is on the books she’s been studying, but I can’t tell her how impressed I am by how she’s going after this. The job search was one thing, but that nightly studying deepens my respect for her.

  “My uncle has a thing for helping people, so it was actually in your favor that you have no experience. That’s why I have to go to Denver. He kept trying to give this guy Dwight a chance, but he blew it. My uncle thinks he’ll still get his shit together and get sober. I’ll be there until that happens, I guess.” Drew is watching me intently. “Uncle Don never gives up on someone until he has no other choice.”r />
  When she knows I’m done, she softly says, “Your uncle sounds like a good man.”

  “He is.” A lump forms in my throat, because of how proud I am of my family. The one I’m going to be far away from. Now is the perfect time to exit this too difficult conversation. “I’ll leave you to whatever it is you do at night.”

  Drew calls after me, “Thank you for the job, Jake. I won’t let you guys down.”

  I wave over my shoulder without looking back. In my room I close my door and take a half dozen deep breaths. I tear off my shirt because it’s suddenly very hot in here. Blinking around my room, I shake my head and walk to a photo of my own, one that hangs on the wall. It’s my brothers and me when I was only fifteen. We’re all such different heights here. Jaxson is the oldest but Jett, one year younger is taller than him in this, stockier, too. They’re the same height now, maybe an inch difference. Jett’s still stockier. Jax is sinewy from workin’ on his ranch. Then there’re the twins on either side of me. Justin’s mouth is open because he’s telling our mom how to take the picture. Jason is laughing because Justin’s bossing her around. I’m smirking because of the shit we pulled that day that Mom didn’t know about. I forget what it was, but we got into some kind of trouble in Cascade Springs Park. In this I’m scrawnier than the older four, shorter by a couple inches at least. Then there’s Jeremy, Mr. Serious, only thirteen, the baby. “Can’t believe you’re a Marine now, you fucker,” I mutter to his goofy smile. I haven’t seen him smile like this in a long time, always so serious now that he’s a man.

  Grabbing the doorknob, I walk out to find Drew. Her bedroom door is closed, so I knock on it, feeling another tinge of guilt for having broken her privacy earlier. I hear her padding toward me. She opens the door with raised eyebrows, blue eyes guarded.

  “Yes?”

  “You hungry?”

  She pauses. “Actually, yes. Very.”

  “Let’s make some dinner. Watch a movie. Just friends.”

  She stares at me like she’s trying to figure out if I’m tricking her. “Okaaaaay.”

  I hit the nearest wall and flip around, calling over my shoulder, “Great.”