Claimed Darker by Em Brown
Chapter 39
BRIDGET
Past
It breaks my heart to see Amy so despondent, especially when things are going so well between myself and Darren.
The rainy winter has given way to sunny spring. Though it’s nice to have the sun, there’s always the flipside of not having rain in California: drought. But the shooting, now over a month ago, has made me grateful for more things in life. I’m especially thankful that Darren is making a full recovery. Except for some continued stiffness in his shoulder, he’s back to normal. And I’m glad that he can now wield two floggers at a time.
We spend more time at the BDSM side of his club than the regular side these days. He was excited to be able to try out suspension bondage on me. But I also suspect he doesn’t want me to cross paths with JD that often, though I told him, “We’re adults, right? I get that relationships don’t always work out. I just wish he’d come out and say it, give Amy closure, rather than stringing her along.”
Darren doesn’t like to talk about JD and Amy. I asked him to urge his cousin to be upfront with Amy, even though she’d once expressed, “If he breaks it off with me, I’m just going to die.”
Darren said he tried and that there’s only so much he can do. I’ve seen JD at the club with his arm around other women, usually cute and petite like Amy. Though he did hit on Kimberly, who seems to have an increasingly renewed interest in Darren. The other night, she showed up at the club in a dress that I had to look at several times to see if it was see-through or not. It molded her body like a second skin, and I thought I could make out a shadow on the dress where her pubic hair would be. No one could take their eyes off her, Darren included.
For a while, I held out hope that maybe JD was just going through a phase. Maybe the shooting left him feeling vulnerable or made him feel he had to live it up while he was young. I would ask Darren if he knew whether or not JD was sleeping with the women he flirted with, but I stopped asking when he groaned with exasperation at me with “How the hell should I know?”
“I thought, since you guys are super close, that maybe he talks about it,” I replied in defense.
Darren apologized later—through sex. He didn’t make me go through a whipping or anything like that before giving me three awesome orgasms. He was attentive and romantic.
I never thought I would end up with a guy like Darren, but now I can’t imagine being with anyone else. Sometimes his bossiness irks me, and I push back while at other times I just play along. I don’t mind the Dominant stuff if it stays in the bedroom, though Darren has blurred the lines a few times, and I need to be attentive to that so I don’t end up on a slippery slope.
“How was Hawaii?” I ask when Amy lugs her suitcase into our room.
After it was obvious that Darren didn’t need me around, I had moved out of his place. Commuting to class from the city wasn’t fun, and I didn’t want to leave Amy alone. She hasn’t been able to focus on her classes, and with only about a month left in the semester, I worry about how her grades will turn out. She’s set on medical school, which is super hard to get into.
“Okay, I guess,” Amy replies, setting her suitcase on the bed and unzipping it.
“Just ‘okay?’” I ask. “Were there no cute surfer guys on the beach?”
“Not really.” She unpacks her carbon monoxide detector and plugs it into the wall.
“Your mom still a stickler for those?” I ask.
“Yeah, when she was over here last time, she thought our heating unit looked old. What did you and Darren do for spring break?”
“Spent some time with his mom when she came through San Francisco on her way back from Toronto.”
I enjoyed spending time with Darren’s mom. Sharon had seemed much more interested in me than before, especially my background. She asked about my parents and my grandmother. She thanked me for assisting Darren after the shooting and asked if I was afraid that it might happen again. I relayed what Sergeant Trawley had told us about the shooter. Seeing that she didn’t seem comforted, I asked if she was worried.
“A mother always worries,” had been her response.
“You didn’t go anywhere with Darren?” Amy asks me. “I thought maybe you guys would jet off to some fancy resort in Cabo or something.”
I shake my head. “We hung out in Sacramento for a day.”
“Why Sacramento?”
“You remember that fellowship I applied for a few months back? I got it!”
“Congrats! That’s so awesome. I’ll be spending my summer studying for the MCAT. I had thought I’d be spending it with JD.” She sits down on the bed with a sigh. “Have you seen him lately?”
I draw in a breath. “Spotted him once at the club a few days ago. He doesn’t usually talk to me.”
“Was he with anyone?”
“Hard to tell.” I pause before saying what I know Amy doesn’t want to hear. “But I think he’s moved on.”
Amy looks like I hit her in the gut.
“I’m sorry. That’s just my take,” I apologize as I sit down next to her.
She picks at a loose string on the hem of her top. “I’m sure there are other women. I mean, he’s so cool, successful, hot.”
“But so are you, and there are tons of guys who’d go to the moon and back for you.”
She gives me a wan smile and resumes unpacking.
“You want to grab some boba tea and catch a movie with me and Simone later?” I ask. “The theater on University is playing some classics. I think tonight they’re showing Little Shop of Horrors.”
“Maybe.”
I spend the next week being near Amy as much as I can, turning down Darren’s invitations to come over to his place.
“Fine,” he said when I told him Amy and I were going to go outlet shopping this weekend. “But I’m taking you out for your birthday.”
He’s probably thinking some fancy place Ishikawa West, so I say, “You know where I’d love to go for dinner? Maybelle’s.”
“You can go to Maybelle’s any day.”
“But I don’t, and I love the food there. I’ll be disappointed going anywhere else.”
“That’s a lie. You love food too much. It’s like a mini-orgasmic experience for you.”
“True. But I would still love to go to Maybelle’s. It’s my birthday after all.”
He may not be ecstatic with my choice, but he doesn’t object.
The morning of my birthday, Simone and Kat surprise me with blueberry pancakes they made themselves.
“You’ve cooked a lot for us, so I thought we’d do the cooking for a change,” Simone says as we stuff ourselves.
“It actually wasn’t that hard,” Kat chimes. “At least, not when you buy the pancake mix in a box.”
“We should save some for Amy,” I say when we’re down to the last two.
“She still sleeping?”
Amy sleeps late a lot these days.
“Well, she’s going to join us later. Tonight, we are getting you drunk.”
I shake my head as I wipe syrup from my mouth. “Sorry, Darren’s taking me out tonight.”
Kat fake-pouts. “Fine. Choose the hottie over your roommates.”
“Too bad. I wanted to be there to watch you take your first drink,” Simone says.
I blush. “Actually, I had some champagne with Darren one night after the shooting.”
Simone’s jaw drops. “You did not! You broke the law?”
I nod. “But it was just the one time.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re a felon now.”
“Underage drinking is not a felony.”
“Well, kudos to Darren,” Kat pronounces. “I wonder what other laws he’s gotten you to break?”
I laugh and grab my backpack to head off to class. I’ve definitely done things with Darren I never thought I’d be doing, but certainly nothing unlawful aside from the champagne. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that he hasn’t pushed me to drink or thought less of me for it. I can’t imagine him pushing me to do anything seriously illegal.
I think about the edge I used to pick up from him. It’s still there, though much fainter. I must have picked up on his BDSM proclivities metaphysically because I don’t know what else it could be. Or maybe it’s because he lost his father, which I haven’t brought up because I remember he doesn’t like to talk about it. I might bring up the subject the next time I get some alone time with Sharon.
When I get back from class and working my shift at the library, I find Amy still in her pajamas, surfing the internet on her computer.
“Did you know that San Francisco is considered one the nation’s hot spots for sex trafficking?” Amy asks.
“I didn’t know that,” I reply as I set my backpack down.
“It’s an eight billion dollar international business, and San Francisco is one of the largest commercial centers in the US.”
I look over her shoulder at the article she’s reading. “Is this research for one of your classes?”
“No. Just curious.”
I wonder what made her decide to look up the subject, but a text from Darren distracts me. He’s on his way to pick me up for dinner. I hurry to jump in the shower and get changed into jeans and a Henley I wear over a camisole.
Darren looks amazing in his black leather jacket over a button-up shirt and jeans that mold his body. As I sit across from him at a table full of brisket, collard greens, corn, and sweet potato pie, I feel like the luckiest person in the world.
After dinner, we head over to his club. I pay a visit to Felipe at the bar.
“For your birthday,” Felipe says as he slides over a beautiful-looking drink in a fancy glass.
“What is it?” I ask.
“A Dirty Shirley.”
I take a sip. “Okay, that’s good.”
“And a lot more fun than your regular Shirley Temples, though I went light on the vodka.”
He turns to Darren, who surprises me by saying he’ll just have a glass of water. He must have something in store for me. Something he doesn’t want to be intoxicated for. I shiver with anticipation.
When we’re in the elevator, I say to Darren, “You’re going to go easy on me since it’s my birthday, right?”
He raises a brow. “You’ve got me mixed up with someone who’s nice.”
“You can’t fool me. Your mom’s a nice lady, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—in a good way.”
“You don’t know my mother all that well.”
There’s a seriousness in his tone that surprises me. He looks away, as if realizing he’s said too much.
“Are you trying to convince me she’s not nice?” I ask.
“I’m not saying she can’t be nice, or hasn’t been nice, but she’s more complicated than you think.”
“Well, what’s so complicated about her?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I don’t have anything else planned tonight.”
He looks at me, his gaze making me squirm. “But I do.”
