A Scammer in Our Bed

Chapter 1

Robin

I’m a giver, and Derek is addicted to more.

That’s the simple explanation for how we landed the greatest man in the world.

From the first time I acknowledged Derek with a smile across a gum-mottled cafeteria tabletop and started chattering about my day, he’s been obsessed with me.

That’s the word he uses. Obsessed.

We were the couple our friends envied, because we couldn’t keep our tongues out of one another’s mouths, but also because we had a future.

We were driven youths on our way to being world-renowned scientists and technical wizzes.

And we would be damned if we were going to wait until marriage to have sex or accidentally manufacture one solitary baby.

We couldn’t keep our hands off one another.

Even after ten years of togetherness, no man has held my hair out of my face while I sucked his cock but Derek.

No woman has ever blown him in the shower, bent over in our en suite while waves of AfriCat Orgasm soak away her cream pie, but me.

We have a healthy sex life and relationship.

I’m as obsessed with his brainy eyes and buff shoulders as I was the day we broke free from high school and became self-sufficient adults together.

Yet, I can’t sit back, enjoy the proposal, bask in our Friday night dates, or be satisfied with our king-size bed.

The most substantial legacy I can leave as a scientist isn’t a child. It’s an improved quality of life for others.

I don’t believe in suburbs, fences, or walls.

Derek is more ambitious when it comes to achievement and career, but he’s got the itch, too.

We want to see and experience everything together, fall in love with each other over and over again, not just at home, but on the other side of the world.

Like I said, I’m a giver.

That’s what has brought me to this moment, one week before my twenty-sixth birthday, staring at an email from the Ghana-America Integration Services Agency.

Derek, having just wrapped up a conference call in the den, returns to our couch.

The one he has all to himself, my curly hair and butt pillows having been hustled out of occupied territory.

I’m too distracted to sit on my man like a cat on a newspaper, though. My heart is thrumming in my chest.

“I’m checking out the Ghanaian refugee docuseries trending right now,” I mentioned a week ago.

“You want a stranger in your home?” Derek responded, scratching a cheek. But I could see the pride and excitement in his eyes. “For how long?”

“A couple months? Maybe more. They find a place, get jobs, hit up orientation centers, then move out. But we’re talking integration fueled by a wave of refugee demand.”

We discussed it.

Derek is right to be cautious, but I’m not concerned.

I keep submitting revised safety protocols for registered non-citizens, but the ones in use are so good I’d let them operate my boss’s computer at home.

Point being, they’re safe for everyone.

I reminded Derek we’re ready, physically and emotionally.

We’ve got the space, the cash, and the ability to make someone comfortable and content.

We’ve also got our own specialty. Living large, as hard as we can.

Yet, he still wasn’t convinced.

I said, “Only a couple weeks.”

“Until they transition,” he replied.

This is my man, the one I hand-plucked out of high school and into a lifetime of head-over-heels, down-and-dirty love.

My obsession and obsessor.

I wasn’t going to nitpick or dash his concerns.

At the same time, I didn’t want to let the opportunity go by.

So we did it.

The process was smooth. They handle background