Robert turned right around and went back outside. He saw the glum look on Drake’s face and knew the rest of the day wasn’t going to be much fun. Samantha had totally disappeared and left Drake and Robert to run things, which seemed very out of the norm for her.
Robert knew how much Samantha and Drake cared for each other. It had actually surprised him very much that they never tried to have a go at a relationship. But whatever they were doing seemed to have been working over the years, and Robert wasn’t sure he liked the new tension that was between them.
Drake flashed a smile at Lauren as she walked inside from the pool area. Robert was obviously trying to calm her down, but she was still shaking like a leaf. Although she was able to make a little eye contact, Drake knew he was in for a rough conversation.
The truth was that five of the women were going to get broken up with that day. There was no way around it. Drake just needed to keep things as much on point as he could while he navigated the next few hours.
“Hey Lauren, how are you doing?”
“Um, I just saw Emily go home, so I’m feeling a little like a turd about to be flushed.”
Drake and Robert both broke out in laughter at her comment. Laughter and humor were certainly something that Lauren had plenty of, there was no doubt about that. Drake was very happy with his choice to have Lauren stay and to send Emily home. He wasn’t sure if Lauren was going to be his final pick, but so far so good.
“Would you mind going for a walk so we can talk a bit?” Drake asked.
“Of course, I like moving around when I’m nervous, it keeps me busy.”
Drake reached for Lauren’s hand and held onto it as they left the house. Her hand was shaking horribly, and he felt the nervousness from her as it brushed off on him. Lauren was dressed in a cute pink sundress with her hair pulled up in a ponytail. Out of all the women, she was probably the closest style to Drake.
He liked to be as casual as possible as much as possible. Sure, Drake would get dressed up for work and even when he went out to clubs, but his heart belonged to T-shirts and shorts whenever he could wear them. He felt comfortable with Lauren, and Drake knew he wasn’t ready to send her home yet.
“I just sent Emily home,” Drake said softly as they walked down the sidewalk through his neighborhood.
“Am I next?”
“Not right now; I still don’t really know who I’m choosing, though. I know that probably sounds horrible. But it’s much harder than I thought it would be.”
“Like choosing between chocolate and vanilla ice cream. They are both delicious, and you’ll probably not regret either choice you make, but there is one that you really love the most.”
Drake laughed again. He wasn’t sure if choosing one of the women should really be compared to ice cream, but he did like the analogy. Lauren seemed really nervous as she continued to crack jokes. But that was how Drake got when he was nervous, he talked way more than he should.
“Yeah, sort of like that.”
“So I guess you need to decide the kind of life you want with the woman you choose.”
Lauren’s words sat heavily on him. It was such a true statement. As Drake had been out on each of the dates with the women, he couldn’t help thinking about what his life would be like if he were with them. Victoria was certainly going to enjoy very different things than Lauren would, as would each of the women. And although Drake would still like the same things he did, he would want to make his woman happy and enjoy live events with her. So what kind of life did he really want to have? He had no idea.
“Very true. What kind of life would I have with you?”
Lauren flashed a huge smile before answering Drake’s question. Drake loved her smile. Lauren’s smile was genuine and came from such an honest place that it was impossible to ignore. It was impossible not to smile right back at her when she flashed you a smile.
“Fun. We would have a lot of fun. Traveling to my events all over the world when you had the time. Spending amazing vacations in tropical locations. Camping, hiking, all that outdoor stuff. Pretty much like our date on steroids.”
Drake shook his head as Lauren talked. That was the kind of life he wanted to lead as he got older. Drake wanted to be the guy who was always doing fun and interesting outdoor things, and up until that point, he had forced Samantha to go with him most of the time. Drake hadn’t wanted to commit to events and then have to take a woman he didn’t really like, so he made Samantha go with him. Luckily, she also liked the outdoor stuff and didn’t mind him having her tag along. But it would be nice to have a woman in his life who also liked to do the same things he did.
The one area Drake knew would be difficult for Lauren was the amount of time he really needed to work. Sure, he could travel when he wanted, and he had a lot of control over that. But Drake did have to work often while he was traveling and had to be back at the office a lot too. He wouldn’t be able to go with her to every surfing event she had, and Drake didn’t know if Lauren was mature enough to be alright with that much time apart.
“How many events do you go to each year?” Drake asked.
“Between twenty and thirty usually.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of events. You know I have a big company to run and wouldn’t be able to get to all of those with you.”
Lauren stopped walking and pulled Drake closer to her. She reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him gently. Drake flashed back to his memory of their date and when he found her in the storage shed. It had been pretty intense from the very beginning. There was no doubt that the sexual chemistry was there between him and Lauren.
“That’s what video chat is for. We could talk whenever we wanted to, and we wouldn’t be apart all that much. My events are usually only one or two days long.”
Drake liked the way Lauren put a positive spin on things.
“Hmmm, a little sexting and video chat to keep us close. That’s a fun idea.”
“It’s how I keep in touch with all my family and friends. Not very many people can actually travel as much as I do.”
“You sext your family and friend?” Drake teased.
“No, ewww. Drake!”
Lauren hit Drake on the arm, but he grabbed hold of her and started to kiss her, right there in the street. Drake wasn’t sure it was appropriate since he might have to send Lauren home later in the day, but he felt compelled to grab her, so he did. The whole week, all he could do was what he thought was best. He had been guessing all along the way.
Her lips were sweet with the taste of whatever she had been drinking out by the pool. Drake felt chemistry between them, but more than he had felt between Emily and him. So far he was making the right decisions. Now if only he could continue to make good decisions for the rest of the day.
“So I’m not very good at all this. Thank you for hanging in with me today. It’s going to be a rough day, but I really do appreciate your humor and ability to lighten the mood.”
“At your service,” Lauren said between gentle kisses to Drake.
She wasn’t prepared to let him go just yet. If that moment was going to be the last one she had with Drake, Lauren didn’t want it to end yet. Her hands stayed wrapped around his neck, and she continued to look up at Drake and offer additional kisses. He was the man of her dreams, and she didn’t want to have to let him go. Of course, it wasn’t up to her, but Lauren didn’t want to have to let him go.
“Well, we better get back in there,” Drake said as he practically pulled Lauren off of him.
Her arms were seriously stuck on him, and he knew she wanted him to pick her. Hell, all the women wanted him to pick them, or they wouldn’t be there. Drake wasn’t sure he was ready to announce that Lauren was the one he was choosing, but he did know that he wasn’t ready to send her home just yet.
“One more kiss,” Lauren said as she pulled Drake toward him.
He couldn’t resist. They leaned up against a tree, and Drake let his hand rest on the rough bark as his lips played with
her. If only he could have spent the whole day right there kissing her, Drake was pretty sure he would have been happy.
But the truth was, he had other women who were waiting for him. They were inside, just as nervous as Lauren was, and Drake was very aware of that. He had to keep moving forward and try to find some sort of solution for their day of worries.
Lauren’s hands moved to Drake’s pants and started to rub up and down on his body. There was no stopping the reaction he had, but Drake wasn’t about to let things get any further. It was the last day, and if he slept with any of the women, it wouldn’t look good for him at all. Of course, unless it was Scarlett since he hadn’t had a chance to sleep with her yet.
Scarlett had been the woman Drake thought he would choose for sure. But as his lips kissed Lauren, Drake was no longer sure of himself or who he wanted to pick. Things weren’t going to be as easy as he had once thought they were going to be.
Drake chuckled to himself at the thought of things being easy. He couldn’t even understand why he had thought such a thing. Of course, it wasn’t going to be easy to manage the hearts of seven women. What made him think that it would be? Drake sometimes wondered how Samantha and Robert even dealt with him. They must have thought he was crazy for the things he came up with at times. Certainly they couldn’t have thought it was normal for him to want to have seven women in his home.
“Why are you laughing?” Lauren asked.
“Because this whole week has been so crazy. I was thinking about Robert and Samantha and how they looked at me when I first suggested it.”
“Did they think you were out of your mind?”
“I’m pretty sure they must have,” Drake remarked as they got closer to the house. “They are really good to me and try and tell me when I come up with stupid ideas, so I’m surprised they let this idea get so far.”
“You think it was a stupid idea?”
Drake paused before opening the front door. He didn’t exactly think the idea was stupid anymore, but that was because he had so many women that seemed to match up to him almost perfectly. Certainly, things could have turned out much worse.
“No, I just think it must have sounded so odd to Robert and Samantha.”
“Yeah, I’m sure this isn’t the weirdest thing they’ve seen you do.” She winked at him.
“Ha, no way I don’t normally do crazy things, and this one was pretty out of the ordinary for me. Sam and Robert are pretty used to me asking for difficult things, but not really things that are this crazy.”
“Well, I’m glad we got another moment to talk to each other. I’ll look forward to seeing you at the end of all this when you pick me.”
Lauren flashed her beautiful teeth at Drake, shrugging her shoulders as she made her way inside the house with Drake following her. He wasn’t ready to go back out to the pool area just yet, though. Instead, Drake needed to call Samantha. Her voice was all he needed, just to hear it and to be able to think through things with her. Samantha was his sounding board and his voice of reason; he wanted to know what she was thinking, even if she was mad at him.
Chapter 4
“I know you’re angry with me, but I need you, so I’m calling you,” Drake said on Samantha’s voicemail. “If you could come back to the house sooner rather than later, I would really appreciate it.”
Drake knew emotions were running high between him and Sam, but he wasn’t going to let things fester. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel uncomfortable and leave after all they had been through. That would be the absolutely worst outcome if he didn’t get to date her and she left his company.
“Robert, I need to talk to you,” Drake hollered out to the pool area.
Robert had been left in charge of keeping the ladies company. As much fun as that must have been, he didn’t look like he was enjoying it at all. Drake couldn’t help laughing at the facial expressions Robert made as he walked toward the house. First, he rolled his eyes like a teenage girl, and then he scrunched up his face like he was in horrible pain.
“After this day, you’re going to owe me big time. Hell, after this whole week, you are going to owe me.”
“I know. I think you and Cindy should take an all-inclusive vacation on me.”
“Yes, I think that is exactly what we should do,” Robert answered without arguing with Drake at all.
“I’m having a problem and would have asked Samantha, but I guess you’re up instead.”
“Oh shit, I’m horrible at women problems. What’s going on?”
“Who should I pair up next? I put Emily and Lauren against each other because they were both funny. I decided I liked Lauren better in the humor department. So who should I look at next.”
“Are you doing a bracket with your girlfriends?” Robert started to laugh.
“Hey, don’t knock it. Do you have a better idea?”
“Absolutely not.” Robert laughed. “I think you should pair up Victoria and Cynthia.”
“Really?” Drake looked surprised. “They seem so much different than each other.
Drake was trying to pair the women up based on similar qualities, and Cynthia was a wild woman with a huge personality. She was sexually wild and confident and didn’t seem all that much like Victoria. Victoria was quiet and sweet and very petite.
“Intelligence. I think they are both very intelligent women, and their wit would give you a run for your money. I don’t know about anything else that they really have similar. But when I think of the smartest women in the house, those two are the first that come to mind. You said at the beginning of all this that you wanted to find a smart woman.”
“You don’t think Lauren or Scarlett are smart?”
“Oh, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying book smarts; intellectual personality types are much more Victoria and Cynthia.”
“Well, it’s good enough reason for me. Can you go grab Victoria for me, please?” Drake asked as he made his way into the kitchen.
All the emotions of the day were wearing him out and making him hungry. It had only been a couple of hours since they ate breakfast, but Drake needed a sandwich or something.
As he stood in the kitchen, it dawned on Drake that the house was going to be really quiet the next morning. He had grown accustomed to the chatter of the women in the morning. It was nice to come downstairs and see a couple of the girls making themselves breakfast or sitting on the couch. He hadn’t shared his house much with people over the years, except for elaborate parties, but he had enjoyed having them there with him.
“Is it my turn,” Victoria said as she slid her arms around Drake’s waist.
Her tiny frame could barely wrap its arms around him. Drake turned around and held her close to him. Victoria was a nice girl, very down to earth and extremely easy to talk to. Plus, Robert was right about Drake wanting a woman who had intelligence. He knew he would get bored if he were with a woman who couldn’t hold decent conversations about the world.
“I believe you bought a certain toy while we were on our date, and I never got the chance to see it,” Drake said as he leaned in and kissed Victoria.
She thought he had forgotten all about it but was really excited to show him. Her smile flashed from one side of her mouth to the other as she looked up at him.
“Let’s go up to my room; I’ll show you.”
Drake swallowed hard at the seduction in her voice. He had intended not to sleep with any of the women until he had made his final decision, but Victoria was making that decision very hard. He suddenly wished that he hadn’t asked her about the sex toy she had bought on their date. It was a bad idea if he wasn’t planning on actually playing with it and her.
They moved quickly up to Victoria’s bedroom and locked the door behind them as Victoria went through her things to find the bag that she had packed the toy into. She looked really eager to show Drake, and he couldn’t help feeling excited to see what she had chosen. For her first time in an adult toy shop, Victoria had held her own very well.
That was one of the things Drake really enjoyed about Victoria, she was willing to go outside of her comfort zone. Sure, she didn’t have as much experience sexually as some of the other women, but she had more than some of them too. What really made Victoria stand out for Drake was her willingness to keep moving forward and trying things. He knew that she would be willing to try anything that Drake asked her to, both in and out of the bedroom. That was a pretty powerful positive trait, at least, in Drake’s mind.”
“Close your eyes,” Victoria said, jumping up and down with excitement.
She could hardly contain herself as she unwrapped the package and turned it on. Drake could hear the buzzing noise as he reached his hands out to try and feel it, but he kept his eyes closed as requested.
“Is it a banana?” Drake joked.
“You keep your hands at your side mister. This is a surprise for you. No cheating.”
Drake did as he was told and put his hands at his side while Victoria approached him with the buzzing toy. He couldn’t help smiling at how excited she was; there weren’t many women who would get that excited over a sex toy, especially women who weren’t familiar with them. Just another thing that made Drake like Victoria.
Her hands started at Drake’s pants button and then she unzipped him. He probably should have told her to stop, but Drake couldn’t help himself. He was a hot-blooded American man. Was he really supposed to turn a woman down if she wanted to have him? Obviously, Victoria had to know that sleeping with her wouldn’t guarantee that he would pick her.
As the thoughts ran through Drake’s mind, he knew it was wrong. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to sleep with Victoria, no matter what the toy was that she had there to play with.
“Victoria, we probably shouldn’t go much further,” Drake said softly.
“Oh, I’m not going to fuck you, don’t worry. But I do need to play with your cock.”
Drake’s eyes shot open at her words, and he looked down at Victoria, who was just about to slip her buzzing device around his penis.
The Billionaire Bachelor - Box Set: The Billionaire's Hunt - A Complete Ten Book Alpha Billionaire Romance Box Set Page 55