awaiting arms.
Julian followed him inside his office bathroom, watching as Drake turned on the shower. “ But you’ve been acting strange since Trey married Libby.”
“Strange? Because I’m relieved that I don’t have to deal with Trey’s baggage any longer? Ecstatic that Trey doesn’t have to deal with his baggage any longer.” It had been a long haul, helping Trey release the ghosts of his past. Now that he married Libby, and she was expecting Trey’s children, the stars appeared to be lining up for the man once resigned to a painful and lost existence. “He damn well deserves happiness, and now I can breathe.”
“You can breathe? Funny, you look tense.” Julian leaned against the wall as Drake shucked his suit. “I mean, when was the last time you fucked? Must be exhausting carrying around wood all the time.”
“What?” Drake slammed his hands on the vanity. “You need me to send you my sexual itinerary?”
“No need, I can see you’re off your game.”
“Off my game? I’m finished with games.” Drake glanced down at his raging erection and jumped in the shower. Even if he had time to jack off, he doubted the empty orgasm would take off his edge. “I need something… else.”
Drake had fucked plenty over the span of his adult life. But recently? Only once, and the experience had left him cold, colder than any other lay.
The woman had been a beautiful nightmare, a true Black Widow, readying to dig her fangs in his neck the moment he’d come up for air. Since he wanted no repeats, she didn’t take it too well.
“It’s happening to you,” Julian interrupted his thoughts, “just like it happened to Avery, Dylan, and Trey.”
“What’s happening to me?” He moved the soap down his stomach, reaching to wash his cock. As Drake expected, thoughts of the money-grubbing Black Widow softened him right up.
“You want a wife.”
“Don’t be stupid. I want a monogamous relationship, the same woman every time.”
“That sounds like a wife, Drake.”
He grabbed the shampoo. “Because I’m tired of prowling or picking among the groupies, and then wondering afterwards who might file a bogus paternity suit?”
“Or go to the tabloids,” Julian griped. “One woman described in great detail how I spanked and bit her ass, even Aunt Gilda’s friends read the garbage.”
“Poor Gilda, I remember that one.”
“Then she had the nerve to show back up at Level 69, asking for my discipline.”
“This is exactly what I’m talking about, Julian. I’m worn from living this way. I want more.”
“I do, too,” Julian admitted, “but I’m not ready for a wife.”
“Who says you have to marry? Why not stay comfortably safe as always, but with one woman?” Spending time with a mature woman who didn’t see dollar signs when she wrapped her lips around his dick was all Drake wanted. Right now, anyway. In the future? He could see himself buying a house in Gilda’s neighborhood like Trey did, and renovating it to suit his… wife’s tastes. Shit. Maybe he was looking for a wife after all.
Evan’s voice sounded from within the bathroom. “Found out that hot raven-hair was sniffing around Club Saturday again, looking for you pretty late, Drake.”
He stiffened. The Black Widow? “What do you know about her?”
“Only that you fucked her.”
“Tell me you didn’t ever fuck her.”
“I didn’t.” Evan sighed. “I didn’t fuck anyone last night or the night before that, or the lonely night before that.” He paused before Drake heard something hit the counter, sounding suspiciously like a frustrated fist.
“Clearly, both of you are changing your personal lives and neither wants that particular woman,” Julian said slowly. “What’s going on?”
Drake finished rinsing his hair, switched off the water, and stepped from the shower. “As far as the Black Widow is concerned, she’s an Easton chaser, that’s what’s going on.”
“Aren’t