Chapter 3

One of the most important things Drake learned in running his business was the skill of being present in the moment. Even if you had two hundred other tasks that you had to accomplish, you had to be present in the moment you were in or nothing would ever get done to the level that you want it to.

Drake could show up at a meeting, but if his mind were on something else, the meeting would last twice as long. He would end up asking more questions than normal and not guiding the meeting at the pace he needed it to go.

He had learned that same skill was useful in his private life, women loved it when you could give them undivided attention. The more he was able to focus on the woman he was with, the better the experience was for both him and her.

The week of having seven women at his house was the ultimate test of his skills of paying attention to one person at a time. Even when all the women were down to have dinner or they were playing poker, Drake made a specific point to look them in the eye and pay attention when they were talking. If it was only for a minute, or five minutes, that was better than not paying attention to them at all.

As Drake came back out to the pool area with his swimsuit on, all of the women stopped what they were doing to pay attention to him. Drake had movie star good looks with a chiseled body that was naturally tanned. His brown hair was a little shaggy, but he had it impeccably styled. Every single one of the girls couldn’t resist watching him as he made his way to the pool. They were all intent on staying out there and spending time with him, for as long as Allison would allow it.

Drake sat back down next to Allison, who had covered her face back up with the towel again.

“Scarlett, is that you again?” She teased.

“Yes,” Drake said in the highest pitched voice he could come up with.

Allison pulled off her towel and threw it at him. It was finally time for them to get to know each other. She could hardly contain her excitement that he was there and they were going to get to spend the whole rest of the day together.

“Let’s swim,” she said as she stood up and made her way to the pool.

But there was one thing that Drake needed to take care of before he could give Allison his undivided attention.

“Ladies,” Drake said in a loud voice. “I’d like to spend some time with Allison. You can have the pool back in an hour or so. Enjoy your day.”

The women were understandably disappointed that Drake was kicking them out of the pool area and back inside, but they went willingly. Most of them did, at least. The women who had already spent time with Drake still wanted to spend more time with him and the women who hadn’t had their dates with him just wanted a chance to talk to him more. But they all made their way back into the house…except Sophia.

Sophia stayed in the pool and didn’t seem fazed at all by what Drake had just asked of all the women. The same rules didn’t apply to her, or at least she thought.

“Sophia, you too please,” Drake said.

“Oh, it’s ok. Allison said I could stay out here with you guys.”

Allison was standing behind Sophia and she just shrugged her shoulders out of despair. She wasn’t use to telling people no and she wasn’t about to get on Sophia’s bad side by telling her she couldn’t stay out there with them.

Drake saw the look of despair on Allison’s face and knew exactly what it was about. He had seen a similar look on Emily’s face when Sophia had joined them in the bedroom.

The difference in that situation was that Emily had a fantasy about having a threesome that she had already shared with Drake. But Allison hadn’t shared any such fantasy and Drake thought it was only right to let Allison have his undivided attention.

“I think I’d like some alone time with Allison. Could you please head inside?” Drake asked as he held out his hand for Sophia to use for assistance as she climbed out of the pool.

Allison looked at Drake and couldn’t help but smile. She was extremely grateful that he had taken it upon himself to ask Sophia to leave. Surely, she wouldn’t get mad at Drake for asking her to give them alone time.

“Of course,” Sophia said as she climbed out of the pool.

Allison couldn’t even look at Sophia as she walked toward her towel in her swimsuit that left nothing to the imagination. It was just a few strings and some triangles of fabric. Allison was a model and didn’t have a single thing to complain about when it came to her body…but she would never wear something like that swimsuit around other women. It seemed very disrespectful.

But then again, Sophia had said more than once that she wasn’t in the house to make new friends; she was there to snag Drake.

“Come see me later,” Sophia whispered in Drake’s ear as she pressed her wet body up against his.

He couldn’t help but get a little erect as her breasts touched his skin. Sophia was certainly a very erotic woman. She had a way about her that just made Drake melt. He felt pretty proud of himself for asking her to leave so Allison and he could have some time together.

“I hope you’re alright with me asking her to leave,” Drake said as he climbed into the pool and made his way over to Allison.

“I don’t know. I really did want to spend some more quality time with Sophia,” Allison joked.

“I could go get her again if you’d like,” Drake said as he started to walk back toward the house through the pool water.

Allison swam up behind him and wrapped her arms around Drake. He felt so good next to her body and she would have been happy to spend the entire day right there in the pool. The only thing she didn’t like was that she kept seeing women peeking their heads out of the windows of the house to see what they were doing.

“Stay,” she whispered into his ear.

Drake grabbed Allison’s body while they walked in the water and he flipped himself around. Instead of putting her down, though, Drake wrapped her legs around him and made his way over to the steps so they could sit down and talk.

With Allison still wrapped around his waist, Drake sat down on the steps and wrapped his arms around her. He could also see that the women were looking out at them from the house, but he didn’t care. They all knew that it was Allison’s turn with him and he wasn’t doing anything too outrageous with her. They were simply sitting and talking and enjoying each other’s company.

“Are you mad that I abandoned you today?”

“Yes, you are going to have to spend the next twelve hours making it up to me,” she said as she kissed him.

Drake felt pretty confident that Allison was teasing him about being mad at him, but he did intend on spending the rest of the day giving Allison his undivided attention. She was a good sport about him being out during the morning and that was something he really appreciated.

The water was warm around them and it instantly reminded Drake of the water at the Playboy mansion that he had been in with Emily. Having more than one girl around was starting to get really difficult for him.

Drake continued to kiss Allison in an effort to get Emily off his mind. He couldn’t stand feeling like he was always cheating on the other women. By the end of the week, he suspected he would either be over that feeling or it would be horribly overwhelming.

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Drake said between kisses.

“Really?” Allison said as she started to get excited. “Anything? I like that.”

“Did you have something specific in mind?”

“Yes, but let’s hang out for a little bit first.”

Drake and Allison walked over to the deep end of the pool and sat down in the specially designed love seat he had in the pool. It was simply a concrete ledge that was submerged in the water, but Drake liked to think of it as a love seat.

“Tell me more about you,” Drake said as he grabbed Allison’s hand and wrapped it up in his.

Relaxing and talking wasn’t something that Drake did that well. He was better at work or sex, but he could tell that Allison wanted to take things a little slower and that was perfectly alright with him.

“Well I’ve only been to jail three times,” Allison started as she gave Drake a little side glance.

He loved that she joked so much. It was fun to be around someone who didn’t take life so seriously and knew how to have fun. Drake could use more fun in his life. He did good at going out to clubs and drinking, but it wasn’t all that much fun anymore.

“You’ve got me beat on the jail time,” Drake laughed.

“I just got back from a trip to Thailand. It was fun, I had to get dressed up in some wild makeup and outfits. I travel a lot so it’s hard to have anything close to a real relationship. Surprisingly men don’t actually like to date supermodels.”

“I beg to differ,” Drake said as he pulled Allison close to him.

“I'm serious. The idea of a supermodel is fun, but when I’m gone for weeks at a time, then things don’t seem as much fun anymore.”

“You just haven’t met the right guy yet.”

Allison was willing to agree that she hadn’t met the right guy yet, that was why she was there with Drake. That was why she had canceled a huge photo shoot with Guess Jeans to be there in that pool with Drake.

“So what kind of guy do you think would be right for me?” Allison said as she snuggled up to Drake in the warm pool water.

“I’m pretty sure he’d be tall…maybe six foot one inches or so.”

“Oh, really? And what else?”

“He’d know how to use Skype so when his woman was away they could play over video chat. There’s no reason to miss your guy with the technology we have nowadays.”

“So he’s tall and tech savvy, got it,” Allison said as she pretended to write down notes on her hand.

“It’s going to be important that he has a good job. Something where he could travel freely, maybe he’s even the CEO of his company or something like that.”

“Hmm, I don’t know. Those CEO types can be really full of themselves,” they both started to laugh.

It was easy to talk with Allison and Drake really liked that. He was interested in getting to know her to see if their connection could last past the first few minutes.

As his hands weaved with her fingers, Drake felt an energy between them. Simply by looking at him, Allison had his full attention. He didn’t have to pretend to be interested in her; Drake was actually extremely interested in what she had to say.

“Do you have trouble with the paparazzi?” Drake tried to change the subject a little.

“Yes, they always know when I’m landing in L.A. it’s really hard to avoid them. I’ve just given in to the fact that I’ll need to walk through a group of them every time I land. They aren’t as bad overseas, though. Sometimes I can travel for weeks without anyone taking my photo. But it also depends on who I’m dating.”

Drake laughed, he could only imagine how crazy the paparazzi would get if he and Allison were dating. They would be all over the place trying to snap photos and giving them cute nicknames.

Drake had been lucky though and he had never really had to deal with the paparazzi very much. They kept a respectable distance when he was out in public and never really seemed all that interested in him at all. Only when he would show up to movie premiers and things like that did the paparazzi really come out and try to get his picture and dirt on him. Otherwise, he was relatively left in the shadows of the trendy paparazzi world.

“I’ve had a few run-ins with them, but they are pretty respectful of my time. Probably because I’m just a businessman who has people writing stories about me. I’m not in any movies or commercials.”

Allison swam out into the middle of the pool as she continued her conversation with Drake. She needed to get a little physical separation from him, if only for a moment. It was becoming too hard to control herself as she sat next to Drake and she didn’t want to take things any farther with all the girls from the house looking out at them.

“You’d have a lot of paparazzi if you went out in public with me. I’m sure they would love you.”

Drake sat back and watched Allison as she swam around the pool. She was a beautiful girl. More of a traditional beauty but certainly still one of the most beautiful women he had known. Her long blonde hair tangled around her arms as she floated in the water, her big blue eyes sparkled when the sun hit them. But the thing that struck Drake the most about Allison was her huge smile. She seemed to have a thousand-watt smile that could be seen from a mile away. He loved looking at her as she smiled, it gave him a sense of calm.

“Would you mind if I went and showered?” Drake said as he swam out to meet Allison in the middle of the pool.

“That sounds good. Do you have a tuxedo? You should put that on today. I think we are going to try and make an event.”

Drake’s interest was raised right away. A tuxedo was a pretty big event, even in Los Angeles. It was the afternoon though and only charity events and movie premieres had tuxedo attire in the middle of the day.

“Will you join me in the shower?” Drake asked in hopes that Allison would actually come with him.

“I need to call the organizers and tell them I’ll be there. I had canceled this morning when I didn’t know when you would be back.”

Instantly Drake felt horrible for not being around, but the very least he could do was make it up to Allison by coming with her to her event. He didn’t mind at all. In fact, Drake was happy to do whatever Allison wanted to do with her time. It was exciting to see what each of the women planned for their days and how they wanted to spend their time with him. Drake felt like it gave him real insight into what was important to each of the women.

“Then we better get looking fabulous for your day of fun. I’ll brush the cobwebs off my tuxedo and be downstairs in 30 minutes. Is that enough time for you to get ready?”

“I can be down in twenty,” Allison said as she swam to the side of the pool, jumped out and started to run upstairs.

Drake grabbed his things and chased after her up the stairs. He almost caught her but she slid into her room just before he made it to her.

“See you in fifteen minutes,” Drake teased.