Drake Read online

  “And where shall we put this beauteous treasure?” I snob, holding up the ridiculous trophy—a ‘lucky penny’ floating in a glass frame. One cent for the luckiest number-one-ranked fighter, oh yeah very clever, very funny ha-ha.

  Drake handled the cheap-shot nomination better than expected, going up to accept it with good humor and grace. How sexy, really, is a man who’s able to laugh at himself? Drake even gave a heartfelt speech and thanked me, by name. Obviously being dedicated to our whole fake-relationship charade.

  Obviously.

  “Lemme see that.” Drake shows me his palms from across the living room, as if I’m supposed to actually throw his award—from here. “Toss it ’ere,” he confirms.

  After a hesitant breath, I fling it over to him, instinctively shutting my eyes mid-throw, and by some celestial miracle Drake captures it in one hand. “Phew. Nice catch.”

  He launches it up, almost to the ceiling, then catches it as it descends, and throws it high again. “Solid mass,” Drake observes. “Might make a nice paperweight.”

  “Really, a paperweight?” I pull a face. “You seemed proud of it, at the show.”

  “Or…” Next thing I know Drake passes it back to me. I almost miss it, but don’t. “Heads up.”

  “A little late, thanks!” I hold it against my belly and regress into giggles again. I throw it back.

  He catches it with an affirmative slap against his palm. “Or should I set it outside the front door, keep a spare housekey under it?” he says with an amused smirk. “Y’think anyone’d look under there?”

  I shake my head dramatically. “Only the most astute burglar would ever think to!” I declare, and laugh, and laugh harder when Drake joins in. “Perhaps on the mantel? Right here beside the lovely photo of you and Krae?”

  “Like hell,” he says, spritely. He grins at me as he jogs backward, almost into the kitchen, and then winds up his arm like he’s planning to throw it from all the way over there.

  “I wouldn’t, Drake!”

  “Good thing I’m the one holding it.” He launches the stupid ugly trophy almost directly toward my outstretched hands but a little too high above my head so I have to jump for it, not an easy endeavor when I’m not wearing four-inch heels and a sheath-like gown.

  Naturally, I miss.

  As if in slow-motion the trophy sails over my head, I watch it make a languid arc before it hurtles back earthside and crash-lands on the stone hearth of the pretty Hamilton fireplace. Its pearl finish hasn’t a scratch. The trophy is less fortunate. The frame breaks in three pieces and the glass shatters all over the place.

  I cover my mouth in surprise, but let’s face it, that was going to happen.

  I spin around to catch Drake chuckling. “Are you kidding me?” I point to the mess. “I’m not cleaning that.”

  “No?” He stops laughing just to show off a smirk. “You were supposed to catch it, ma’am.”

  “In this dress?” Hands on my hips, I head to the kitchen. The food tonight wasn’t anything to write home about, too many fighters in attendance cutting weight for their next bout. Besides hunger pangs, my nerves are currently…jumpy. Cooking should help. Please, let it help.

  Drake and I trade a couple of jaunty grins as he walks past me to fetch a broom and dustpan. He sweeps up the mess and empties the shards of broken glass into the trashcan right next to where I’m chopping tomatoes.

  “Butterfingers,” he teases me, in a low voice. As if my fingers had even grazed the ill-fated trophy.

  “Puh-huh!” I fire back. “You just had to choose this dress, didn’t you.”

  “Indeed,” he says, not really giggling anymore. “I had to.” And then after a lingering look that makes me go boneless, he slowly brushes past me to hang up the broom.

  I check my thoughts, and clear my throat. “Um, wine, maybe?” It feels sort of taboo to ask. We’d agreed not to drink at the awards ceremony. Neither of us had to say why. We both sensed how things between us were starting to escalate into unknown territory, someplace exciting but quite frankly also terrifying. Didn’t need alcohol to complicate things.

  But now, here, where we’re both maybe a little bit too comfortable, Drake says, “Sure, babe,” and pours me a glass of sweet rosé.

  “Thanks.”

  “Thank you, Harlow.”

  “Oh it’s no problem for me to cook. The food kinda sucked tonight, right?”

  “Not just for dinner.” Drake’s voice dips low again, smooth, sexy. “You being there with me, it helped. You’re a great friend for doing that.”

  “I had fun. No big deal. You know me.”

  “Yes, I do know you.” It sounds like an admonishment. He leans against the adjacent counter, facing me with eyes narrowed, arms crossed. Biceps all in my face. Okay not in my face but I want them to be. “Do you remember that time in the ninth grade… that skit we did for acting class? The final exam?”

  “Oh my god, Dray, I hadn’t thought of that in years!” My cheeks heat up remembering it. “God that was embarrassing. I hated that class.”

  “Of course you did. You were like, the worst actress in the world.”

  “Uh, thanks?”

  “Tell me then…” His eyes darken a shade, his stare so leveled on me it’s like he’s trying to stop my heart. “…how does the worst actress in the world manage to be so convincing as my girlfriend?”

  I look down to study the cutting board as if it’s become enchanted. “I was?”

  “Mm. If I didn’t know better I’d think you were harboring deeper feelings for me, Harlow.”

  “Hey.” I whirl toward him, wielding the chef’s knife with more relish than I intended. Gingerly I set it back down on the counter. “If I’m not mistaken someone else flunked that acting class. Someone else was also very…believable, tonight. That speech?” I cross my arms and quirk a brow, trying and failing to match his cool, calm, collected façade.

  “Right.” He grins.

  “So?”

  “Babe…the hardest part about tonight wasn’t getting those folks to believe I had feelings for you,” he says. “I do.” He what? “The hardest part,” Drake goes on before I can even catch my breath, “was hiding the fact I’m falling in love with you.”

  Hello, thoughts? Words? Hand gestures, anything? I go still, and mute, and utterly uncertain of what he’s saying, what’s happening right now. Am I dreaming? Where am I, really?

  Drake pushes off the counter and snaps closed the distance between us. He cups my cheeks and looks intently at me, exactly the way he did throughout this evening’s ceremony, right before he was going to kiss me. For show. That was for show.

  So what is this?

  Heart, meet throat. He tilts my chin so that I have to crane my neck to look all the way up at his face, into his eyes. Suddenly a fierce wave of desire heads south, manifesting as hot, liquid oceans of yen. Drake looks at me like he somehow knows I’m soaked. He arrests my gaze.

  “My question is…” Softly his fingers brush back some of my hair. “…Are you falling in love with me, Harlow?”

  Is that what I’m feeling? Probably, yeah. Yes. A hundred times, yes.

  “No,” I tell him. “I think… I’ve been in love with you for a while now.”

  I watch the Adam’s apple bob in his throat, his only movement for too many heart-rending seconds. He’s wearing an expression I’ve never seen on his face before. Then, slowly, his lips curve into one of his signature liquid smirks.

  He says, “Prove it.”

  Four

  Drake

  I don’t know when the exact turning point was, the moment I started thinking of Harlow as more than a friend. Maybe we never turned a corner. Maybe this same road always aimed to bring us here.

  “Prove it…how?” She’s reticent, but not unwilling. I can almost relate except that I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of her, this, us—whatever we were, whatever we are, whatever comes next. Taking this new unexpected step isn’t a lot different than steppin
g into the Octagon. There’s a lot of fear in there. Fear of pain. Fear of losing. Fear of death.

  But you can’t let the fear get inside your head. You can’t.

  “However you wanna prove it to me.”

  “Don’t make me go first,” she pleads, giggling shyly. Is this the side of her she’s kept from me all these years? She’s making me crazy, how fuckin’ adorable she can be. “You say it.”

  “Are you dancing with me?” I ask.

  “Do you…want me to dance with you?”

  “Maybe later. Right now I just want to look at you.” I dip my gaze past the neckline of her dress, indicating exactly what I’d like to see. Everything.

  “I’m not like the girls you date.”

  “I know.” I wrap a fist over all that lush dark hair, and tug, so that she knows to roll her head back and around, baring her throat. “Cuz you’re the girl I’m going to marry.” I wet my lips and glide my tongue up her neck, her jaw. Her breathing shudders. My hands descend, coasting along every generous curve. The dress forms shimmering ripples as I work it up and up in fistfuls, over her hips, her tits, her head. Harlow giggles, nervously. I lay it down and quiet her with a starved kiss.

  For the last two weeks I’ve wanted nothing more than to survey every inch of her body, but it’s been a long night and I’ve been thinking too much about diving in. Only her strapless bra and matching black lacy thong stop me from accosting her sweetest spots. They won’t, for long.

  I sweep my fingers up along her inner thigh. Her smooth skin is damp already. Her breaths stagger as I come tantalizing close to grazing her hot, wet folds. Torturing her, torturing me.

  I touch her wetness to my tongue, sampling her delicious, raw feminine taste. Aw yeah. My shaft lurches, hard, reaching for her. This gorgeous woman. My best friend. My girl.

  “Jesus, Harlow.” I lick my lips. “You turn me on.”

  “Really, I do?” she says, uncertain.

  I take her hands, and weave our fingers together. “I want to make love to you.”

  Her hands squeeze mine in return. “I want you to.”

  “Thank Christ.” I plant a kiss on her nose. Harlow steps out of her heels. I lead her into the bedroom and sit her down at the foot of the bed. She tries to cross her arms over her fantastic cleavage. I peel them away, irritably. “Why’re you nervous?”

  “It’s just…been a while. Since I’ve, um.”

  “How long is a while?”

  “Well. Let’s just say the last time I ate a popsicle—I spit on it first.”

  I chuckle, amused. I’m sure she’s kidding. Like sixty-five percent sure. “If you’d like to demonstrate that technique, I’m just sayin’… I’d be willing to volunteer.”

  “Would you now?”

  “Hell yeah.” I trace the border of her bra, barely skimming the supple skin it’s hiding from me. Gooseflesh marks her local erogenous zones. “Remove this, please.”

  Her eyes go wide. “It just feels like the point of no return. If you see…”

  “Frankly, babe, we’ve done this a hundred times in my head already.” Wearing a happy smirk, I sit next to her at the edge of the mattress, laying my hand over her thigh. “I’m not inclined to turn back now.”

  After a quick, surprised breath, Harlow smiles, and snaps it off from the middle of her back, never taking her eyes off mine as she lets her tits bounce out of their restraint.

  I indulge my eyes some more, raking her upper body and face with just my gaze, as if to memorize the exact degree of every proportion, every soft sinuous curve. Yes, my girl has more to love, and I have time and a number of places where we could play…

  “I love these,” I praise her tits. Encouraged, Harlow straightens her back, sticking them out for me see. The effect gets sent right to my balls. “What’re you, a double-D?”

  “E cup,” she says, all prim. I don’t reach out to touch her yet.

  “Stand up for me,” I order. “Turn around.”

  “Okay.” Standing before me, she twirls once. “Like this?” Very nice.

  “Again. Slower.” I feast my eyes on her luscious body, her performance, her smile, her coffee hair and jet eyes, and all the ways she inspires me. “How low can you go?”

  “Face down, ass up!” Harlow croons, giggling. I crack a smile. Finding humor during sex or foreplay—now that’s new. Guess it’s being comfortable. Being with your lover and your best friend, all in one. Also new.

  Harlow puts her back to me, grinning over her shoulder while she pumps her hips left and right to the hip-hop song now spinning in her head.

  Then, slowly, she bends over, dropping her thong in one arousing, unhurried move, just how I wanted. She drops all the way down to her toes to give me the most fantastic view of her nice round ass and succulent cunt I can hardly wait to delve inside.

  She stands up, just as slow, and angles her chin at me, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth.

  “Fuck, yes,” I growl out in reverence.

  Harlow whirls around, giving a full-frontal view of everything that had always been right under my nose, everything I never knew I wanted forever. My lungs compress around a heart that’s swelling, with lust, with love, with hungry desire for many more nights like tonight.

  “I could worship you all night. I plan to. D’you know that?”

  She nods yes. I’m not convinced.

  “You’re a goddess, my love.” I reach for her. “Come here before you annihilate me.”

  She moves in and straddles my lap, arching her back as she skims her breasts against my face. My lips part of their own volition, I breathe her in, my own personal cherry vanilla ice cream treat. I drag my lips up her neck again as she gets settled.

  And here we are, face to face. A low hoarse moan unleashes from my throat. I shove my fingers into her hair. I claim her mouth. A kiss filled with fire, fervor. Pressed to the bare, molten apex of her thighs, my dick jumps impatiently.

  “Tell me… I can have you now.”

  Five

  Harlow

  “You can have me.” As if he needed my permission.

  As if I’m not already his.

  With a mischievous smirk he tugs his shirt over his head, and my heart flips out. So much dense, hard, rolling mass. Every hard-earned muscle, every sinewed fiber serves a purpose. I know it’s not all for show. But in this moment I’m all too eager to examine him. I lick my lips. Letting the view of his worked-out bod do very bad things to my cunt, and my control. Even my self-conscious inner critic—god what a relentless bitch—is going up in smoke.

  It’s not the first time I’ve seen Drake shirtless. The whole world gets to see him like that all the time. Unlike everyone else though, tonight I get to watch Drake remove his pants, too. My heart jumps to my throat when I see his erection for the very first time. You mean to say, my good ol’ friend was lugging around one of those? Holy-mother!

  Drake wickedly smirks, apparently reading my thoughts verbatim, and wraps his fist around his proud, heavy sex. My core clenches. There. That right there is what I want.

  I lay on my back. Drake crawls over me, whispering, “Still game?”

  “Yes please!”

  “Mhm.” His husky sound of contentment pairs well with the dark, zealous expression smoldering across his face. He groans again, then peppers a hundred sultry soft-as-sin kisses up from the hollow of my throat, all over my jaw, then close to my ear. “And you’re still wet for me?”

  “Yes. Only for you.” I’m not really good at the sex-talk. My god but he’s handsome. Have I ever been so wet, so turned-on by anyone else? Just a few feathery touches, kisses and long, indulgent stares that promise more—just the preliminaries, and I’m already writhing and mewling like an animal beneath this man.

  He looks into my eyes as if he’s waiting for me to say more.

  “I-I love your dick, Dray.”

  “Wow. Feels great to hear you say that, babe.” As evidence, his cock lurches against my thigh. “Now, about that mouth.
”

  Drake

  Harlow boldly presses her lips to mine, and simpers when I further explore her lips and tongue, flipping us over and pulling her on top of me. I skate my hands down her back, lower, lower. There’s been no avoiding noticing the graceful bow of her ass in that dress all evening long, or how it lines up exceptionally well with the shape of my cock.

  God help me if I’m not inside this breathtaking woman in the next sixty seconds.

  Harlow’s gaze is needy, wild. She takes her cue and makes her way down my body, flicking those pretty eyes up at me the second before she brings my cock to the outside of her mouth. Little strokes with her tongue make me even harder. She takes the head between her lips and gently, warmly sucks my shaft. Fuck. My self-control bottoms out. It feels too good inside her mouth. She’ll end me like this.

  I withstand a minute of her torture then pull out with a groan and bring her back up to me, demanding her mouth. I reach between us to throttle my cock, and her head rears back. A shadow of impatience crosses her face. “Touch. Me. Dray!”

  “Oh I will. Every exquisite part.” I skim a hand up the inside of her thigh, finding her girly bud and sweet, sticky honey. She grinds down on my fingers as I caress her there, all the way up her slit to her pretty, pink, pulsating clit.

  Harlow releases a high-pitched moan that shoots right through me. “How do you want me?” she purrs.

  I want to dive inside. I want to ravish her pussy and those mouthwatering globes. I want to tow her toward the edge of surrender, until we’re both delirious.

  “These—lips.” I touch her slick, silk-soft folds. “Right—here.” I point to my mouth. She smiles, and makes to lie down next to me. “Nuh-uh.” I lift her back up. “Sit on my face.”

  She gives me a look. She gives her body a long, critical assessment. Haven’t we been over this? I hate that look. I hate the way she insults herself.

  “Just so we’re clear. I plan to not only love, but fuck all that self-ridicule right out of you, love.”

  Her eyes and lips part in surprise. Doesn’t she trust me by now?