Page 29 of Date The Billionaire

“You’ll have a heavy load once school starts back.” I broached the subject of her law degree. She’d told me about her plans and I admired how she wanted to be an advocate for children and the elderly.

“We can get through that too, Jake. I’ll be done soon, then I’ll have to dive into the real world, but we can do it. I’ll have you there to help make sure I do.”

“You will, after all the work you’ve put into it, you deserve a chance to see it happen.” She ran slim fingers through my hair and smiled.

“I’m so glad you feel that way. I’ve always wanted to make a difference in the world.” Laney’s smile wavered for a moment. “After what you said about your parents, about how they died, well, I want to be someone they would appreciate, you know? Someone they’d be proud to have with their son.”

“They’d be proud of you anyway, Laney. Only morons don’t fall at your feet.” I found my hands in her hair this time, silky copper strands that fascinated me.

I wasn’t avoiding the subject of my parents or deflecting. Laney just took away some of the pain and made it possible to think about them without the threat of depression sweeping over me. She knew about the fire, about how I’d almost died with them, and she’d made it possible to talk about because I felt so calm around her. She really was my miracle savior.

“Come on, I think there’s more macaroni salad in the fridge.” She was deflecting, I thought with a laugh, as she jumped out of bed.

“Fine, if macaroni salad is better than sex with me, let’s eat.” I pushed the covers away and stood up, a pair of sleep pants covering my nudity as we walked out to the kitchen.

“It’s not that macaroni salad is better than sex with you,” she said with a laugh over her shoulder, “but it’s necessary to keep up with you; you wear me out!” She paused long enough to give me a kiss and I knew it was moments like this that I would miss the most once I was gone.

I really didn’t know how I was going to get through the upcoming week of hell.

* * *

Lights went off in sparks and bursts. Reporters screamed out questions I couldn’t or didn’t want to answer. I tried not to hide my eyes from the flash of cameras as I walked out of yet another studio from an interview with yet another woman that would have been screaming sexism if I had dared to ask her the same questions she felt perfectly fine with asking me.

It was starting to wear me down and I’d only been at it for three days. I hated the probing questions, hated the lights and the show’s demands even more. Most of all I hated not sleeping next to Laney. I gave an aloof but sexy gaze to the cameras; I’d studied and practiced the “gaze” Carol had insisted I perfect, until I could do it in my sleep. It hadn’t distracted me from the fact that I missed Laney’s laugh, the way she’d come up behind me and wrap her arms around my waist and hold me tightly, skin to skin.

I finally moved out of the lights and into a car soon after the black car drove up to the curb to take me back to my hotel. At least it was a decent hotel. I’d seen David once, as I was being shuffled to another interview, but I hadn’t spoken with him yet. Trent, on the other hand, was nowhere in sight.

My head pounded out a rhythm in time with the tires on the car by the time the driver pulled to a stop in front of the hotel. I got out, staggered to the elevator, and went up to my room to hide in darkness and quiet. I’d pulled the curtains on day one and hadn’t opened them since.

I’d order room service after a shower, I decided. I headed into the black tiled shower and turned it on, the blast of near boiling water soothing away the tension that had given me the headache. I stood there for long moments, letting my head clear, letting the memory of that woman’s insipid questions float away.

I could do this, I repeated as a mantra, Laney was the reward.

I scrubbed off and got out, the room full of steam but I didn’t care. I wrapped a large bath towel around my waist, wrapped my head in another, and put on the robe provided by the hotel. This quiet time could be just as stressful as the interviews and the camera flashes. This was when I missed Laney the most. When there wasn’t a soul around to distract me.

I turned on the television and picked up the hotel’s menu. I found a program that would hold my attention for a little while and ordered some dinner from the menu. I wanted to email Laney, but I suspected the show might be monitoring my communications. A little paranoid of me, but I didn’t want to jeopardize anything so I kept quiet.

I watched the program, my brain finally going quiet, and was asleep before I knew it.

I dreamed of Laney, of that first time, of the way her greedy little pussy sucked me deeper into her body, and how her hips slithered over me, when something tried to intrude into my sleepy version of heaven. I turned on my side and lost myself once more in the way Laney made me feel. I was between her thighs in moments, tasting her languorously, savoring every drop of her heady scent.

I could hear myself moan as her thighs clamped around my head. I loved when she did that, I knew she’d lost all control at that point and was ready to blow. Laney exploding was one of the most powerful things I’d ever witnessed, it could literally bring me to my knees in adoration.

I could hear her sighs as her stomach started to ripple and the harsh cry that signaled she was coming hard and waited for the rest of her body to shake. She completely let go when she came, she didn’t hold anything back, and I glanced up her body to watch her breasts shake, and the way her head rolled back in total surrender. It was erotic, beautiful, and totally Laney.

I was waiting for that moment when burying my dick in her would set her off again, that last signal from her that would tell me the moment was right when reality intruded once more. This time, the noise didn’t stop until I called out.

“Go the fuck away!” It was probably Carol again. Or... shit, room service!

I sprang out of the bed, my hair dry but standing up around my head, and ran for the door. I pulled it open, one hand on the door, one on my robe, to find Arabella standing there with her patented smirk on her face. She threw herself into my arms, her artificially inflated lips sealed to mine, and all I could do was stumble as I tried to get her off me. Camera flashes blinded me and, befuddled, I closed the door to make it stop, Arabella still clawed into me like a cat in heat.

I pushed her away as soon as the door was closed and glared at her. “What the hell, Arabella? Did you set that up?”

That’s when it dawned on me that those camera flashes meant pictures. Those pictures meant papers. Papers and headline stories on news shows and websites. “What have you done?”

“Those boys are with me. Unless you hear me out, and do as I say, those pictures are going to hit every news agency in America. We’ll see what your little vixen thinks about them when she sees me in your hotel, shall we? And oh, just in case, I’ll make sure you end up penniless, too.” She gave me a sweet smile that dripped venom. She really was little more than a snake.

“What do you want, Arabella?”