Hollywood Bad Boys Club: Book 1: Drake (3 page)

“So I fuck a lot of women. What’s so terrible about that?”

I know instinctively if I give him a pat on the head, I’ll blow the interview. It feels like he’s daring me to hold him accountable, so I take a calculated risk that I’m right.

“Nothing’s terrible about it, if that’s what you want out of life,” I say. “I’m sure your guy friends think it’s great, and the women who make your list get a story to tell their friends, and occasionally a picture as proof.”

“It makes them happy.”

“So would an autograph.”

“It makes
me
happy.”

“You’re better than that,” I say.

“You barely know me.”

“Yeah, but I’m a great judge of character.” I point to the picture on the phone. “And I’m probably smarter than all three of those princesses put together.”

He looks at me whimsically and the tension dissipates. “Nice. Interviewer – 2, movie star – 0.”

“I’m pitching a shutout so far.”

“Okay, so you’re smart,” he says. “Allie, you’d be surprised to know I actually prefer smart women. I just don’t meet too many of them in Hollywood.”

I ease up on him. “Jesus, Drake, stop using these lame lines on me,” I say, laughing so he’ll know I’m kidding. “Can’t you see I’m immune to your charms?” Inside, my head is spinning from the exchange, but I keep my cool.

He throws back a laugh, then says, “It’s getting late. I really should get going,” he says, knocking me for a loop. I look at the clock and see it’s already five. Oh my god, we’ve been talking for five hours and I don’t have anything truly interesting about this guy. Certainly nothing that hasn’t been said before.

Not really wanting to go down in history as the female passenger of the movie star who drove his Ferrari into the La Brea tar pits, I convince Manning to take an Uber with me. We head toward his house in the hills, both of us sitting in the back seat of a Nissan Sentra that smells overly pine-y. Luckily the driver is too star-struck to do much more than repeatedly look in his rearview.

“Did you get everything you need?” Manning asks. I can’t help but hear a sexual undertone to his question, but unsure if it’s just in my head, I ignore it.

“Not even close,” I say. “I appreciate the extra time, though. I know you don’t do this much anymore, and I’m truly grateful for the extra couple of hours. It would be great if we had longer, but I’ll make it work somehow.”

“So you’re going to write a story about how I’m the official bad boy of Hollywood?”

“No, I won’t mention your long list of conquests. To me, that’s the least interesting part of you.”

“Mention it if you want. It’s good for business.” Just like that, he’s a movie-star/player again. I sense something bubbling under the surface, though. There’s a complexity to this man that other interviewers have obviously missed because he’s so adept at hiding it.

“No,” I say. “I want people to know a different Drake Manning than the one they’ve been given. I want them to know the real you.”

He looks out the window, then turns back and floors me by saying, “This was fun. Come to my place for dinner tomorrow night and we’ll continue. If you have no plans, that is.”

I jump at the chance. “No, I have no plans. That would be awesome.” He hands me his phone and tells me to add my number to his contacts list. I resist the urge to count the women’s names. As I hand it back, the bourbon in me has another question. “Is this just because I need more material?” God damn it, that sounded needy.

“No,” he says. “Well, yes. Look, Allie, you’re smart and funny and fun to hang out with. I may have sex with a lot of women, but it’s rare that I actually talk much with one I can respect. And yes, I want the interview to be good, too. Or at least my agent does.”

Before I can respond, we pull up at his house and an armed guard peers into the car, then sees Manning and opens the gate so we can pass. My jaw drops when I see where he lives; this is the biggest house I’ve ever seen, with a beautifully manicured lawn and a six-car garage. The architecture and landscaping make it look like a Tuscan villa. I’m speechless, finding it hard to believe that this is the residence of one person.

“See you tomorrow around six, then?” Manning asks.

“Sure,” I say, as if I hang out with movie stars all the time. Then he leans across the seat and plants a chaste kiss on my lips, his whiskers deliciously rough against my skin.

“See you then,” he says nonchalantly.

He steps out of the car, then sticks his head back in. “Just out of curiosity, why did you let me do that?”

Dammit, I’m still reeling from the sensation of his skin against mine. I fumble for something to say. ““Why not? I’m happy we got along so well, because we both know this could just as easily have been a total disaster. But you’re actually a very cool guy. So when I see this famous movie star is about to kiss me, I let him. Just so I can say I kissed Drake Manning, pretty much. That’s all. Basically, it’s the bourbon.” Jesus, Allie, shut the fuck up already.

Drake serves up that famous smile again. “Ah. That’s what they all say.”

He walks into his house and I sit dumbfounded as we pull away. What the hell did he mean by that? Then my buzzed brain figures out that he was referring to the girls on the list, the ones he sleeps with. They see this famous movie star in front of them and decide to have sex with him so they can say they fucked Drake Manning.

I feel like an idiot. Interviewer – 2, movie star – 1. There goes my shutout.

A
llie is
on set with me. I’m giving her a tour of the soundstage where we recently shot some scenes for
Firehawk
. She sits patiently waiting on the bed in the fake condo of Ryan Wellman, the investment banker secret identity of the famed superhero. I come around the corner in my full red and gold Firehawk costume and her eyes light up. Hey, it’s a pretty impressive costume, complete with mask and cape. I’m stunned myself, because when I went to change, Allie got undressed. She’s sitting on the bed absolutely naked, and her lack of clothing reveals the delicious body she’s been hiding. She’s not big at all, just a normal-sized woman with soft round curves where they’re supposed to be.

Allie smiles, no doubt thinking about how much I like her little surprise, until she notices I’ve got a surprise of my own: I’ve removed my costume’s codpiece and my hard cock is protruding as I approach her. Without hesitating, she reaches out to take it in her hand, stroking it. In no time at all it’s in her mouth, and I relish the roleplay aspect of what we’re doing. I have somehow convinced a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer to have sex with me in costume.

Her mouth feels amazing – hot and soft, and she’s even better at this than I had any reason to think she would be. I grab a sizable tit with each hand and watch her work my hard shaft. When I feel my orgasm rapidly approaching, I try to hold back, but when she cups my balls in her free hand and softly strokes them I lose it and send a forceful stream into her waiting mouth.

“Cut!”

The lights come up and Allie lifts her head up. Why the hell is the director here? And the entire crew? I spurt yet again, cum landing in her hair.

“Drake, cut!” The director sounds pissed. I can’t stop mid-orgasm, though, as another rope of cum shoots into the air and falls right on the dark blue silk comforter. Everyone stares at me with disgust and I know I’m not done so there’s even more cum on its way.

Suddenly my eyes fly open and I’m looking at the ceiling in my own darkened bedroom.

The encounter may have been a dream, but the orgasm I’m having is real and my stomach tightens as I continue to spurt cum into my underwear. When I finish, I lie there with my body tingling as I recall the imagined encounter. I finally recover and head to the bathroom to clean myself up, laughing at my overactive imagination. Unable to go back to sleep, I make coffee and sit on my patio, naked except for the blanket I’ve wrapped around me. I’m still thinking about Allie when the sun comes up.

After my morning workout and a quick breakfast, I hop in the shower to rinse off. As I soap myself up, I realize I’ve been thinking about Allie Winters almost non-stop since I woke up. Since
before
I woke up, technically, because of that damn dream. I don’t understand why my brain has locked onto her, though, because she’s not nearly as attractive as most of the women I spend time with.

Don’t get me wrong – Allie is cute. Adorable, even. She could easily play the best friend of the female lead in a romantic comedy. Loose curls of medium-length brown hair, dark and mysterious eyes, and full sexy lips. When I first saw her in the lobby of the Marmont, I was struck by how un-Hollywood she looked; not rail-thin, not blonde, not dressed like a slut. She got my attention immediately, even though she’s not really my type.

I remember the surprised look on her face when I leaned in to kiss her in the car. When I thought about it afterward, I told myself that I did it out of curiosity, just to see what she’d do. Allie had managed to remain unflustered during the entire interview, as if she really didn’t give a shit about how important I am in Hollywood. And she’d laughed about the women I’ve slept with, even mocking them. I was testing her to see if she really was that uninterested. To be honest, I’m still not sure.

As the hot water streams down my naked body, I wonder what
her
body is like, what she’d look like naked in real life instead of in a dream. I couldn’t tell much because of what she was wearing, but she was definitely a bit bigger than the others. Not too much bigger, but I tend to fuck women with amazingly fit bodies and it was obvious Allie isn’t a workout fiend. Just as I’m thinking she’s appealingly soft, I discover my cock is growing hard again. Lathering it up, I imagine slowly undressing Allie and before long I’m leaning against the shower wall as I furiously stroke myself to another strong orgasm.

What the fuck?
I think as I watch my cum flow down the shower drain.

I decide that I definitely need to fuck this Allie Winters chick. Even if she’s not as hot as the typical woman I bang, I want her, and the fact that she’s not impressed by me only makes me want her more. She may think of the women on that list as conquests, but they were mostly just diversions, something to pass the time. A smart woman who’s not interested in me in that way?
That
would be a conquest, and I’m suddenly determined to make it happen that evening when she comes to finish the interview.

After I towel off, I grab my phone and send Allie a text.

A moment later I get a reply.

I think for a moment about whether to go there, then I decide I’ve got nothing to lose.

I send a quick addendum.

Her reply is immediate.

Before I can reply, another text comes in.

She’s funny, this one. I decide to leave the conversation at that for now.

“
T
his meeting
of the Hollywood Bad Boys Club will now come to order!”

Four shots of tequila are raised, then slammed down inside the rear door of a black Cadillac Escalade.

My three buddies and I are in the parking lot of the Beverly Hills Country Club, a membership-only place where if you have to even think about how much a membership costs, you probably can’t afford a guest day pass. We can all easily afford it except Link, who works in private security for celebrities. Don’t get me wrong, he makes an absurd amount of money for a security guard – the Escalade is his – but not Beverly Hills Country Club money. So every year, I pay his dues as a birthday present.

The other two guys are both rich and pay their own way. The rest of us don’t care that Link’s not in the one percent like we are, because he’s a total badass and we’ve known him for years.

I stash the bottle of Rey Sol Añejo in my golf bag and we make our way to the clubhouse. The Beverly Hills Country Club is one of the few places in town where I still feel like a poor kid. Everyone here is rich, and many of these guys (and yes, they’re mostly guys) are ridiculously wealthy. We’re talking billions-with-a-capital-“B” wealthy.

This is my foursome for the day, and pretty much for the last decade. Not only our Friday rounds of tequila golf we play whenever our schedules allow, but for just about any other shenanigans we decide to get into.

Mason Stark and I have known each other since third grade, when his family moved down the street from my dad and me in Rushville. We were best friends by the next day, and have remained so ever since. His folks took me in when Dad died unexpectedly while I was still in high school, and since my own mom died when I was two years old, Mrs. Stark is really the only mother I’ve ever known.

Mason and I met Link – Lincoln Ramirez – one night during our freshman year in college at Colorado State. The two of us were in front of a bar, refusing to back down to two bigger guys who were testing us. This was before I packed on the muscles and Mason and I were just a couple of skinny dudes who’d had too much to drink. Just as we were getting our asses kicked by these douchebags, this huge semi-Latino dude appeared out of nowhere. He was massive, six-five and nearly three hundred pounds of pure muscle. Two perfectly timed punches later, the guys stumbled back to their douchemobile. Link turned to Mason and me, calm as can be, and said, “You two are buying tonight.”

Link was the reason I got into weightlifting in the first place, so I pretty much owe my entire career to the guy. His dad was Mexican and his mom Canadian, so we tell him he’s American as a compromise, even though he was born in Rushville like me, before his mom put him up for adoption. Link is one big, mean, ugly bastard, and a great friend. He’s also one of the few people I know whose childhood was much, much more fucked up than my own, and I never knew my mom and was an orphan at sixteen.

When I dropped out of college, I worked construction around Fort Collins for two years before deciding to try my hand at acting. Link dropped out at the same time and did house framing with me. Mason, the smartest of us, actually stayed in school. Truth was my grades weren’t the problem: I simply couldn’t afford tuition after that first year. When I decided to move to Los Angeles, Link came with me and we shared a place for a couple of years. He found security work right away because he’s so fucking huge and takes shit from absolutely no one. His salary paid the rent for our little Echo Park apartment until I finally started landing some small acting gigs a year later. Meanwhile, Mason got his degree at CSU, then joined us in LA to attend UCLA School of Law so he could get into entertainment law. Now not even a decade later, he’s the founder of Media Arts Unlimited, one of the most powerful talent agencies in Hollywood even though it’s still considered the new kid on the block.

Marcus Jennings is the most recent addition to our little gang, and the youngest as well. I met Marcus during his rookie year with the Lakers five years ago. My first huge purchase with the two million I earned from
Dream Lover
, even before the Ferrari, was to get Lakers seasons tickets, courtside near the baseline. Marcus was all of twenty years old and starry-eyed, having moved to LA after his lone year at University of Kentucky. He was the third pick in the NBA draft, and he would have been first if not for his nasty habit of almost never passing the ball to his teammates. Marcus may be the most talented basketball player I’ve ever seen, and for years his nickname has been MJ2 – as in the second coming of Michael Jordan. Anyway, in his very first game, Marcus chased a rebound out of bounds and ended up in my lap. He stared at me for a second, then said, “Drake fucking Manning!” We’ve been buddies ever since. Marcus still jokes that we only let him into the group because we needed a token black guy.

The way tequila golf works is this: We each do a shot in the parking lot, then again after holes four, eight and twelve. From that point, whoever has the high score for a hole has to do a shot. A bad back nine can leave you rather drunk by the end of the game. On more than one occasion we’ve had to pour someone into the cart on the later holes, then drive them home afterward. The country club frowns on such nonsense, but it’s good fun and a few bills slipped to the right person makes them look the other away.

The Rey Sol Añejo tequila I bring to these games is four hundred bucks a bottle, but is smoother than a supermodel’s airbrushed ass. Today we’ve managed to reach the fifteenth hole without anyone doing more than five shots. That’s when Mason decides to bring up the interview, which I wasn’t planning on talking about.

“Drake, how did it go with the chick from the Times?”

I can tell by the looks on their faces that Marcus and Link automatically assume this is about sex.

“It was an interview, you dicks,” I say, laughing at them. “It went really well, I think.”

“You two didn’t show up at my office, so I was afraid maybe you’d bailed on her,” Mason says. “Where did you go? Did you stay for all three hours?”

“We ate lunch, then went to a dive bar and drank bourbon. It was pretty chill. And Allie was awesome. Really cool chick. I spent about five hours with her.”

“Seriously?” Mason nods his approval.

“Did you fuck her?” Link asks. It may seem harsh, but this is a common question after any of us has been around a woman for the first time. We tend to share details.

“It wasn’t like that,” I say. “It was just business, that’s all. Show business, not monkey business.”

They’re all staring at me. Am I really that fucking transparent?

“Is she hot?” Marcus asks. “Good body?”

“She’s a writer, not a cheerleader,” I say. My defensive tone makes them think something’s up.

“You’re going to see her again, aren’t you?” Mason knows me too well. Hell, they all do.

“She’s coming over for dinner tonight, so we can wrap up the interview.”

Link has a bright idea. “Hell, we’re coming over, too. I wanna see this hottie.”

“Not a good idea,” I say. “After the interview, I’m going to get this chick in my bed, and I don’t need you guys there to help me.”