For just a minute or two, right before I fall asleep, I wonder if I could ever have a relationship where I have sex with one woman only. It’s almost impossible for me to imagine.
The following night Denise and Brandon watch our game against the Pelicans from their second-row seats. She’s wearing the Marcus Jennings jersey I instructed the road manager to leave at the front desk along with the tickets. Every time she puts on that jersey, her husband is going to get a mental image of his loving wife going crazy on my hard black cock.
Before the start of the second half, I find Pelican’s All-Star center Adrian Dumont on the court and nudge him.
“See the tiny chick in my jersey behind the scorer’s table? Kind of red-blonde hair?”
Adrian looks over.
“Yeah, saw her earlier. That bitch is hot.”
“Yeah, well I fucked her last night with her husband’s permission. She said I was on her celebrity list or some shit like that. He even watched some of it.”
Adrian looks toward Denise again, then at me. He stares at me, trying to assess whether I’m lying. I keep a poker face, and he eventually breaks into a huge grin.
“Shut the hell up, Marcus,” he says, laughing as he pushes me hard on the shoulder. “You’re a lyin’ motherfucker.”
“I’m serious, bro. I can hook you up. They live here in town. She’s a total freak with a slammin’ body, and she likes tall brothers.”
The horn buzzes, signaling the half is about to start.
“Seriously?” Adrian asks.
I just smile at him as play begins.
I put up twenty-nine points in a losing effort. After the game, I find Adrian and take him over to make the introduction. Brandon is confused by me doing so, but at the same time is obviously excited to meet another NBA superstar. Denise seems taken by Adrian’s seven-one height, solid frame, and dark skin. My guess is she’ll soon talk her husband into letting her add a new name to her list for one night.
I’m also guessing Brandon is freak enough to let her. Maybe even to watch again.
6
Rashida
I sit on my couch and look at the huge flower arrangement on the kitchen table, taking up at least a quarter of the space. Jayden is next to me, beginning to get drowsy after eating two big slices of pizza. The television is on as we watch Finding Nemo for the hundredth time. The movie’s nearly over, but I’m not sure Jayden will make it all the way to the end before he crashes.
The flowers are so incredibly beautiful they almost bring tears to my eyes. Then I remember the asshole who sent them to me. I can picture his face as he stood there wrapped in a towel, his wet chest at eye level.
Maybe you should come back up.
That’s what he’d said to me, out of the blue. Did he really mean what I thought he meant?
Just give me a few minutes to send those two troublemakers home.
Yeah, he meant that. He had undoubtedly just had sex with those two women and he wanted to send them away so I could return to his room. For what? Even more sex? My God, how many women and how much sex could he possibly have in a single night?
Quite a lot, I think. He’s an athlete, after all.
Regardless, it irks me that two or three minutes after meeting a professional woman under the worst of circumstances, all he can think of is to get me into bed. The nerve of that man.
As the movie’s credits start to roll, I look over at Jayden and see he’s fast asleep. I take the plate from his lap and set it on the coffee table. Picking up the remote, I start mindlessly flipping through the channels, still unable to get Marcus Jennings off my mind.
The third channel I try is showing a basketball game and I immediately recognize the purple and gold uniforms of the Lakers. The on-screen graphic says they’re playing the Pelicans, who I know are from my hometown of New Orleans. They were still called the Hornets when I lived there before moving to Los Angeles to pursue my graduate studies in business administration. I can tell by the insignia at center court that the game is in New Orleans.
I’m not a big basketball fan, but my dad was, and I’ve seen a few games and understand enough about it to not get lost watching. I can’t tell which player is the asshole at first, but then the announcers say his name after someone makes a shot and I realize he’s number twenty-three. He must be good, because he gets mentioned more than the other players. When they show slow-motion replays of him, I keep thinking that the incredible body I’m looking at on the screen is the same incredible body I saw in his suite at the Grand.
I could have had sex with that man if I’d wanted.
Sure, I would have had to take a long break without making my co-workers suspicious. Also, I’m not sure if he would have been able to do much of anything, considering he’d just banged two airheads simultaneously. But still… if I’d wanted to, I could have felt that hard body against me, and that cock inside of me.
Gross.
Get your mind out of the gutter, Rashida. It hasn’t been that long since you got laid last. Myckel was a good lover, too. Very attentive. Once, he gave you two and a half orgasms in a single night.
If it weren’t for Jayden, I would have continued seeing Myckel, but when he mentioned he wasn’t “into” kids, I had to say goodbye.
Jayden’s father wasn’t into kids, either. Oh, David was supportive as hell when I told him I was pregnant, and talked me out of getting an abortion. I was just twelve credits shy of my MBA at UCLA and didn’t want anything to screw that up. Convinced that we would be together and he would help me raise the baby, I stuck it out, eventually accepting my diploma with a six-months-pregnant belly under my graduation gown.
By Jayden’s first birthday, David was already sleeping around. I hadn’t looked for work yet, preferring to spend time with the baby, but when my “future husband” disappeared for an entire weekend without bothering to get in touch, I knew I had to end the relationship. I kicked my man out of our apartment on a Sunday night, and Monday morning I put my resume together and started looking for work.
Luckily, Darren Weatherford is a UCLA alum who likes his businesses to hire recent UCLA grads, and I quickly found a job as a manager trainee at one of his hotels, the Paradiso Laguna Beach. I proved myself and rose steadily during my five years there, but was still surprised and ecstatic when I was tabbed to be the Hotel Manager of the Sunset Grand when it opened a few months ago.
Mr. Weatherford also owns the Lakers, so accepting Marcus Jennings’s invitation for a late-night romp would have been a mess in almost every conceivable way.
Most importantly, Jayden is my prime concern now, and I’m very picky about who I date. Or sleep with.
The Pelicans win the game, but because this is the local broadcast, they interview the Lakers’ player of the game. I see Jennings’s handsome face on my TV as he answers three questions with typical jock clichés about giving a hundred percent. I can’t help but fixate on his full lips and the confident look in his eyes. When he says something about the Lakers needing to play better as a team, one of the announcers looks like he’s holding back a laugh before saying, “Marcus, you had only one assist tonight. Do you think a little more passing might get your teammates more involved?”
I’m not sure what he means and why Jennings is at fault, but before I can give it much thought, Jennings glares at the man and says, “We’ve all got to try harder.” It’s an awkward moment, and the interview ends a second later when Jennings says, “Shout out to my dad in Oakland! And mom and sis.” He turns and walks away before the announcer can respond.
As the announcers wrap up the telecast, I see Jennings in the background with one of the Pelicans players who’s even taller than he is. They’re talking to some fans in the stands, a man and a very short redhead wearing a yellow and purple Lakers jersey with Jennings’s number on it.
Apparently, he even has fans in Louisiana.
I turn off the TV and carry Jayden to his bed. Once I’m under my own covers, I think briefly about Jennin
gs—the flowers, the interview, the Body Issue picture, his wet naked body. Of course, I again think about his invitation to join him in bed and wonder what would have happened if I’d accepted.
When I realize it’s two in the morning and I’m still fantasizing about what that night might have entailed, I decide it’s time to push Jennings from my mind once and for all.
I have more important things to do with my life than daydream about having sex with a spoiled jock.
I’m a mother with a child I must raise to be a responsible, respectful man. Marcus Jennings is the last thing I need in my life right now.
7
Marcus
We usually leave town immediately after a road game and head for wherever the next game will be played. Tomorrow’s game happens to be against the Miami Heat, and South Beach is one of my favorite stops on the schedule. We’re on a back-to-back, though, meaning we’re playing the Heat tomorrow night, and since we’ll be flying out again right after that game, I won’t have time to play around. That’s a damn shame, because South Beach has the best nightclubs and some of the most beautiful women in America.
The short flight to Miami on the team plane puts me in a contemplative mood. I’m pretty tired at the moment, and as I listen to music on my headphones, I think about the three women I fucked the last three nights.
First the two in LA, Carmen and that blonde whose name I can’t remember. Both were ready to jump into bed with me at the drop of a hat. All I have to do is say “Get in the car” and that type of woman obeys enthusiastically. Same with Denise, who approached me at the bar and said she wanted to fuck me. I mean, how often does that shit happen to a normal guy? Maybe never?
These were all attractive women, but there’s something weird about women who are that anxious to jump into a stranger’s bed just because he’s famous or rich. When I graduated from high school I had slept with just three girls, but I must have had fifty during my one year at University of Kentucky, and I’ve fucked a couple hundred women during my five years in the NBA. I’m always joking with my buddy Drake Manning, the actor, who’s slept with more than five hundred women, that I’m gunning for his record. And since I just turned twenty-six last month, I’ll pass his total before I’m thirty.
There’s something to be said for having hot, eager pussy waiting for you just about anywhere you go, but I used to like the build-up, the pursuit. It was fun having to work a little to seduce a woman, having to come up with good lines and say all the right things. Those days are long gone now, and I sure do miss them.
Then I remember Rashida Blanchard, the hotel manager who came up to my suite when the two idiot groupies got into a fight. That was one beautiful woman. Too bad she ignored my invitation to spend time with me in the suite—I would have kicked both of those boneheads out to be with her.
I wonder if she liked the flowers I sent. Hell, for that matter I wonder what the flowers looked like, since I didn’t even choose them myself. I try to imagine her naked, what her chocolate-brown body is like under her business attire. I eventually doze off in my seat thinking sexual thoughts about Rashida.
I have no idea why I fall asleep thinking of that particular woman instead of any of the hundreds I’ve fucked.
8
Rashida
“So, did you two do it?”
I look across the table at Yvette.
“No.”
She raises a skeptical eyebrow.
“Well, not yet.”
She practically squeals, “I knew you guys would hit it off!”
“Yvette, it was a good first date. He’s a very nice man.”
It’s been two full months since the Marcus Jennings incident. I occasionally fantasize about sleeping with him (hey, he’s a rich, handsome, athlete), even getting myself off with my vibrator a few times while thinking about that sleek, dark body. I also spend far too much energy reminding myself what an asshole he is. Gradually, though, he’s taken up less of my time until now I only think about him once or twice a day.
About a week ago, Yvette decided to play matchmaker and introduced me to Ronald.
Ronald owns a branch of the insurance company Yvette uses, and she thought we’d make a good couple. He was handsome and successful and called the next day to ask me to dinner, an invitation I eagerly accepted.
The dinner was nice and Ronald was charming, if a little on the boring side. And at the end of the night, he walked me to my door and never tried to come in, instead giving me a chaste little kiss on the lips and telling me he was already looking forward to spending more time with me.
It was a subtle way of saying he wanted more, and a welcome change from the previous time a man had told me that, when Jennings told me I should “come back up” to his suite after he ditched his two bimbos.
“How did you guys leave it? Will you see him again?”
I smiled at my nosy friend. “Yes, it looks like it.”
As much as I don’t like thinking too far down the road when it comes to men, Jayden’s presence in my life demands that I do. Ronald is low-key and intelligent, with upward mobility in a real profession. Those things are important in a partner, should I choose to bring a man into my life and Jayden’s, on a more permanent basis. He’s not what most people would call sexy, but to a single mother, “sexy” takes on an entirely different meaning.
9
Marcus
The tall hostess at Dante’s is all legs as she leads me back to the private dining room. I’ve already made a mental note to hit her up for her digits before I leave, but as I watch her in front of me, with her long brown hair and those long legs leading up to that hot little ass, I decide not to wait. When she stops in front of the purple velvet curtains that function as a door to the room, I make my move.
“Here you go,” she says, gesturing to the curtains.
I hold my ground. “Can I ask how tall you are?”
“Six feet even.”
“Damn, girl. What’s your name?”
“Lana.”
“You sure are lovely, Lana. I’m Marcus.”
“I know,” she says, then realizes her error. “I mean, I know who you are. I’m a huge fan.”
Music to my ears. “Awesome. Would you like to go out sometime?” I don’t fuck around, because I don’t have to.
She tries in vain to restrain her grin. “I would love that.”
Her lovely cleavage is just enough to show how sexy she is without exposing too much in her workplace. She’s got a cute face with big eyes and a mouth that’s practically screaming to be fucked.
“What time do you get off?” I ask, giving her a sly look as I add, “Of work, I mean.”
Lana tells me her shift is over at midnight, about three hours from now. “I’ll probably still be here then,” I say, then I plant a soft peck on her cheek and whisper, “Don’t leave without talking to me first, okay?” She blushes slightly before she walks away.
Yeah, I might just have to fuck that girl tonight.
I poke my head through the split in the purple curtains. Seated at the only table inside I see the guys—and the women. Drake and his girl Allie are there, as are my buddy Mason and his new girlfriend Claire. Mason is also my agent, and he and Claire have only been together for all of two months at this point. Link—Lincoln Ramirez—is noticeably absent.
Drake Manning is one of the biggest movie stars in the world these days, known worldwide as “The Body” because of his physique. Just when I thought there was no way he could get more popular, he shows his dick in a movie and the Internet went nuts about it. Memes popped up everywhere with a picture from the movie of him standing there naked with captions like “Drake All-Man-ning” and “The Body… and the Head.” Allie Winters is the journalist Drake fell for last year when she wrote a cover-story interview piece on him for the LA Times Magazine. The dude went from getting laid four or five times a week with a different woman each time, to having the same pussy in his bed every damn night. And sure, Allie’s got those
amazing tits that I once saw by accident, but even those wouldn’t be enough to get me to give up my bachelorhood.
Mason “The Shark” Stark was the next to settle down, with his also-agent girlfriend Claire Jarrett. They recently decided to merge their two talent agencies to form a new agency called Leviathan Talent, and it’s been huge news in town since their big announcement a few weeks back. More importantly for me, Claire has strong ties to Nike and is already exploring the idea of them signing me to an endorsement deal once my current Adidas contract expires this summer. It’s hard to believe Claire’s so smart and successful, considering she’s also fucking gorgeous.
Link—Lincoln Jefferson—is the other member of our little club. He, Drake and Mason have known each other for a decade or so, and I met them during my rookie year with the Lakers five years ago. When we realized how much pussy we were all getting, being young and rich in this town (and famous, too, for me and Drake), we christened ourselves the Hollywood Bad Boys Club and vowed not to get involved in long-term relationships until we were all much older. Now that Mason and Drake already bit the dust, it’s up to Link and me to carry on the tradition. Link’s absence at the table at Dante’s means I’m thankfully not last to arrive.
The private dining room is a necessity since Drake and I are so high profile. Otherwise, we’d have to deal with people staring and stopping by for autographs and pictures, even in an expensive place like Dante’s.
Just as the four of them notice me looking through the curtains, I’m suddenly shoved hard through the doorway into the room.
“Get the fuck out of my way.”
Hollywood Bad Boys Club: Book 3: Marcus Page 5
