When he saw her at the evening’s festivities, she looked like she was fading fast, and the party had another two hours to go. There was no way she would still be standing by then.
Finding himself alone for a few minutes, he made his way to her. He pulled out the little folder the desk clerk had given him with two keycards in it. Slipping one free, he held it in his palm as he approached Lacy. She was sitting in a chair at an empty table closest to the door, looking half asleep.
Leaning over her, Drake took one hand and lifted it to his lips. As he kissed her knuckles, he slid the card into her hand. She blinked and appeared suddenly wide awake.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
He smiled and leaned even closer so his lips were only a few inches from her ear. “Go to my room. I’ll be up as soon as I can break away.”
She blinked again before nodding slowly. “What room?”
“Two-oh-two.”
“Wake me up if I’m asleep,” she said softly as she slid the card into her pocket.
“Or maybe I’ll just crawl in, cuddle up, and sleep with you,” he teased as Pam, one of the organizers approached him.
“Drake, we need you,” she said, sounding more frantic than usual.
Drake stared at Lacy until she nodded. Only then did he turn to Pam. “How can I help?”
Drake allowed her to pull him along in her wake toward the dance floor. Apparently the DJ was having trouble getting anyone to be the first to sing karaoke. After selecting a song, Drake took the microphone and turned toward the room. As he waited for the DJ to queue up his song, he looked to where Lacy had been sitting just a moment before.
His heart dropped a bit when he saw she had left the party. He only hoped that she would be waiting in his room when he finally finished playing the part of Cover Model Daddy.
“All right, everyone. Let’s get this party started,” he said into the microphone as the introduction to the song he would be singing began to play.
He smiled when the room erupted in cheers. Looking at the screen, he began to sing. The sooner he could get through the night, the sooner he could get to the sweet Little girl waiting for him in his room.
Chapter 5
Lacy stepped off the elevator on the second floor and glanced in both directions before hurrying down the long hallway. She felt the same nervous excitement she’d felt during her first year of college when she’d snuck down the hallway to her then-boyfriend’s room. Women weren’t allowed on the upper floors of the dorm without an escort, but she’d wanted to surprise her boyfriend.
She wasn’t expecting to be the one surprised when another woman answered her knock and told her that her boyfriend was in the shower, and that they would be going out as soon as he finished. Lacy left and never spoke to him again, not that he’d tried too hard. Two ignored phone messages and he stopped trying to contact her.
Would this weekend end in the same way? With her nursing a dented and bruised heart? Or would Drake prove to be the man, the Daddy, that she’d been dreaming of? Only time would tell.
“Two-oh-two,” she whispered as she reached the last door at the end of the hall.
It took three swipes before the light on the card reader turned from red to green and the lock clicked. Was the doortrying to tell her she shouldn’t be here? Or was it just her own nerves speaking to her?
On entering the room, she noted it was the same layout as hers, only with one king-size bed instead of two queens. Drake had left the lamp on the desk glowing, turning the white walls gold.
Lacy went to the windows on the far wall and pulled the drapes closed. No need to advertise her presence in his room. Turning, she froze.
What was she supposed to do now? It would be at least another hour and a half before Drake showed up, and she felt strange being in his room all alone. She yawned and stretched, then decided laying on the bed watching television wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
After slipping off her shoes beside the dresser, Lacy picked up the remote and crawled onto the bed and to the center of the big mattress. Turning on the television, she began flipping through the channels until she found an old musical.
She grabbed a pillow and pulled it under her head, smiling when she realized it carried Drake’s scent on it. Hugging it close, she curled up and settled in to wait for his return.
Though the movie was one she loved and had watched numerous times over the years, it did not hold her attention. In fact, the music lulled her and she found her eyelids growing heavy. She thought about getting up and pacing the room, but her body refused to cooperate with the idea. Instead, her eyes closed one last time and she drifted off to sleep.
Her last thought was to hope that her falling asleep did not offend Drake when he arrived.
Drake hoped the door to his room with a sigh. The party was supposed to have broken up an hour before, but the die-hard partiers refused to leave until the DJ was packed up and the last decorations were taken down.
Entering his room, he secured all the locks, including the interior one he kept packed in his suitcase for every trip and hotel room he stayed in.
