Page 11 of Safe Bet (The Final Offer Trilogy #1)

CHAPTER NINE

I understood now.

Why people liked sex. Why they wanted it. The lengths they’d go to keep doing it.

My orgasm seized and quaked, and just when I thought it was over, I swore it started up again, my spasming core convulsing around him, winning the rumble of his pleased chortle and a husky “that’s it, ride my fucking face” provoking me to do just that. Ride the bliss wave. Grind until I was satiated, and my body sagged in a depleted pile of limbs and exhausted breaths as blood rushed back to my head and the room spun.

Holy. Shit.

Felix’s drunken eyes bowled up to mine, and he turned his cheek into my thigh. “That”—his scruff tickling my skin as he pressed a firm kiss against my core—“that’s what you deserve.”

“Orgasms?” If so, sign me up.

“Everything, Belmira,” he said. “Whatever you want.”

In that moment, I did something stupid. I believed him. Even when I knew I shouldn’t.

He cleaned me up, each lave of his tongue sending little quakes through me. When he was satisfied, he pressed one last kiss to my center. “What I’d give to stay down here all night,” he confessed in a mumble, lips tipping into a half-smile.

I wasn’t sure if I was meant to hear that, but it was a chemical reaction my heart responded to, the organ beating a little faster. I slid my hands over his shoulders, the blazer’s material registering under my fingers right as I clamped down, urging him to his feet. He crashed on either side of me to keep himself upright, the force vibrating the desk. The tip of his nose rotated around my own, and I tasted myself on his lips when his glided over mine.

Nipping at his bottom lip, seeking permission to kiss him the way I really wanted to. Felix groaned out a noise of frustration, his right hand closing around my hip, mouth leaving mine while he peppered a series of kisses across my cheek and jawline that were too chaste, too delicate for what I wanted.

“Felix.”

Lifting his head, he fingered my hair away from my face, pressing a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Belmira.”

I fisted his shirt between his pecs, stilling him. “Fuck me.”

His body grew rigid like he hadn’t expected me to say that. Or like that.

I’d never said those words to anyone, but then again, I’d never wanted anyone the way I’d wanted him before.

The surprise edged into careful regard, examining me as though I were the grand prize, everything he’d been striving toward while he arranged my hair exactly as he wanted—behind my ears, not obscuring my flushed face.

His expansive shoulders sagged, and his forehead sought a resting place against my cheek, hot exhales rasping over my throat. With a tight squeeze on my waist, he responded against my neck, “I can’t.”

Not this again. I thought we went over this.

“Why?” I strained to steady my voice, silently praying the reason wasn’t because he didn’t have a condom. I might be idiotic enough to tell him it was okay.

I mourned the loss of proximity of his mouth as he drew away from me, his thumb and index finger closing around my chin, leveling me with a serious stare. “As much as I love the way you sound when I make you come…” Felix waned, looking pained for a beat. “I want our first time together to be special, not cheap.”

He’d given it thought, but if that was supposed to be a deterrent, it had the opposite effect.

“This is special,” I informed him. This felt like one of the most significant moments in my life, and I didn’t want the illusion I’d built up in my head, where this concluded differently, to be over right when it started. “This is feeling a whole lot like you making decisions for me again.”

Felix lowered his stare, his terse sigh escaping through his nose. “Bel. It’s not you.” I rose up on my elbows, my hair hanging behind me, waiting for him to elaborate. “It’s me,” he said. Pensive, he rolled his lips together, followed by his curt head nod. “I can’t risk it.” The audible stress in his voice almost made me feel bad for him.

But then I remembered I was the one naked, spread out on a desk, suffering the most horrific case of emotional whiplash, behaving in ways Tina would never believe once I told her, begging—me, begging—for this man, who remembered me when I couldn’t recognize him, to fuck me.

Talk about humiliating. “Okay.” I hadn’t meant for it to come out strangled, but when his eyes found mine again, my shoulders curled, and I stared at the CRT computer monitor, embarrassed by the state of my appearance.

Yeah. Wouldn’t touch me again, either.

“It’s not that I don’t want to.”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded quickly. Not that I was really listening. I wanted to escape this situation. Like I probably should have when he’d first offered instead of throwing myself at him. My mouth downturned, and when that didn’t stop the wobble in my lips, I pinched them tight.

God, I was pathetic. This wasn’t something to get upset over. I was just… he was confusing.

I shifted up on my hands, sliding to the edge of the desk, but then he was there, invading my space. Too close to control my body’s responses to him. “You won’t even look at me while I’m talking to you. Why?”

“Why would I?”

He cupped my face, angling my head back. “’Cause maybe then you’d finally understand that this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Irritated, I focused on the door behind him to ground myself. “Do you want a sticker?”

“No. I want you to look at me and ask better questions.”

Without volition, my gaze snapped to his. As though he possessed some unexplainable command over me I could neither fight nor ignore, he locked me in. Hazel orbs flicked between my eyes, heavy brows lowering with contemplation as he gave me a once-over I couldn’t escape from. I’d always struggled to maintain eye contact. But this? Where my free will—or what I had of it—had ditched me altogether? My eyes grew hot with angry tears. The clog of emotions in my throat bobbed with each word as I said, “I think you get off on humiliating me.”

Stunned by the accusation, his eyes dulled, forehead marring with deep grooves. “I get off on making you come and the noises you make. I get off on being around you, which means…” he drew a stiff breath. “I’m not going to risk you taking off on me if I have sex with you now. Not when all the signs are there that’s exactly what you intend to do.”

I blanched. Taking off on him? Had he not been listening? No boyfriend. Nothing serious. Not a husband. No future. No after.

Just now.

Only this moment… and I fucking hated it.

“I’m horny, but I’m not stupid. At least not always.” Felix cleared his throat of any debris. “I like you, Belmira.” The confession set off a ringing in my ears, the rush of adrenaline draining from my body in a slow leak. I liked how he said my name. Raspy and warm. “I like you. A lot.” He offered me an uncertain half-smile, fully aware he’d said too much yet hoping it landed with me okay. “And I want to do this a lot differently with you than I have in the past… so…yeah.” He shrugged, eyes a little hopeful.

He made it impossible to maintain the message I’d fed my brain.

My stomach flipped, the spanning of butterflies working through my chest.

Don’t get attached, Bel. Let him down easy now.

But that wasn’t what I said. Not even close.

“I like you, too.” More than I should.

The mask of his calm cracked. “You do?” Felix murmured, relieved.

All I could do was nod because I didn’t trust myself not to cry if I tried. God, I liked him. Knowing I shouldn’t. Knowing he was all the things I’d chalked him out to be from the beginning. A playboy. Or a playboy trying to reform himself. For me. And that made my insides all ooey-gooey and had me acting out of character, saying things I ordinarily wouldn’t, and wanting it with him.

What the hell was wrong with me?

None of this made sense. How hard and fast I felt like I was losing myself to him. How right and real this all felt, even if my reality loomed on the other side of that door behind him because I knew better.

The premature protest built in my chest, my body heating with the flush of anger I’d fought to suppress over the years because it kept me compliant, and my survival depended on it.

It was the only thing I knew how to do.

The truth stared back at me, and tears dared to surface. A sharp sob clawed its way up my throat, the plea forming on my tongue.

If I begged Ma to let me keep him, if I did it on hands and knees, if I reminded her I’d never asked her for anything, that I’d always done what I was told, would she give me this?

In my fantasy world, this played out differently.

We left this office hand in hand. I’d introduce him to Ma and pretend she wouldn’t scream and seek solace for her fury against my body when she learned how I’d spent the night because the tells, the evidence, would be all over my face and perfuming his skin.

I’d share with her the things he’d told me, and I’d ask—no, this was a fantasy after all—I’d tell her I was going to see that movie with him. In fact, I’d stop seeking her permission altogether. I’d go on countless dates with him and spend every spare moment I had shored up to his side. Study him with rapt focus when he thought I wasn’t paying attention so I could memorize all the nuances that made Felix who he was. How he took his coffee, if he drank coffee, how he held the steering wheel when he drove—one hand at six, the other draped over the lip of the driver’s side window, fingers tapping in time to the music—or if he put on his right shoe versus his left first. I wanted to get to know his family, bond with the older sister he’d talked about with warmth and the right dash of ribbing, find a place among them, and become a permanent fixture in their memories.

And when Ma got over my betrayal, when her anger ebbed, when she forgave me for my public declaration of rebellion, she’d see what I saw. She’d relent because she’d be just as taken by him as I was, and with time, he’d win her approval, so if he—no— when he sought her permission someday, there wouldn’t be any hesitation. Just a memory of how hard I’d fought for him because I wanted to spend the rest of my life loving someone like him.

Shamelessly. Selfishly. Permanently.

But fantasies, like dreams, were nothing more than unrealistic hopes packaged differently. What awaited me, us, beyond the door safely confining us in our own alternate universe, wasn’t the beginning to our story. It was the end.

How could I mourn the loss of someone who had never been mine to keep?

I didn’t get to keep Felix Ferreira. Not now. Not ever.

“You like me?” he repeated, luring me out of my thoughts. Felix’s throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “You mean it?”

I relied on another nod, still not trusting my emotion-sodden voice to break. Not that I wanted to talk anymore. Or think. I wanted to feel.

His genuine disbelief flooded his features. Someone like him never worried about being rejected. He set his eyes on what he wanted, and he got it, no questions asked. He’d all but told me that himself.

But I was a wild card. Unpredictable. I’d gone from keeping him at arm’s length to asking him to fuck me. It was no wonder the about-face had thrown him off, even just a little.

Extending my shaking hands upward, I framed his face, urging him closer. No more talking. He didn’t want to have sex, fine, but the least he could do was keep kissing me. Felix’s hands left my cheeks, sliding into my hair, cradling the back of my head while his affectionate mouth worked against mine in controlled kisses, smiling against my mouth like he’d won.

But I kissed him like it was goodbye. Like he was already my favorite memory because he was the embodiment of my favorite Portuguese word. Saudades . The intense longing for something that’s already passed. Deeper than nostalgia. More agonizing than regret.

I grieved his absence while he was still here and wept inwardly for a life we’d never have.

Tears burned the bridge of my nose—God, I was a mess—and I offered myself one quick sniffle disguised as an inhalation of breath.

I wouldn’t ruin this by crying. I wouldn’t give him any reason to stop. Not when his shuffling made it clear he’d changed his mind. I tracked the billfold wallet he’d dug out of his back pocket and pretended I hadn’t been looking when he broke away from me long enough to flip the leather open. Concentration lined with lust tightened his handsome features, fingers fumbling around, digging through receipts and folded-up bills, finally extracting what he’d been looking for.

We were doing this.

Light bounced off the aluminum, foiled square, his rattling fingers pinching at the corner, trying to free it.

But he had his order all wrong—his cock was still behind the barrier of his pants—and he released a breathy, self-conscious laugh. “Shit.”

With vibrating hands, I undid his belt, the buckle singing with freedom, the ends loose.

“You’ve got me all fucked up, sweetheart,” he said, his register low and tender, knocking my next intake away.

Preening under his praise, I held his eyes while I pinched the button open on his pants, tugging his fly down, the flaps of his pants parting. Returning my focus to the task at hand, I tugged his pants over the curve of his muscular ass—seriously, that enviable mass of corded muscle clearly formed by grueling hours at one of my uncle’s construction jobs could put the results of any Richard Simmons home workout video to shame—and gawked at the stiff bulging against the pouch of the navy-blue boxer briefs. Curious, my fingers skimmed along his covered shaft, the hard mass jolting in response, followed by the tense hiss sliding through his clenched teeth and the breadth of his hips chasing my hand, grinding against my fingers.

I loved he responded to me that way.

The foil pinched between his fingers fought back with every attempt he made to open it, and with a frustrated grunt, he substituted his fingers with his squared teeth, tearing at the aluminum seam in one go, spitting the frayed edge to the carpeted floor, chest heaving.

Latex hit my nose as he fished the rubber ring free, molten hazel eyes studying me over the bridge of his smooth nose, the smarting beneath my belly button gnawing painfully. Curving my fingers around the elastic waist of his boxer briefs at the front, I towed them downward gently, my lungs burning with fire at the reveal.

I hadn’t seen many men this way. Never wanted to. But I’d never had this physical response before—carnal and achy—because Felix was…were you allowed to describe a man’s dick as beautiful?

Felix Ferreira had a beautiful cock. There . I said it. Erm. Thought it.

Either way, I couldn’t stop looking at it. Veined, thick and girthy, with a slight curve. Proudly erect and at full attention against the untucked ends of his shirt, balls hefty and framed by dark coarse hair running a small trail up his abdomen before disappearing from my line of sight. An uncropped tip, flushed and pearled by gleaming precum, leaking at the opening with anticipation.

He had a cock I wasn’t afraid of. A cock I wanted to look at, touch, and willingly put in my mouth no matter how clumsy, awkward, or bad my blow jobs were. Because for him, I wanted to learn. What to do with my tongue, where to place my hands, and how to control my gag reflex. I wanted to discover what he enjoyed, bask in the slippery, veined feel of him cloaked around my lips. I was desperate to know how he looked when he finished and revel in the brine-y taste of him dancing on my palate.

I tipped my head back, my gaze floating up to his, my chest ceasing at his hungered stare branded me, and I lost my thread of thought, distracted by the heat coursing through me.

He held my stare as he unfurled his right palm to me, choppy breaths loud and heavy. “Spit.”

Startled by the command, my saliva glands mimicked the Sahara. Why would he want me to do that?

“C’mon, sweetheart.” Felix cupped my chin, thumb, and forefinger, alternating from massaging to squeezing until my clamped jaw unhinged and my lips separated. My thighs clenched, my hips swiveling slowly, grinding me against the hard surface to dull the insatiable pounding between my legs because the intensity of his gaze wasn’t helping my case. “Spit in my palm, Bel.”

“Can’t I just?—”

“No. You’re going to spit in my palm because if your pretty little mouth is anywhere near my cock”—he replaced his index finger with his middle one, swiping my bottom lip before his loose hold on my unfastened jaw turned firm but not hard enough to hurt me— “ I’m going to blow down your throat and that’s not what’s happening here,” he rasped. Jesus Christ, the vocalization, the promissory threat, how feral and yet nonsensically safe that made me feel had me clawing at the desk, the beds of my fingernails bleaching, and my stomach growing taut while my spine milled, and pleasure nipped at the base. “When I come, it’s going to be inside of you. Now be a good girl”—my eyes widened, a small pool of saliva had formed, ready to dribble over as he tipped my head down by the chin—“and spit.”

I did what I was told, reveling in his reaction as I did it. His nostrils flared, teeth sinking against his bottom lip while pride gleamed in his narrowed eyes when I pulled back. I moved to wipe the thread still attached to my bottom lip, but he beat me to it, thumbing it away. His pleased simper faded as his long fingers cinched around his swollen shaft, and he worked my offering against himself, a terse grunt sliding through his gritted teeth.

He looked like a god. Taut, bunched muscles shifting under his shirt, the lower lattice of his abdomen contracting under the curtain of his shirt tails as he found an even cadence with the punching strokes of his palm. His head fell back, full lips parceled, and taut brows strained with focus.

Figures. I couldn’t work out the mechanics to get myself off at home, but while he stood in front of me, I was a writhing, despondent mess practically humping a desk like my sanity depended on it.

Felix’s pumping slowed, his chin tilting so he could examine himself, the sheened combination of my saliva and his precum polished over the length of him. Situating the condom in his opposite hand at his crown, he pinched the tip with one hand and rolled the stretching rubber over his length with the other, testing the tip and base to ensure it was securely in place.

I resented the barrier, but the wayward thought was gone in an instant. I wasn’t dumb. Too risky. I’d taken enough risks for one night.

I let out a tiny, surprised yelp when his hands bolted to the dip of my waist, and he jerked me to the edge, my heartbeats accelerating. My knees bumped his thighs, the tips of my heeled toes grazing against the carpet. Freeing my waist, his left hand found purchase against the desk opposite my hip bone to maintain his balance.

Felix nudged my right thigh, commanding me to spread a little wider. Obliging, he nestled closer, knees striking the desk, the heat from his body radiating off him, hazel meeting brown. “Last chance, sweetheart,” he murmured. “You sure this is what you want?”

“Yes.”

“Then put me inside of you,” he instructed.

The slippery latex glided over my palm, and he sucked air between his clenched teeth in response, my fingers closing over him. Notching him at my entrance, Felix stood utterly still for a beat, and we both stared, transfixed by the cradle my slick folds shaped around the tip of his cock, his hips sawing slow and gentle in time with my motions, pressing and retracting, ratcheting my anticipation.

Releasing him, blood swished a noisy vortex in my ears, drowning out my heartbeats. His hand peeled from the desk, clasping around my hipbone instead, the other hand clinching the opposite side. Felix swung his weight forward, his endorsing groan launching from the back of his throat as he pressed, and I rocked to greet the collision of pressure, inch by delicious inch, resenting his pace, his timed control, his?—

My whine melded with his hoarse and almost despairing moan. He was as deep as he could go, my muscles clinging tight around him. Felix made no move to launch into a series of uncoordinated thrusts in pursuit of his release. He absorbed me, remembering me the way I would him.

The possessive grip he held around my hips freed, his body leaning into me, guiding me onto my back. Propping himself on his left forearm, he used his right to anchor me in place. “You’re so tight,” he observed right before snatching my mouth in a kiss I’d use my last, dying breath to reminisce about.

Felix’s hips set off on an urgent tempo my body met thrust for thrust. My legs constricted around his waist, pinning him close. The friction of his pelvis grinding against my clit turned my soft panting into tiny mewling, the promise of my third orgasm in my life on the horizon.

“You like me,” Felix exhaled against my mouth.

I nodded. Or tried to.

“Tell me it’s not just tonight.” I wondered if he’d meant for it to come out like a plea.

Felix slanted his firm mouth over mine again, tongue running against the seam of my lips. I granted him the access he sought, my tongue meeting his, Lucky Strikes, beer, and me still lingering on his palate.

He broke the kiss long enough for me to come up for air, to get the lie out. “It’s not just tonight,” I panted, my back bowing under his strokes as he fucked me senseless into the desk, my bruised spine promising to display the reminder on my back for days to come.

“Tell me you’re mine,” he said, burying his face into my neck. “God, tell me you’re mine.”

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, holding him against me. “I’m yours.”

In some way, I always would be.

The lies fortified him. They turned him into a crazed man, his strokes becoming faster, jerkier, like he couldn’t get deep enough, close enough. Each impale on his cock sent a reverberation against my cervix, and despite the almost cramp-like throb, I wanted more. If I could create a memory associating him with pain, he’d always be somewhere within reach in my mind because happiness and pleasure were fleeting in my life. Pain was a constant.

Pain allowed me to keep him close long after I let him go.

Felix slipped a hand between us, his thumb caressing my clit in a series of methodic rotations he’d discovered made me tick. A delighted shiver curled up my spine under his touch, my pleasure receptors singing. His hand slanted, gaze drawn to look between us, watching with hypnotized focus where he entered me.

“You have such a pretty pussy, sweetheart,” he observed hotly, swiveling his hips in just the right way. Tingles spread up my lips, my neck, and over every hair follicle on my head. “You look so good stretched around my cock.” Did I? I followed the trail of his gaze, mesmerized by the sight of the piston of his hips and the firm clap of his balls against the curvature of my ass.

He was right. I did. The view was lewd—I didn’t even know I could get that wet—and pornographic.

Felix’s pace surged, and I met each hard plunge with matched fervor, stroke for stroke, a tingling gathering beneath my belly button, his thumb’s attention circling over my clit, until I spilled, clenched, and gushed around his cock, losing myself in the throes of my third and no doubt, final orgasm of the night.

My mouth popped open this time, the electric cry having nowhere to go but out. His mouth crashed over mine, swallowing the melody as his choppy plunging stuttered. His cock shuddered inside of me, his balls spilling their release into the confines of the condom, accompanied by his moan driving into my mouth.

I couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to. Couldn’t think clearly. Didn’t want to do that, either. Thinking reminded me of what came next. I wanted to delay the end and remain enveloped in the ceaseless currents of nerve endings and spasmed contractions holding me as its willing subject.

Anything that kept me there a little while longer.

Anything that meant I didn’t have to give him up before I was ready.

My chest hollowed. What if I never was?

Felix nearly collapsed on top of me, peeling his lips from mine, sprinkling a soft trail of lazy kisses along my cheekbones and across my neck. He wasn’t in any hurry to get off me, and for whatever it was worth, I wasn’t in any hurry, either.

“Bel?” He nuzzled his nose against my hair, the scruff on his chin brushing against the tip of my ear. “I meant what I said.”

“What part?” I’d meant for it to come out like a joke, but worry entrenched itself into each syllable, giving me away.

Felix set a hand outside of my head to keep himself upright, the other coming to grip around my hip again like it belonged there permanently. And maybe it did. Maybe it was always supposed to be that way.

But that didn’t matter either, did it? I never got what I wanted.

“I like you,” he volunteered, eyes bouncing between mine. “A lot.” Then he was just staring. Searching. Waiting. “You and me.” Adrenaline spiked, my intake wedging in my throat. “Let’s do this.”

“No.”

“No?” Hurt flashed in his eyes. “Wh…” The sentence petered off, the pendulum of indecision swinging between “why” or “what.” His corded neck tightened, the grasp on my hip flexing with regulating squeezes.

“No.” My voice shook. I really hated myself sometimes. Couldn’t lie for shit.

“Why not?”

“Because I meant what I said.” My focus riveted to the defined base of his throat, floating to the punching of his erratic pulse. I couldn’t look at him. My hands landed on his abdomen, shoving gently, the effort futile because he didn’t answer the cue. I tried to sit upright, but he caged me in, forcing me back down.

Now was not the time for him to be so him . He was still in me, for God’s sake.

“What part?” Felix echoed drily. “You said you liked me, too. So, why are you running?”

“Because.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is one. You just don’t like it,” I argued.

“Look at me.” I pressed my lips tight, stiffening my trembling chin. Impatient, he hooked his index finger under my chin, tilting my head up. The intensity in his stare softened. “Are you running because you want to or because you think your ma is going to give you a hard time?”

I batted his hand away. Stupid. I was stupid for thinking this could just be a one-time thing, and instead, attachment had sewn stitches into my skin with his needle and thread. I was coming at them with a seam ripper in my deft hand because if there was one thing I was good at, it was making alterations, cutting out what didn’t belong.

Exhaling a cheerless laugh, Felix didn’t fight me when I sat up again. “You’re incredible.”

“And you’re proving to be like every other guy when he doesn’t get his way,” I snarled.

Me. Snarling .

He scoffed in response, slicing a hand through his tussled hair. “That’s not fair, Belmira.”

Fair? He wanted to talk about fair? “Fuck fair, Felix!” I burst out. “Life isn’t fair.” Never had been. “Can’t you just be happy you got laid?”

“No.” He dropped his hand. “No, I can’t just be happy you let me fuck you because you tricked me.” My eyes widened. I tricked him? Was he for real? “You knew my terms. You knew I wouldn’t have done that if you were going to bail on me after.”

My chin dipped. This was too much. I urged him back, but he pursued me with the unexpected slant of his hips, cock still half-hard because, of course, he wasn’t going to let me off that easily. Of course, he was going to make this worse than it had to be.

Heat pricked at my eyes. “Cut it out,” I warned thickly, staring at the wrinkled collar of his shirt.

But he saw it. He saw what I didn’t want him to. “Do you not like me?” He waved a hand between us, and I tracked the motion, withering at the sight of his pained expression. “Was this really all bullshit?”

No. Not even close.

He cradled my jaw, goosebumps stretching over my skin.

“Sweetheart.”

“ Please. ” The tears choked me. “Stop calling me that.”

I should have walked away while I’d had the chance. I shouldn’t have led him on, shouldn’t have brought him here, shouldn’t have given him false hope because I’d known from the start no matter what either of us wanted, this movie was always destined for a sad conclusion as long as Ma was directing my life.

I’d always known how this ended because as long as I lived under her roof, as long as I was within her reach, she’d go to painstaking lengths to ensure I always remembered my life was hers to lead.

I had no agency. No freedom.

Felix would never fit.

He’d be another thing for her to exterminate. I swore I could feel the proverbial prongs on her choke collar digging in a little deeper into my throat, jerking me away. I’d always done what she’d said. I’d so rarely strayed. Ma repaid that obedience by hurting me.

So, for once, I’d-I’d wanted to do something with someone I’d wanted to. Someone I liked. To be me. I’d wanted the freedom to choose. I just hadn’t expected to like him back just as intensely, too.

Or how much pain that would bring.