Safe Bet (The Rules #4)

Wanting more.

It’s my turn to let my hands wander. I keep my mouth on hers while I touch her. Run my hands down the length of her body until I reach the hem of the T-shirt, then I work my way beneath the fabric, encountering warm, soft skin. I touch the outside of her thighs, her hips, my fingers catching on her thin panties. She sucks in a breath and I move up, my hands still beneath the shirt as they skim along her waist, her ribcage, fingers tracing her delicate, lacy bra.

I glance up to find her head thrown back, eyes closed, her lips parted as she struggles to breathe evenly. She’s beautiful like this, lost in my touch, and I grab the hem of the shirt, lifting it up, slowly revealing her.

“Let’s take this off,” I whisper.

She opens her eyes and sits up, shucking the shirt off in quick, efficient movements, tossing it onto the floor beside the bed. I eat her up with my gaze as she sits before me clad only in the bra and panties. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness and I can see that they’re black lace, stark against her skin. Reaching out, I trace one bra strap, then the other, my fingers lingering on her petal-soft skin.

A shuddery breath leaves her and I lean in, dropping a line of kisses along her collarbone. She tilts her head back on a sigh, her hands coming up to clutch at the back of my head, almost as if she wants to guide me to where she wants me next.

It hits me then. What we’re doing. How we’re about to take a major step. This is serious.

I pull away from her grip, needing the distance for what I’m about to say. Her eyes flash open, full of confusion and she parts her lips, ready to say something. Before she can speak, I rest my index finger over her mouth, silencing her.

“What we’re about to do…changes everything.” I pause, letting my words sink in. “This was supposed to be fake. What we’re doing. But it doesn’t feel fake right now.”

Fuck. I can’t believe I just said that.

She says nothing.

Her silence is deafening.

The silence might be my answer.





I don’t know what to say. Wade’s right—what we’re about to do will change everything between us. Sex will take this so-called fake relationship straight into the next level. From fake to real after the first orgasm, right? And I want that.

I do.

But I’m also scared. Terrified of what could happen next. What if I end up really liking him? At one point I thought I could keep this strictly physical. After that first kiss in his truck for the cameras, I liked the idea of hooking up with him. He could scratch my itch, fulfill my needs, help ease the loneliness I’d been dealing with since my parents cut me off.

A few days later and here we are, wrapped up in each other, practically naked in his bed, about to have sex, and he means more to me than a mere scratch to my itch. This is crazy. Things like this don’t happen that fast, especially for me. I like this guy. I’m attracted to him, but what we’re doing also feels so…serious.

Why? I don’t get it. I don’t get this—us.

Wade traces my lips with his index finger, so gentle it’s almost as if he doesn’t touch me at all. He’s waiting for my answer, probably slowly dying inside, and I don’t know what to say.

I can’t seem to find the right words.

“Tell me to stop and I’ll stop,” he finally says, his hand dropping away from my mouth. “I’ll take you back home. We can forget this ever happened.”

That’s the last thing I want to do. I can’t just forget this night. It’s been a whirlwind of emotions, every one of them intense. From happiness to worry to anger to humor to frustration to pure, agonizing want.

That’s how I’m feeling right now. I want him. Why should I deny myself? Or Wade? We both want each other. It’s foolish to put off the inevitable.

“I don’t want you to stop,” I whisper, reaching up so I can touch his face, trace his jawline with my fingertips. He’s ridiculously good-looking. Like painfully so, with the soulful brown eyes and the lush mouth and that killer jawline that makes me weak every time I look at his face. I rear up and press my mouth to his jaw, circling my arms around his neck, clinging to him.

He wraps one arm around me, his big hand sprawled across my back. When our mouths finally meet, the kiss is hungry. Urgent. I can feel his erection brush against my belly and I want him. I want him inside me.

But he takes his time, driving me wild with his mouth and hands. He hovers above me, kissing my neck, my chest, slowly taking off my bra so he can touch and kiss my breasts. He sucks first one nipple into his mouth, then the other, turning me into a writhing, desperate mess, and still he won’t slip inside me.

Wade shifts lower, kissing my stomach, along the waistband of my panties, his breath fanning across me and making it hard to breathe. He places his hands on the inside of my legs and spreads them wider, his mouth right there, kissing my thighs just before he presses his face against the front of my panties and breathes in deep.

Oh God, I could probably come just from his breaths on my clit. This is insane. Completely, totally, wonderfully insane.

I reach for him with desperate hands, my fingers sliding into his hair, tugging on it. He misreads my silent cues, rising up so his face is in mine once more, and he kisses me. That’s okay. I might’ve wanted him to go down on me, but then again maybe I don’t, because this is the first time we’re together and that just feels so intimate. Almost too intimate.

So I return his kiss, my hands sliding all over him, pushing at his sweats, wanting them off. I shove and push at them until he takes over, kicking them off and leaving him gloriously naked for me to touch and explore. I don’t hold back, stroking his perfect bare butt, his sides, his erection, making him shudder. I circle my fingers around the thick length and start to stroke, but he doesn’t let me do that for very long.

“Be right back,” he tells me, punctuating the statement with a quick kiss.

Then he slips out of my grip, slips out of bed and disappears.

I lay there, blinking up at the ceiling. What was that about? Where is he going? Without thought I shed my panties, tossing them on the floor, wanting to be as naked as Wade is. He needs to hurry. I’m all anxious and twitchy, dying for his hands on me, his mouth on me, needing him inside me…

“Condoms,” he says as he practically runs back into the bedroom. He tosses an entire box on the floor, one wrapped condom still clutched in his hand, and I laugh in relief.

“I thought you bailed on me,” I tell him as he crawls into bed with me.