Chapter 2
2
FELIX
I make good choices. While my lawyers may disagree with me on that after my recent attempt to handle things myself, right now, with a pair of toned thighs wrapped around my head, I can say, irrefutably, that all of tonight’s decisions that led me to this moment were fucking fantastic.
Anne grabs fistfuls of my hair as I dip my tongue inside her then flick.
‘Yes.’ Her hips move in tandem with my mouth. ‘So good.’
Yes, it is. As is the sting of my scalp that tells me that while I may be out of practice when it comes to picking up women (mainly because I haven’t had to do the picking up since my first movie released), I’m most definitely not out of touch when it comes to pleasing a woman.
Sliding two fingers inside her, I press up as I suck her clit.
‘ Fuck .’
Her whole body stiffens and my heartbeat, loud and fast, echoes in my head as her thighs tighten over my ears.
After a few tense seconds, during which I wonder if my neck muscles will hold out, her legs relax and settle on my shoulders .
‘Damn, John.’
A stab of guilt hits me over the fake name and how I leaned into the whole native Texan identity. At first it was easy, donning a new persona, just as I’ve done multiple times before. But somehow, when the other person in the scene doesn’t know it, it feels… shitty.
‘I take back what I said about the beard.’ Anne’s voice comes out in breathy pants. ‘Friction is my friend.’
My laughter chases away my thoughts and causes her legs to slide off my shaking shoulders. I can’t remember the last time I laughed in bed with a woman. Most of the time, I felt like they were trying to pose for selfies between orgasms.
‘A-plus, cowboy.’ Anne, eyes closed, lips parted in dazed satisfaction on her face, is the hottest thing I’ve seen in a while.
Pushing her legs wider, I kiss my way up her body. A smile ever-present on my face as I caress the soft skin over toned muscles.
Her blush-colored nipples stiffen and pucker.
‘Ah, gatinha .’ A language I haven’t spoken much in years falls from my lips. ‘ T?o doce .’ I flick my tongue across a hard bud.
‘Mmmm.’ Her eyes open in a few slow blinks, looking like a sleepy, blonde-haired, brown-eyed angel. ‘I have no idea if you’re talking about the weather or calling me a dirty girl—’ she funnels her fingers through my overgrown hair, fisting control of my head once again and pushing it back down over her breast ‘—but either way, don’t stop.’
An angel with a devil’s mouth.
I let her guide me, but tilt my head back, wanting to watch her reactions to my tongue. Her smile rounds as my teeth graze her sensitive skin, her expression slackening when I suck. When she loses focus and closes her eyes once more to pleasure, I feel more accomplished than when I won my last People’s Choice Award.
Pushing up off the mattress, I grab the strip of condoms my agent Jack thrust at me before he left the bar tonight and rip one off. He’d given them to me as a joke, knowing full well I’d sworn off women since?—
No. Don’t think about that.
If I start thinking about the shitstorm my life has been since the last time I let my guard down around a woman, it might impact my ability to put this condom on. And if that happened, I don’t think my dick would ever forgive me.
Tearing the foil open, I position the condom over the tip.
‘Hey, wait.’
I pause, halfway through rolling it on, as Anne struggles up to her elbows. Her eyes are glued to my dick, a frown marring her face.
Raising my hands up like a criminal surrendering their weapon, I play back our time together, wondering if I misread the signs. ‘No pressure if you want to stop.’ It takes all my acting skills to say that in a neutral, non-pleading tone. My raging hard-on a dead giveaway to my lies.
She rolls her eyes with a huff. ‘Relax, Johnny-boy, I’m just throwing a flag on the play.’ Up on her knees, she shoves me on my back with two hands.
My dick, happy to still be in the game, ignores the hard bounce. ‘Unnecessary roughness?’
Head back, Anne’s laugh is carefree. ‘Nah. It’s just my turn to take the field.’ She climbs on top of me, the sight of her wet pussy as she throws her leg over nearly causing Felix junior to false start. ‘I’ve never gotten to do this before.’
I blanche. ‘You’re a virgin?’
She drops a chin and levels me a look. ‘No. Definitely not a rookie.’ Glancing at the remaining three condoms in a strip by the edge of the bed, she plucks the partially rolled one off me. ‘Just a quarterback who never got to call the shots before.’
I don’t have time to translate what that means before she grabs my hard-on, pumping it up and down and licking her lips before kicking my legs open with her feet and settling between them.
‘Here’s the play.’ One brow arches as she pumps her hand. ‘You talk dirty to me in—’ she tilts her head as if thinking ‘—whatever the hell language you spoke before.’
I bite my lip to concentrate on something other than how good her palm feels sliding up and down. ‘Portuguese.’ My voice nearly cracks.
‘Yeah, that.’ Her dimple pops with her next pump. ‘And you can move my hair out of the way if you want a better view.’ Her hand pauses at the top and squeezes.
‘Fuck me.’
She smirks. ‘Later.’ Eyes on mine, she gives me another pump. ‘But if you push my head down and make me gag, the only thing I’ll be throwing won’t be a flag, but you out of the hotel room.’ She tilts her head to the side, blonde hair falling over one shoulder, the ends teasing the nipple I just sucked, a sexy, wicked smile playing on her lips. ‘Got it, Johnny-boy?’
Going full method actor on her, I tip an imaginary cowboy hat. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Liz
Everything’s bigger in Texas.
That’s my first thought when I stretch my mouth wide enough to suck on Johnny-boy’s dick without scraping it with my teeth. My second is ugh . The latex tang from where the condom had been is not pleasant.
But when I flatten my tongue and drag it up the underside of his dick and John’s ass clenches with a groan, the ache in my jaw and the tang of rubber seems worth it.
Which, as someone who has never once enjoyed giving head, makes me think that maybe I should take tonight as a good omen. A sign that a fun, no strings attached night is exactly what I needed before putting the stop-avoiding-reality-and-meet-your-half-sister plan into action.
‘ T?o bom .’ He shifts under me, his well-defined abs flexing with the movement. ‘ Você se sente t?o bem .’
John has been full of surprises since I sat beside him at the bar. The largest one being in my mouth. Others like his insanely defined body and his award-winning oral skills will also be immortalized in today’s gratitude journal entry.
Bending his knees, John’s legs tense as he murmurs in a language I can’t understand, adding to the enjoyment of a job I’d always found arduous. Maybe it’s because, for once, I have no fucks to give about his feelings, not sense of guilt of behaving like anything less than a lady, no worries about what tomorrow may bring.
Or maybe it’s because even as I use my thumb and pointer finger to create a ring vice around his dick as I bob up and down, I take note of his fingers digging into the sheets and I know he’s making every effort to respect the boundaries I laid out. Something even my past boyfriends failed to do, thinking I was too nice to stay mad, that I’d forgive them since it was easier than causing a fuss.
Annoyingly, I was and did.
So maybe my problem lately isn’t that I’m ignoring my feelings, but rather that I’m stuck in them. Letting them control my actions rather than guide them.
My brother Chase always did say I was too much of a pushover when it came to the people I cared about.
Ew. Stop thinking about your brother, Liz. Gross.
Refocusing, I pause at the top to suck harder, the deep pull making John’s ass lift off the bed. Dropping only when I release him with a pop.
‘ Você está me deixando louco .’ John’s voice, caressing my ears like a kiss, sends shivers down my spine.
I want to ask how he knows Portuguese but now isn’t the time. It isn’t even the night, or the guy. That’s not why John and I are here. We’re here to practice.
As if reading my thoughts, John’s dick swells when I circle my tongue at the tip. Relaxing my jaw even more, I get to work.
It’s not called a job for nothing.
Dipping back down, I hollow my cheeks and suck.
But just as he sweeps my hair back as I said he could, my lips start losing suction and my tongue starts to tingle.
I try to strengthen my pucker, but a line of drool escapes and the tingling sensation spreads to the roof of my mouth. ‘Wait.’ I let him go, this time without enough suction for a pop, and sit back on my haunches.
His hands go up again. ‘Sorry.’
I’d laugh at him, all three appendages raised in surrender, if I wasn’t so concerned with my sudden inability to feel my tongue. ‘Sumpthing onng.’ Panic sets in at my slurred speech.
John struggles up to his elbows. ‘What did you say?’
‘Sumpthing…’ I reach up quickly, basically slapping myself in the mouth, but I barely feel it. Concentrating, I’m able to swallow the excess salvia pooling in my mouth and force a deep, shaky breath in through my nose, out through my mouth, just like I tell my Pilates class. Except instead of feeling relaxed, my entire body tightens when my exhale sounds like a pre-pubescent boy making fart noises.
‘I ink I’m aving a toke.’
His previously vanished smile crinkles by his eyes reemerge between his brows. ‘Toke?’
‘ Toke !’ I jab a finger at my lips, where, in spite of my swallow, a drop of drool slides out of the corner of my mouth.
It takes a few more seconds, but my butchered word finally registers. ‘Stroke?’ John’s eyes widen and his dick shrinks.
I slap my face Home Alone style. ‘I an’t eel ma ace!’
‘Whoa, okay. Shit.’ John, now fully limp, shifts back on the mattress so he can retract his legs from either side of my body.
I’m too panicked to move from my ass-on-heels blow-job hunch.
‘Let’s just calm down.’
My first thought is that the men of the world really need to realize once and for all that no woman, in the history of time, has ever calmed down just because a man told them too. My second is that John must be panicked too, because he doesn’t realize the edge of the bed is?—
‘Fuck!’
I get a great shot of his taint and hard ass as he tumbles heels over beard off the bed.
Ignoring his idiocy for my more pressing concerns, I slide my legs out from under me and stand at the foot of the bed.
Struggling to his knees, John rests his arms on the mattress and frowns at me. ‘What are you doing?’
Closing my eyes, I reach out my arms and then touch my finger to my nose. My pointer finger hits the target and I stretch my arm back out and try the other hand. Also good .
There’s rustling of sheets and a crinkling of paper. ‘Um, Anne?’
Ignoring him, I keep my eyes shut and lift one foot off the low-pile beige carpet. I remain perfectly still as I count to twenty. Even with my Pilates skills, I don’t think I’d be able to do this if I was having a stroke. Lowering my foot, I open my eyes and frown at my perfectly balanced feet while my tongue lays heavy in my mouth.
What. The. Hell.
After a night that started off with humidity, anxiety and a smorgasbord of bearded Texans, I’d rallied my way into a buzz and an orgasm. I thought I’d win the night by riding a cowboy.
Instead, I can’t feel my face.
‘Anne?’
Sighing, I brace myself for more unhelpfulness and look in John’s direction. Saliva drips down my chin, landing on my boob. That , I can feel.
Awesome.
‘You’re not having a stroke.’ He’s sitting on the edge of bed with nothing but a pillow in his lap and a grimace on his face. Neither his words nor his expression bring me comfort.
‘But, ah, I think I know what happened.’ John offers me the strip of remaining condoms. ‘I swear I didn’t know.’
Not bothering to ask questions that my mouth can’t form, I snatch the condoms from him, wondering how they’ll help me understand why I sound like the love child of Elmer Fud and Daffy Duck.
His deeply cut six-pack contracts as he shifts uncomfortably on the bed. Guiltily .
Lifting the condoms closer, I read the back of the tiny square foil packet and nearly choke on my unswallowed spit. ‘Numbing cream? ’
Except it doesn’t sound like numbing cream. It sounds like ‘ummin eam’ and at full soprano.
I glare at the man across from me, the color draining from behind his mangey beard. ‘Are oo uckin erious?’
Felix
I make horrible choices. Starting with hiring Jack, my former classmate and friend, as my manager. A manager who apparently buys condoms laced with numbing cream.
Anne wipes a line of drool off her chin and holds my gaze with a menace that only the finest actors playing the vilest humans have ever managed to do.
‘Um, I can explain.’ I point to the condoms in her hand. ‘Those aren’t mine.’
Her eyes narrow.
‘Seriously.’ I shift higher on the bed, feeling more vulnerable with just a pillow between us than I did while dressed with only a sock on my dick on a set full of people when I filmed my first love scene. ‘My, uh, friend, Jack gave them to me. At the bar. He was the guy whose seat you took when he left.’ I run a shaky hand through my hair. ‘Really, I swear. He?—’
‘I unt ucking care a-bou ucking ack!’ Anne whips my chest with the condom strip. ‘I ant eel meh ace!’ Flinging the strip at my face, she starts grabbing her clothes off the floor. ‘I eed ta go ta a ospital.’ With every attempt at a hard syllable, a burst of saliva sprays from her mouth.
Then my mind catches up to what she said.
My heart, first fast-paced from lust, then panic, sets a new beat per second record for extremely selfish reasons. ‘I don’t think there’s any need to go to the hospital.’ Standing, I grab my pants off the floor.
She sneers at me as she finishes pulling on her shorts and buttons them.
‘Seriously.’ I stumble into the side of the bed in my haste to pull on my jeans. ‘They wouldn’t put something poisonous on something that’s meant to go on someone’s dick.’
‘I ouda a-whoa’d it!’ She stomps her bare foot on the carpet, then grabs her bra, pocketing it, rather than putting it on. Like she’s on a mission to get out of here as fast as possible.
Immediately, my mind goes to what the tabloids would say if this got out.
Action star Felix Jones arrives at hospital with unknown woman after sex accident.
Star suffers erectile disfunction with other woman just months after becoming official with girlfriend at Golden Globes.
Then to what Ron, my director would say. You’re fired.
Swallowing back my panic, I try again. ‘How about I get you an ice pack?’
‘Wha da uck is un ice ack onna oo?’ She stabs a finger toward her face. ‘Iss alrea-y umb!’
‘A heating pad?’ My voice breaks teenager style. ‘You could hop in the shower and let the hot water hit your face.’
Her expression blanks, as if replaying what I just said. Even I have to admit that was dumb as fuck.
I think she’s sneering at me when another line of drool slides down her chin. ‘In-thead a meh-ical twee-ment, oo wan me to otter-oard my-elf?’
I stare hard at her mouth, trying to make out what she’s saying.
‘Beh-cause ah oar pre-ma-or e-thack-oo-lathin.’
I might not have gotten the last word if she hadn’t made an obvious and aggressive jerk-off hand gesture as she said it. ‘I don’t have a premature ejaculation problem!’
Her eye roll is cut short when she pulls her shirt over her head, mumbling something that I’m sure is less than complimentary. Once dressed, she slides on her sandals and my panic reaches new heights.
Quick-stepping, I move in front of the door. ‘Don’t go. Let’s just wait a minute to see if the numbness subsides.’
‘Ooove.’ She’s a vision with flushed skin and knotted sex hair. Like she was plucked straight from my dreams. A dream that turns nightmarish when her pretty eyes flatten into snake-like slits.
Scared shitless and knowing full well that I’m making things worse, I cross my arms over my chest and plant my feet. ‘No.’ My bravado is laughable as my hands shake under my biceps.
Anne, still glaring and apparently not the least bit intimidated, squares up to me while wiping moisture off her face with the back of her hand.
I can’t tell if she’s brushing away drool or tears. Either way, all my anxiousness and panic evaporate on a heavy sigh. I can blame Jack all I want, but I did this. This carefree, gorgeous woman was unlucky enough to think me a good time, and instead of living up to that expectation, all I did was scare her and possibly make her cry.
I’m an asshole.
Disgusted with myself, I hang my head, playing through what I need to do to try and make this right.
Get dressed, Google the nearest twenty-four-hour clinic. Call Jack.
If I’m recognized, so be it. One silver lining to the incident that started my personal life shitstorm a few months ago is that I now have a PR firm on payroll. If it leaks, hopefully they can handle it. And Camilla… well, there’s no telling what she’ll do, but hopefully, my lawyers will handle it.
But first, I need to apologize.
‘Anne, I…’ Looking up, I catch sight of fury-filled eyes before pain radiates between my legs and everything goes white. Air explodes from my lungs in a strangled moan and bile climbs up my throat as I drop to my knees.
Anne’s small hands push me the rest of the way over until I’m lying on my side, gaping like a fish with my hands cupping my privates.
Stepping over my legs, she opens the door with one hand and flips me off with the other. ‘Uck off, ass-ole.’ Then she slides her phone out of her pocket and takes a picture of me – hurt, dumb-founded and half-naked – before slamming the door behind her.
Game. Over.