Whatever It Takes - A Standalone Second Chance Bad Boy Romance (Bad Boys After Dark Book 8)

by Gabi Moore

  What happened next came in a hot, frenzied blur. His lips and mine kissed hungrily over each new patch of bared flesh, piece by piece we removed the barriers, till we stood together small and naked before one another, nothing but a ravenous glint in the eye and four greedy hands that couldn’t decide where they wanted to settle.

  He was beautiful. Even today I can remember every outline of his body, every scent, every fine blonde hair that twitched on every muscle. Without his clothing, I could make out all the ripples and bulges on his torso, all the veins on his shoulders.

  I ran curious hands over the slightly paler skin here, mesmerized by the contrast of the soft skin and the hard muscles underneath. A few licks of his ash blonde hair had broken free and were hanging loose and wild across his forehead. Though his eyes were as blue as ever, they had taken on a steely quality, so hot I felt that they must be the source of the delicious burning all over my near-naked body.

  “You’re …you’re beautiful,” he gasped.

  Again I saw a flicker of that tender look I had only recently glimpsed on his usually confident face. I held out my hands and realized I was shaking. He smiled and took them both in his hands, easily folding them inside his warm, dry palms, and then pressed them to his chest. I looked around. We had bumbled into a side room and were sprawled out in a dark stockroom, soft carpeting on the floor and an old fashioned incandescent light glowing yellow on our naked skin. He pulled me close, and bare skin against bare skin I heard him whisper to the top of my head, “do you want to keep going?”

  His voice alone sent a wicked thrill deep through the pit of my stomach, ending in an almost painful buzz right between my legs. Almost without thinking, my hips swiveled and pressed desperately against his, the smooth skin of his body the only place I wanted to be. We kissed again, scrambling to the floor, clumsy, our hunger for one another’s bodies surpassing our familiarity with them. He was an alien landscape to me. But one I wanted to discover as soon as possible, in detail, with my mouth, my hands, my hips…

  Lying on our sides, I gasped for a moment to feel his cock pressing into me down below. I pulled back and looked at him. It seemed too …big. Too much. Had he really been going around with that thing all this time? I blushed hard. I rolled my hips and enjoyed the sensation of the head pressing loosely into the hollow of my navel. I was still shaking.

  “Hey Em?”

  “Hm?”

  “I’ve …I thought you should know I’ve never done this before.”

  I noticed his hands were shaking too. I loved the way his skin prickled up into goosebumps when I trailed my hand down over his belly, each blonde, curled hair springing to attention. It seemed like a miracle, that his body should respond to mine.

  I trailed my hand down further. His eyes rolled back in his head and he sighed loudly, thrusting his hips a little toward me. I shimmied down and took the hot, swollen length of his cock into my hands, feeling the weight of it, enjoying how it seemed to bounce and pulse with each breath he took. The ache between my legs thrummed and twitched. I couldn’t believe this was happening. In my heart, somehow, I had always known that Felix and I would …would …

  “Put it in your mouth,” he moaned.

  I smiled.

  The tip was soft and salty, and felt even more amazing than kissing him. I closed eager lips around his shaft and gently lowered, relishing the girth of him against my tongue, slowly inching in to see how far he would go. With eyes closed, I could feel even more acutely how every flick and stroke of my tongue made him shudder and jerk in response. I hated the look on his face just a moment before. That hurt look. I never wanted to make him feel like that again. In fact, I only wanted to keep sucking him like this, to see just how much pleasure I could give him, just how far I could go.

  “Fuck, that feels amazing,” he blurted. His broad hands were resting gently on my head, his fingers laced into my hair. His cock slid out and I kissed a trail all the way up the line of fuzz on his belly, between his pecs, up his neck and back to his gorgeous face, which now had an expression that was part gratitude, part shock.

  “I love your tongue.”

  “It loves you,” I giggled.

  “Now you turn,” he said.

  The tension between my legs had completely morphed by now, and when he gently pried apart my legs and began to stroke lazy lines up and down my inner thighs, I squirmed involuntarily to follow his touch, desperate for him to drag those fairy light touches just a little higher up.

  Felix was my best friend. Didn’t I already ‘love him’? What had I ever been thinking, to turn him down over and over again? Why had all of this taken us so long? I wanted the ‘all or nothing’ too. And this – his beautiful, musk-scented skin, his full lips, the glorious sensations that flooded through me with his every touch – this felt very much like ‘all’. But the mounting tension had a tinge of regret to it. I almost felt like I had to kiss him extra to make up for all the opportunities we had missed in the past, all the times I had smiled coldly and sent him home.

  I writhed and squirmed, spreading my legs for him. He took a moment to look down at me, smiled strangely, then traced his fingers lightly over my inner thighs again, over the soft fuzz hidden at the cleft, at the now wet line nestled in between. I was on fire. The first time he leant down and pressed his tongue against me, it felt strange. But almost instantly, my body melted into the sensation, and I too found myself with rolled back eyes, head lolled back and gentle, shuddering hands balancing on his head.

  His hot tongue passed frictionless over the most tender, molten parts of my body. It was as though he knew precisely where I needed him, where I wanted that sweet, perfect sensation, and before I could even moan and tilt my hips in approval, his swirling tongue had found just the right spot, and was now teasing delicately around it, stirring up an ecstasy in my clit that felt like it would burst and break free of me at any second.

  My body groaned all by itself, a guttural, animal sound escaping my lips as I flopped back and allowed my body to open to him. His touch was tender but firm. He seemed as surprised at my body’s reactions as I was, and smiled back up at me occasionally, a look of intense wonder and focus flitting playfully over his face.

  Here I was, Emily Warren, the world’s most forgettable wallflower, legs spread with a boy doing very, very bad things to her with his tongue …it almost made me burst out laughing. I had woken up this morning a virgin. And now I could barely reign in the thought of what was coming next.

  My heart kicked a little flutter and then …oh god. With as much elegance as someone falling over backwards down the stairs, my body bucked and twitched under his tongue and soon a bright, delicious spark exploded right through me, sending my hands clutching at his head and clamping down hard with my thighs.

  “Felix …oh fuck,” I whimpered.

  He partially lifted a ruffled gaze at me. We looked at one another, shocked.

  “Did you …did you just…?”

  I shrugged and gave him a helpless look. Did I just come, just like that? Why, yes. I think I did.

  He grinned at me and bit his lip, both of his hands firmly cradling my ass cheeks before him.

  “Huh, well, that was easy,” he said and gave me a saucy wink. I laughed.

  “Hey Em?”

  “Mmmm?”

  “You’re cutting off my circulation.”

  I laughed again and released my thighs, but the second I did, I was struck by the sight of his sweet, youthful face, the gleam in his eye, the way a tiny drop sparkled a little on his lower lip… it was enough to bring that aching thump straight back to my clit and have me turned on all over again. I couldn’t believe it. Neither could he.

  When he carefully slid first one finger and then another into my still pulsing body I thought I had died and gone to a heaven made exclusively of the white stars that now flooded my vision. With an excited growl, he sunk his broad fingers deep into me, to the knuckles, then collapsed his chest down onto mine and stole a kiss while
he worked me easily to the edge again. He took my chin in his and kissed me deliberately, decisively.

  “Hey Em?”

  I could only respond in gasps.

  “Em, are you listening?”

  I groaned and gyrated my hips along with the rhythm of his fingers, his hand tucked tightly between my legs.

  “I want to tell you two things, but I really want you to listen.”

  With great effort, I peeled open my eyes and looked at him and the damp locks of hair falling into his smiling face.

  “I’m listening,” I said, feeling that the edges of this next orgasm were much bigger, much wider than the first.

  “Number one,” he said very softly, and kissed my brow, still stroking that delicious, hidden spot inside. “The next time you come, I want to be inside you.”

  “And number two?”

  “Number two… is I love you.”

  Chapter 2 - Felix

  March 12, 2077

  Sound too good to be true? Well, it was. Long story short, we broke up a few weeks later.

  But let me start at the beginning. Emily was no ordinary girl. Not by a long shot. She had that rare combination of smoking hot good looks and …strangely low self-esteem. If it meant she gave a meathead like me a second look, hell, I didn’t much care about the discrepancy, but the longer I knew her the more obvious it became: she simply had no idea how awesome she was.

  She was a fox. I mean it almost literally. She was kind of fox-colored, and her hair was wild and her nose small and pointy, and she’d peer at you sideways with sloping, golden eyes that gave you the impression she just might be sizing you up for dinner. But in a cute way. Whatever, I’m not real good at metaphors; you get the picture. But she had this fragile, sort of delicate air about her, and if she ever just stopped talking for half a second, she had this way of looking almost otherworldly.

  We met one summer back at one of those things they make you attend to ‘trade’ skills with other students and, I don’t know, make friends or something. We kind of clicked and so I said I’d help her with her stats modules and she could teach me what she was learning about biofuels. Man, I did not give a flying fuck about biofuels, but then we agreed to meet up during the weeks and she’d go on and on about it, and I got to just …well, look at her, I guess. It was amazing.

  And in that almost-foxy way of hers, she reeled me in, one lazy summer day at a time. It took me at least three full weeks before I realized that I was utterly, hopelessly in love with her. I laid low and tried to figure out if her standard term of endearment for me (“you big idiot”) could possibly have any hidden romantic connotations, and spent the following few months alternatively daydreaming about what we’d name our children and telling myself to quit being such a …well, big idiot.

  As you can maybe gather, emotions are not my strong suit. I just knew I loved her. It was a warm, deep, open feeling. Easy. Simple. Sure, I felt like throwing up every time I wondered if she could possibly feel the same. So, when we spent that night together at the colloidoponics lab, and she held me close and whispered back those words I myself had agonized over for months and months, it felt like a triumph. That if she loved me, the rest would just fall into place. I didn’t much care how it all happened; I only wanted her there with me. We would be scientific pioneers, boldly going where no couple had gone before and, ahem, boldly coming there too. With her perfect face in the middle of it all, the future looked rosy as hell.

  Until it didn’t.

  I had travelled back home for a few days to catch up with the folks and touch base with some old friends from High School. My sister peeled my mother off from the conversation one evening and left my father and I alone.

  “Your mother and I have never been more proud of you,” he said.

  Dad always spat things out like that, cutting right to the chase. I smiled and raised my glass to him, wondering why he looked a little nervous.

  I had been offered a spot on the fastest track the program had, one which would likely lead to a chief engineering position overseeing the military base on one of the new settlements that were set to be built within the next five years. I hadn’t accepted yet, but soon would. It was the chance of a lifetime; the stuff TV dreams are made of.

  “We’re also a little surprised you’ve agreed to go ahead with the placement they’ve offered you,” he said slowly, not making eye contact.

  “Surprised? Dad, I should be thanking my lucky stars.”

  “Of course you should. I just want to make sure you’ve really considered all your options. It’s a big decision.”

  “I know that.”

  “And my first thought was for Em.”

  I looked at him.

  “What about her?”

  “What does she say about the fact that you may never come back?” he said and raised concerned eyebrows at me.

  I scoffed and took another sip of my scotch. “That’s being a bit dramatic.” People came back all the time.

  He frowned at me.

  “What does she say about you choosing this path?” he asked. My glass made a hard clink on the table as I set it down. The truth was I hadn’t actually told her the good news yet.

  “What ‘path’? Dad, this isn’t the dark ages anymore. I know it made sense for you to turn down your mission back then because of mom and--”

  “This is not about mom and I,” he snapped. “This is about being smart and taking responsibility for your decisions. And I want to make sure you’re making those decisions with both eyes wide open. What’s more important to you, at the end of the day?”

  It was always like this with him. I knew Em would take it hard. I knew she wouldn’t be happy about me going off for months, about me taking on all that risk. But I’d come back.

  “I don’t have to choose, Dad.”

  He frowned at me again.

  “You might not agree with the choices I made, Felix, but I made them. I made them with a clear conscience. Your mother is more important than anything in the world to me. You and your sister…” he trailed off. I’d already heard the old martyrdom speech a million times before and knew how it ended. Love trumps all. Family is what matters in the end. Blah blah blah.

  I shrugged.

  “Times are different, dad. I’ll come back. Going out to the settlements is no longer the death sentence it used to be, you know.” The words were from a news headline I had seen just this morning.

  The frown deepened.

  “What will happen if you break up with Em now?” he asked.

  I flashed him an angry look. But before I could reply he spoke again. “Will that be better or worse than having her wait here on earth for you, pining after you, knowing she can never move on but having no idea what her future holds? Wondering everyday if you’ve caught a virus or worse, wondering if she’ll never see you again, knowing that every single communication she sends to you will take at least two weeks to reach you.”

  I looked at him.

  “Well, if you love her so much, which is it? Which would you rather she experience?”

  I clenched down hard on my jaw. Those weren’t the only two options.

  “I can come back,” I said again, but this time not quite believing my own words. Admittedly, I had put the decision well out of my mind so far. I hadn’t told Em a thing yet. To be honest, I knew deep down that it would change everything between us. And my life with Em was perfect. The last thing I wanted to do was change anything.

  “Here’s some advice from your old man, kid,” he said and leaned back in his chair. “Take it or leave it, I know you always were headstrong. But don’t half ass things. Decide what you want and go for that. But you’ll get nowhere sitting on the fence. The program doesn’t want people with attachments here on earth. You want that life, well, it’s all or nothing. Lead Em on and all you’ll do is jeopardize your career and your relationship. You have to commit.”

  “But Em and I aren’t really ready for that…”

  “I wasn
’t talking about Em.”

  I sighed loudly. I couldn’t argue with him. The return rates were slowly picking up but the ugly truth was that less than a quarter of those who left ever came back, let alone came back multiple times. It was dangerous out there. It was lonely. But it was also the dream I’d held onto for as long as I could remember.

  The next evening, Em and I broke up in her dorm room. She had looked at me confused for the longest time, like I was speaking a foreign language. And then she started crying. Why had I bothered to start a relationship when I knew I was going to throw it all away to leave for Mars? Why had I led her on? Why had I told her I loved her only to break her heart?

  I didn’t have answers for her. I tried to be stoic about the whole thing. I knew that if I tried to explain that I had never lied, that I had always been sincere but that I knew that this was best in the long run, best for her, she wouldn’t understand. I heard the words leave my mouth but didn’t recognize them. I sounded like my father. Like the space jocks who gave their ships female names and swore allegiance only to the ideals of Progress or Exploration and wouldn’t be bogged down by petty things like college girlfriends and other worldly attachments.

  I’m not so good with emotions. It took me weeks to realize that I was as sad as she was, and whole months for me to cry as much as she did that night. But I did cry. I told myself the story that broken up was better than widowed. That if I had to leave, it was better that I did so without taking all her future hopes and dreams with me. None of it mattered of course. Her sloping eyes tilted the other way and she looked at me like I had slapped her. I tried to apologize, tried to explain. Tried to say those simple three words again. But nothing came out. She screamed at me to get out; I left.