The Bet by Max Monroe

Sophie

Jude has pulled out all the swanky stops tonight. From the posh drinks at The Champagne Bar to the very special, VIP-esque reservation at The Palm Court, he’s spared no expense in providing me with the kind of evening a lot of women would fantasize about.

You’d almost believe that this is, like, a date or something.

But…I know better than to misplace that kind of expectation on it for the sake of my comfort. The truth is, Jude’s a nice guy with nice tendencies. Just because we’re strictly messing around doesn’t mean he has to treat me like dirt. No, he’s making it pretty clear tonight—it’s entirely possible to fuck around and eat at the same time. And holy hell on a hot fudge sex sundae, I’m pretty sure I’ve never been this horny and turned on while eating filet mignon.

Honestly, the state of my arousal feels like it should be a sin, given the situation. I mean, this restaurant is about as fancy and upscale as you can get, and I’m just sitting here with wet panties and a persistent, throbbing ache between my thighs that makes me feel like I’m inadvertently scandalizing the waiter every time he stops by our table to make sure we’re enjoying our meal.

It’s insane. I feel insane.

But Jude appears completely unfazed.

I watch as he takes a bite of his steak, and I hate how my eyes fixate on his strong jaw and full lips with every chew. Or the way my gaze moves to the Adam’s apple at his neck when he swallows.

Why am I so turned on, yet he’s just sitting here, enjoying his meal like one of us isn’t about to have a spontaneous orgasm in the middle of dinner?

And why in the hell does he have to look so damn good, too?

If there’s one thing that’s a certainty, it’s that Jude Winslow can wear a suit. Black jacket, crisp white shirt, and black slacks, the man looks better than the filet mignon sitting before me. He isn’t just a tasty snack; he’s the whole damn meal. Six full courses, with the biggest, most delectable chocolate cake dessert at the end.

And I haven’t even started on his eyes or the way the dimmish lighting of this sophisticated restaurant only adds to the allure of them.

They are these crystal-clear, blue-as-the-sky eyes that hold secret promises of sex and sin and the kind of delicious acts that you fantasize about but never say out loud because they’re far too dirty.

But damn it all to hell, I’m starting to feel like I’m the only one who’s sitting here thinking about hot sex and going crazy with anticipation.

He told me to meet him tonight. In a dress. Surely that was for a reason…right? Normally, wearing a sexy dress around Jude Winslow ends with happy endings of a climax variety.

And what about the drinks at the bar? Good grief. The way his hands kept lingering on my thighs and my shoulders and brushing my hair behind my ear… Why in the hell did he keep doing that? Was he trying to push me off the horny ledge?

Gah.I have to get it together.

I yank my eyes away from their current fascination with his mouth and stare down at my plate, but my attention is immediately pulled straight back to him when he asks, “How’s the filet?”

“Um…” I look up and clear my throat to force the rasp of neediness out of my voice. “It’s good. Very good, actually.”

Jude’s smile is relaxed and friendly. “Glad to hear it.”

“Yep. Good. Very, very, very good.”

Ugh. You’re being weird. Stop being so weird.

I clear my throat again. “How’s yours?”

“Delicious,” he answers, and the way his voice is all deep and throaty makes me shift a little in my seat.

“Good. That’s good.”

Holy hell, can you say anything besides good?

Apparently, I can’t because I am a ticking time bomb of horniness, and every second feels like I’m one persistent throb closer to bursting into flames. Or, worse, climbing over the table and straddling his lap and begging him to just fuck me right here in the middle of this fancy-schmancy restaurant.

Oh, for goodness’ sake, you’re losing it.

On a deep inhale, I shut my eyes briefly in an attempt to gain some control, but when Jude shifts his seat closer to mine and his warm hand reaches out to rest on my upper thigh, any chance of reining myself in goes poof.

His fingers skate along the edge of my dress again, just like when we were sitting at the bar, and my nipples take it upon themselves to harden and let me know they’d like some attention from him, too.

And when those fingers of his slide beneath the material of my dress and carefully make their way farther up my thigh, my breath gets tangled in my lungs.

Higher and higher and higher he goes.

It all feels painfully good, and in the spirit of keeping this moving in the right direction, I open my mouth to tell him just that, but our waiter chooses that exact time to step up to our table.

“How is everything?”

“Fantastic,” Jude says, and the instant the last syllable of that word slips past his tongue, one finger slides beneath my panties and directly inside me.

Holy hell.

A rush of arousal consumes my nerves, and I clench around him.

The waiter nods and smiles at Jude before looking directly at my face, and I have to bite down on my bottom lip when that pesky finger slowly starts to move inside me.

In and out. In and out. Each time, he adds a little curl in the middle that has bull’s-eye–like precision on a particular spot that pushes a pant of air out of my lungs.

“Did you enjoy the filet?”

When I realize our waiter is talking to me, waiting for me to respond, I nearly choke on the urge to moan and have to pretend to cough my way through it with my napkin held to my mouth.

Once I gain some semblance of control, I answer, “Mm-hmm.” However, Jude chooses that exact moment to add the use of his skilled thumb into the mix and starts making smooth circles over my clit. “Oh boy.”

“Excuse me?” the waiter questions with a quirk of his brow.

All the while, Jude’s hand keeps treating me like its own personal jungle gym. Playing with me. Toying with me. Sliding me straight toward the climax cliff. It’s wild. And forbidden. And the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

Damn does it feel incredible.

But the waiter. The fucking waiter is still standing at our table, waiting for me to say something.

“Holy moly…it was…uh…so good. The best feeling…I mean, meal, yeah, the best meal I’ve ever had. Thank you, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and all the saints!”

“Uh…okay… I’m glad you enjoyed it.” The waiter’s smile is uncomfortable, and I start to worry he’s a little too keen on my current state of perpetual orgasm doom. Thankfully, he moves his eyes back to Jude. You know, the one person at the table who isn’t acting like a lunatic. “Have the two of you saved some room for dessert?”

If the dessert is anything but an orgasm, I don’t want it.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

When I realize I’m not keeping my thoughts to myself, my eyes go wide in embarrassment, and Jude smirks at me like the fucking devil from across the table.

But. He. Never. Stops. Sliding. His. Finger. In. And. Out. Of. Me.

The waiter regards me with confused eyes, most likely waiting for an explanation for the odd things coming out of my mouth, but I’m all tapped out on words. I can’t focus on anything but what Jude’s fingers are doing to me.

“We’re actually planning on getting dessert somewhere else tonight,” Jude comments, and the waiter simply nods.

“Oh, okay. Can I get you two anything else, then? An after-dinner coffee? Or a cocktail, maybe?”

Jude shakes his head. “Just the check would be nice. Thank you.”

The waiter clears a few of our plates from the table before heading in the opposite direction, and once he is completely out of earshot, Jude meets my unsteady, most likely glazed-over gaze. “You need to come, don’t you?”

“Badly.”

“Can you wait until we make it back to your place, or do you need relief right now?”

Make it back to my place?That’s like…whatever exploding-vagina plus apocalyptic-dread plus spontaneous-combustion equals, and it’s that far away. Which, in normal, not-about-to-burst-from-sexual-frustration terms means very fucking far.

Clearly, my answer is simple. “Now.”

Immediately, he pulls his hand away from me and smirks. “Hold that thought for five minutes.”

“F-five minutes?” I question, and the outright disappointment is embarrassingly evident in my voice.

I mean, five minutes? That might as well be an eternity.

But Jude just leans forward and whispers into my ear, “Just five minutes, Soph. And then I’m going to make you come so hard you’ll feel it in your toes.”

I swallow down the urge to blurt out something crazy like, “Just bang me right here!” and try my best to keep control of my body for the next four minutes and forty-five seconds.

I know this because I’m now counting in my head. And each second that ticks by makes me certain that once these five minutes are up, I can’t be held liable for what I do or say.

Thirty-three.

Thirty-two.

Thirty-one.

“How much time do I have left?” Jude asks, his hand gripped tightly around mine as he leads us out of the restaurant and into one of the mostly empty hallways of the lavish hotel.

“Huh?”

“How many seconds, Sophie?” He smirks down at me, and I try to play it cool like I haven’t been counting since the moment he set the deadline at five minutes.

Twenty-nine.

Twenty-eight.

Twenty-seven.

“Uh…I don’t know. How would I possibly know that?”

“Because I’ve been watching your mouth move with each second that passes by.”

Well, shoot.

“How many?” he repeats, and his blue eyes call my bluff so hard that I answer with the cold, hard facts.

“Nineteen.”

“Looks like we’re going to have to take a detour, huh?” He winks in my direction, and before I know it, he’s pulling us into one of the bathrooms of the freaking Plaza Hotel.

“W-what are you doing?”

“Keeping my word,” he says and shuts the door behind us.

“What if someone comes in here?”

“I guess we’re just going to have to take our chances.”

My jaw practically hits the tops of my stilettos. “Jude! You can’t be serious!”

“And there’s also a lock on the door that I might’ve just utilized.” He grins and stalks toward me like a big, sexy lion ready to consume his prey. The instant he reaches me, he kneels down, yanks up my dress, and grips my ass with his strong hands just as he buries his face against my panties.

On a deep inhale, he looks up at me with hooded eyes. “You always smell so fucking sweet when you’re wet like this.”

I whimper.

“Can I make you come?”

“Should that even be a question right now?”

His eyes are amused at my sassiness. “You’ve been waiting for this for a while, huh?” he questions, and his wicked fingers slide my panties down my thighs. “Ever since I told you to wear a dress, I bet you’ve been thinking about my tongue right here.” He pats two fingers on my clit, making my back bow dramatically.

I swallow. Nod. And suck both of my lips into my mouth.

With purpose, he shoves my nude silk panties into his pocket and shoots a little waggle of his brow in my direction. “For the collection,” he comments, and I’m not sure if it makes me a total pervert to be aroused that Jude Winslow keeps stealing my underwear, but man oh man, it’s one heck of a turn-on.

“You know, Sophie,” he says, staring directly at my pussy. “I’ve been thinking about the same thing.” He floats his lips across my bare skin, dangerously close to the one spot that’s become so needy for his touch, I feel as if I could burst into flames. “Thinking about putting my mouth on you. Right here. On this very spot. I’ve been dying to taste you again,” he whispers just before he gently licks his tongue across my swollen clit.

My hips jolt forward at the unexpected but intense sensation.

Slowly, he slides his index finger up my inner thigh and doesn’t stop until that finger is inside me. He moves it in and out in the most delicious rhythm, and I moan.

“And right here,” he whispers, and he licks his tongue across my entrance. “I’ve been dreaming of burying my cock here ever since I left your apartment the other morning. Hell, I almost woke you up just so I could feel this perfect cunt of yours wrapped around me again.”

“You should have,” I say, and my voice is so breathy that it hardly makes any sound at all.

“Next time, I probably will.”

“And what about right now?”

He grins up at me. “Right now, I’m going to make you come. Once on my tongue and then again on my cock. And babe, let me tell you—that second orgasm, it’s going to wring you fucking dry.”

Yes, please.

His finger keeps sliding in and out of me, and with each stroke, I can feel how insanely wet I am. But just when I think he’s finally going to put his mouth on me, he pauses and looks up again through heated eyes.

“One question.”

“Huh?”

“You think you can get out of work obligations for a few days this week?”

“Work?” I blink three times. “What?”

“I want to take you somewhere.”

“Take me somewhere?” I ask, and my face scrunches up in outright confusion. “Are you seriously asking me this? Right now?”

“It’s important.”

“More important than making sure I don’t explode from pent-up sexual frustration? I mean, seriously, Jude, I always thought guys were full of shit about the whole blue balls thing, but I’m starting to believe it’s real.”

He laughs. “Well, considering it would lead to a hell of a lot more orgasms, nearly two days straight of orgasms, then I’d say yes, in this case, it is of the utmost importance.”

I shake my head to try to understand what in the hell he’s even asking. “W-when is this?”

“We’d leave late Wednesday night. Come back Saturday afternoon.”

“W-where?”

“Somewhere that isn’t New York.”

“Uh…” I shift my hips, and my head falls back at the building sensation that his fingers are currently providing. “I…uh… Maybe… I don’t know…”

“How about you get back to me on that one?” A warm, husky laugh leaves his throat and brushes against my skin. “And I get back to making you come.”

“Yes.” A relieved sigh escapes my lungs. “Brilliant plan.”

Another soft chuckle leaves his lips, but it’s quickly quieted down when he quite literally buries his face against me and eats at my pussy with the kind of fervor that has me screaming out the craziest, most incomprehensible shit that I swear everyone inside this hotel can probably hear.

But it’s hard to care when a man like Jude is giving you one of the best orgasms of your life.

And it’s really hard to care when he ups the ante, procures a condom from his pocket, slides his cock inside you, and makes you come so hard you forget you’re in a public bathroom in the middle of an upscale hotel.

Have mercy.Now, I’m really starting to understand why Dr. Winters said it was a good thing for me to just let go and enjoy myself.

Because if this is living in the moment and having fun? Before now, I haven’t been living at all.