Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2)(13)
But instead of explaining this, he settled on: “Your keys are just there,” pointing brusquely at the metal pile sitting on the coffee table.
“Thank you,” she said, grabbing them.
And then she did something that nearly killed him. She pulled the head off the penis key chain from the ring, twisted the balls around and around to reveal the pink tip of ChapStick, brought it to her lips, and made a sensual circuit around her mouth, before reversing the process, clicking it back onto the key ring, dropping the whole damn thing in her giant purse, and popping her lips with a satisfied smack.
They stared at each other for a long moment, Lizzie fixing him with a small smile that was a mix of amusement and flirtation.
Rake had to get her out of there.
He had to get every trace of her out of that hotel room because he wanted her with such a raw physical force that the intensity of it screamed danger like a blaring alarm through his skull, his pulse pounding through every joint and muscle of his body. Wanting something this much could only be a bad thing.
“So you probably—” He lifted his hand toward the door, but at the same moment, she talked over him.
“You’re odd, do you know that?” she said, her smile growing.
Rake’s head jerked back at this as he spluttered, trying to understand her words. “I’m odd?” he finally managed, jabbing a finger at his chest.
“Yes, you,” she said with a little laugh, taking a step toward him.
“Coming from the woman with a penis ChapStick on her key ring and a pack of questionable cheese in her purse?”
Lizzie let out a booming laugh. And, as off-kilter as she made him, Rake couldn’t help but smile at the noise. He’d heard her laugh more in the past twelve hours than he’d heard anyone laugh his whole life. If yellow was a sound, he thought, it would be her laugh. Bright and booming, warming and joyful. Different varieties ranging from sunbeams and lemon zest to the soft puffs of golden wattle.
“You’re odd,” she repeated, amusement still dripping like honey on every word, “because you’re a big gorgeous mass of contradictions.”
Rake tilted his head to the side, not understanding. He wasn’t complicated. He wasn’t complex. He was a normal guy who got up every day and went to work, stayed as long as he could without seeming weird, then went home to his empty apartment and watched boring TV until it was reasonable for him to go to bed, only to repeat the cycle the next day.
“What parts of me are a contradiction?”
“All of this,” she said, gesturing between them, before closing the space and curling her fingers in his belt loops. “You’re quick to flirt with me at a bar or over text. It’s obvious you’re attracted to me”—Rake still had the wherewithal and pride to send her a sardonic glance at that, which she accepted with a waggle of her eyebrows—“and it’s even more obvious I’m attracted to you,” she added, expertly stroking his ego. “But when it comes down to it”—she pressed their hips closer together, his erection a glaringly obvious third party in the conversation— “you clam up. Why?”
Rake didn’t know what to say. If he was being honest with himself, his brain was having trouble working with his aching cock pressed so firmly against her. He couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought, not with the fresh scent of her skin—a mix of sweet vanilla and tart fruit—tangling with the sound of her laugh and clogging up his brain.
“I don’t do this a lot,” he admitted. “Hookups don’t come naturally to me.” Embarrassment flooded him. He was a man. He was supposed to be good at hookups. He was supposed to be able to fuck and hook up and do it all without overthinking or having any damn feelings about it.… Right?
Lizzie stared at him for a moment, her eyes traveling over his face like she was looking into him, pulling him apart layer by layer, trying to translate some code. Then she smiled.
And stepped away. Rake’s body jolted with the sudden loss of her heat.
“I’ll stop bothering you, then,” she said, giving him a goofy little salute. “It was nice to meet you, Dreamy Rake from Down Under.”
She moved to pass him, heading toward the door.
And then an odd thing happened.
Rake lost complete control of his body, his arm darting out to grab her waist, pulling her back against him, his mouth pressing to hers in a hungry, searing kiss, before he could form a rational thought.
Rake couldn’t make sense of what she did to him, why she disrupted his balance so badly, but he knew he couldn’t let her leave.
Chapter 7
LIZZIE responded instantly to him, gripping his jaw between both her hands and deepening the kiss, lifting up onto her tiptoes to mold her body more firmly against his.
Rake pressed even closer, moving them until she was pinned against the wall, one of his hands gripping the swell of her ass, the other braced by her head.
“Why couldn’t I stop thinking about you last night?” he said through gritted teeth, his hands searching her body in hungry circles, bunching up her shirt, until he was finally able to press his palm to her warm skin, making her suck in a breath at his touch.
Lizzie didn’t answer, she was far beyond talking. Instead, she went to work ripping off his clothes, pulling and tugging at every layer until he was stripped to his boxer briefs.