Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2)(6)
“Was that … ‘someone’?” Rake asked quietly.
Lizzie’s head shot up, meeting his eyes. “That,” she said, her nostrils flaring, jabbing a finger in the direction she’d run from, “was absolutely fucking no one.”
It was Rake’s turn to nod. He continued to stare at her, his chest still rising and falling as he worked to catch his breath. His eyes bored into her, like he could see the wild circuits going off beneath her skin.
Thoughts and noise continued to build in her head, humming into her bones. She needed an off button. She needed him to stop looking at her like that. She needed … something.
She pushed forward, pressing herself against the hard wall of Rake’s body. Her lips, hungry and desperate, found his, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer.
He pulled his head back, surprise and want lighting up his features. “Wait. Are you—”
Lizzie cut him off, straining on her tiptoes to press her mouth back against his. Words were pointless and trite. She didn’t need to describe her feelings or analyze why she attracted chaos. She needed lips and teeth and hands and heat.
His initial shock melted into subtle exploration, kissing her back, molding their bodies more tightly together, opening her mouth with a swipe of his tongue and tasting her with hesitant desire.
Lizzie let out a sigh, tension evaporating from her skin, as he pushed even closer, pressing her between the rough stone of the building behind her and the hard planes of his body.
Calm spread through her limbs, her muscles focused on Rake’s reassuring weight, her mind centered on the feel of his mouth against hers, the gentle scratch of his stubble. Lizzie twined her hands through his hair, pulling him closer, feasting on the soft groan he made.
But then, he pulled back.
Why was he pulling back?
Rake’s hands dropped from her body, and he flattened his palms on the wall behind her, one on either side of her shoulders. He arched his head back and blinked up at the sky, sucking in a breath. Lizzie watched the movements of his throat as he swallowed.
“Why’d you stop?” she asked, snaking her hands around his trim waist. Touching another person was a decadent luxury, and Lizzie was the embodiment of greed.
He looked down at her, his eyebrows pinching together as he searched her face. “Because a guy just laid his hands on you in a bar, and it seems shitty to feel you up right after.” His voice was gruff. Lizzie wanted to feel the way it would vibrate against her thighs.
“I’m fine,” she said, trying to tug his mouth back to hers. He didn’t budge, just continued to study her. Lizzie blinked away. He was looking too closely, searching for something that wasn’t there.
“Take me home with you,” she said, dragging her fingers down the front of his shirt, enjoying the small vibration of the fabric scratching against her nails, the subtle shiver of his body under her hands. She looped her fingers in the waistband of his pants, pulling his hips closer to hers. “Use another one of your cheesy pickup lines, and take me home with you.”
She knew she had him when he laughed.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
Lizzie leaned in and pressed a kiss to his jawline before lightly biting the spot. “Sex is always a good idea.”
He stared at her for another long second before he shook his head and grabbed her hand.
“You should write holiday cards,” he said, pulling her away from the wall and guiding her down the street.
Chapter 4
RAKE took a deep breath, trying to rationalize what was happening as he shoved his keycard into the lock and opened the door to his hotel room. He must have lost his mind somewhere between Lizzie’s barstool and the corner block where she’d kissed him. It was the only explanation for the bizarre, light-headed feeling he’d had since they first started talking. He’d sworn off women—he’d stuck with it too—but something about this one’s wide smile and booming laugh muddled his brain.
He pushed open the door and Lizzie waltzed in, flipping off her sandals and walking farther into the place like she’d been there a million times. He stared at the discarded shoes and was simultaneously unnerved and warmed at the foreign sight of someone else’s things flung next to the precise line of his lonely shoes.
Lizzie let out a low whistle, spinning around as she took in the suite. “Hot damn, do you always stay in such nice places?” she asked, pulling her hair from the bun on the top of her head. Rake watched the red waves tumble free and cascade down her shoulders, the ends skimming just below the swells of her breasts.
“Work tends to set us up in nice places, I guess,” he said, watching as she pushed her fingers through it, making the strands dance like flames licking at her body, glints of orange and gold sparking in the mass of her hair.
He was transfixed. And in desperate need of a good fuck if he was this turned on by her hair alone. It’d been almost two years, he reasoned. He deserved to bend his rules a bit.
He’d done so well at avoiding women and sex—avoiding any demonstrations of human intimacy, really—that he hadn’t seen Lizzie coming. But the second he’d caught her looking at him, his mind had focused in on her, the single thought of want, want, want throbbing through him.
He might have been able to push away the urge, come up with an excuse for his coworkers, and head for his hotel alone, but seeing those assholes harassing her filled him with such a primal, protective instinct, he knew he couldn’t leave without her.