Chase Me (Broke and Beautiful #1)(27)

He just needed more time to figure her out. Needed more time to figure out why he suddenly wanted to spend every night with the same girl, when they hadn’t even spent the night together yet. Speaking of which, the night air was picking up that dress of hers and fluttering it around her thighs like a checkered flag at a Nascar race. Worse, she kept pulling her jean jacket tighter around her, as if she was cold, but her look-but-don’t-touch vibe prevented him from warming her up. In his arms, back where she’d been inside Eataly before he’d doused the sparkle.

“We’ve been walking east awhile.” She sent him an absent smile that made him want to kiss it right off her face. “Any further and we’ll fall into the river.”

“Almost there.” He heard the tightness in his voice and tried to clear it. Jokes wouldn’t make this go away. His instinct where she was concerned told him that. No, everything had to be out in the open before he could work through it. So he braced himself and asked the question that had been plaguing him for days. “You said Wednesday was your first time stripping. I know you needed quick cash, but wasn’t there someone you could have asked for help?”

“Does this count toward your three questions?” She asked the question as if she’d been expecting him to ask, had already loaded her response.

“Yes. If there’s no other way to get you talking.”

She sent him a wary look, then released a slow breath. “The day I showed up at your apartment, my roommate had just kicked me out. I didn’t have anywhere to go that night, so I stayed up in an Internet café looking for an affordable place.” Louis’s stomach twisted. He’d been out with his friends drinking, and she’d been virtually homeless. He wanted to go back in time and kick himself in the nuts, but she was still talking, so he put his time travel plans on hold. “I saw an ad for the room in Chelsea. It was . . . well. You saw it. I winged it with Abby and wrote her a bad check. I needed it to clear, and I didn’t have enough money in the bank, so I took the job. It was only going to be once.”

“It will only be once,” he growled before he could think better of it.

She frowned. “I don’t need a hero, Louis. I’m doing just fine on my own.”

“I’m getting that loud and clear.” It wasn’t lost on him that she hadn’t fully answered his question. Did she have anyone to ask for help? He closed the distance between them and put an arm around her waist. When she stiffened, he only held tighter. “Stop this. I want to see you, Roxy. Why won’t you just let me see you?”

“Because I know what this is now. I see the kind of guy you are.” She rounded on him. Finally. A reaction. He wanted to shout with relief, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate it. “You’re decent, Louis . . . maybe you feel a little bad for me after what happened at the bachelor party. Maybe you want to make some kind of point to yourself, or your family, that you can look past money and jobs and things that matter. Make the point with someone else, all right?”

Ouch. He hadn’t quite been expecting that. If that’s how she saw him, he had more work ahead of him than he thought. “You know what? That’s a load of horseshit.” Swing for the fences, why don’t you? “I don’t need to make a point to anyone, especially my family. In fact, I make it a point not to make points to them.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Hang on. I’m going somewhere with this.”

“Okay.”

He blew out a breath. “The only opinion that matters to me is yours. Yes, you were hired to give my brother-in-law a lap dance. Stranger things have happened.”

“What if your sister finds out?”

“Don’t joke like that.” A laughter bubbled from her throat, but she still looked sad. He brushed her hair back from her face and decided to focus on the laughing part. “Why did your roommate kick you out? Do you have some terrible habit I need to know about?”

“That’s question number two. And, no. I was just late with the rent one too many times.” She pursed her lips. “I did eat her bag of flaxseed tortilla chips, though. Even though they were clearly labeled with her name. I think it might have been the straw that broke the roommate’s back.”

“Those chips are horrible.”

“I was in a pinch.”

God, she was cute. “Still, friends don’t just throw each other out onto the street.”

“We weren’t friends, we were roommates. Just like my roommate before her was just a roommate.” She looked away. “You’re the kind of guy who makes friends easily, aren’t you? You probably stop to pet strangers’ dogs on the street and talk to them about the weather. I don’t do that. We’re too different.”

Louis stepped closer until she was forced to tilt her head back. Awareness shone in her eyes, and he absorbed it like a drug. It meant he wasn’t imagining this draw between them. Gradually, her curves relaxed against his, and a small sigh drifted past her parted lips. “Dammit, Rox. Stop trying to pick a fight to get rid of me. It’s not going to work.”

“It works with everyone else.” Something seized inside of him at the mild panic in her eyes. “Is this what I get for hooking up with a lawyer?”

“Are we hooking up?” He slid his fingers into her hair and let his mouth ghost over hers. God, it felt amazing to have her close. Oh yeah. She’d definitely just looked at his mouth. “Come on, beautiful. Put me out of my misery.”