Chase Me (Broke and Beautiful #1)(36)

“What are you doing?” she asked in a rush of breath.

He reached for the shopping bag. “Wishing you luck at your audition.” As she watched through hooded eyes, he lifted a shoe box out of the bag and set it on the ground. With a flick of his wrist, he lifted the top and revealed a pair of black leather pumps. Angels sang in the distance. They were the most beautiful shoes she’d ever seen in her life. Without even trying them on, she knew they were her size, too. “I had to go shoe shopping with my sisters yesterday to get these. Now that you’ve met them, you know what kind of a hell it was.”

She couldn’t take the shoes. Could she? Her own pair were so worn out, but at least they were hers. At least she’d paid for them herself. No, she couldn’t accept this from him. Especially after she’d run him in circles. “Louis, I can’t—”

“Oh, yes. After four hours in Bloomingdale’s on a Sunday afternoon, you’re going to keep them.” He wrapped a hand around her ankle and removed her shoe before slipping the new one on. Good Lord, it felt like a cloud molding itself around her tired, blistered foot. She had no choice but to let him repeat the process with her other one. She had to know what it felt like to have them both on. Louis’s big hands holding her foot so carefully might have had something to do with her reluctance to pull away, too. Seeing him kneel down in front of her, frustration evident in every line of his body, sparked an ache deep inside her. If she joined him on the floor now, she could make him cave on the no kissing rule, easy peasy. But it would be a hollow victory. For some annoying reason, she wanted to give him the win he needed, so she would wait until later. Tough as it would be.

“How did you know my size?”

He rested his hands on his bent knees, surveying the shoes on her feet. “My sisters are good for some things. They took one look at you and knew your measurements.”

She refused to be hurt over his clipped tone. “You sound really pissed at me.”

“I’m looking at your bare legs from an advantageous position and there’s nothing I can do about it right now or we’ll both be late.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “Ah, f*ck it. I need something.” Without warning, he leaned in and kissed the inside of her knee, as if he couldn’t stand staying away another second. His breath huffed out against her sensitive skin as his lips stroked higher, to the inside of her thigh. A wave of heat hit her so hard that she had to steady herself with both hands on his strong shoulders to keep from toppling over. His mouth moved to the opposite leg, using his tongue this time to tease her flesh, giving her small bites in between licks. She heard a loud noise and realized her breath had started to rasp in and out. Louis squeezed the backs of her thighs and released an irritated growl before rising to his feet. Her new heels put her eye level with his mouth, and she wanted to kiss him more than anything. So badly her hands shook. His throaty sigh told her he knew how she felt, but his chin was set with resolve. Now who’s stubborn? she wanted to ask. “I have to be downtown in court all afternoon, starting about ten minutes ago. But I want to see you tonight, Rox. Come over.”

A command, not a request. Part of her was annoyed by that. She decided where and with whom she spent her time. Oh, but then there was the other, more significant half of her that appreciated him taking the decision out of her hands. Kind of loved it. It might have been the hot tinge of need in his voice that did her in, too. He needed her. She needed him. Really, there was no decision to make. “See you tonight, Louis.”

He tried to hide his relief, but she glimpsed it anyway. “You all set for your audition?”

“With these fancy new kicks? I’m a shoe-in.”

His face transformed with a reluctant grin. “Stop being so damn cute or I’ll break my no kissing rule.”

“We can’t have that,” she breathed dramatically, pulling open the door for him.

On his way out the door, he raked her with a hot glance. “Wear the shoes for me tonight.”

She ran her fingernails down his chest. “Only if you wear the tie.”

When she closed the door behind Louis, she heard him groan a curse loud enough to echo through the hallway. She couldn’t take the time to laugh, though. She was officially running late.





Chapter 12



I MUST BE in the wrong place.

Two sets of critical eyes swung toward Roxy as she opened the entrance door, giving her the obligatory scrutiny every actress gives her competition. Oddly, it unnerved Roxy more than usual. Most auditions she walked into, she was greeted by forty, sometimes fifty, sets of eyes. Never, ever a measly two. The lack of competition somehow made the upcoming read that more worrisome. When you had no chance in hell, you lacked for pressure. With only two girls to beat out, the pressure increased like a vise around her neck. Especially when both of the girls looked like they’d stepped off the pages of Entertainment Weekly. Hadn’t the blonde been in that sitcom with Neil Patrick Harris? How I Met Your Brother or something?

She resisted the compulsion to smooth her hair and instead made her way to a chair in the waiting area, where she sat and immediately withdrew the script from her purse. To her left, the office door she’d be walking through in mere minutes sat closed, not a sound coming from the other side.

She’d been emailed the “sides” yesterday afternoon and had spent most of the night rehearsing the script excerpt in front of the bathroom mirror. Johan Strassberg’s newest film centered on a young woman who’d been forced to leave college in New York to care for her ailing mother in the Midwest. While she’d only been given a small section of the script, she was already intrigued with the character of Missy Devlin. There was such resentment, vulnerability, and yearning in the small section of text alone that she was eager to see the rest. Eager to immerse herself in the role if she just got the chance. Please let them give me the chance.