Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2)(12)
She spent another few minutes ransacking her messy room, before realizing her last hope of finding the charger really would be at work. Which sucked, because the last thing she wanted to do on her Saturday off was go into the bakery and weave through the rabid line of people desperate for a donut.
Changing out of her pajamas and throwing on the first things she grabbed from the floor, she then scooped up her purse and began digging through it for her key ring. While she needed a key to get into Baking Me Crazy, her apartment had lock pads, so she rarely had her keys at the ready.
As she was searching, her phone buzzed. She looked at the screen, seeing a text from a number she didn’t have saved. After she opened the message, her eyes went wide.
Missing something? it read, with a picture of a large hand holding her key ring. A naughty buzz of pleasure shot low through her belly as she recognized the hand. The same one that had gripped her thighs the night before.
The same hand attached to the body of a man she never planned on hearing from again.
Another text buzzed through that made Lizzie let out a bark of laughter.
This is a nice touch, the message said under a second picture of her key chain shaped like a small, pink penis—veins, balls, and all. The head detached to reveal a tube of ChapStick.
I should have guessed you’d rob me, Lizzie typed back, biting the inside of her cheek as she smiled.
A new message popped up immediately: We both know this is a desperate ploy to see me again. You could have just asked;)
He followed it up just as quickly with: Is there somewhere you want me to meet you to hand them over?
Lizzie thought about this. The smart, responsible thing would be to give him a corner street to meet on, offer him a brief smile, take her keys, and not look back.
But her impulsive, hornier side knew exactly how much more fun it would be to meet back at his hotel room and enjoy a second round of the night before.
Which was odd. She wasn’t one to want more after a hookup. She was exceptionally good at separating emotions from sex at a first encounter, but going back for seconds was a recipe for disaster; a chance for those pesky feelings to gain purchase.
But Rake seemed to be an exception to her rule, and with a dick that good and an accent that pretty, it wasn’t hard to reason why she would want to see him again.
Without giving it any more thought, she typed out her reply: I’ll swing by your hotel if that’s cool with you.
An odd thrill of anticipation had her heart thumping in her chest when she saw the typing bubble pop up and disappear a few times. She felt a giddiness about this guy that she hadn’t experienced since high school.
She wanted to know what he was thinking, what he was feeling, as he continued to type and stop, type and stop, that traitorous little text bubble giving away just enough of his struggle to tempt Lizzie to the highest degree.
Finally, three delicious words popped up on her screen.
See you soon.
Chapter 6
RAKE wasn’t doing this right. His night with Lizzie was supposed to be a one-off. Something to get it out of his system. A mistake he could beat himself up for, a slip in self-control that would feed nicely into his self-loathing.
What it wasn’t supposed to be was something that kept him up all damn night; every time he would finally close his eyes and think he was surrendering to sleep, he’d hear an echo of her laugh or sigh. It was not supposed to be something that he welcomed again into his life.
He wasn’t meant to have attachments or feelings, and his odd craving for Lizzie needed to be stopped.
Which was why he decided that although he’d invited her over—or, more accurately, she’d invited herself—he would turn her away. He would open the door, hand her the keys, make an excuse, and firmly close the door. Bolt it for good measure.
But the thing he didn’t take into account was all reason flying out the bloody window the second he heard her knock.
He took a deep breath, walking himself through a mental cold shower before he opened the door.
Like an unstoppable, lovely wave, Lizzie breezed into the hotel room, dragging one palm across his chest and fixing him with an effervescent grin as she went. She kicked off her sandals like she had the previous night, the shoes flinging off to different corners of the room like she planned on staying awhile. Rake’s blood heated almost to discomfort with the hope of her staying awhile.
“Hi,” she said brightly, turning to him and wrapping her arms around his waist in a familiar hug.
Rake wasn’t used to physical affection—it very well might have been two years since he last received a hug—and the feeling of it sent his whole body off-kilter, like his knees would crumple beneath him if he didn’t have her to lean into. To hug back.
Which was absolutely absurd because he didn’t even like hugs or affection or anything of the sort. And he certainly wasn’t one to swoon.
“How’s your morning been?” she asked as she pulled away, moving farther into the hotel room with a soft smile.
He wasn’t sure of the polite way to say he’d been kept up all night with thoughts of her, and when he’d finally gotten a few hours of sleep, he’d woken up achingly hard from memories of the night before. Then he’d spent the morning agonizing over what to text her, until he didn’t even recognize himself anymore, overanalyzing every word of her response. His morning had been shit.