Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2)(15)
“I was practically weeping,” he said with feigned melodrama. “I’m just really proud of myself for being so good at sex. I’m basically an artist,” he added, squeezing her sides and making her body jolt with a piercing shriek.
“For someone so damn awkward before a hookup, you certainly are good at the follow-through,” she said through her gasping laughs.
She was a ball of energy and fire and noise, so different from the calm and controlled way Rake measured his days. Some deep hidden part of him was trying to scramble out of its cage and bask in her energy. He knew he should resist it, but a little indulgence couldn’t hurt, right? He was leaving for home, back to his empty apartment and well-managed life. He could be this other person for a few hours in Lizzie’s delicious company.
“Have lunch with me,” he said, pressing his nose into the soft silk of her hair. “I’m leaving tomorrow and I’ve barely seen any of Philadelphia. Be a Good Samaritan and show me your filthy city.”
Lizzie reared up and scrambled away from him, retreating with a look of horror and outrage that sent genuine fear into Rake’s gut. She was silent for a moment, appraising him from the opposite corner of the mattress, like a bizarre naked predator deciding how to kill him.
“What?” he asked, genuinely at a loss for the seething look she gave him.
“What did you say about my city?”
Rake ran through his previous comments. “What? That it’s filthy? That can’t be news to you. I saw someone throw up on the side of a building and then just walk away the other day.”
The corner of Lizzie’s mouth twitched in a snarl. Like a hunting lion—her red mane of hair tumbled and wild, her honey-colored eyes blazing—she stalked toward him across the bed on hands and knees until the tip of her nose touched his. Rake swallowed.
“Don’t you ever”—she reached up, clasping his cheeks between her palms in a strong grip—“ever insult Philadelphia. It’s the best city in the world.”
Rake let out a disbelieving huff. “My shoes stick to the pavement here. I’ve seen more random mannequin heads on the sidewalk than in entire department stores, and yesterday a tumbleweed of condoms and human hair rolled past me. Even the rats are offended,” Rake said, words distorted from her grip. “You can’t tell me this city isn’t dirty.”
Lizzie seemed to think about this, staring intimidatingly into his eyes before giving a curt nod. “It’s filthy but amazing,” she said with definitiveness. “And if you refer to it with anything but utter respect and admiration, I will give you the worst purple nurple of your life.”
“What’s a purple nurple?”
She reached down and pinched his nipple then twisted a bit, making him yelp in surprise. Having enough of that, he easily set her off-balance and flipped her to her back, pinning her hands to the mattress.
“If Philadelphia is so great,” he said, pausing to place a sharp bite on the top of her breast that made her suck in a breath, “then prove it to me. Show me around.”
She studied him, a surly insolence across her sweet face that made him want to laugh, before she finally nodded. “Fine,” she said. “But we should probably have sex one more time before we go.”
Rake couldn’t argue with that.
Chapter 8
AS Lizzie dragged Rake block after block around Philadelphia, it was hard to say who was the tourist. She took him to the Schuylkill River and the Liberty Bell. Walked him past the sky rises of Center City and the historical colonials of Old City. Guided him through Chinatown and the overcrowded Reading Terminal Market. And she talked all the while, asking him about his favorite foods, his favorite season, his favorite things about Australia. He didn’t offer much detail in his responses, but always returned the questions, seeming genuinely interested in the off-track direction she ended up taking her answers, going from talking about a local brewery she liked to the belief that, if she were a sea creature, she was fairly certain she’d be a Dumbo octopus.
At the Rodin sculpture garden, she forced Rake to mimic the pose of The Thinker as she set up her camera timer, sprinting over to join him next to the statue. She snorted at the picture as Rake looked at it over her shoulder.
“You’re very stoic,” she said, turning to look up at him. Despite his initial reluctance, he’d played along and held the pose perfectly.
“You’re very … not,” he said, using his thumb and forefinger to zoom in on her. She was a red blur, a laugh and huge grin evident on her fuzzy features as she’d darted over to stand beside him.
Lizzie laughed. She had more pictures of herself like that than not. It had always driven her mother up the wall, Lizzie’s brother, Ryan, a perfect little model in all family photos while Lizzie had blurred in and out of the frame like a wild spirit. Why can’t you hold still? her mother would bark out at the less-than-perfect results. Why can’t you control yourself for just a minute?
Lizzie had never found an answer for that.
“Will you send that to me?” Rake said after a moment, drawing Lizzie out of the painful memory that tickled across her skin.
“For the spank bank?” Lizzie asked, biting her bottom lip to suppress a laugh.
“Yeah,” Rake said, not missing a beat. “Nothing spurs on my masturbation quite like blurry pictures of vibrant redheads.”