Page 41 of Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake
Rake leaned against the wall, watching her. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. He had absolutely no clue what the right words would be for this situation.
“No,” she snapped, moving farther into the room. Rake blew out a breath. He didn’t know how to do this. Any of it. She needed comfort and support, and all he was capable of was standing there like an absolute twat as she continued to hurt.
“I’m gonna have a shower, then,” he said, heading toward the bathroom.
He rinsed off quickly, replaying the disastrous dinner on loop. He sensed the true gravity of Lizzie’s hurt when he walked back into the room twenty minutes later and found her sitting on the bed, eyes somewhere far away while tears rolled down her cheeks. In a dazed state, she brought the nozzle of a whippedcream canister to her lips and sprayed a mountain of foam into her mouth.
Rake felt rooted to the spot. He didn’t know her well enough to know how to help her. She had said she didn’t want to talk about it, and he didn’t want to push her, but he also didn’t know how to comfort her.
Rake cleared his throat, and Lizzie slowly resurfaced from the deep recesses of her thoughts, blinking and looking around the room until her eyes landed on his. They stared at each other for a moment, the heavy weight of vulnerability threatening to push them deep into their awkward shells.
Then, she gave him a sad smile and held out the whipped cream can. Rake moved into action, sliding onto his side of the bed and leaning on the headboard next to her. He took the can and squirted a mouthful of whipped cream into his mouth, passing it back to her. They sat like that for a few minutes, the hiss of the whipped cream nozzle filling the room.
“Still don’t want to talk about it?” he asked, then opened his mouth wide for Lizzie to fill it with the sugary sweetness. He’d forgotten how delicious whipped cream was. But everything seemed to taste better around Lizzie.
“No,” she responded curtly, nearly drowning him in cream then filling her own throat.
Rake swallowed and nodded. “Okay.” He opened his mouth again for another hit.
She looked at him for a second, almost like she expected him to push.
Rake saw the exact moment wariness was replaced with mischievousness in her golden eyes. She brought the can to his face, but instead of putting the nozzle in his mouth, she moved it at the last moment and dropped a dollop on his nose.
“Oh my God, are you serious?” Rake said, fluffy bunches of cream blowing from his nostrils at the laugh he couldn’t hold in.
Lizzie let out her signature sonic boom of a giggle, giving him a whipped cream mustache for good measure.
“I just showered!” He jolted away from another incoming attack, turning and rolling so her hand with the can was pinned to the mattress and her laughing smile right below him.
“You look so nice, though!” Lizzie said between giggles. “Good enough to eat.”
“Oh yeah? Let’s decorate you then,” he said. Her eyes went wide with surprise and amusement as he pressed his nose against hers, dragging his face down to her neck and chin as she writhed and laughed beneath him.
“Stop! You’ll make a mess!” she gasped out as he moved one hand to tickle her waist.
Rake pulled back to give her a sardonic look. “Oh, we can’t have that now. I wouldhatefor this to turn into a mess,” he said, scooping his finger through the fluff on her chin and bringing it to his mouth. He forgot that she still had the weapon, though, and she used it. She bucked up, throwing him off-balance, and she used the momentum to roll on top of him, grabbing his jaw with one hand and adding a beard to her creation with the other.
Rake let out an exaggerated groan, pretending to fight her off just enough to turn her laughs into screeches of joy. She planted a hand next to his head, leaning forward so her nose almost touched his as she gasped for air between giggles.
It felt like he’d just won the lottery, seeing her laugh. The realization that he’d do anything to make her smile, act any type of fool to see that pain drain from her eyes, hit him hard and fast.
She continued to hover over him, eyes wild and chest heaving as she worked to catch her breath. They shared a smile. An intimate, delicious, decadent smile that sent a sharp bolt of lust down Rake’s body to his groin, right where Lizzie straddled him.Her eyes heated and her body pressed ever so slightly closer to his as she continued to look at him, her sheet of red hair falling over one of her shoulders and trapping them in a soft, glowing cage.
Rake reached up his hand, unable to control it, and brushed his knuckles along her jaw, dragging his thumb over her parted lips.
The touch popped their bubble, reality flooding in at the edges as the echoes of their laughter dimmed, the sounds of traffic floating in through the open window reminding them where they were. What they were.
Lizzie cleared her throat, her smile turning into something stiff and fake as she slid off him in retreat. She put the can of whipped cream on the nightstand and padded to the bathroom. Rake heard her turn on the tap, and he worked to get his spiraling mind and lust-filled body back under control.
The thought of them having sex and getting it out of their system flashed across his mind, but he knew that wouldn’t do any good. Not for him at least. There was no reason to complicate things more with intimacy and sex. He needed moments like this to stop happening. Silly moments of play that seemed to spark a fire of want for his untouchable… what? Friend? Mother of his child?
She walked back to the bed, damp washcloth in hand. She moved to wipe his cheeks, clean him off, but seemed to think better of doing it herself and handed him the towel. He took it with a silent thanks and scrubbed it over his face, wanting the coarse fibers to wash away the dangerous feelings that seemed to be staining his skin.
These feelings were not real. Rake wasn’t supposed to have these feelings at all. Emotionlessness had served him well for the past few years, and there was no reason to reacquaint himself with them. He didn’t deserve happiness. Didn’t qualify for domestic bliss, the ghosts of his past rattling their chains in hismind and sobering him up from the weird fantasyland he and Lizzie seemed to exist in.
After cleaning off their faces, they worked in silent tandem, stripping off the soiled comforter and pulling back the clean sheet beneath. They plopped into the bed with a safety net of inches between them. Rake stared up at the ceiling, images of his ex, Shannon, floating just above him.
Had he ever felt this way with her? If he had, he couldn’t remember. And it seemed impossible to forget joy like this. But what he and Lizzie had wasn’t real. Couldn’t last. People passed one another in fragments, broken pieces fruitlessly searching for a nonexistent other half, hurting each other more in the process. It was all bullshit, and he’d do well to remember that.