LIZZIE responded instantly to him, gripping his jaw between both her hands and deepening the kiss, lifting up onto her tiptoes to mold her body more firmly against his.
Rake pressed even closer, moving them until she was pinned against the wall, one of his hands gripping the swell of her ass, the other braced by her head.
“Why couldn’t I stop thinking about you last night?” he said through gritted teeth, his hands searching her body in hungry circles, bunching up her shirt, until he was finally able to press his palm to her warm skin, making her suck in a breath at his touch.
Lizzie didn’t answer, she was far beyond talking. Instead, she went to work ripping off his clothes, pulling and tugging at every layer until he was stripped to his boxer briefs.
He grabbed her roughly, hoisting her in his arms, her legs cinching around his waist as she ground against him. He walked them toward the bed, his lips and teeth and tongue dragging across her skin as he went.
He tossed her onto the mattress, pulling off her shirt in hurried handfuls. She fished out the condom she’d stuffed in the pocket of her shorts just before he tore them down her hips, dragging her underwear with them.
His eyes scoured over her with a hunger that scorched across her skin. Her body felt hot and restless, a naughty, delicious tension she wanted to drown in.
“Why do I feel like I can’t get enough of you?” Rake said, more to himself than to Lizzie as he lowered over her, something close to frustration underscoring his tone. He tore open the condom, rolling it on with one hand as his other went between her thighs.
“God, you’re so wet,” he murmured, grazing his fingers over her in luscious circles before plunging them inside, causing Lizzie to cry out at the pleasure.
He pulled his fingers out, bringing them to his mouth and tasting her. His eyes fluttered closed, his lashes sweeping across his cheekbones. Lizzie groaned at the sight, grabbing his hand and taking his fingers into her own mouth, tasting herself and him all at once. It was so overwhelming, her body tensing almost to discomfort at the waiting.
“Now,” she said impatiently, tugging at his neck, pulling him closer.
“I should make you wait,” he growled, pushing her thighs apart and staring down at her. “Make you beg me.” He fisted himself, dragging the head of his shaft through Lizzie’s wet heat, making them both groan as she squirmed against him. Lizzie’s fingers twisted in the sheets until she worried she would rip the fabric as he dragged himself over her again and again. Circling. Pressing. Almost entering. Never fully giving her what she needed.
“Fuck me,” she panted out. “Please. Please.”
With a satisfied smile, Rake pulled back, gripping her leg and draping it over his shoulder.
They both watched where he pushed into her, their breath coming in ragged pants.
Rake pulled out slightly before plunging deeper. And deeper still. He held there as their eyes locked for a moment. And then he started a near-punishing rhythm that sparked electric pleasure through her body.
“How is it this good?” His words were almost inaudible over the sound of his flesh crashing against hers. Lizzie couldn’t think. Couldn’t speak. She closed her eyes, her breath catching and back arching as he hit a perfect spot inside of her.
When she opened her eyes again, her gaze locked with Rake’s hot and searching stare. A foreign and unnerving crash of intimacy prickled across her skin and snaked through her chest. It scared the shit out of her.
The sex was good.
Too good.
Sex with Rake felt the tiniest bit different from people she’d been with before, and Lizzie didn’t know why. But she didn’t want to think about it.
Sex wasn’t for words or thoughts or answers to questions. Sex was for physical sensations. And that’s what she focused on—the feel of his hands roughly gripping her hips, the circling of his clever fingers against her clit, the delicious sting of his bite against her neck, and the feeling of her nails scoring down his back.
“Harder,” she demanded, moving to wrap her thighs high around his waist, tugging him deeper.
He did as she asked, pounding into her in a delicious, relentless rhythm, his deep grunts like music against her ear. He shifted a bit, pulling her hips higher off the bed, moving her body as a counterpoint to his. Emphasizing his movements with soft words like good and wet and sweet.
Her body sprinted toward that explosive finish line, every muscle pulling taut and tense, aching for release. But she couldn’t quite get there, couldn’t quite reach that point, and she whimpered in agony.
Rake’s mouth was on her ear, his stubble scratching the delicate skin of her cheek. “Come for me,” he growled, his accent pulsing through her. “Come for me, sweet girl.”
And she did. She bit into the muscle at his shoulder and let out a raspy groan as her body deliciously convulsed under him. She lost all sense of time and place as she drowned in the pleasure.
With one final thrust forward, Rake followed her with a deep groan, his body shaking over hers for a few seconds before he collapsed and rolled to the side, their bodies tangled in a sweaty, satiated heap against the pillows.
They both stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes, their breathing a loud mix of pants and gasps as they tried to come back to earth.
RAKE WASN’T SURE how long they lay there in post-sex bliss, but he was acutely aware of the moment Lizzie shifted, some part of him understanding that she meant to leave. And that part turned frantic, wanting her to stay.
Lizzie sat up, shooting him a smile before swinging her legs off the side of the bed. She was about to push up to standing when Rake reached out, circling his hand around her wrist and giving it a gentle tug. “If you keep ditching me like this after sex, my feelings will be hurt.”
She pressed her lips together to try to hide a smile as she quirked an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Yes, I’m quite sensitive,” he said dryly, tugging a bit more until she fell back onto the bed, pressing a giggle to his chest.
“You do seem rather sentimental,” Lizzie said, a smile in her voice as she spoke against his skin. “I think you got a bit misty-eyed there after you climaxed.”
“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.