Fury of emotions? She’d never felt such fierce desire, been so completely lost in a man. She pried his fingers from her waist and forced the words from her lungs. “We should fix the oven.”
“There’s a reason I didn’t stop asking you out.” His tone was gentle, but his words were confident. “I knew we should be together, and after that kiss, I’m sure of it. I’m not walking away from you, Lizzie.”
“I’m not asking you to walk away. Just…We can’t do that.”
His brows furrowed. “So, you aren’t asking me to walk away? You’ll go out with me again?”
“This wasn’t a date.” I’m so screwed. Solo shower sex was totally not going to cut it after that kiss.
“Right.” He smiled. “Go out with me tomorrow.”
“Blue…”
He took a step back and held his palms up in surrender. She instantly missed the heat of them on her skin.
“As friends,” he said. “Go out with me tomorrow as friends.”
She still had to edit her webcast. She should have had it done already, but she’d wasted all evening. No, I didn’t waste a second of it. She’d be up all night editing, and then she’d be exhausted Saturday. She definitely should not agree to go out with Blue.
She shouldn’t say yes. She shouldn’t smile. Why was she smiling? Why was she touching his arm? God! What was wrong with her? She tried to pull her hand away from his muscular forearm, but his skin was warm, his muscles hard, and his seductive eyes were stealing her ability to think straight again.
Oh, the hell with it. One more outing. As friends. She could do this, couldn’t she?
“Okay.”
Chapter Five
BLUE PACED THE bedroom on the second floor of his cottage on the bluff with his cell phone pressed to his ear and a grimace on his face as he listened to Duke complain about Trish’s newest role. It was late Saturday afternoon, and he’d already finished laying the hardwood floors in the bedrooms. He should be exhausted after staying at Lizzie’s to fix her stove until nearly one o’clock in the morning, then getting up to work at the crack of dawn. But he wasn’t exhausted; he was invigorated.
“I just don’t see what the issue is,” Blue said as he walked down the stairs. “She’s an actress, Duke. What do you want her to do? Turn down the most lucrative roles?”
“Hold on a sec, B.” Blue’s siblings had called him B for as long as he could remember.
While he waited for Duke to return to the line, Blue went into the kitchen and admired the cabinetry he’d built, and his mind drifted back to Lizzie and the kiss they’d shared. Even though he was no longer into meaningless hookups, he’d had his fair share of women over the years. Blue adored the intimacy of kissing. He loved the closeness, the feel of a woman’s breathing going shallow, the pressure of her lips on his, the urgency or languid enjoyment of the kiss. From a single kiss he could tell how deep their connection would go. There were surface kisses—the kind that he doled out to end a date when there wouldn’t be another. Then there were hurried, urgent kisses as a precursor to sex. Hot, steamy, let-me-take-you kisses. He loved those. But the most glorious kiss of all was the very first one. The kiss where both people were testing the waters, feeling for their bodily reactions and sensing those of their partner. Waiting to see if the first few seconds of coming together had the ability to obliterate everything else in the world. Twenty-four hours ago Blue would have sworn that his first kiss with Sarah Jane had been the most intense kiss of his life, but after kissing Lizzie, he realized that every other kiss, every other woman, paled in comparison.
“I’m back. Sorry, dude.” Duke’s voice brought Blue back to their conversation.
Blue pictured his brother running a hand through his thick hair. It was a mannerism all of the Ryder men shared. A frustrated hair rake they’d picked up from their father.
“No worries. Look, Duke, all I was saying about Trish is that she’s an adult. She’s in a competitive field. She’s going to take the best roles that come to her. She’s not a teenager anymore. You can’t control what she does.”
Duke laughed. “Shit. No one could ever control Trish. You know that. I just don’t want her to be known forever as that actress who played a role the equivalent of that girl in Fifty Shades of Grey.”
Blue walked outside. “Well, get over it. She’s secure in who she is, and things change quickly in Hollywood. A year from now no one will even remember this role.”