Chapter Thirty-Five
Izzy
Blake’s expression was dark and unreadable as his brown eyes seemed to be looking for something in my face. His gaze stayed on mine when he said, “I was at your apartment.”
“You were?” I couldn’t look away from his intense eye contact, which was exactly at my level because he was crouching beside me. “Why?”
His forehead got a little crinkle, just between his eyebrows. “Didn’t you get my messages?”
He’d been sending messages? I said, “Josh has had my phone since last night.”
“Ah.” He did that flex-unflex thing with his jaw, looking terribly serious. His voice was low and a little gruff when he said, “I thought you were ignoring me.”
“Why did you call all those people, Blake?” I hadn’t meant to just blurt it out, but the question was eating away at me. “It had to have taken you hours to connect with that many business contacts. Why on earth would you do that for me?”
He looked at my mouth. Swallowed, that Adam’s apple moving as if to accentuate the gravity of his thoughts. “Don’t you know?”
“Guilt?” I asked, feeling a shiver shimmy up my spine.
“Try again.”
I drew in a shaky breath and wished I hadn’t opted for the T-shirt dress, because my legs were getting goose bumps. The ability of Blake’s face to deliver chills made the comfy-cute garment totally weather-inappropriate. “Charity?”
“Iz.” Blake leaned a little closer, where his lips hovered just above mine, and he murmured, “Don’t you know that I’d do anything to make you happy?”
I felt the world shift as I looked at Blake’s honest face and saw that he meant it. “You should get out of those wet clothes.” I climbed to my feet, grabbing his hand and pulling him up with me. “Were you in a wet dress shirt contest or something? Give me your keys.”
He watched me, wordlessly pulling his keys out of his pocket and handing them over.
“Thank you,” I said, taking them from his fingers, but I felt a little ridiculous when my hands shook as I unlocked the door.
The smell of his apartment when I pushed in the big wooden door—clean and somehow totally his—felt like a welcome.
“I’m going to change,” he said, still looking solemn. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t.”
“Better not.” His eyes were bright as he said, “I don’t want to have to tackle you, but I will.”
“You know,” I commented, remembering what he’d said about sending me messages. “You could let me use your phone so I can read the texts I missed while I wait.”
He kind of froze when I said that, making me instantly regret it. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter—”
“No.” He pulled the phone out of his pocket and dragged his thumb across the screen. “I just, uh, I guess you could say I was a little in my feelings while I waited for you.”
That made me smile. “I cannot believe you just said those words, Phillips.”
“Right?” He let out a self-deprecating laugh-cough. “I’m a fucking idiot now.”
“Now?”
He finally looked like he might smile—but he didn’t. He paused, looking at me, his eyes everywhere on my face, before he held out his phone and said, “Just don’t judge me too harshly until I get a chance to defend myself.”
I took his phone and felt like I’d won something. “Deal.”
He disappeared down the hall, so I walked into the living room and leaned my backside against the couch’s armrest. I found my name in his messages and started reading from the last text I remembered getting from him last night.
Can I please call you? That was the text I’d received while in the van with Josh and his friends, just before he’d taken my phone.
The next message was from eight this morning. Are you awake?
An hour later: Can I buy you breakfast and we can talk?
An hour after that: I get that you don’t want to talk to me and I respect that. But I really wish you’d give me five minutes. Just hear me out, and then you can go back to hating me if you want.
Two hours later: I have pizza, McDonald’s, flowers, a six-pack, a gallon of chocolate ice cream, a bottle of wine, and a thousand apologies. If you’ll let me come in, I’ll give you all of it.
Twenty minutes after that: I’m waiting on your porch. Please don’t think I’m a stalker, but I can’t focus on anything but you—us—so I might as well just wait until you get here .
Ten minutes later: There is a squirrel approaching and he looks hungry. I’m scared.
Ten minutes after that: Fuck, here’s the thing, Iz. I like you more than I’ve ever liked anyone, okay? I love the language you use and the weird way you think and the smell of your hair and the way you make me laugh and the way you eat pizza more than any human ever should and I miss you.
One minute later: My apologies for the run-on sentence. Also I KNOW that it’s stupid to miss you when it’s only been a day, but somehow I do.
Two minutes later: I will do whatever it takes to fix this because I think I love you. I know it’s too soon and swear to God I’m not some pathetic clinger, but I just—
“Still reading?”
I looked up from the phone, and there was Blake, wearing gray sweatpants and a Cubs T-shirt, and the strength of the feelings I had for him was kind of overwhelming. He watched me, looking…nervous, actually, and I felt a little lightheaded.
So I just nodded.
He said, “If you need more time—”
“I think I love you, too,” I blurted out.
If it weren’t for the way his Adam’s apple moved when he swallowed (yes, I was obsessed with that), I might’ve thought he didn’t hear me. His expression didn’t change one bit before he said, “What did you just say?”
“Well, I mean, I’m sure—”
“Fucking say it again,” he said, closing the distance between us. In a second he was wrapping his arms around my waist and adding, “But slower, Iz. Please.”
I set my hands on his chest— the chest. Where it all began. I repeated, “I. Think. I. Love. You. Too.”
He set his forehead on mine. “It’s weird, right?”
I let my eyes close and whispered back, “It’s always been weird with us. Since the very beginning.”
He pressed a light kiss to the tip of my nose.
“So where’s all my stuff?” I asked, very nearly purring as he rubbed his nose against mine.
His mouth finally slid into a big smile, and he said, “The dumpster behind your building.”
“What?” I pulled back to give him my best scowl. “You threw it all away?”
“Baby, I was depressed as fuck in the pouring rain,” he said, teasing but also sounding serious. “I threw your stuff away with a shit ton of force and a litany of curses, actually.”
That made me ridiculously pleased, even as I felt bad for him. I tilted my head and said, “Wait—am I baby now?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Do you want to be?”
“Will you please say the words ‘Are you lost, baby girl?’?” I said, just to mess with him. “As a sample so I can see if I like it?”
“You little pervert,” he said, squeezing my waist and giving me a look of mock anger. “I will not table read from your favorite porn.”
That made me laugh, because I hadn’t thought he’d remember our tiny discussion about the spicy Netflix movie. “That movie is NOT porn, for the record; I already told you that.”
“Just because you say something doesn’t mean it’s a fact.”
“Sure, it doesn’t.”
“Iz.”
“Yeah?”
“Can we stop talking now?”
“I don’t know if I can—”
He cut me off with his hands, which pulled me tighter against his body, and his mouth, which landed hot and wild on mine.
Yeah—you don’t have to tell me twice, baby. I kissed him back like a madwoman, my body infused with a heady cocktail of relief, gratitude, and primal lust. I panted like I was running as he opened his mouth wide over mine. His big hands came up to the sides of my face, his fingers flexing on my skin, which made me growl.
“Your dress is cute,” he said against my lips, “and needs to be gone. I’d take care of it, but I don’t think I can do it without ripping it off.”
I reached around to the back and undid the zipper, letting the dress fall to the floor as we continued kissing each other like we’d been kept apart for decades. My hands found their way to his thick hair, and then he was picking me up, his mouth still feeding me heat as I wrapped my legs around his waist and he carried me down the hall.
“I love how big your hands are,” I breathed, feeling his palms under my ass as he maneuvered me like I weighed mere ounces. “So sexy.”
“I love how strong your thighs are,” he said, lifting his mouth from mine and giving me a dirty grin. “And the way you always tighten them when I do this.”
He lowered his head and bit down on my neck, which made me clench every single muscle in my body, which made him laugh and groan, all at the same time. I somehow managed to pull off his T-shirt as he carried me into the bedroom, and when he climbed onto the bed with me wrapped around his body like a baby koala, my feet managed to plant on the back of his calves and pull down his sweatpants.
“Fucking industrious as hell,” he said. He laughed as he rolled onto his back, carrying me with him, and used his own feet to finish the job. “See, this is why I think I love you.”
I felt warmth bloom, from the tips of my toes all the way to the top of my head, as he grinned up at me. I settled on top of him, sitting up and letting my knees lower to each side of his hips as I grinned right back. “Because I can take off your pants with my feet.”
“No.” His smile dropped away, and he raised his hands to the back of my neck, pulling my face closer to his. It felt like his dark eyes were my whole world as his fingers burned my skin. He swallowed and said, “Because you’re this fucking gorgeous sweet weirdo that I am obsessed with.”
My throat was tight, because for some reason it felt like the most perfect love declaration I could ever imagine.
“It’s way too soon to say this, but I know I love you, Iz, just like I know Hole needs insulin to live and that I’m allergic to cashews.” He was beautiful and earnest as he looked into my eyes and said, “I don’t expect you to—”
“But I do.” I blinked back tears and nodded. “I know it, too.”
His jaw muscle tensed and his nostrils flared before he pulled my mouth back to his.
And then everything changed.
He was still delivering white-hot hunger with his lips and tongue, but it somehow felt deeper, like we were signing our names to an unspoken agreement, committing to something bigger via kisses and sighs. His hands tangled in my hair, and he sat up, like he couldn’t get enough and needed to be closer, and I wondered if I could die from an overdose of lust.
I felt like I could and also that I’d be absolutely fine with it.
Blake Phillips was killing me, and I never wanted it to stop. He turned us again so he was above me, and I reveled in the feel of him: the weight of his big body on mine, the slide of his leg hair against my opposing smoothness, the heat of his skin.
The hardness of his body—every ridged, straining muscle—made me wild with need.
I trailed my fingers up his wide, shredded back, my nails pressing into his flesh as I urged him closer. More. I needed more.
Now.
“Blake,” I said against his lips, shamelessly digging my heels into his soft sheets, rubbing against him as he continued treating my mouth as if it were a gourmet meal and he’d been deprived of food for a month. I managed to pant out, “ Now ,” and “ Please ,” without interrupting the delicious onslaught, and then I hissed, “ Yessssss ,” when I heard his big hand rifling in the nightstand.
But Blake—Blake didn’t stop. No, he continued inhaling me, devouring me, even while suiting himself up. Hot damn , I thought, delirious with want. VP Blake was a fucking rock star at multitasking. I closed my eyes and kissed him back with every single ounce of me, and when he pressed inside my body, filling me so perfectly, I already couldn’t remember what it felt like to not love Blake Phillips.