Cash stretched high overhead. Just
another day, making women swoon. That damn shirt hugged his muscles, and her
mouth went dry. She tried to swallow around the knot in her throat. Tried to
ignore the knots re-tying in her stomach. Even his belt had a look-at-me
quality, wrapped around his toned waist. Flashes of his rippled stomach burned
through her memory. Whoa, God. This elevator was teeny-tiny. He lorded over it
in his corner, watching her watch him, and she needed the emergency escape
hatch.
A slow smile flickered across his
face. “Nothing to say, sweet girl?”
She shook her head. Nothing to say.
Nothing to do except hide in her corner. Maybe dig in her purse a little more
or check her phone or… Cash stepped to her. One step. Two steps. She looked at
the ceiling, then at the elevator display. Button after button, unlit. Nineteen
more floors to go, and Nicola couldn’t move, frozen and frying in his gaze.
He had her. Sliding a finger down the
curve of her neck, his finger flicked the purse strap, and with that grazing
touch, it dropped.
Loud thud. Intense moment. Pounding
want.
Nic’s tank-top-clad back pressed
against the cold wall. Her bare shoulders were aware of the barrier. A heat
ignited, and anticipation tingled from the perk of her breasts to the tips of
her fingers.
Inches.
He was inches away and closing the
distance. Cash palmed the elevator wall on both sides of her head. “I’m
throwing lines about in bed, out of bed, and you’re standing, stoic like this
is a cold shoulder challenge, and you want to win a trip to the freakin’ Arctic
Circle.” He kissed behind her ear. Whimpers escaped her lips, then he whispered
again. “After last night, I thought it was game on between us.”
Close enough for him to feel the rise
and fall of her chest, close enough for her to smell the mint he’d long-since
devoured, Cash nudged at the wall of buttons. Click. The lights dimmed. The
elevator stopped between floors.
No alarms.
No sirens.
Just them, stuck in an elevator with
the emergency lights on, and now she really couldn’t breathe.
“There are cameras in here. I’m sure
there are cameras.” The words came out breathy and wispy and screaming, “Please
kiss me again.”
“What is it you think I’m going to
do?” He crushed against her. His smooth cheek grazed hers, and his lips brushed
against her ear. “What is it that you want me to do?”
Her libido did jumping jacks and her
mind, somersaults. All she could see was the deep blue of his eyes. His weight
pressed her in place. His palms cupped her face, igniting a fire wherever he
touched. Never had a torturing burn felt so damn right.
“I want…”
Cash dipped his head. Soft hair
teased over her cheek, and soft kisses turned her stomach. It was a cacophony
of cravings. Heat pooled inside her. The very core of her body moaned for his
contact.
He repeated what she’d started. “You
want…”
“You.”
She felt his smile on her skin. His
full lips thinned into a grin, and his tongue sliced across the side of her
collar bone, sweeping the strength out of her legs. Nicola hooked her thumbs
into his belt loops. One of her legs snaked up his thigh. Trying to breathe was
a wasted effort, and—
Ring. Rrr-ring. Ring.
What was it with the interruptions?
Cash pulled back to stare at the
elevator’s phone box, slid his hands down her body, letting one rest on her hip,
and opened a small door with the other, grabbing the phone. “Hello.” Amused, he
dragged the syllables before he made it to a long oh. A few uh-huhs later, he
winked at her, flicked the elevator RUN button back to ON, and said into the
handset, “Must have bumped into it. Sorry.”
With the elevator phone back in its
box and their ride creeping toward the ground level, they locked in a gaze.
Nothing saying. Nothing doing. Just waiting.
The doors opened, and a pudgy
security guard waited for them to exit, hands on hips. “You two okay?”
Yup, definitely cameras in the
elevator. Just like the CIA: someone’s always watching.
Cash took her hand in his. “Couldn’t
be better.”
Cristin Harber
New York Times Bestselling Author
