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When I’m finally quiet, he eases my hand out of his underwear and gathers me close. He’s still hard and I think maybe I should do something about that, but my brain is mush as he kisses my forehead and we just lie there in the aftermath. For a minute or two anyway, until I hear clanging and banging and voices.

‘That’ll be the cavalry,’ he announces.

And in an instant, everything changes.

Twenty minutes later, we’re free and our rescuers have departed, leaving us alone again. I don’t know what to say now as I try not to be the person I was before getting in the elevator and having my world rocked. I guess I knew there’d be a reckoning, but I didn’t count on it being this brutal.

What the hell had I been thinking?

‘Why don’t you come back to my place?’ he suggests. ‘The blizzard’s still raging out there.’

It’s a tantalising idea, and I allow myself the luxury of it for a beat or two before I pull myself back from the edge. ‘I need to sleep. I have to study later.’

He shrugs. ‘You can study at my place.’

I almost laugh out loud at that. If I go to his place, we’re both going to be naked in seconds. I’m pretty sure my clothes are going to fall off every time I see him from now on.

Best to just not see him.

What happened in the elevator was amazing, but I can’t afford the luxury of long days and nights in bed with Danny. I don’t have enough spare time for me, let alone him.

‘Look… it was nice, but…’

He winces. ‘Nice?’

I think about the screwdriver. Yeah, okay. It was a lot of things – nice wasn’t one of them. ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t have time in my life for?—’

‘Dalliances.’

I half-smile. ‘Right.’

‘We’ll see.’ He smiles that irritatingly cocky smile, and I remember why I’ve kept my distance all this time.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means I think you’re going to miss me.’

Okay, so we’re back to words of one syllable again. ‘You’re not part of my plan, Danny.’

‘And that’s what? Become an ER hotshot, marry a surgeon, live in the burbs in a fancy house, two point four kids? No screwing building supers?’

My entire body rejects this picture of dull domestic suburbia. He has no idea what I want from my life. Nor am I about to tell him. Danny’s time is up and that’s that. ‘At the moment, I’ll settle for passing my residency.’

He smiles and he’s that laid-back guy again. ‘Fair enough. Go to bed. I’ll fix your heating.’

‘Thank you. Be careful on the stairs,’ I add, because I don’t want him breaking his neck.

‘I will. And you know where I am if you need more of what I can give you.’

I grit my teeth at his arrogance at the same time my toes curl in my Uggs. ‘I won’t.’

He just raises an eyebrow and turns away, completely unperturbed by my denial. His ass draws my gaze because I’m only human. Heat floods my face as I spy the screwdriver shoved in his back pocket. It’s morbidly fascinating, and I can’t unglue my gaze from it.

He looks over his shoulder at me and grins, his dimples flashing. Like he knew I was going to be staring after him.

Like he knows I’ll be knocking on his door for more of what he can give me.

I harden my resolve not to. And throw up a little prayer for strength.No screwing building supers, Holly.