Page 42 of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts

My heart battered against my rib cage like it was desperate to find his. I took a deep breath and exhaled, hoping to calm it. “I can think of a few ways we could put the time to good use.”

He flashed the light at me, and I winced against the blinding white before he pointed it back at the door. His expression was distant, like he hadn’t quite heard what I said. He pressed a series of buttons on the panel to no avail and then, giving up, he wedged his fingers into the crack between the doors and tugged. Somewhere in the elevator, metal creaked.

My heart shot up into my throat, images of dark and bottomless elevator shafts replacing the far more pleasant thoughts I’d been having only minutes ago. “Maybe we should call someone.”

Ignoring me, he gave the door another solid tug and inched it open. I backed myself into the arm rail on the far side, hoping to put as much distance between myself and the elevator shaft as possible, but when he yanked it again and the door finally gave, there was no dark and bottomless pit. There was concrete and—about four feet higher than it should have been—a well-lit hall.

Declan sank onto a knee and rested his hands on it, palms up. “Come on. I’ll give you a boost.”

I hesitated. “Shouldn’t we wait for someone?”

“They’re probably going to do the same thing. It looks like the elevator lost power.” When I didn’t look totally reassured, he added, “We can call the front desk to notify them once we’re in our rooms.”

Somewhere, in the part of my mind that wasn’t panicking, I registered that he said rooms. Not my room, or your room, or whichever room we’re going to share tonight. But I was too busy worrying about getting out of the elevator safely to worry about what he meant. I used the arm rail for balance as I kicked off my heels, one at a time. “If you’re sure,” I said, taking a tentative step up into his waiting hands. I tossed my shoes out of the elevator ahead of me. As soon as my hands were free and firmly planted in the hallway, he boosted me up, and I landed on my stomach on the threadbare hotel carpet. I had to army crawl my lower half out of the elevator.

Behind me, Declan used his hands to push himself out of the elevator like it was a pool, his ropey forearm muscles straining against the carpet. Once we were on solid ground again, we sat for a moment, him catching his breath and me trying to still my thundering heart. The sign just outside the elevator informed us that we were on the third floor. After what felt like an eternity, he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and stumbled to his feet. He offered a hand to help me up. This time, I accepted it more readily, tugging at the hem of my romper to straighten it—and to subtly relieve a pretty severe front-wedgie that had somehow happened when I pulled myself out of the elevator. The top of the romper was still unbuttoned. Declan’s eyes skittered past my cleavage as he looked up and down the hall.

“So,” I said in my best sultry voice. “Should we pick up where we left off?”

He turned back to me like he’d only just remembered I was standing there, hazel eyes flitting over my face. His mouth opened like he was about to say something, then snapped shut. A muscle feathered in his jaw. “We should go to bed,” he said after what felt like an eternity. “I think the stairs are this way.”

I gawked at him. No one had ever turned me down like that before. Not after a kiss like that. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing,” he said, but he was walking toward the stairs without looking at me.

I stumbled after him, carrying my heels in my hand. I had to jog barefoot up the stairs to match his pace, my footsteps slapping in the empty stairwell, probably waking half the hotel. “Do I not do it for you, or something?” I was pretty sure I did it for him just fine, if what I’d felt through his shorts was any evidence. We emerged onto the fourth floor and turned down our hall.

“No, it’s not that, it—” He broke off as we reached the door to my room, turning to face me. “You’re amazing.” He swallowed, Adam’s apple dipping as his eyes raked over me—over my bare legs and the hint of lace bra peeking out the front of my romper before coming to rest on my face. “But I’m not really a one-night-stand type of guy.”

I barked a laugh, but his expression didn’t falter. Oh my God. He wasn’t joking. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you just kiss me?” I demanded, a surge of adrenaline and embarrassment swirling somewhere in my gut. Churning. Boiling over in the form of hot, bubbling anger. “I mean, what did you think was going to happen?”

He reeled back like I’d slapped him. “Okay, first of all, a kiss doesn’t have to lead to sex, and it’s kind of sad that you think that.”

“Oh, come on, you don’t just kiss someone like that and expect it not to lead to sex,” I snapped. “I mean, what the hell else is it supposed to be? Romantic? Was I supposed to find some deeper meaning in a drunken elevator kiss?” When he didn’t say anything, I kept on going. Anything to fill the silence. “What, did you think I’d magically catch feelings for you or something?” I twinkled my fingers mockingly, like magic-love-jazz hands. “Learn to love again? With you, of all people?”

The second I said it, I knew I’d gone too far. His jaw clenched. “Obviously, I should have known better.”

It was too late to take it back. “Yeah, maybe you should have,” I said, tone laced with ridicule. Because if he was going to make me feel this ridiculous, I sure as hell wasn’t letting him off the hook. “Maybe you should have known that you are the last man who could ever make me feel anything.”

He stepped toward me, quirked his head in a way that was probably supposed to be derisive, but I could tell he was angry. “Is that so?”

I raised my chin. “You were an asshole in high school and you’re an asshole now. You think I’d want to sleep with you?”

“It sure seemed like it, back there.” His breathing was heavy, chest heaving like he’d run a marathon. Almost as heavy as it had been in the elevator, but this was a very different sort of rise I was getting out of him. When he spoke, it was in a low, gravelly tone that made me feel things no matter how much I couldn’t stand looking at him right now. “It’s not my fault that you’re not comfortable accepting that maybe, just maybe, there are men who like you for more than your body.”

“Fuck you, Declan,” I spat.

We were standing inches from each other. I couldn’t even tell what the emotion behind his eyes was anymore—anger, lust, embarrassment. Maybe it was all of them at once. Whatever magnetic pull we’d generated in the elevator hadn’t dissipated, but it was mingling with a stronger emotion. One that was much more familiar: loathing.

I couldn’t stand Declan Walsh. That I’d almost managed to convince myself I wanted him was downright laughable.

Which was why it was with only the faintest pang of regret that I tore my eyes from his, breaking the spell. I unlocked my room with the keycard and slipped inside, alone, before slamming the door in his face.

Season Four, Episode Six—Avoiding the Boy Next Door