Page 115 of Elevator Pitch

“I didn’t get to hold you, smell you, wake up to your beautiful face this morning.”

His hand opens, cupping my jaw. “And I was preparing for another lonely night without you. And yet, here you are.”

“Here I am,” I whisper.

“Why are you here?” His voice lowers, sand grains in an hourglass. He steps closer to me, crowding me like he did yesterday, until I’m against the front door again.

“I . . .” I take a deep breath, feeling the warmth of his palm on my jaw. The heat of his shower radiates off him. His nearness is what I need. Whole. Healing. “I’m sorry.”

His blue gaze is dull today, and darts around my face, searching for something.

“I might have overreacted last night.” I lick my lips and lower my voice, the sound strained when I say, “I panicked.”

Ross stays still. Close but rigid.

“I’m scared,” I admit quietly and blink up at him. “I’m scared of how I feel about you. I’m scared that whatever this is will hurt when it ends.”

“Vee.” He exhales and lowers his head to mine. “I’m scared too, sweetheart. Frightened of all that I feel. I wasn’t expecting this. Any of this.” He pauses. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Me either.” Ross Davis in reality is so much more than the fantasy that lived in my head.

“I haven’t felt like this in a long, long time.” His voice is fine gravel.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever felt this way,” I whisper, closing my eyes, afraid he’ll see all the pain of my past and the fears for my future.

Ross pulls back and swipes his thumb along my cheekbone. His eyes are bit brighter, wide and watching me. “Who says this feeling has to end, Vee?”

“You can’t predict that it won’t.” I swallow around the thickness in my throat.

“I can’t predict wins or losses, but I still play the game.”

“I don’t want to be a game to you.” I blink as my eyes cloud.

“Sweetheart. Vee. You aren’t a game.” He tugs me to him, wrapping me in a hug with one arm. His other hand still clutching the towel at his waist. My face is against his warm, bare chest. My soaked rain jacket presses against his fresh skin.

Too soon, he pushes me back and holds my shoulder.

“Do you need a pep talk?” His mouth curls. The stiffness in him lessening. He pushes back my hood and then brushes back my hair, running his knuckles down the side of my neck.

I chuckle weakly. “Didn’t know what you were getting yourself into by holding that elevator, did you?”

Ross stares at me a second. Maybe he’s forgotten how he held the door when I raced to catch that lift back in November.

“Holding that elevator might have been the best thing to ever happen to me.”

Ross and I stare at one another a long second before I slowly unsnap each closure on my rain jacket. Snap. Snap. Snap. The sharp sound mingles with our sudden ragged breaths. Ross watches as my coat slowly opens, revealing his jersey underneath. I let the rain-slicked material drop to the floor.

“Is this your idea of a pep talk?” His gaze doesn’t leave me. Taking in his jersey on top. Jeans on the bottom. Feet in flip flops.

“Let’s not talk,” I whisper.

Then I tip up on my toes, palm his bristly face and tug his mouth to me. We shift until my back is against the hallway wall. Ross had been clutching his towel, even when he hugged me.

Within minutes, his towel is forgotten, dropped to the floor.

“Towels have a funny habit of slipping off you in my presence,” I tease, taking the liberty to glance down at him, long and erect, and wrap my hand around his thickness.

“Funny. Only happens when you’re around.”