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When it passes the center of his chest, I can feel the telltale thumping of his heart. My fingers skate to the right, and just before I reach his nipple, his hand comes up and grabs my wrist in a grasp so tight that I couldn't move it if I tried.
The doors shut, and we're alone again.
"Stop," he whispers. It’s a warning and it causes a curl of fear in the pit of my belly that should give me pause.
But my good sense has left me. All I want now is to prove him wrong.
I press my body into his side. My breasts yield to the hard muscle of his arm, I let my pelvis press into the side of his hip, and I bring my mouth down and let my lips skim his shoulder.
His eyes close, and his rigid posture eases.
"Not for all the tea in China?" I ask.
He looks down at me then, his posture gaining its tight, controlled stance again.
He has a look of challenge in his dark eyes. They are hooded, and his mouth, which has been set in a stern line, is slightly tipped up at the corners.
"Not for anything," he returns silkily, but in a voice so cold, it freezes everything. His grip loosens, and his voice has lost some of its frost when he says, “Except… the real you. Not this character you’re playing.”
I'm rendered so completely speechless by his cold rejection that it takes me a moment to notice the elevator isn't moving.
I want to get off this elevator. Away from him. From his beauty and his idealism. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be brought to your knees by loss. He would never understand the things I’ve had to do. When I think about my life...No, I can’t let myself go there. Not now, not in front of him.
I want to be alone, I shouldn’t have come after him. I can’t handle this.
My head starts to spin, and I want to lie down.
"I've had too much to drink. I feel sick," I mumble.
“Don’t you fucking throw up.” He warns.
“I’m not going to throw up, I just need to get off.”
The elevator feels like it's moving at a snail's pace, and I press the button for his floor. Repeatedly.
The elevator comes to a sudden, jerking halt. A cry escapes me as it sends me flying toward him. He catches me but sets me away almost immediately.
"Great, what did you do?" he snaps as he peers at the elevator's panel of call buttons.
"I didn't do anything, it’s not my fault," I plead miserably.
I cannot be stuck in an elevator with this man.
He stands up to his full height and peers down his haughty nose at me. "Well, one minute I was on my way up to my room, and more importantly on my way to being away from you, and then you start overzealously pressing buttons, and now the elevator is stuck."
I walk past him to look at the panel myself. "Don't these things normally have a phone?" I ask as I scan the smooth surface of the wall.
"I don't know. I've never needed to know anything like that because I've never been in an elevator with a mad woman who caused it to break down," he says snidely as he reaches into the front pocket of his jeans and pulls out his mobile phone. "Shit, of course. No service," he gives me an irritated glance and says. "Check yours, too. It's the least you can do. Seeing as how this is your fault. We need to call down to the front desk and ask for help."
I’m annoyed with myself for my lack of action, and I pull my phone out of my small cross body purse and find that I don't have service either. I drop the useless device back into my purse and stalk to the corner of the elevator. I glare at him.
He meets my glare and scowls. "You're like a bad luck charm. Let's hope they're aware of the problem and are working on fixing it."
I ignore him and close my eyes and take deep breaths. I start to count backwards from one hundred in my head as the reality of my circumstance starts to sink in.
I'm alone, in an enclosed space with a man who can't stand me. I have no way of getting out. What was I thinki
ng getting on this elevator with him? I try to squeeze myself into the corner, as far away from him as possible. My entire body flushes as blood surges, my breathing is labored and I run my hands through my hair, trying to find a thought that might calm me.
