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When it looked as if the procession would never end, Ryder took the only option. He pulled open the doors of the lift, which now swung happily at the top floor. And as he wrenched the old glass doors closed, then the rusty wrought iron bars behind them, the sounds of the stairwell lowered to a mere hum.
“Daring,” Nadia said, looking up through the glass ceiling to the old cables hulking above, before jumping up and down till the thing began to swing. “My kind of place.”
The moment her eyes dropped back to his, hot, hooded, and dark with desire, Ryder dropped her bag and his apples, dragged her into his arms and kissed her as if his life depended on it. Hell, it did depend on it. And by the way she kissed him back—clinging, desperate, pressing herself into every part of him—her life had to depend on it too.
When he pulled away the ground beneath his feet continued to shift, even as the lift settled to a halt. He tipped his forehead against hers, waiting until their laboured breaths found a matching rhythm, and then he looked inside himself for the words he’d spent days trying to shape into some kind of sense.
“I’d like to give it a shot.”
“What’s that?”
“Adoring you.”
At that she shuddered, her body melting against him, her head lying against his heart. Then she melted some more.
Intending to keep her there as long as he could, for ever sounded about right, Ryder ran his hand down her back, sliding his fingertips under the belt-line at her waist, her warm skin sending his heart rate thundering and turning his vision red. He kept it together, just, because there was more he intended to say. More she deserved to hear.
“I’ve been thinking for some time now that it’s a damn shame a woman like you hasn’t felt adored. And I want to be given the chance to be the man who adores you on a regular basis. Daily. Multiple times a day. Every minute. Every second.”
He pulled back to find Nadia’s head still tipped down. Her eyes closed. And when he propped a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face to his, he saw tears flowing down her cheeks. He leant in and kissed them away.
“Ryder,” she said on a gulp.
“Yes, Nadia.”
“I love you.”
Well, he thought, his face splitting into a smile, I should have just started with that. “I know, sweetheart. This I do know. What I need to know, for sure, is if you’re sure about being back. I know how much getting that job meant to you—”
She shut him up with a finger to his lips, and it took everything not to suck it into his mouth and taste her. Every bit of her. By the darkness that spilled into her eyes he knew she was feeling it too.
Rather than tempt fate, she curled her finger away and lay her hand on his chest, right over the beating of his heart. “I got all the way there, right up to the reception desk, but I couldn’t check in. I couldn’t pretend, even for a second, it was where I was really meant to be. Easiest decision of my life was to come back. To find you, Ryder. To tell you—”
“I love you too, Nadia,” Ryder said.
It was Nadia’s turn to beam, her smile turning her dark eyes bright, the utter happiness lighting that beautiful face sapping his breath straight from his lungs.
And in that moment, Ryder Fitzgerald—long-time lost thing—found himself.
All because he’d found her.
And now he was never letting her go.
This time the kiss was slow, this time deep, this time he took his time to bring her to the edge of thought and feeling. Because for the first time since he’d met her all they had was time. Years. For ever.
And then the lift began to move.
Nadia squealed, or at least Ryder hoped it had been her squeak that echoed in the small box.
“It works!” she said, laughing and spinning by that stage. “Near a year I’ve been teaching here and it’s never worked.”
“It’s a sign.”
“That while maintenance ignored Amelia’s pleas they responded to her lawyers?”
“That this big slumberous lump of a building wants us here. Together. On one condition,” said Ryder, waggling a finger at the lift as it drifted and screeched all the way to the ground floor. “No more dance lessons. Ever.”
“Deal,” said Nadia, sliding her hands around his waist as he pulled her deep into the circle of his arms, where she plastered herself against him, resting her cheek against his chest, her hip bumping his as the lift shook them side to side. “We can sway though. We’re good at that.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice a rumble, “we sway just fine.”
They hit the ground with a thud and Ryder dragged the doors open, leaving them to spill into the sunshine.
