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“Sure,” I said lightly, because he expected me to say no.
For half a heartbeat he looked alarmed, which made me want to laugh. He didn’t want to kiss me any more than I wanted to kiss him.
“That’s very generous of you,” he murmured, shifting closer to me. “I appreciate you wanting to help me out.”
“I’m a very sweet woman,” I said, standing my ground. I was not going to be the first to break away.
“I can tell that about you,” he said, genuine amusement in his eyes. “I said to myself when I got on this elevator, ‘Sean, that is a sweet, gentle woman.’”
Sean.
He looked like a Sean. Strong, like an old-school boxer.
“That’s why my mother named me Isla.” That made exactly zero sense. My name was derived from a Scottish island, but it seemed like a good comeback to a conversation that all the way around was rooted in the ridiculous.
“Isla? That's a beautiful name for a beautiful woman.” He brushed my hair off of my shoulder and cupped my cheek.
Damn it. One of us needed to stop this.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be the one to lose the game and pull away.
He leaned, crowding into my space. I felt the hard length of his thigh shift against mine.
I was grateful I was still wearing my coat, so there was a barrier between my body and his. He smelled like the woods. And… was that cilantro? What the hell. It was wafting off his fingertips brushing over my cheek.
Neither of us broke eye contact. I could see the challenge in his eyes.
I was sure he saw the same determination in mine.
“Thank you,” I said, to stall.
His mouth was mere inches from mine and we stood there, the tension hanging between us.
I shifted, going up on tiptoes so I was even closer to him, wanting to show him I wasn’t going to back down.
His eyes actually darkened and I saw a spark of lust.
I felt an answering response deep in my body.
We were really going to kiss. We were going to kiss and it was going to be hot as hell.
The elevator groaned and jerked into movement. We both stumbled as the box rose upward.
I grabbed on to his shirt for balance but he was already pulling away.
“Thank God,” he said. “That was a close one.”
Like he’d been saved from the sheer torture of having to kiss me. I dropped my hands and reached for the bar on the wall to steady myself, heart racing.
I should have been very grateful for the interruption, but I felt a mild disappointment that made me instantly angry. I didn’t want to kiss him. Kissing him would be stupid as hell and there was no million dollars being offered to me. It wouldn’t even be a good kiss. How could it be? He was a straight-up jerk.
Pulling my phone out I glanced at the time. We’d been trapped in the elevator for a whopping eight minutes. It had felt like a solid hour.
The doors opened, and in some last-ditch effort at pretending to be a gentleman, Sean gestured for me to go first as he stuck both his foot and his hand over the door to prevent it from closing again. He scooped his coat up off the floor.
I stepped out into the cooler air of the hallway and took a deep breath. “I’m taking the stairs when
it’s time to leave.”
