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Chapter Seven
No sooner had the elevator doors closed than Ellie regretted her decision. She wasn't ready to be in the same little box, let alone the same resort, and most assuredly not sharing a meal with Ranger Evans. The blasted Dragon had broken her heart. He'd left her standing on her own damned porch, watching the dust fly, with tears streaming down her face like some lost pup.
Grabbing ahold of her renewed anger with both hands, she spun around to tell him that she’d changed her mind at precisely the same moment that he hit the red button on the panel and the elevator came to a screeching halt.
"What the hell are you doing?" She yelled, jerking her hand from his. "Let me out of here. You can't do this. Stop this…"
"I just did." Standing there with that damn sexy grin that made her insides turn to goo and her heart to go pitter-pat, Ranger Evans took a step forward. Looking larger than life and good enough to eat, he went on, "I know what you're thinkin', Ellie, and I can't take the chance that you'll run."
“So, you trap my ass in an elevator as a way to make me trust you?”
“No, I did not trap you.” He scratched the sexy stubble on his chiseled jaw, trying to hide the chuckle in his voice. “I simply detained you for a minute to try to make you see reason.”
"Reason?" She ground out through gritted teeth. "Look, Agent Evans, I am not some perp you can 'detain,' and I do notneedto see reason." Stepping back so quickly that her butt hit the wall of the elevator, Ellie refused to let him see how ensnared she truly felt. Going on, her voice getting louder, more adamant with every syllable, she fumed, "I owe you nothing - not one damned thing. You're the one who left." Her finger shot out, jabbing the air with every word. "You're the one who didn't call." Her hand whipped through the air between them. "No harm. No foul. You made your decision. I had to live with it. I'm over it. Let's let bygones be bygones."
“You know that’s not…”
“I don’t know shit except what happened.” Leaning forward, letting the flames of her anger flash to life in her eyes, she spat, “You didn’t say anything. Not even a fucking goodbye.”
Moving faster than she could track, just a blur that her eyes didn't make sense of until it was too late, Ranger wrapped his arm around her waist, pulled her tight to his body, and slammed his lips to hers. From one second to the next, her body was engulfed in the fiery flames of passion. She was burning from the inside out and never wanted it to end.
Ranger was everywhere. Ellie could hear his thoughts. She could feel his heart beating in time with hers. Her body molded to his. They were two pieces of the same puzzle finally together, finally whole. So, when the tip of his tongue ran across the seam of her lips, she opened to him without a single hesitation.
Nothing short of amazing, their first kiss sealed what Ellie had always known, Ranger Evans was her Mate. The one man in all the world made for her by the Universe and the Goddess of All.
Lost to their passion, forgetting that she was mad, hurt, embarrassed, and, most of all, heartsick for him, Ellie jumped back with a loud squeak, when an obnoxious buzz filled the elevator. Eyes flying to Ranger's, her heart soared at the love she saw, not to mention that it did her ego good to know that he was just as turned on as she was.
Then a loud voice burst through the speaker, "Dammit Ranger, let the frikkin' elevator go. We've got guests waiting down here," and Ellie had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing out loud.
Letting his chin fall forward, his arm still wrapped around her waist, the Guardsman groaned, "Sorry, Ji. Just got…"
"Carried away?" The voice on the speaker chuckled with a heavy dose of sarcasm. "Yeah, I know. There are cameras in all the elevators. I saw the whole thing, Loverboy. Now, get your scaly ass down here before I have to come up there and get you."
Not the slightest bit embarrassed for one of the first times in her life, Ellie was too busy laughing at Ranger to feel anything but happiness. No, it wasn't the way she'd planned to confront him. And the kiss hadn't even been a whisper of a thought when it came to telling him how badly he'd hurt her, but all in all, watching him get called out then sheepishly hit the button on the elevator and releasing the car had been more than worth it.
And the kiss wasn’t bad either.
Running her fingertips across her lips to be sure her lipstick wasn't smeared and to feel the tingle left in the wake of her Mate's kiss, Ellie couldn't help but tease, "I didn't know you had a sister?"
“I don’t,” he grumbled, finally looking up at her. “That’s Jianna, the owner of the resort and a very old friend of mine.”
Jealousy instantly nipped at Ellie’s good mood. Had this Jianna been what kept her Dragon away for so long? Was that how he ended up at Crimson Moon? Who did he think…?”
Pulling her close and dropping a kiss on her cheek, Ranger whispered, “A friend. Jianna has only ever been and will only ever be –a friend. You, Ellie MacLeish, are the only woman for me.”
“What? That wasn’t…”
“Yes, it is,” he chuckled, the sound making Ellie’s heart happy even as her cheeks got hot. Tapping his temple, he added, “Just like you can hear my thoughts, I can hear yours.”
Turning back to face her and making her follow suit, he bent his knees until he was looking her right in the eye, and whispered, "Ellie Gwendolyn MacLeish, I have loved you from the first time I laid eyes on you, and it only gets stronger with every beat of my heart. There never has been and never will be another woman for me." Kissing the tip of her nose, he leaned back and winked. "So, please, after you've heard what I have to say, I am begging you to forgive me." Clearing his throat as the elevator came to a stop, he kept right on going as the doors opened. "'Cause without you, I will just fade away to nothing."
Feeling the eyes of the guests Ranger’s friend had said were waiting staring at her, Ellie quickly nodded. “Yeah, okay, can we just…”
"Out of the elevator, Cassanova," the woman she guessed to be Jianna growled, adding a loud whistle and a bark of laughter to her command.
Once in the lobby, Ranger pulled Ellie toward the tall, African American beauty with curly black hair and a figure to die for. Calling out before she had a chance to tell him that she wasn't ready to meet his friend, after being caught making out in the woman's elevator, Ranger signaled with the index finger of his free hand. "Hey, Ji. There's somebody I want you to meet?"
Holding out her hand, her smile truly radiant, the woman exuded a real feeling of warmth and welcome as she didn't wait for Ranger to introduce her and beamed, "Hey, there, how you doing? I'm Jianna."
