“Hold the elevator.”
My Saint Laurent Opyum black pump darts out to stop the elevator doors snapping shut without a thought crossing my mind. Country girls are already quick-witted, but the hustle and bustle of city life the past decade has doubled my perceptiveness. If you snooze in a town like Ravenshoe, you lose. I’m not exactly sure what eludes you, but it must be significant for how finicky the locals are about staying on top of things.
I like Ravenshoe. Isaac is transforming it from an unknown town to a metropolis, but nothing can replace the smell of fresh cow dung in the morning. It's amazing the things you miss when you no longer have access to them. My mom’s southern cooking. My father’s fake rooster call when the rooster stopped waking me up. My cell phone.
I sigh loudly at my last one. While darting to an appointment, my heel got stuck in a grate. In my endeavor to keep up with the thousands of residents pounding the pavement, yanking my foot out made my cell phone fly from my grip. I fumbled, cursed, then fumbled some more to save it but to no avail. Even if it hadn’t slipped between the steam vents, its brutal connection with the ground rendered it a lost cause.
“Thanks,” my new riding partner praises before stepping into the confined space.
A peppery cologne filters through the air from his brisk spin to the control panels of the elevator. “What floor?”
I peer past his shoulder, certain I pushed my desired floor when entering. I’m unable to see the panel past the broad span of his shoulders. “Fifty-three.”
“Ah, the penthouse. I should have known.”
The mirth in his tone has my brow rising. “What floor are you going to?” I nudge his hip with mine, moving him far enough away from the dashboard to see he has selected floor thirty. "The thirties aren't too shabby."
I sound as if I have a plum in my mouth. My response is accurate. Apartments in this building go for the high six figures, if not occasionally dipping into the millions.
"The west wing has nice views of the skyline at night. What section are you in?"
I bite the inside of my cheek. The only way my question could have sounded more seedy is if it were delivered with a pigeon call. I'm not striving for a date. My stance on the dating scene hasn't changed since my teen days. I'm merely intrigued at my elevator companion's inability to look at me while speaking. I know he's watching me. It isn't just the heat of his gaze; I can see his baby blue irises peering at me in the brushed stainless steel panel of the elevator dashboard.
“I can’t give an opinion on the views. I don’t live in the building. I’m just here visiting a friend,” he eventually answers.
“Oh.” I’d like to issue a more confident reply, but I’m a little lost for words. I don’t need him to be Pinocchio to know he's lying. I heard it in his tone. “What apartment number? The floors and apartment numbers are a little jumbled. They don’t always match up.”
I'm not lying. With the apartments growing in size with each floor, the numbering system is a little off. I've voiced my annoyance to Isaac many times. It isn't because I mind helping the lost residents of his building; I just don't believe in the whole Fengshui crap his latest designer is spouting. You create your own luck, not a frog with a coin shoved in its mouth.
“Ah. . . 34A?” The unease in the stranger’s tone makes his statement sound like a question.
I shuffle my feet to take in his profile more diligently. Just as the generous cut of his cheekbone comes into sight, he twists his torso away from me. Suspicion runs rife through my veins. From what I saw, he has no reason to hide his face. Just his pouty lips spiked my heart rate, much less the quickest peek at his bright blue eyes. Even seeing only half of his face, I can confidently say he isn’t ugly by any means.
“Are you sure your friend said apartment 34A?”
A beat of sweat forms on his nape as he replies, “Yep.”
Short and precise. How most lies are delivered.
“I am carrying mace in my purse and perhaps a weapon that will have bodily fluids leaking down your leg before you realize you need to pee. If that isn’t enough incentive for you to leave this elevator at the next floor, take a glance at my shoes. The heel alone is a perfect weapon to have your eye and brain becoming extremely friendly.”
When the pegs of his white teeth become exposed in the dashboard, I remove a stiletto. After the week I have had, I’m not in the mood for games.
His smile disappears. “Hey, whoa. Come on. There's no need for violence—”
“Push the damn button for the next floor.” My tone is brimming with heated warning.
“Maybe I was mistaken. Perhaps he said 44A?”
“There are no apartments in this building with the number four in them. The Chinese believe it's bad kosha as it represents death."
“Seriously?” He sounds more shocked than worried for his safety.
“Yes, seriously! Now push the button for the next floor. There are stairs on each side of the elevator.” After taking in an illuminated twenty-three above the brushed steel doors, I say, “You only have six floors to climb. I’m sure it won’t kill you.”
“I—”
His words stuff into his throat when I raise my heel into the air in silent warning. If I could reach the dashboard without leaning over his body, I’d push the button myself. But since he's hogging the panel like Mrs. Vermont from apartment 12B does anytime she rides with me, I have no other option but to resort to violence.
“Five. . . Four. . . Three—”
“I’m not a child; you can’t count down and expect me to jump to your command somewhere between two and one.”
I continue counting down like he never spoke, “Two. . . O—”
“Alright! Jesus Christ!” He stabs the button for floor twenty-five six hundred trillion times before spinning around to face me. “Happy?”
“Uh-huh,” I reply, my pulse quickening.
It isn't his rueful glare speeding up my heart rate. It's his deliriously handsome face. My god. Chiseled cheeks, a sculptured jaw covered by an unkempt beard, and blue eyes that are the color of the ocean. His blond locks are a little overdue for a trim, and the scruff on his chin should be immediately removed for the travesty it’s hiding, but he couldn’t be classified as anything less than perfect. This man isn’t partially handsome; he’s downright out-of-this-world gorgeous. His cocky smirk, thick arms, and Ragnar Lodbrok-inspired beard don’t just have my mouth drying up; they have my stiletto falling from my grip.
My eyes follow its slow track to the carpeted floor. It dings and bounces three times before it comes to a complete stop. Not eager to fight without a weapon, I bob down to gather my shoe. I don't know if he's clambering for safety or being a gentleman, but our simultaneous dive for my stiletto results in our heads knocking together.
“Oww,” I moan. “Your face is as hard as it looks.”
Panic rains down on me when my hand darts up to my throbbing brow. I’m bleeding. Not just a slight trickle. A full stream of vibrant red blood is gushing down my eye. It makes being mugged the least of my problems, as you can’t get any more frightening than death.
“Fuck,” my elevator companion grumbles under his breath when he notices I’m injured. Ignoring the ding of the elevator announcing its arrival on floor twenty-five, he throws off his suit jacket, unfastens the buttons of his blue dress shirt, then yanks his undershirt out of his trousers.
The wooziness in my head intensifies. He doesn’t just have a handsome face. He has an equally enticing body. Abs stacked on abs, a slim waist, and pecs that are thankfully missing the hair scattered along his sharp jaw—not that you’d be able to see it through the large tattoo on his right pec.
“Thank you,” I mutter, slightly disoriented when he places his wadded-up shirt on the laceration on my forehead.
My brain is throbbing against my skull, but it has nothing on the manic pulse between my legs. I’m being inundated with a manly, virile scent, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. This is pure torture to a woman as domineering as me.
“I’m sure it’s fine now. It doesn’t even hurt,” I lie, dragging his shirt away from my head.
Bile races up my throat when I spot how much blood has soaked his shirt. “Is that all mine?” My hand darts out to settle myself when my question arrives with a frantic rush of dizziness. “Woo. I’m a little woozy.”
Who the hell’s voice was that? I sound like a giddy drunk.
"I think you're concussed." The strange man peers at my wound with worry slashed across his features.
I’m fairly sure his assumption is right when I stammer out, “Concussed from being smacked with too much manliness.”
I laugh at myself. I’m fucking hilarious when I’m on the brink of collapse.
“Alright, Rae. Time for a trip to the ER.”
“Noooooo,” I whine. “I hate the doctomorphors.” That sounded nothing like it did in my head.
When the world moves beneath my feet without warning, I stumble forward. My companion catches me in his arms before the ground and I make kissy faces. After pulling me to his chest, he jabs his elbow into the security panel, redirecting our car to the lobby.
“If they give me a needle, I’m going to pierce your eyeball with my shoe.”
It takes three floors to issue my warning, but it was worth the effort when my savior says, “Duly noted.”
I nuzzle into his chest, wanting the mad beat of his heart to replace the thump in my skull. It's racing a million miles an hour but could lull me to sleep in an instant. It's already replacing the fuzziness surrounding me with a pleasurable, less flighty sensation.
“Excuse me,” I mumble a short time later, my lips as uncooperative as my drooping eyelids.
I wait for the stranger’s glistening baby blues to connect with mine before asking, “What’s your name?”
Halfway out of the elevator, he stills, amplifying the crazy beat of his heart. It pumps three long, panicked beats before he answers, “Alex. Alex Rogers.”
“Alex?” My tongue clicks my teeth when I test out his name. “Alex. Alex Rogers. I like the sound of that.”
I giggle again, my impersonation of James Bond too hilarious not to laugh.
With Alex’s steps matching the purposeful thuds of his heart, it's only a matter of time before I succumb to the blackness engulfing me.