Kate Hardy - Wear My Ring

In one second flat, Paige kicked off her shoe and with a naked toe jabbed the emergency stop button. The lift juddered to a halt with such suddenness she gripped Gabe’s jacket for dear life.

In the sudden silence their intermingled breaths sounded overly loud. Her heart rocking against her ribs sounded even louder.

Though she was clueless as to how she was going to explain that little move, her eyes went back to Gabe. Surprise lit the dark depths for a moment before one dark eyebrow rose, and his smile kicked up at one corner. And relief flowed through her like an injection of pure heat on a cold winter’s day.

Then with a growl that spoke to something deep and primal inside her, Gabe pressed her back into the wall of the lift. Their hands were all over one another, urgent, desperate to find skin.

Her skirt was up, his pants down, he was sheathed and inside her. Hard, solid heat filling her until she cried out with the pleasure of it. She flung a hand over her eyes as sensation pummelled her every which way.

So hot, so right , she thought. Whatever else was going on, however short a time they had, they were made for this and that couldn’t be denied.

Sensation pounded through her like a perfect storm as she tightened around him, pleasure pulsing until she couldn’t stand it any more. And with a cry that must have echoed up and down the lift shaft every last tension fell away in waves of perfect heat, until it ratcheted right back up again as Gabe’s powerful release followed right on top of hers.

The storm inside her quieted slowly as she leant her forehead on his chest, letting the deep rhythm of his breaths calm her.

When she finally lifted her head it was to find his eyes were closed. His lips parted as he found his natural breath. The bright lights of the lift created shadows beneath his brows, highlighting every crinkle around his eyes, every hair on his jaw, the curve of his Adam’s apple.

He was so much man it made her chest hurt just looking at him.

He opened his eyes, gave her a small smile, tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and then his eyes left hers to drift over her face. Hovering momentarily on her hair, her neck, her lips.

This , she thought, swallowing hard.

Raging attraction plus wedding-dress-purchase-recoil had sent her into his arms in the first place but this was why she wasn’t yet ready to walk away. The way she felt when they were alone together. Work, family, Mae; they didn’t come up because they didn’t matter. He stilled her mind. Made everything feel simple. Let her live in the moment.

She reached up and traced the backs of her knuckles along the hollow of his cheek. Ran a thumb softly over his bottom lip. Smoothed a stray hair in his eyebrow. And he let her. His eyes gave nothing away, but his nostrils flared at her quiet touch.

When the feeling inside her began to swell so large she struggled to find a full breath Paige curled her fingers into her palm and pressed herself against the wall so that they could disentangle themselves. Gabe fixed his pants, she fixed her dress, both of them flickering sly glances at each other, before they both burst out laughing.

‘You, Miss Danforth, are a revelation,’ he said.

‘Would you believe before you came along I was a bit of a good girl?’

His dark eyes connected long and hard with hers for long enough that her breath caught in her throat. Then, as he reached for the emergency button, he said, ‘Nah.’

And Paige laughed again, light, free. Happy. Even as she revelled in the feeling, she knew it was dangerous.

Gabe didn’t notice as he was jabbing and jiggling the emergency button. Yet the lift refused to budge.

Giving her dress a last fix, she joined him. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’

Gabe spared her a flat glance, before reaching into his jacket pocket for his mobile to call for help. Only to find it was missing.

‘The flamingo,’ they said as one, and Paige laughed so hard she clutched her stomach.

‘This isn’t funny. There are over a hundred people stuck up there.’

‘And it’ll only take one to leave early to notice the lift’s not working.’ Paige put a finger to her bottom lip. ‘If not for the fact that the lift is a total diva at the best of times.’

A muscle jumped in Gabe’s cheek and she realised he was beginning to look kind of stressed. Poor love.

‘Here,’ she said, pressing him aside to pop the hatch to find the lift’s emergency phone. It was busted. Seriously, at the next tenants’ meeting she was bringing out a whole bag of whoop on Sam the Super’s ass.

Gabe ran a hand through his hair as his gaze shot up, down, and at the seam in the lift’s doors.

And something occurred to Paige. ‘Gabe. Are you claustrophobic?’

He tugged at the V of his sweater. ‘Of course not. But neither am I keen on feeling trapped in a small space for an extended period of time. This rotten, stinking, no good—’ Gabe said, his voice now not much more than a growl as he banged at the control panel with enough force to bruise. Still the lift didn’t budge.

Paige lost it. Laughing so hard now she hiccuped. ‘See!’ she managed to get out. ‘It’s not just me. This is fantastic. And I was so sure he’d fallen under your spell.’

‘He?’

Paige blinked up at Gabe, whose eyes were narrowed dangerously in her direction. She was the one who’d hit the button in the first place after all.

Her bottom lip slid straight between her teeth and his gaze slid straight to her mouth, his eyes darkening, his breath lengthening, as she said, ‘Rock Hudson, of course.’

Then his eyes shot back to hers, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a dangerous smile.

Silence stretched between them, only broken by the occasional creak of the lift. They were left with nothing to do but wait.

‘So,’ Paige said, crossing her arms, cocking her hip, ‘what now?’

‘What kind of name is Gabe?’

Gabe’s thighs burned from being on his haunches the past ten minutes as he tried to rewire the phone and get them the hell out of the box. He could sniff out creative accounting in a company report from a mile away, but he knew less than nothing about electrical engineering.

‘Just Gabe? Or short for Gabriel?’ Paige added when it became clear he wasn’t about to answer.

‘Short,’ he said.

‘That’s sweet,’ she said, clearly not as concerned as he was about the thinning of the air. ‘Like the angel.’

Gabe’s knees creaked as he pulled himself to standing. He turned to find Paige standing in the far corner of the lift, one bare foot on top of the other, her hair now up in a makeshift knot, the ends of his sports coat rolled up at her wrists. Despite the stale air all sorts of parts of him stirred for her again. He shot them down. He was conserving air. ‘You having fun over there while I try to get us out of here?’

‘Tonnes. I’m used to being the one swearing under my breath at this thing. It’s nice to watch someone else have a turn.’

‘Nice ain’t the word I’d use.’ Gabe looked around the small space. No way was he something so pansy-assed as claustrophobic . Though time spent in parts of the world with less than exemplary examples of modern vertical architecture had left him with an ever so slight discordance with elevator travel.

‘Now back to your name—’

‘It’s a family name,’ he said, rubbing his fingers across the stiff back of his neck.

‘Mother’s side? Father’s?’

‘Aren’t you hot?’

Paige blinked her big blue bedroom eyes at him and wrapped herself tighter in the cosy warmth of his jacket. Then she slowly shook her head.

‘The air-con’s been turned off,’ he said. ‘When did that happen?’