we can hope someone will catch the elevator and send it back.”
“But how will anyone know we’re up here?”
“Do you have a cell phone?” she asked, hope brightening her face.
He pictured it resting on the passenger seat of his rental car. “Sorry, I don’t.”
“Then come here.” His heart tightened at the invitation, which he accepted by stepping next to her, teased by a whiff of her rose-scented fragrance. “We’re stuck with the low-tech method,” she said. “The sound might carry down the elevator shaft.”
With balled fists, she raised her hands to the wooden elevator doors and shot him a long and meaningful glance. “What are you waiting for? Let’s bang.”
He almost choked. “Precisely what I had in mind.”
Two
“Help! We’re stuck!”
Nicole Whitaker rammed her entire body weight against the wooden doors with way more force than required. Not only was the body-slam their only chance of being heard—it had worked about three weeks ago when she was stuck on the first floor—but the movement had the added benefit of relieving some of the tension that had coiled her entire being into a knot of raw desire. The sheer presence of the man wound her so tight that any second she could just snap. One more sexy smile and quick one-liner and she might literally come undone. Right into his solid mass of heart-stopping male muscle.
“Help!” She shouldered the door and the pencil tumbled out of her hair.
At his laugh, she froze, mid-slam. “Do you think this is funny?”
She tried to glare at him, if only to hide the fact that she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. How mortifying that this guest—one that somehow had gotten by her that day—would think her resort was a dump.
“I can’t help it.” He shrugged, his bottomless brown eyes sparkling. “You’re really amusing.”
Amusing. Oh yeah. A veritable comedy act swinging half-naked from the ceiling. The thought of how far up her skirt had risen coiled her up inside again. What a way to greet a guest.
Thank God she’d cancelled the meeting that the bank was forcing her to have with some real estate mogul from New York. That’s all the great-and-powerful Quinn McGrath of Jorgensen Development Corporation would need to see. The elevator dead as a doornail and one of her two—no, make that three—paying guests walking around calling the place awful and dilapidated.
And just how did this guy manage to register and not send Sally Chambers flying into Nicole’s office with a report that a six-foot-two god had checked in for a night?
She bit her lip and rested her head against the warm wood of the door, trying to regain the equilibrium that vanished every time she looked at him. She couldn’t let him know she was the owner of the dump. It was just too embarrassing.
Oh, God, what a day. A day? What a year. Life had spun completely out of control well over fourteen months earlier when Hurricane Dante spent six destructive hours as a guest on St. Joseph’s Island. The storm’s category-three winds weren’t deadly, but just potent enough to rip the charm right out of Mar Brisas. Eighty-mile-an-hour winds, and one grossly worded insurance policy had left the resort her great-grandfather had designed and built on its last gasping breath after a glorious sixty-year life.
“Surely someone will come up here tonight,” he said as he gave the door far too light a tap and tilted his head toward the other end of the hall. A gorgeous, sexy, come-hither tilt. “The workers left their stuff out.”
“Uh, I don’t think so.” Workers? Hah. He was looking at the workers. With only a tiny percentage of the insurance money ever paid after the storm, the task of repairing Mar Brisas fell on the owner’s proud, but poor, shoulders. So poor, in fact, that she’d agreed to meet with a potential buyer. But so proud that she’d chickened out before he could show up. “Trust me, Mac, not a lot of people frequent the third floor. We could be here awhile.”
A curious frown deepened a crease between his eyebrows. “How did you know my name?”
His name? “Mac?” She rolled her eyes. “That’s what I call everybody who meets my backside first.”
He laughed again. A low, erotic sound that plucked at her heart and sent electrical charges darting into her stomach. His laugh was almost as smooth as his voice, which was like buttah.
“You’re not still thinking about that, are you?” he asked. “Forget about it. I have.”
Liar. “I’ll be thinking about you for the rest of my life.”
“Wow.” He grinned at her. “I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be. It’ll only happen when I play one of those ‘reveal-your-most-embarrassing-moments’ party games.”
He leaned his shoulder against the door, his arms crossed. He was definitely not banging, but his wide, muscular chest and the few dark hairs that sneaked out of his unbuttoned collar distracted her so much she didn’t complain.
“So what are your other embarrassing moments?”
She heard the question, but only listened to the cadence of his mesmerizing voice.
Watching and listening to this guy was a heady experience. She was definitely light-headed. “Tell me yours first.”
He leaned closer. “It’ll cost you.”
She sucked in a little breath at his proximity, catching a whiff of peppermint and maybe the very first drops of heated male sweat that dampened the strands of black hair that fell on his forehead. That reminded her of the nasty no air-conditioning comment.
“I’ve paid my dues,” she managed to respond. “You’ve seen my underwear.”
“Not really.”
She arched a skeptical eyebrow.
“Just one little tiny scrap of lace,” he admitted.
She felt the blood rush to her cheeks. Mac wasn’t going to cut her an inch of slack.
He moved closer, invading the last vestige of her personal space. He wasn’t smiling, but his dark-chocolate eyes burned as his gaze traveled over her, lingering on her revealing tank top before returning to her eyes. He parted his lips and she caught a momentary glimpse of his tongue.
Light-headed intensified to bona fide dizziness.
“Blue is definitely your color.”
He had to have heard the little sound that tumbled from her mouth. Because he lowered his face even closer to hers, eliminating all the space and all the air. “Lingerie that matches your eyes. You could start a whole new fashion trend.”
She tried to smile, but her lips trembled. He was close enough to kiss. Her heart thumped, blood rushing melodiously through her ears. Kiss, kiss, kiss it sang to her.
“Kiss.”
Before
