was no point in showering him with queries. Anxious to leave her confinement, she would have been willing to jump up and grab hold of the devil himself if he’d just get her out of here. Even with him hanging upside down, she could tell that this handsome, although unsmiling and gruff, man wasn’t the devil.
At least, not exactly.
Whatever else this man might be as he went about his life, right now, at this moment, this Flying Wallenda wannabe was the answer to her prayers.
Nika squared her shoulders. “Ready?” she asked him, bracing herself.
There was more than a shade of impatience in his stony face. Nika could recognize it even upside down. “Lady—”
“You’re ready,” she pronounced. Blowing out a breath, she gave it her all and sprang up as high as she could, her hands reaching up for the sky.
It amazed her that he caught both of her hands on the first attempt. It also amazed her that her shoulders weren’t pulled out of their sockets. The jolt had her biting down on her lower lip to keep from yelling out in pain.
Holding on to her hands tightly, the knight in tarnished armor raised her up. She could see his forearms straining. They were bulging and looked rock hard as he pulled her to him. He was still hanging upside down, but he raised her up to him until they were all but face-to-face.
He was breathing heavily.
As for her breath, it had gotten completely stuck in her lungs as she found her lips less than an inch away from his mouth.
Was that a heart palpitation? Or just adrenaline rushing through her? For simplicity’s sake, she decided to go with the latter.
“You’re not moving,” she managed to point out. If it wasn’t for the way his forearms were straining, it would seem as if they were frozen in midair.
“I’m not a contortionist,” he retorted. She could feel his forearms working, could feel a tremor begin to rumble through the taut, hard muscles. “Climb up!” he urged her.
“Climb up what?” she cried in complete confusion.
Was she an airhead? Had he just gone through contortions to rescue someone who was just as likely to harm his grandmother as help her?
“Me,” he snapped, “damn it. Climb up me.”
She hadn’t the slightest idea how to do that from this position. “You’re kidding.”
“If I were given to kidding,” he told her tersely, “which I’m not, this wouldn’t be the time for me to do it. Now, get moving,” he ordered sharply, “or we’re both going to fall into the elevator and one of us is going to land headfirst.”
That would be him. Not exactly the best way for this to end. Oh God. She could feel herself weakening.
Not now, Nika. Not now.
“Right.”
Taking a breath, she released his hand and immediately grabbed hold of his torso, holding on tight.
One hand free, Cole reinforced his hold on her other hand, using both of his.
“Keep going!” he shouted at her.
She was just trying to catch her breath. “Give me a minute,” she snapped at him. Her heart really pounded now.
He felt his grasp slipping on her. “We don’t have a minute.”
“Oh God.”
Her heart hammering in her chest, Nika scrambled up her rescuer’s body, acutely aware of its hardness and all the contours she brushed against—both his and hers—in her effort to get out of this dark, confining space.
And then she was out. Out of the car and on top of it, where the cables, the grease and an entire array of uncountable dead insects all came together. Nika huddled on top of the car, pulling her body as far into herself as she could.
Just above her head were the parted elevator doors—and light!
“Move over,” Cole shouted up to her. “I want to come up.”
“Sorry,” she apologized. Still crouching, she tried to make herself even smaller as, attempting to move as little as possible, she shifted away from the opening. To keep from being overwhelmed by this whole ordeal, Nika forced herself not to look down. “Now what?” she asked.
He took a moment to draw in a few breaths. His hand just above her huddled body, her scowling rescuer held on to the cable. He gave her the impression that he could just swing himself off his perch like some modern-day Tarzan whenever the whim hit him.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked her.
“It would be,” she allowed magnanimously. “If my brain worked.”
Fingers lightly encircling the cable, her rescuer rose to his feet, as sure-footed as if he’d been born mid-leap between skyscrapers. How could he do that? she marveled. How could he seem so casual, standing on top of the elevator car? Had he grown up on the side of a mountain?
“Now I get you up to the fourth floor,” he answered glibly.
When she didn’t rise on her own to stand beside him, Cole took her hand and began to tug her up to her feet. When he felt her resistance, he looked down at her expectantly.
“Look, you’ve got to stand up,” he told her gruffly. “I can’t just hurl you out the door like you were some kind of discus.”
“Right.” Nika exhaled, rising shakily to her feet. Her hand was tightly wrapped around his as if he was her lifeline.
It suddenly occurred to him that there might be more at play here than he’d thought. “Are you afraid of heights?”
“I wasn’t when I first got on,” Nika answered honestly. “But now I’m not so sure.”
She was still holding on to his hand as he shifted her around so that they were both facing the parted doors on the next floor. Before she could ask him what he was doing, he’d released her hand and placed both of his on either side of her waist.
“Look up,” he instructed. When she did, he said, “There’s your way out.”
All she could think was, So near and yet so far. Short of him hurling her like that discus he’d mentioned, she couldn’t see how she was going to get out. “Yes, if I was a foot taller.”
His hands tightened around her waist. Something swirled around in her stomach in response. Panic?
“Don’t worry, you will be,” he promised. “Okay, on the count of three.”
“What on the count of three?” She had an uneasy feeling she wasn’t going to like this.
“You jump. I thrust and push.”
“You what?” she demanded, twisting around so that she could look at him. He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying.
