Blame It on the Blackout

But suddenly, the trembling started again, worse than before, and he shot to his feet. “This isn’t working. We have to get out of here before we run out of air. Why isn’t anyone trying to get us out?”

He pounded on the doors with his fists, shouting for help, on the verge of hyperventilating. Lucy made another grab for him, pulling him away, fighting the claustrophobia for his attention.

“Peter. Peter, stop. Listen to me.” She framed his face with her hands, able to see the barest outline of his silhouette now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. “You’re okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“No, no, no…” He shook his head emphatically, not listening or unwilling to believe. “I can’t breathe.”

She could feel the pulse at his throat beating out of control and knew she was losing him. But what else could she do? How did you calm someone who was on the brink of a breakdown?

The answer came to her in a flash and she didn’t give herself time to second guess. Leaning up on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his, kissing him as she’d always imagined. Her fingers slipped from his cheeks to his nape, tangling in the slightly long hair growing over his collar.

He tasted of scotch and heat and just plain Peter, and she wondered why she’d waited two years to do this. It was crazy, it was wrong, but it was also so darn good, her skin was threatening to melt right off her bones.

And best of all, Peter’s panic seemed to have subsided. He wrapped his arms about her waist and dragged her closer, opening his mouth to let their tongues parry and thrust.

Their bodies rubbed together like two pieces of flint, all but shooting sparks. Her breasts, crushed to his chest, grew heavy and sensitive with desire, her nipples beading to nearly painful points. Lower, the hard line of his arousal nudged the area between her legs.

In the back of his mind, Peter knew he was supposed to be thinking about something. The dark, the broken-down elevator, getting out, or dying before anyone discovered them. But damned if he could find it in him to care about anything other than the warm, willing woman in his arms.

Lucy. He shouldn’t be kissing Lucy…his assistant, his friend, the one person he didn’t want to offend because, as he often joked, she knew where the bodies were buried.

But, God, she felt good. She smelled good, like flowers in springtime, with an overlaying scent of musk that made him think of hot, sweaty sex. And she tasted amazing.

Since puberty, he’d had his share of fantasies about making out with beauty queens and X-rated starlets; sometimes both at the same time. But no dream, no matter how erotic, could ever live up to what was happening right here, right now. She made steam rise from his pores and every drop of blood in his veins rush straight for the equator.