Page 11 of The One Who Got Away

“Time’s up.”

I brushed away his hand and stepped into the elevator. When I reached for the ‘L’ button, our fingers collided and something like static electricity, like our own magic, coursed through my fingers, and I had a moment of complete and utter abandon.

I brought that hand up and gripped the front of his shirt, balling it in my fist as I turned my face up to his and pulled his mouth to mine. Our lips met and everything else, everything faded but need. I needed to taste him. I need him to taste me.

I don’t know if he hit the emergency brake or I did, but the elevator jolted and we weren’t going anywhere. We were frozen in this place. A place where the past was forgotten and we slipped back into the warm deliciousness of memories.

My fingers slipped through his hair and I pulled him close, quivering from head to toe when I felt the solid wall of muscle pressed against me. His hands took possession of me, sweeping over my hips, gliding over the swell of my breasts and before he even got to my nipples that were swollen and aching for him, I was lost and found, all at the same time.

My mind was filled with two words. Don’t stop.

His tongue dove between my lips and I grinned against the assault. I was no damsel in distress. I skated my hands down to his ass, that perfect, toned ass, and I gripped it as I dueled with his tongue, melting when he moaned into my mouth. I felt his erection pulsing against me and I took his hand, wanting him to see how aroused I was, too. I wanted him to feel how wet I was for him. I wanted to coat his fingers in the honey that was dripping from me, soaking me with lust.

When I guided his hand towards my thigh, he froze like I’d shocked him. Not the good kind of shock, like we went out to dinner and I left the panties at home and surprised him beneath the table, or I saved up for a trip somewhere exotic on my dime. No, this was definitely not a good shock. That fact was confirmed when I opened my eyes and saw that his were dark with worry.

His sobering gaze shook me from my moment of insanity.

I dropped his hand instantly, but he brought the hand back up, cupping my cheek in a way that was too gentle. Too caring. And even when he let go, like he realized that place, that love didn’t belong to us anymore, I still felt his touch.

He was close again, doing that thing where the mere act of looking at me, like he wished he could take it all back, was enough to make my voice tremble as wildly as my body. I wanted nothing more than to pretend he hadn’t shattered my heart. To throw my arms around his neck and let him sweep me away in a sea of lust and need. But he couldn’t take it back. ‘I’m sorry’ didn’t cut it. As delicious as he tasted and as right as his body felt pressed against mine, I shot my hands out, palms flat, and pushed him away.

“You don’t get to pop in and out of my life whenever the mood strikes you,” I spat. Something that felt less like victory and more like sadness rippled through me when regret tore across his handsome face. He’d hurt me so deeply—finally telling him to go to hell should have set me free. The truth was, I felt more bound to him than ever.

“Cat.”

It was just my name, but the way it rolled off his tongue was downright unfair. I gazed at his lips, echoes of me lingering on him. I could still taste his moans on my tongue. No one said my name the way he said my name. No one made me want to bare my body and my soul with one syllable, and one syllable alone.

I wanted him.

I wanted him so bad it hurt.

I wanted us so bad it gutted me.

I focused on that pain, that angst, and when I spoke, he listened.

“There was a time I couldn’t picture a reality without you in it.” It took everything in me, but I turned back to the front and punched the button for the lobby. This time, I was walking away from him. “I’ve survived just fine without you.”

The elevator jolted a second time and this go round, I felt it in my chest. The ding and the doors retracting just magnified the emptiness. What he did...there was no erasing it. What did love or regret matter when there would always be a wound that never fully healed?

I stepped out of the elevator, fully expecting his male ego to make him pull me back in. Apologize one more time. Maybe even twice if that would turn the tides. But he didn’t reach for me, and he didn’t say he was sorry. I glanced back, for old times’ sake, and he was standing there. Tall, dark, and even more delicious than I remembered.

He gave me a smoldering look that made my heart clench and sigh.

“I gave up on us once, Cat. I’ll be damned if I don’t fight for us this time.”

I should have said something. A saucy comeback like, ‘Too little, too late,’ or ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ or even that middle finger that had been fluttering through my head. I just stood there, chest heaving up and down, like he’d just snatched me back to him and laid the kiss to end all kisses on me.

I didn’t blink until the elevator doors clicked shut. I didn’t move until my heart stopped galloping like something wild and untamed animal.

I took an uneasy step toward the lobby, then a second. I didn’t stop until the sound of children filled my ears instead of blood rushing and hope flickering in my chest despite my best efforts to snuff it out.

This was clearly a ploy.

He wanted my forgiveness.

He wanted me.

That alone should have been enough to make me walk right past the reception desk and out of this building. There were other jobs. I’d find a way to make a difference without Carraway’s billions.

---