Page 12 of The Marriage Auction 2: Part 1

“They are far too busy dealing with all the shitty world leaders and making deals with karma to be involved in a little elevator malfunction.”

“They?”

I rolled my eyes. “Let me guess… You believe God is male?”

He shrugged. “Most likely.”

“Ugh. God is technically not female nor male. God is an entity. All powerful. All knowing.They,” I enunciated, “are nonbinary if you must assign a gender specification.”

Jack laughed so hard and for so long, I found myself wanting to hit someone.

Not someone.

Sexy, accented, beautifully dressed, annoyingly gorgeous, magnificent-smelling Jack Larsen. And I never wanted anything to result in violence.

Why did all the yummy ones have to be so irritating?

I moved away from him and picked up the remaining items that had fallen out of my bag.

“Hello in there. We’re about to force open the doors. Stand back,” came a scratchy feminine voice through the speaker.

Jack and I plastered ourselves to the back wall and watched as a slice of metal appeared near the top of the split in the doors. Then a loud noise boomed, and the door ripped open a few inches.

Idiotically, I reached for Jack’s hand. He held mine firmly, giving me the support I needed. Unexpectedly, my vision became blurry and little stars appeared at the edges. My heart pounded a million miles an hour in my chest, and I felt as though I couldn’t catch my breath.

Several pairs of yellow-gloved hands yanked the doors open. But what we saw when they opened was a female fire fighter crouching and several pairs of legs with no upper halves.

No, that couldn’t be right.

I blinked several times as my vision wavered in and out, my breath coming in gasps.

“Rebecca, Rebecca,” someone called my cat’s name. Was my cat here? All I could see were hazy forms.

My body was lifted and a bright light pierced my eyes.

People were talking around me but it sounded like garbled nonsense. All but one voice cut through the sludge coating my ears.

“Open your eyes,solskinn. Let me see those pretty blues.” Jack’s face was all I could see. His spicy, earthy scent invading my nose and calming me down.

“Jack…” I croaked.

“There you go.” He helped me up to a seated position and rubbed a hand up and down my back in long strokes as my vision came back. “Just breathe, Rebecca.” He called me by my cat’s name again.

Oh, that’s right, because he was an ass who’d made fun of my smell and the backup panties I always kept on hand. A woman never knew when she would need a clean pair. My mother had forced that life hack down my throat since I was a teenager, and more times than not, it had been a great help. Especially when having a tawdry night out, as Jack put it.

Though I didn’t think of hookups that way. If a person wanted to be intimate with someone, so be it. I despised how some of the population demonized women for having sexual freedom. Men could go screw ten girls a month and that was often considered a slow month for the single guy. A girl had so much as one partner every few weeks and she was seen as a ho. Not cool. Double standards sucked.

Why am I thinking of this now?

Jack helped me to my feet. “Give me your phone number,” he demanded as he pulled out his cell phone.

“Why?” I pressed my fingers to my forehead as a paramedic led me to a comfy chair.

“I want to check on you later. Make sure you’re okay.”

“Why?” I asked again.

“Humor me,” he deadpanned.

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