Page 37 of At the Edge of Surrender

The elevator skidded to a halt, and an alarm blipped for one second before everything went still and silent.

The only sound was the harsh rake of my breaths and the hemorrhaging of my heart.

It felt as if my lifeblood was pouring out and gushing onto the floor.

The presence of this man a fatal blow.

He turned back to me, his obscenely handsome face warped in a cross of incredulity and sincerity.

“Don’t you?”

Panic surged, and I pushed forward, trying to get around him to get to the dial.

Only he took me by the wrist.

Gently, though it might as well have been a shackle with the way a flashfire of heat whipped up my arm.

Those eyes held me as fiercely as his massive hand.

Eyes so vibrantly green they would spark like the clearest emerald except for the golden flecks that tempered the starkness with texture and depth. The rings that encircled the irises that always seemed to glow.

The same eyes as Maci possessed.

Though his smoldered.

Dangerously.

“Don’t.” It was the softest plea that he issued too close to my mouth.

“Don’t what?” I managed to fire back through gritted teeth, fighting the awareness in my body that didn’t seem to give a damn about the warning bells that were going off in my mind.

“Don’t run from me.” His voice was coarse.

I managed to find a frazzled huff of disbelief as I dug around for the defenses I needed to erect. “Don’t run from you? You’re the oneholding me hostage in my hotel elevator. And how did you even know I was staying here? Creeper much?”

He didn’t relent. Didn’t let go. He only leaned in closer.

The scent of cedar and clove invaded my senses.

“You’re the one who showed up at my door this morning then promptly ran once I answered it. You want to tell me why you were there?”

“I got lost.” I tried to spit it, but it came out shaky.

With a tip of his head to the side, he edged forward.

The longer pieces of his warm, brown hair fell forward and brushed over the sharp lines of his forehead.

The vision rushed.

Fingers yanking at his hair, my body afire, a need so distinct coursing through me that I couldn’t see.

His hands on my hips as he spread me.

His head between my thighs as he shot me into an oblivion I hadn’t known existed.

Those eyes as he’d looked up at me.

Ensuring I was with him. That I wanted to be with him. That I felt safe. That for a moment, I was forgetting everything.

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