Behind Closed Doors (Behind Closed Doors #1)(14)

“Crazy good,” he promises, “but don’t worry. There are cameras everywhere. If I suddenly go ‘crazy bad,’ the police will find your body.”

“That’s not funny,” I say, elbowing him and stepping out of his reach, only remotely aware of a fancy lobby with shiny floors, a coffee shop, and too much bling to be any reality I’d call my own for even a moment.

He laughs, the sound all low and deep and delicious. “If you could see your expression right now, you might change your mind.”

“For a man being blackm—” I catch myself and edit my sentence. “For a man who’s in your situation, you sure have a sense of humor.”

His expression turns somber, his jaw flexing. “Just trying to stay sane. And believe me, that’s not easy right now.”

The confession, raw and honest, shocks me, and for just a moment, I see a flicker of discomfort in his eyes. It took him off guard, too, just as my apology to him back at my town house had me. “Jason—” I start, but we’re at the elevators. He punches the button, and while I’d like to shift his mood right now, I’m simply thinking about the small metal box I’m about to enter. “How tall is this building?”

“Fifty-eight floors.”

Irritatingly, my heart begins to race. “You wouldn’t happen to be on a low floor, would you?”

“Based on how white you just turned, I think you should just roll the dice and find out once we’re there.” He links his arm around my neck and puts us into motion, his hips aligned with mine.

“You need to stop manhandling me,” I say, already feeling trapped and damn it, I sound breathless, when I mean to be demanding.

“Fear gets you nowhere,” he declares.

“Says the gambler,” I retort, not bothering to deny he’s right. That word I hate is back: I’m afraid. Of heights, not him, though maybe it should be the opposite.

“What are you thinking about right now?” he demands.

“How much of an * you are.”

“That isn’t what I was hoping for, but it will do,” he says.

And it’s in that moment that the stupid elevator opens and he walks right in with me an extension of his movement, my attempt to dig in my heels once again thwarted. “Jason, wait!”

But he doesn’t stop until I’m pressed against a glass wall that has my heart racing. “Stay.”

“I’m not a dog,” I snap.

He laughs, something he does easily despite dire circumstances, and it’s almost as sexy as his eyes. And hair. And body. “Then don’t stay,” he replies, “but don’t make a run for the door and make me chase you.” He turns away and steps to the elevator panel to key in a code.

My instant reaction is to get the heck off the glass and slide to the solid wall to my left, but try as I might, I can’t see the floor Jason has chosen, and I’m glad. I don’t want to know, but what I do see is him. His hesitation, the way he doesn’t immediately turn to face me, his hand on the wall by the keypad, long pieces of his light brown hair falling from the tie at his nape, becoming a shield I cannot penetrate. There’s no question in me that he’s fighting some dark emotion he doesn’t wish me to see, but I do.

The doors shut, and my chance for escape with them. Almost instantly, the car begins to rise. Jason steps away from the panel, as if he’d been waiting for us to be sealed inside in case he needed to block my path. This should bother me. Why doesn’t it? Instead, I study him as he leans against the wall across from me, not about to look out that damn glass wall, using that as my excuse for enjoying how perfectly hot Trouble really is. From the sounds of it, his hotness is at least a small part of what got him in this mess. But he’s also staring at me, at my mouth, and I’m thinking about what he might taste like. And it’s dangerous; allowing myself to be seduced by this man would be foolish. I cut my gaze left and the city flashes before my eyes through the glass. My stomach rolls, my hand pressing to my belly.

Afraid of being sick and embarrassing the heck out of myself, I turn forward and my gaze lands on the panel to find the number 58 aglow. Seeming to understand my reaction, Jason steps behind me, his hand on my hip, breath warm on my cheek. “Easy, baby,” he murmurs. “Is it small spaces or heights?”

“I don’t know anymore,” I surprise myself by confessing, welcoming the distraction of his spicy scent and the way his strong legs cradle my hips. “It’s kind of a control thing,” I add, not sure what else to call this need I’ve developed to know, see, touch, and hold on to everything around me that magnifies every quirk I possess by ten.

“Something I understand,” he promises. “Probably more than you know.”

And the something I hear in his voice isn’t about elevators. It’s about blackmail. I want to turn. I want to tell him what I found, but no matter how true his fear and explanations feel, my mind says I don’t know enough about him, or the poker chip, or this Stephanie person. So I don’t turn and he doesn’t move away. And we don’t speak. We just stand there together, too intimate for two strangers who’ve just met. Yet it’s not about sex, and it’s not wrong, but rather quite right. I think maybe, just maybe, for just a few moments, minutes, whatever time passes, the best place, the only place, to face a fear you want no one else to see is with a stranger doing the same.