Blame It on the Blackout

“That’s the problem,” he gritted out, punctuating each word with a hard rap to the metal doors. “The damn thing isn’t moving!”

A shiver of dread skated down her spine. “I thought you didn’t like being in elevators because of that weird up-and-down sensation you get in your stomach.”

“Ha!” The sound came out strangled and his breathing grew even more ragged. Beneath her hand, the muscles of his arm bunched and released.

“It’s not elevators,” he snapped. “They haven’t invented an elevator yet that moves fast enough for me. It’s enclosed spaces. I can’t stand small, enclosed spaces.”

Three

Uh-oh.

“You’re claustrophobic?”

How could he be claustrophobic? And how could she not know about it?

She’d been working with him for two years now. She knew his favorite foods, his favorite color, his favorite pair of boxer shorts, for heaven’s sake. How could she have missed the fact that he was claustrophobic?

“Just a little.”

His response came out on a wheeze and she realized he was seriously downplaying just how upset he was by this sudden set of circumstances.

“All right, let’s not panic,” she said, as much to herself as to him. She moved closer, rubbing his arm, his shoulder. “The power will probably come right back on. Until then, why don’t you tell me how long you’ve had this little problem.”

“Forever. Long as I can remember.” A beat passed while he sucked in air like a drowning victim. “Is it hot in here? It’s too hot in here.”

She felt him struggling to shed his jacket even though she didn’t think the temperature had gone up a single degree since the lights went off. His high level of anxiety probably had his internal thermostat going haywire.

“Here, let me help.” She took the suitcoat, folding it in half and setting it aside in what she hoped was a safe corner.

“And what do you usually do when you find yourself in an enclosed space?” If she could keep him talking, maybe he wouldn’t think so much about where they were. She might even get lucky and figure out a way to keep him calm until the elevator started moving again.

He laughed, a raw, harsh sound. “Go crazy? Throw up? Pass out?”

This was a side of Peter she’d never seen before. Sure, he was slightly scattered, a bit of a computer nerd. More focused on the new program he was designing than whether his hair was combed or there was enough milk in the refrigerator for breakfast.

But, other than the occasional round of public speaking, he was also strong and self-assured. So handsome, he made her teeth hurt. And he was in better physical shape than anyone would expect for a man who spent twenty-three hours of most days staring at a computer screen. He carried himself like a man with a mission; one who knew exactly why he’d been put on this earth and was simply going about the business of carrying out that task.

Little had she known he harbored this secret claustrophobia.

“Oh, God.” He was punching buttons again, growing more agitated by the second. “We’re going to die in here.”

She bit down on her lip to keep from laughing out loud at that outrageous pronouncement. “We are not going to die. Come on. Come over here and sit down.”

Taking his elbow, she tugged him away from the front of the elevator until they hit the rear wall. It took some doing, but she finally got him to the floor.

Covering his face with his hands, he muttered, “I don’t feel very well. I think I might be sick.”

“You’re fine. Everything’s going to be fine.” She brushed his cheek with the back of her hand, finding it warm and damp with perspiration. “Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“If your eyes are closed, you won’t even know the lights are off. We’ll talk and pretend we’re back at the house, and before you know it, that’s exactly where you’ll be.”

He gave a raspy chuckle. “I don’t think that’s going to work.”

Running two fingers lightly over his eyelids, she whispered, “You never know until you try.”

His chest still heaved with the speed of his breathing and she could feel his body shaking against her own.

“You’re in your office,” she murmured, thinking she sounded an awful lot like a hypnotist. “Working on the latest version of Soldiers of Misfortune, throwing in some extra severed heads and damsels in distress. The kids will love it.”

“Too much violence. Should be more socially conscious.”

She laughed at that, knowing how much time he spent worrying that his computer games were too mature for their audiences. “You’re just socially conscious enough. Now focus. You’re at your desk, swigging down your tenth can of soda…I’ll be in any minute with your mail, and to chastise you for drinking too much of that sugar water.”

“Nectar of the gods.”

“The gods of Type-2 Diabetes, maybe.” She played with the ends of his silky hair, trying to keep him from hurting himself as he banged his head rhythmically against the back wall of the elevator.

“You worry too much about me.”

His comment caught her off guard, and for a minute she didn’t respond. She did worry too much about him, but she couldn’t help it. She cared about him, too—too much. She cared that he worked long hours and didn’t get enough sleep, that he didn’t eat right and inhaled cola like it was oxygen. And she cared that he was so upset about being stuck in this elevator in the middle of a blackout.

“Not too much,” she said finally. “Just enough.”

Was it her imagination, or was he calming down? His breathing didn’t seem quite as loud now, and the fidgeting had slowed to a bare minimum.

A minute ticked by in silence while she waited to see if he was all right. If maybe he’d fallen asleep or really believed he was in his office, working on his latest Games of PRey installment.

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.

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