Chapter 6
6
CLAIRE
Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.
Was I about to make out with my hot neighbor in the elevator? Absolutely, I was. And if the fire department hadn’t shown up, would I have stopped at making out? No. Absolutely not. If we made it out of here alive, I’d be crazy not to follow him back to his apartment, for chrissake. The man could kiss. I breathed out slowly, trying to calm every screaming nerve in my body, but between the firefighter currently shouting through the doors and the man still cupping my jaw, locating zen seemed like a wildly optimistic goal.
Hudson hopped up with an irritable grunt, turning to face the elevator doors. “There are two of us here, no injuries.”
“Stay back from the doors while we open them,” the deep voice replied. Hudson stepped back, slipping me mostly behind him, one strong arm in front of me as if the door might attack.
It only took a few minutes for the fire department to pry the doors all the way open, revealing a man in his forties who lay on his belly, peering into the elevator car.
My heart rate ticked up exponentially. When the elevator had stopped, I’d assumed we’d gotten stuck at the fourth floor, not halfway between three and four. I was not prepared to be climbing through tiny openings between floors.
“You okay?” Hudson asked, shifting his attention from the firefighters to me.
Hudson looked entirely calm, and I wanted to emulate that. Was I an anxious person? Absolutely. Did I need the hot guy who had kissed the hell out of me to know that? No. “How are we going to get out?” I asked, aiming for an even, steady voice, but failing miserably.
Hudson glanced between the door and me. “They’ll pull you through the door. It’ll be easy. I’ll lift you.” He said the words with an authority that almost made me believe him. Almost.
“Ma’am, I’m Lieutenant Wallace. What’s your name?” The firefighter said. He was handsome in a fatherly sort of way, gray showing at his temples and in the stubble of his chin. I wondered absently if he hadn’t shaved in a while or if it grew quickly and his shift had gone long. A power outage was sure to be a long night. “Ma’am? Are you okay?” he asked, and I could see Hudson was looking at me with more concern now, as if maybe I had some injury he’d failed to notice.
“Claire,” I replied, surprised to hear the tremble in my voice. I’d really expected the power to come back on and safely deliver me to floor four. Maybe floor one. Certainly not floor three and three-quarters. “My name is Claire.”
“Good. Claire, I’m going to have you go first.” Lieutenant Wallace’s booming voice cut through my thoughts, and I felt myself shaking my head no .
Hudson looked between the door and me, his dark eyes scanning my face. “It’ll be fine, Claire. I’m going to lift, and they’ll pull. You’ll be out in a second.”
My breath was coming quickly, but it wasn’t enough air, and I leaned back on the wall of the elevator, as far as I could get from the door.
“Claire,” Hudson said gently.
My eyes ticked back and forth between the Lieutenant and Hudson, finally catching and holding on Hudson. “What if it moves?” I whispered, unable to stop the vivid images of being crushed between the levels. That had happened in a movie once—torso still in the arms of the firemen as legs went crashing down to the basement.
Hudson shook his head. “We haven’t moved in?—”
“Claire, let’s go ahead and get you up here first,” the firefighter repeated loudly, interrupting Hudson, and I felt my muscles go tight. I couldn’t cross the distance right now if I wanted to, and I didn’t want to.
“Give her a minute,” Hudson said, the irritation evident in his gruff tone and in the glare he threw toward Wallace before he stepped in front of me and blocked my view of the man. “Claire,” he said calmly, his hands lifting to cup my face between his palms. “Look at me,” he said, his voice now clear and steady.
I was examining every corner of our tiny prison, looking for any indication we might suddenly move, but his words centered me—if only for a moment—and I settled my gaze on Hudson’s dark eyes. Up close there were golden spots mixed in with the darker brown.
He ran a thumb along my mouth, letting the digit settle in the center of my lips to hold them shut. “Just like before, okay?” he said gently. “Through your nose. Slow, deep breaths.” He inhaled theatrically and I followed along, feeling more grounded with each breath. His lips tipped up in a small smile and I opened my mouth to speak, but he pressed down again, keeping me quiet. “Not yet,” he murmured. “In a minute we’re going to walk over to Lieutenant Wallace over there, okay?” Knowing I couldn’t speak, I nodded instead. “I’m going to lift you up and he’ll pull you out. It’ll be over in a second. Do you understand?” I nodded once more, and he dipped his chin, narrowing his eyes. “If I thought there was the slightest danger, I would happily stay in this elevator talking to you all night.” As terrifying as the scenario was, I believed Hudson. He wasn’t afraid, and he wasn’t lying right now. The pressure from his thumb lifted, but the appendage stayed hovering over my lips for a moment. I had a wildly inappropriate urge to kiss the digit, but I didn’t. Then Hudson tucked my hair behind my ear and gave a single nod. “You ready?”
Apparently the question was rhetorical this time, because he clasped my hand and walked me to the elevator doors. The concrete wall came up to my chest, leaving roughly three feet of open door for me to slip through. My hand tightened on Hudson’s and I was so tempted to let my mental slideshow of agonizing death begin again. “I’ve got you,” he whispered in my ear, and I breathed out, zeroing all my focus onto those words.
“What’s your name, sir?” Lieutenant Wallace asked, looking at Hudson this time as he reached down with one arm.
“Hudson North, sir. I’m a paramedic.”
“Excellent,” the Lieutenant said, and it was clear in his tone that his opinion of Hudson had just improved markedly. “You know what to do, then. Give her a lift straight up, and we’ll grab her out here. On three?”
Stepping behind me, Hudson settled his hands on my waist, shifting to get a better grip. I tried not to think about the fact that I would soon be launched into the air and dragged through a tiny opening capable of crushing me in an instant, and I tried not to lean into Hudson’s embrace, tempting though it was. Instead, I reached up, allowing the firefighter to clasp my arms.
“One,” Lieutenant Wallace began. “Two…”
I didn’t hear him say three. The blood rushing in my ears felt too loud, and all of my attention was focused on the place where Hudson’s fingers held tight to my waist. It must’ve happened, though, because Hudson lifted me as if I weighed nothing, and two firefighters pulled me up and out. And instead of thinking about my imminent death, all I could think about was the way the firemen were accidentally yanking my dress in the process, surely giving Hudson a view of my pink, cotton briefs.