Three, Two, One, I'm Gone novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Off the Clock

He pressed nine.

The elevator doors slid shut, and for three floors neither of us moved.

I stared at the brushed steel in front of me and saw his shape behind mine.

"Is he still in your head?" Wade said.

I thought about it honestly.

I thought about the courthouse steps, the lobby, the boardroom.

I waited for the old weight to land.

It did not.

"No," I said. "I looked just now. Nobody's there."

His breath went out of him in a long, rough line.

"Then say it."

"Office rule, Mr. Easterling," I said, and turned around. "We're off the clock."

He kissed me before the doors finished opening.

It was not careful.

His hand went into my hair and my back hit the door of the apartment.

I had been wanting this since the suds, and the want came up through my knees.

I found the reader behind me with the key card and the lock clicked.

He shoved the door open without breaking the kiss and walked me backward into the dark.

The door clicked shut.

For a second there was only his breathing and mine.

Then he took my jacket by the lapels.

"One button at a time," he said. "That's what I said."

"You said it in front of accounting."

"I did."

"They all heard you."

"They heard the floor numbers," he said, and undid the first button.

His knuckles brushed the skin above my collarbone, and my whole body listened.

He took his time with the second, then the third.

My mother's brooch was still pinned inside the jacket, and he stopped when his fingers found it.

"Take it off," I said.

He unpinned it and set it on the table by the door, very gently.

Something in my chest let go.

He noticed that I noticed, and he looked at me hard.

"Delia. Whenever you want to stop, I stop."

"I know," I said. "Don't."

He pushed the jacket off my shoulders and let it fall.

He took my left wrist in his hand, turned it over, and put his mouth on the inside of it.

His mouth was hot.

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