Chapter 17: Across the Hall

The elevator climbed eighteen floors and neither of us said a word.

I stood against one wall and Keaton stood against the other.

The mirrored door showed me my own face, flushed and wild, and his, watching me.

Eighteen.

The doors opened. He didn't move.

"The rule," he said. His voice was low and rough. "Tell me what the rule is tonight."

"There isn't one."

"Claire."

"I'm offering," I said. "Everything. Ask me nothing and take it."

He crossed the elevator in one step.

His hands found my face and his mouth came down on mine.

It wasn't slow.

It wasn't anything like the kiss in his kitchen.

I grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt, the gray one, the one I had looked at too long on my first night on his couch.

He walked me backward out of the elevator and down the corridor.

My shoulders hit his front door.

He kissed my throat, then the place under my ear, and I heard a sound come out of me that I didn't know I could make.

"Keys," I gasped.

"Pocket."

"Which one?"

"Left."

I slid my hand into it and felt how hard he was through the fabric.

He groaned against my neck.

"That's not the key."

"I know."

"You're not being fair."

"Neither was a husband who left me in my own lobby with a dead key card," I said. "Open the door, Keaton."

He got it open on the second try.

We fell inside.

He kicked the door shut with his heel, and I had his shirt over his head before the lock clicked.

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