I let two words I had never said to him, never thought about saying, cross my lips. “Yes, sir.” As soon as they were out, I had a moment of panic, but then my Ronan, he came out to play.
He brought his mouth almost to mine as his hand landed on my ass with a sharp slap. “Remember that too, Songbird.” He pressed my clothes against my chest and brushed his hand across my hardened nipples.
My body hummed and my smile stretched my face even further as I took my clothes. Thankful he had brought me pants instead of a dress, I quickly pulled the leggings on and slipped the sweater over my head before stepping into my shoes. No socks, no underwear, I didn’t even care. I was so thankful to have clothes, it had almost felt like we’d passed the worst of it when a violent rumble echoed through the building a split second before a harrowing thud.
The entire floor shook, and I lost my balance.
Before I could fall, a strong arm was around my waist. “Easy.”
Fear eclipsed all else. “What was that?”
His eyes were already scanning past the makeshift tent, and I could feel the tension in every one of his muscles. “Back under the mattress. I’m going to take a look.”
I grabbed his arm. “No.” I couldn’t lose him. Not again. “Stay here. The emergency people will find us.”
Sparing me a glance, he kissed my lips once, then lifted the mattress. “I need to alert them to where we are.”
He was lying. “They know where we are. Vance, or someone else will tell them.”
Taking my arm, he gently but firmly coached me back under the mattress. “In a situation like this, if they’re doing an evac from air or the roof, exactly where we are matters.”
Oh dear God. “The roof?” The air? “I’m not going on the roof, Ronan. I can’t.” I was terrified of heights. He knew that. I hated being up twenty stories as it was.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
How could he promise me that? “The winds alone could blow us off the roof.” They’d been getting steadily worse since yesterday. The news said it was a tropical depression. I was from the Caribbean, I knew what that meant. At any moment, those winds could whip up into a frenzy and we’d have a hurricane on our hands.
“I won’t let that happen.” He took my dress off the floor where I’d dropped it and pulled his knife out. Quickly slicing the silk as if it were a paper napkin, he made a rectangular section and doubled it, then reached under the mattress. “This will be easier.” Covering my nose and mouth, he pushed my hair back, then with his strong muscled forearms reaching on either side of me, he tied the material behind my head.
I lifted my hand to adjust it, but he caught my wrist.
“Leave it. I want it tight. I don’t want you inhaling the dust.” He checked the knot he’d tied.
“Okay.” It was tight, but it wasn’t painful.
“I’m going to do a quick check. Five minutes. Stay under the mattress.”
I grabbed his wrist again. “Please. I’m asking you. Can you just stay here? Call or text someone, tell them where we are, then come under the mattress with me?” I knew it was futile, but I had to ask.
In a rare show of emotion, and one that I was not expecting, he simply reached in the front of shirt and grasped the pendant of the necklace I’d given him.
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t have to. He held the pendant and he held my gaze.
I knew what he was saying. It’d kept him safe all these years. It’d keep him safe now.
Reluctantly, with tears welling, I acquiesced and nodded.
Holding my gaze, he dropped the pendant back under his shirt. For two heartbeats he gave me the intensity of his powerful stare.
Then he stood and was gone.
The continuing sound of concrete caving in wasn’t good.
The structure was failing, and I feared we didn’t have time to wait for emergency crews to find us. Leaving her unprotected was killing me, but I didn’t have a choice. I needed to get us out of this building.
I checked my cell as I made my way back through our suite to the adjoining one. My initial text to Luna looked like it went through, but none of the subsequent ones or the group text had. No replies had come in either.
As I walked through the second suite’s bedroom, I spied the phone on the nightstand and cursed my stupidly. Quickly grabbing the receiver, I prayed for a dial tone.
Nothing. Damn it.
Walking to the door of the second suite, I paused and tried Luna again on my cell. The call connected, but after a single ring, the line turned to static. Hanging up, I pocketed my phone and palmed my Sig. Then I opened the door to the hall.
Quickly scanning, I looked for any more damage or anything that was different from before, but it all looked the same, like a fucking bomb had gone off.
Using the security bar that was a hotel’s answer to not locking yourself out and keeping cleaning staff from entering, I flipped the thing to keep the door from closing all the way. Stepping into the hall, I scanned again and hoped to God Harm was okay. Not bothering to call out, I headed toward the elevator shaft.
The doors weren’t hot, but they weren’t cool either.
Briefly debating whether or not to try to pry them open because elevator shafts usually had built in ladders for service, I decided against it. I wasn’t going to risk taking her down that way. Even if we did make it to the bottom without falling or getting crushed, who knew if I could get the doors open at the bottom.
That left the blown-out stairwell.
Picking my way down the hall as the debris became more concentrated, I paused by the blown-out the metal door. Holding my arm over my nose and mouth, I glanced past the doorway.
Jesus fuck.
The whole stairwell between this floor and the one below was blown.
Holstering my Sig, I grabbed my phone and snapped a couple pics before uselessly hitting send to Luna. Pocketing my cell, I inched across the threshold to get a better look. If the stairwell was blown all the way to the ground floor, Sanaa and I were going to be up here for who the fuck knew how long. We’d have to wait for the winds to die down enough for a helo to land on the roof.
Praying we weren’t completely fucked, I first glanced up and scanned the stairs heading to the roof access. They were halfway blown out, but if I had to, I could get us up there.
Then I looked down.
Motherfucking shit.
The entire stairwell between the top two floors was gone.
Scanning the damage as best as I could with only the emergency lights on that lit up an exit sign on each floor, I couldn’t see shit past the floor below. It looked like maybe there was still some of the stairwell intact on the lower floors, possibly even on the floor directly below the one under us. But with a minimum of a fifteen foot drop onto a pile of unstable rubble below us, it was no-go.
“Fuck.” Muttering a curse, I was about to go back to the elevator to see if I could pry the doors open when I heard it.
Not the building settling, not concrete dropping, not the shift of rebar scraping. This was small and slight, but it was telltale.
Pebbles skittering across pavement, telltale.
Unholstering my gun, I flipped the scope and scanned.
On the second pass, I saw it.
Jesus fucking Christ. “Harm!”