I let go of the rope and gave him the truth. “My brother pisses me off.”
“I noticed.”
I didn’t know why, but I fucking laughed.
Then Harm smiled.
I got up. “All right, let’s get you into the suite, then figure out a way to get the hell out of here.” I offered him a hand.
He took it, but once he was upright, he refused more help by shoving me off.
“Good, glad you’re mobile,” I hazed. “You can help me throw a body off the balcony.” I was only half kidding.
Harm glanced at me as he limped down the hallway before looking straight ahead. “Stairwell’s a better bet.”
I heard voices, then Ronan called out. “Stay where you are, Sanaa. Give me a minute.”
I wanted to ask why, but I thought I’d heard Harm’s voice, and he frightened me, so I didn’t say anything. I heard some shuffling, and as promised, a minute later, Ronan lifted the edge of the mattress.
A gust of wind blew in, and I was never more thankful for fresh air, tropical force winds or not.
Holding the mattress up with his shoulder, he turned the light on his cell phone on and shined it down as he held a hand out to me.
For the first time since I’d seen him again after all these years, there was a spark of the man I used to know in his eyes. Suddenly shy, I took his hand, and he pulled me out. But when I was on my feet, he didn’t step back.
Slipping a finger inside my face covering, he lowered it and brought his mouth almost against mine, but he didn’t kiss me. He whispered two words that both fractured and healed my heart. “You’re mine.”
Tears welled, and I grasped his strong arms. “Always.”
Holding my eyes in his intense stare, he brushed my hair back. “We have a lot to talk about.”
Excitement swirled low in my belly, and everything else fell away. “Okay.”
Staring, his thumb stroked my cheek, then he kissed me once and murmured, “Songbird.”
“Your Songbird,” I corrected a second before an ear-splitting sound of crunching metal echoed through the entire suite. My hands tightened in fear. “What was that?”
Harm appeared in the doorway. “Ronan.”
“Coming,” Ronan answered Harm before touching his lips once to my forehead. “That sounds like emergency services trying to get through the elevator doors. Come.” He turned the light off on his phone and pocketed it.
The metal grinding noise sounded again as Ronan slipped my face covering back up and took my hand. Grabbing my purse before carefully leading me toward the door, Ronan didn’t waste time getting us out of the bedroom, but I still noticed the comforter from the bed was now wrapped tightly around Kyle’s body.
I should’ve been sorry a man was dead, but I wasn’t.
All I felt was relief.
Walking over and around fallen debris, we followed a limping Harm into the second suite, then made our way into the hallway just as the doors to the elevator were forced open.
Suspended from ropes, wearing safety goggles and ear protection, Vance hung in front of the door with a giant power-tool-looking contraption and grinned. “I always wanted to use one of these things.” He tossed the tool into the hallway. “Everyone all right?”
“Harm needs medical attention, and Abernathy is dead,” Ronan answered.
“Right.” Vance nodded, his expression turning grave as he glanced at Harm. “We only have one way down with this weather. You up for it?”
“Is the shaft secure?” Ronan asked. “It looked blown from the inside.”
Understanding dawned, and panic crept in. “Wait. What do you mean only one way down?”
“More secure than a nonexistent stairwell,” Vance answered.
Ronan turned to me, putting himself between us and Vance and the open abyss of the elevator shaft. Cupping my face, he looked into my eyes. “I made you a promise.”
I tried to swallow past the sudden lump in my throat. “You know how I feel about heights.”
“I’m going to take you down, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You’ll be secured to a harness. All you’ll have to do is close your eyes.”
I was shaking my head before he’d even finished speaking. “I can’t do that. We’ll take the stairs. We’ll walk down.”
“There are no stairs anymore.”
My stomach dropped, and my breathing started to accelerate, like panic and hyperventilate accelerate. “I can’t do this. There has to be another way.”
“The only other way is a helicopter landing on the roof to pick us up, but with the current winds, it’s impossible conditions. We would be waiting here until tomorrow at earliest, and it’s not safe to be up here.”
“Love,” Vance called. “You’ll be fine. Do you see me worried? It’s perfectly safe.”
Ronan whipped around. “You call her that one more time, I’m cutting your line.”
Vance chuckled and held a hand up. “Right, right, message received.” He looked at me. “Sanaa, you’ll be fine, but we need to move now.” Taking some rope and a strap-looking thing off his shoulder, he tossed it into the hallway toward Harm. “Get that on, and I’ll take you down first.”
Harm picked up the thing, limped over to Ronan, and handed it to him. “Get her down first, before she has any more time to think about it.”
Without missing a beat, Ronan was feeding me into straps and buckles and clips like he knew what he was doing all the while fear had stolen my voice and I’d started to shake.
As he clipped one more clip, Ronan called over his shoulder. “I’m taking her down, Vance. Give me your harness and gloves.”
“Copy that.” Grabbing the side of the opening, Vance swung himself into the corridor and unclipped himself from the ropes.
Before I could catch my breath, Ronan was in the contraption that Vance had just been wearing, complete with gloves, and my head was spinning as my vision started to tunnel.
Grasping my arms, Vance said something to me, but I didn’t hear him.
I was watching Ronan hook himself to the same ropes Vance had just been on, and I wanted to vomit.
Ronan made a come-here gesture, but my feet wouldn’t move, and I prayed it would stay that way. Except my prayer wasn’t answered, because in the next instant, Vance was propelling me toward Ronan as he stood on the edge of the pitch-dark shaft, and they both clipped me to Ronan and the ropes.
Then Ronan grabbed one of the ropes and took a step toward the abyss.
“Wait!” I cried.
I never even got the whole word out.
His arm snaked around me, his mouth covered mine, then we were falling.
Falling fast.
Hot stale air rushing at us, his strong arm holding my body flush to his, our legs dangling, he kissed me.
Really kissed me.
Dominating, wild, trashing, life affirming, soul crushing kissed me.
I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear.
But I could feel.
Ronan and falling fast.
So very fast.
Then the whirring noise slowed, his kiss slowed, and he reverently pressed his lips to mine as if he hadn’t just ravaged me. “You did it, Songbird.”