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“Into the building fast, head down, no looking around,” he told her.
It didn’t occur to her to disobey him. Not when he sounded so serious. Not when his gaze never met hers because he was looking to the right and left as if he were sweeping the street, looking for those men who had stalked her. Not when she was still caught in the grip of that terrible fear she’d somehow forgotten about while in Alaska.
Of course she hadn’t reallyforgottenit. But she’d... put it on hold. And she couldn’t say she cared for the way it rolled back in so easily, flattening her, as if it were making up for lost time.
She ducked her head down and sprinted for her front door, a desperate, itchy kind of panic rippling down the length of her spine as she moved. As if she had a target drawn all over her back. As if she couldfeelone of those creepy goons taking aim—
Everly was panting when she pushed through the double sets of doors, into the small lobby that held nothing but tenant mailboxes and a stack of those old paper phone books no one ever used anymore.
“You can check your mail later,” Blue said gruffly from behind her.
Right behind her, which made the hair on the back ofher neck stand on end. Because who could imagine that a man that big could move so quietly? Everly couldn’t really imagine it and she was experiencing it.
But she didn’t say anything. She just nodded and pushed on to the elevator. Despite the grand claims the landlord had made in the rental listing about theboutique elevatorhere, as if that were a perk, it was usually easier to jog up the stairs instead. Tonight the old, creaking thing seemed to take even longer than usual, and Everly didn’t know what she was supposed todowhile they waited for it.Talk? Not talk? Stare grimly ahead the way Blue was doing? Pretend she was perfectly at ease with a brooding commando at her back?
She was ready to sob openly in relief when the elevator finally clattered to a stop before them. Happily, she contained herself as she stepped inside, and then had to stand there while Blue followed her, crowding into what little space was left. And he was so huge and dangerous that she didn’t really know what to do with herself except try to keep from gasping for air.
Or doing something much worse, like throwing herself at him again.
Obviously she couldn’t let herself do that. Everly stared straight ahead instead. She pretended she couldn’t really see him. That she was all alone in the antique elevator. She stared at the arrow that inched from one floor to the next and willed the elevator to move already.
It took forever to rise a single floor. Everly tried to think about something else. Anything other than the fact that she kept finding herself too close to this man, torn between wanting to touch him and knowing that would be... very, very bad.
At the moment, she couldn’t remember why, exactly.
She breathed in, then out. The fact was, she hadn’t been gone very long. A week was nothing. And still she felt like a complete stranger. To herself. Or maybe it was that nothing in her life seemed to fit anymore. It hadn’t when she’d raced out of here a week ago, and it certainly didn’t now that she was back. With Blue.
“I don’t like this elevator at all,” Blue said in a low growl when the elevator finally groaned to a halt on her floor and she stepped out. His comment instantly destroyed whatever fantasy of distance between them she’d been fostering. Because she couldfeelthat growl, as if his mouth were on her—
Stop it,she snapped at herself.
“We’re going to take the stairs from now on,” Blue was saying, still in that same burnt-ember way of his.
“I live on the sixth floor.”
Everly didn’t know why she said that. She usually took the stairs because she didn’t have to be a decorated war hero with danger stamped all over her and a mouthwatering pair of forearms to know that the elevator was old, slow, and the last place she’d ever want to be stuck if something bad was happening.
It was possible she wasn’t as okay with him ordering her around as she’d thought she was.
Blue craned his neck to gaze down at her, right there in the hallway with their bags across his shoulders. Once again he seemed to take up twice the amount of space that he should. As if shoulders like his were entirely too broad to fit in a narrow hallway six floors above the Chicago streets.
She waited for him to say something. But he didn’t.He just looked at her, steady and implacable, and she felt herself flush.
“You expect me to walk up and down five flights of stairs. Every time I want to come in and out of my apartment.”
“I do.”
“What if I have heavy groceries?”
“Then you’ll get a workout. Also, you’re not going to make yourself a target by doing something stupid like carrying heavy bags, right? It’s like begging for trouble.”
“What if I have a broken leg?”
“Then you won’t have to worry about how you get in and out of your building, because you won’t be leaving your apartment at all in a compromised state.”
“What if—”
“Everly.” Her name was a command, and it seemed to land on her, then slide in deep. “A few stairs never killed anyone. But getting caught on that death trap elevator just might.”