“The call I got earlier in the week when we were at lunch? About the New York club? They had to move the meeting to lunch tomorrow instead of dinner tomorrow, so I have to catch a red-eye tonight instead of a morning flight.”
She inhaled sharply. “Brent. We were on a date.”
“I thought we could fit everything in.”
Her eyes bugged out, and she stared bullets at him as the elevator landed on the twentieth floor. “You thought you could fit it all in? Fit what in? Taking me out? Fucking me? And then flying to New York at midnight? Is that before or after the fucking?”
The doors slid open. She dug her heels in, but he hadn’t come this far to have her pissed at him again. “Shan, let’s get out of the elevator,” he said firmly.
She shook her head. She was like a dog grabbing grass and refusing to walk. Tension twisted in his chest, squeezing his lungs. The last thing he wanted was to fight with her, not when she’d been melting in his arms moments ago. He pressed his finger against the open button, holding it. “C’mon. We can talk in the room.”
“We can talk here,” she countered, pointing at the floor of the elevator, then at him. “Because I’d really like to know when you were planning on telling me you were cutting our date short.”
“It’s not like we even made official plans for a sleepover,” he said, firing right back at her, his matchstick temper getting the best of him, too.
She narrowed her eyes, turned them into slits. “Oh, excuse me. I didn’t realize I had to book you to spend the night with me,” she said, puffing out her chest and practically spitting the words at him.
He held out his hands wide. “It’s not as if you’ve been giving me any signs that you wanted to.”
She gestured grandly to those red shoes that looked like sex on her. “I guess wearing the goddamn shoes you said you wanted to fuck me in wasn’t a big enough sign? Or maybe letting you finger me in front of the fountains last weekend? That wasn’t clear enough for you?”
“Those nights all ended,” he said, pointing out the flaw in her logic. He pushed hard against the silver button, fighting both with Shannon and the elevator that was starting to beep loudly.
“Looks like this night is about to go the same way then, doesn’t it?”
There was no fucking way he was letting her walk away tonight. The blaring grew louder, sounding like a siren. Shannon crossed her arms over her chest, pushing up her breasts, revealing the swell of her curves.
Curves he intended on having his hands on tonight.
His desire fueled him. Instinct led him on, a caveman drive. In a lightning blur, he grabbed her waist, lifted her onto his shoulder easily and carried her out of the elevator just as the doors whisked shut with a final ping.
“Put me down,” she shouted, pounding her fists against his back. Marching down the hall, he carried her away from the lift as she banged on him. “I mean it, Brent Nichols.”
“I will, woman. I will,” he said with a huff, setting her down carefully on her four-inch heels. She didn’t even wobble. She was born to wear stilettos. Pressing his palms against the wall above her shoulders, he caged her in. “Look, I forgot to say anything about the change in my flight. It happened this afternoon at four o’ fucking clock. This guy is running me around, working me over, and it’s not like I want to go to New York at midnight.”
She shot him a look that said she doubted him. “It’s always about work with you.”
“I am doing my best to manage it all. I want to spend every damn day with you,” he said, his voice hard and firm. “How is it not clear where I want to be right now?”
“Then why are you telling me now?” She sounded like a cross-examiner, punching holes in his argument. “Maybe when you picked me up tonight would have been a better time, not ten seconds before you try to bring me to a hotel room for one frigging hour, Brent. One hour before you have to jet out of town. You know how that makes me feel?”
“How does it make you feel?” he asked, dreading the answer.
Mercifully, she didn’t say whore. “Cheap,” she hissed.
“You are not cheap. You are classy, and gorgeous, and beautiful, and why