Loose Ends Read online

  “What if he doesn’t answer?”

  “Then we call 9-1-1.” Some of her panic must have shown on her face. As he brought her phone up to his ear, he placed his hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think it will come to that.”

  “I don’t know what would be worse: stuck here for a few hours or having a breakdown while I listen to them try and get us out.”

  With the absence of his embrace, Sophie hugged herself and looked around the small space that just moments ago had been so insignificant. Now it was all so ominous, save for the little enclave in the corner she and her fellow captive had claimed in the corner.

  “Yeah, hey, Dave, it’s Ben Croft on tenth. I’m on the elevator with a client and we’re not moving. When you get this, if you could call--” Sophie recited her phone number into the mic, “--as soon as you can, or better yet get us out of here. Thanks.”

  “He’s probably busy watching hockey,” Sophie grumbled as he handed back her phone. “Should we call 9-1-1?”

  “I say we give it another fifteen.”

  “Then we panic and flail?”

  He laughed. “I think we should keep the flailing to a minimum, don’t you?”

  As the urge to throw herself back into the safety of his arms enticed her, she cringed. God, she had really latched onto him, hadn’t she? Still, if the elevator so much as burped she’d do it again.

  “Uh, sorry I grabbed onto you when the lights went out.”

  “Completely understandable and totally welcome. I had a brief moment myself and the only thing keeping me from soiling myself was the thought of dying in a beautiful woman’s arms.”

  He smiled in a way that challenged her to make some sort of remark like she always did when he tried to flirt.

  Sophie was too rattled by their predicament to be rattled by his magnetism. “That’s actually a little comforting, like you mean that you intend to sacrifice yourself so I can land on your body and live.”

  Ben laughed, and Sophie had to admit that in spite of the terror still sticking to her skin, it was a good laugh that took over his whole face. She’d never seen it before.

  The tickle it brought lasted a glorious few seconds before terror crept up. “Look, I’m going to sit down if that’s all right with you. Sitting will prevent me from either passing out or throwing up.”

  “If those are the only options, please sit down.”

  Back still to the corner, Sophie slid down and made as little movement as possible arranging her legs. In the second before her ass hit the elevator floor, she worried that centering all her weight into two cheeks would cause the elevator to give out, and she huffed out her panic.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, brows pinched together in worry.

  “Yeah, I just don’t want to die.” She let her butt drop the rest of the way and paused. When the elevator didn’t rock and send her to a screeching death, she allowed herself to start breathing again.

  Ben’s gaze remained on her, and as his expression went from concern to appreciation Sophie gave the hem of her skirt a tug.

  He cocked his head. “Well, this is awkward.”

  “How so?”

  “Stuck in an elevator with a woman who can’t stand me.”

  Sophie’s cheeks heated up. While she didn’t particularly like Ben Croft, she didn’t hate him. She couldn’t even say he made her uncomfortable. The thrill that skipped under her skin when he flirted left her ticklish, but that only irked her. Maybe in different circumstances she would have eaten it up like hot fudge and milky ice cream, but every visit to Ben Croft’s office was like preparing for battle. Every time, that charming smile disarmed her.

  She’d always thought she did a good job of hiding her disdain. Now that he’d put it right out there, she could add mortification on top of fright.

  “That’s not true,” she said truthfully. She could stand him. She’d been doing a good job of standing him this last year and a half since her divorce proceedings began. “I just like keeping things professional and you ... don’t.”

  Ben chuckled. “You don’t like flirting?”

  “I don’t like that it seems as though you’re doing it because it’s a part of your job, like every woman who comes in your office is in need of an ego boost because her marriage is over and the failure is hers. I don’t need to be made to feel better. Getting rid of Ray makes me feel better. I’m not failing. I won.”

  “Technically, I won,” he reminded her for the umpteenth time as he took a seat on the floor next to her. “Or rather, won on your behalf. And you’re right: you don’t need anyone to make you feel better. The flirting, however, is about making me feel better. I like flirting with you. I like watching you try not to like it.”

  The heat must have finally pricked her cheeks, because his insufferable grin widened.

  Sophie dragged her bag onto her lap and clutched it. “Can we talk about something else? Something relaxing? Not your self-perceived ability to charm the panties off of anyone you set your sights on?”

  He drew his leg closer to his body, propping his forearm on his knee. “If you’re trying to hurt my feelings, I’ll have you know that I’m impervious. I would have made a hell of a Firestone Demon.”

  A delighted smile popped onto her lips before she could stop it. “Don’t tell me you actually read my book.”

  “Books. I read all three, and I’m waiting for the fourth,” he told her, “I can’t believe you just killed off Lady Elise like that. What’s the matter with you?”

  For the first time since meeting Ben Croft, Sophie laughed. Not the nervous giggle she mustered during their first meeting, but a truly enjoyable laugh that bubbled up from the pit of her stomach.

  “I didn’t like the way she treated Sym, so I exercised my right as creator to have her disemboweled by trolls. I can’t believe you actually read my stuff. I can’t believe you read anything but GQ.”

  “Normally, I don’t, but you piqued my interest. Now, there’s something I’ve been wondering --”

  “No, I’m not going to tell you who Bess’s real parents are. You have to wait for the next book like everyone else.”

  He held up his hand. “That’s not it, though I suspect that you haven’t even figured it out yet. What I want to is whether you color your hair red to match Bloody Bess?”

  “No,” Sophie snapped, then rolled her eyes. “Kind of. I went on Twitter and promised to dye it for a convention if I got enough donations to fund I set up for the children’s hospital. Afterwards, I liked the way it looked and so I kept it this way, but don’t think for a second that Bess is some sort of wish fulfillment for me. I’d rather not have a threesome with the demon kings of the North amidst the blood bath I just unleashed.”

  “Actually, I was thinking you were more like Sym: level headed but unable to keep your emotions off your face even when your life depends on it.”

  Once again she was impressed. She had put a lot of herself into Sym, but she never expected someone like Ben Croft to pick that up. The man was good at seeing through people, that was for sure.

  Then again, that’s what made him such a good lawyer. The first time she’d seen him in action at her side castrating her estranged husband’s demands one by one until Ray was as white as a sheet, she’d been wowed. Even without being prompted, he’d picked out all of Ray’s lies and used them against him, his smile widening with every strike.

  He scooted a little closer. “Also, having seen the pictures of you before the dye job, let me say that it’s a definite improvement. You’re a hell of a sex kitten with red hair.”

  Sophie scowled. “You can’t help yourself, can you?”

  “I can. I just don’t want to squander an opportunity. Besides, if I keep pinching you, you’ll keep your mind off of ...”

  He tapped the floor between them.

  “Boom, splat, dead? Thanks.” She rested her head back into her corner. “At least if I die, I don’t die as Mrs. Raymond Munn. I mean, I know the ink is barely dry on my d
ivorce decree, but it’s done.”

  “Sophie Clairmont will look much better on your tombstone than Sophie Munn,” Ben said, and mirrored her pose. “Do you have plans to celebrate?”

  “A bubble bath, a beer, and three hours of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.” Ben’s mouth twitched, and that one little quirk was as effective as if he had said what she knew he was thinking. “What?”

  “I would have expected you to cut loose.”

  “I’m cutting loose. I usually work on a Friday night. Tonight, I’m binge-watching.”

  “I mean get dressed up and go out. Have dinner. Drink a little too much. Collect some numbers. Stay up all night and get breakfast with some good company.”

  Sophie raised her brows. “Watch a lot of Sex and the City reruns, do we?”

  “Don’t try and pull the boring writer in a cardigan act on me. You just divorced a bad boy. At some point in your youth, you had a naughty streak”

  Sophie cringed. “I had a naughty streak, emphasis on the past tense. It wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be. That’s why I’m now a boring writer in a cardigan.”

  “Who writes about strong, confident women whose lust for life earns them the respect of axe-wielding barbarians--in close-combat battles that often end in sex scorching enough to melt your face and shocking enough to give you palpitations.”

  “Come on, it’s not that shocking.”

  “Come on, yourself. Don’t make me tell you what I did after reading that first scene between Bess and Sym. I never would have thought that sex in a dungeon surrounded by skeletal remains could be so hot.”

  She had to agree. Her first scene between Bess and her villain turned hero had made her fans lose their minds, mostly for the length and kink involved. It had taken her days to write it, what with all the breaks she had to take to burn off the heat she’d created.

  Still, she wasn’t about to admit it to Ben when he was fishing. “Hey, what about you? You’re working in a Friday night. Don’t paint me as some loser when you’re the one who scheduled this appointment. It’s not like you had some barbarian orgy to go to either.”

  “True, but only because my plans were cancelled. I was supposed to take my daughter to the movies, but she got a better offer from a friend who brought home a new kitten.”

  Sophie was actually shocked. “You have a daughter? There are no pictures in your office.”

  “Have you ever looked at the background on my computer?” he pointed out, and she had to concede. “She’s seven. I usually get her on Friday nights and all of Saturday, but I was willing to negotiate and take her on Sunday instead. I don’t keep pictures of her out where everyone can see them because it would be like salt in the wound to anyone in my office already torn up in a custody battle”

  Sophie held up her hands. “Wait a second, are you married? Have you been hitting on me all this time while you have a wife at home?”

  He held up his left hand and wiggled his naked fingers.

  “That doesn’t give me an answer. You could have taken it off in your quest to pick me up.”

  “If I was the type of guy to take off my wedding ring to pick up women, wouldn’t I be the type of guy to lie when asked if I was married?”

  “Good point, but I’d like to remind you that we could plummet to our deaths at any second now so you might want to try some honesty before you check out.”

  “Not married, not anymore,” he said, and then Sophie witnessed the impossible: Ben Croft looked away, his expression suddenly uncomfortable. He bit his lip and made a fist.

  “And it turned you into a bloodthirsty divorce lawyer?”

  “I wouldn’t blame you for drawing that conclusion, but no. I was a bloodthirsty divorce lawyer before I got married. It runs in the family. It just ended with a hell of a lot of drama.”

  “She took half of everything?”

  “Try, she screwed around the entire marriage. Needless to say, I pick Kayla up at the curb.”

  Sophie actually cringed. “Here I thought I had it bad. I’m so sorry I thought you were just a heartless bastard.”

  This time when he laughed it sounded genuine and happy. “I didn’t actually know that, but thank you nonetheless--unless the heartless bastard thing was doing something for you. Then I take it all back.”

  “Hell, no, I love a man with cracks in his veneer.”

  A small pop in her throat alerted her to the fact that she may have just given Ben the impression that he had a shot, and the tingle that ran across her shoulders brought to her attention that he might not be entirely wrong in making that assumption.

  If he had any retort for her, Sophie was saved by the bell. Her phone trilled in her bag. She plucked it out and put it on speaker. “Hello?”

  “Are you on the elevator?”

  “Yes! We are! Who is this?”

  “Dave, down at the front desk. Is Mr. Croft there?”

  Ben took the phone from Sophie. “Dave, it’s me. What’s going on?”

  “The hell if I know,” the guard said, his words crackling through the tiny speakers on her phone. “I’ve got the elevator guy on his way. He should be no more than ten minutes, and then he can just bring the car down to the lobby. The others seem to be working fine.”

  “So, we’re in the haunted elevator car,” Ben joked.

  “I’ll ring you back when the elevator guy gets here. Just sit tight and don’t move around a lot.”

  “We didn’t plan on it. Thanks, Dave.”

  He left her phone sitting on the floor between them and settled back.

  “Ten minutes,” Sophie said. “That’s not so bad, is it?”

  “Ten minutes before you can go home to fuzzy slippers and Buffy, am I right?”

  “Oh, piss off,” she snapped, but a giggle escaped at the very end. “Like you’re not going to go home and put on some fuzzies of your own. Albeit, your fuzzies are probably more expensive than mine.”

  “I don’t have fuzzies.”

  “Everyone has fuzzies for cold winter nights.”

  Ben chuckled and raised his hand. “I swear, I do not have fuzzies. I sleep commando.”

  “You are such a liar.” She sat up straighter and smirked at him. “You’re just trying to maintain this image of the handsome, polished lawyer, but you’re not fooling me. If we left here tonight and went back to your apartment, I’ll bet it would take me no more than ten minutes to find a favorite sweatshirt and a pair of fleece pajama pants.”

  Ben raised his brows. “Handsome?”

  “You would hone in on that,” she retorted, smiling as she settled back. If only he knew she had honed in on the whole commando thing as soon as the words were out of his mouth. She tried to shoo it away, but the image of him sprawled face down on an enormous bed, hair mussed from being squashed in his pillow, was hard to get rid of.

  “I do have one pair of comfort pants,” he conceded. “Not fuzzy, though. Just comfortable. They have Homer Simpson on them. I wear them when Kayla is around so I don’t give her the traumatic experience of seeing Daddy’s penis jumping out of his boxers to say hello.”

  Sophie sighed. “I knew it.”

  “I am looking forward to a hot shower, though,” he said, and Sophie began to suspect that he was deliberately putting thoughts of his naked body in her head. She wouldn’t put it past him, and it wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

  “Long day?”

  He rubbed his big hands over his face, the sound of his palms going against the grain of his beard crackling. “That and I can’t wait to wash off this nasty cologne.”

  Sophie looked sideways at him. “I thought that was your signature scent or something. You’re always wearing it.”

  “That I am and that it is, but it doesn’t make it any less funky. Every year my grandmother gets me a bottle from the Avon catalogue and--yes, that’s right, go ahead and laugh.”

  Making a fist in front of her mouth to keep from snorting did no good. “I honestly thought you were trying to make an impression with
that cologne. I figured it cost a fortune and was made from the unfiltered piss of pygmy jaguars or something.”

  “Oh, I’m making an impression, all right. I’d skip it, but I never know when she’s going to pop up while off to the sales and it makes her smile when she gets a whiff of it on me. It’s the same with the tie. She’s been giving me the same tie since I left university.” He straightened the red tie and shrugged. “Different colors, but the same pattern. I have no idea why. She must just be stuck in her ways.”

  “Wow,” Sophie said, but the sentiment was more to herself. The next thing he was going to tell her was that he wore the beard, which was growing on her the more she looked at it, as a memorial to his dearly-departing grandfather.

  She leaned forward and peered at his him, and his grin returned.

  “What?”

  “Tell me how you got that scar on your eyebrow.”

  He reached up and swept his finger across the injury in question. “Occupational hazard.”

  “Angry husband?”

  “Angry wife. I was having a drink with a client in a hotel bar when his future-ex walked in. We’d just disclosed proof that she was screwing around and she was out for blood. She threw a highball. The son of a bitch ducked and I ended up in the emergency room wondering if I was going to be blind in one eye.” Sophie cringed, and Ben shook his head. “That’s nothing. I play football, so I’m used to getting knocked around. Have a look at this.”

  Ben shrugged out of his jacket. Arm out, he rolled up the sleeve and ran his finger along an uneven scar that ran from his wrist. He might has well have peeled his shirt off and offered her a lap dance. All she needed was that flash of skin and hair along his thick forearm for her to go hot all over.

  “A few years ago I slammed into a chain-link fence that had a piece sticking out. One second I’m saving the game by catching a fly ball, the next minute I’m bleeding all over the backseat of my buddy’s car on my way to the emergency room.”

  Her fingers twitched with wanting to trace that line, and further up to probe beneath his sleeve. She hadn’t realized that Ben was that muscular. Broad, yes, but she didn’t expect to see definition.