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Excerpt – Garrison’s Creed by Cristin Harber

Cash stretched high overhead. Just another day, making women swoon. That damn shirt hugged his muscles, and her mouth went dry. She tried to swallow around the knot in her throat. Tried to ignore the knots re-tying in her stomach. Even his belt had a look-at-me quality, wrapped around his toned waist. Flashes of his rippled stomach burned through her memory. Whoa, God. This elevator was teeny-tiny. He lorded over it in his corner, watching her watch him, and she needed the emergency escape hatch.
A slow smile flickered across his face. “Nothing to say, sweet girl?”
She shook her head. Nothing to say. Nothing to do except hide in her corner. Maybe dig in her purse a little more or check her phone or… Cash stepped to her. One step. Two steps. She looked at the ceiling, then at the elevator display. Button after button, unlit. Nineteen more floors to go, and Nicola couldn’t move, frozen and frying in his gaze.
He had her. Sliding a finger down the curve of her neck, his finger flicked the purse strap, and with that grazing touch, it dropped.
Loud thud. Intense moment. Pounding want.
Nic’s tank-top-clad back pressed against the cold wall. Her bare shoulders were aware of the barrier. A heat ignited, and anticipation tingled from the perk of her breasts to the tips of her fingers.
Inches.
He was inches away and closing the distance. Cash palmed the elevator wall on both sides of her head. “I’m throwing lines about in bed, out of bed, and you’re standing, stoic like this is a cold shoulder challenge, and you want to win a trip to the freakin’ Arctic Circle.” He kissed behind her ear. Whimpers escaped her lips, then he whispered again. “After last night, I thought it was game on between us.”
Close enough for him to feel the rise and fall of her chest, close enough for her to smell the mint he’d long-since devoured, Cash nudged at the wall of buttons. Click. The lights dimmed. The elevator stopped between floors.
No alarms.
No sirens.
Just them, stuck in an elevator with the emergency lights on, and now she really couldn’t breathe.
“There are cameras in here. I’m sure there are cameras.” The words came out breathy and wispy and screaming, “Please kiss me again.”
“What is it you think I’m going to do?” He crushed against her. His smooth cheek grazed hers, and his lips brushed against her ear. “What is it that you want me to do?”
Her libido did jumping jacks and her mind, somersaults. All she could see was the deep blue of his eyes. His weight pressed her in place. His palms cupped her face, igniting a fire wherever he touched. Never had a torturing burn felt so damn right.
“I want…”
Cash dipped his head. Soft hair teased over her cheek, and soft kisses turned her stomach. It was a cacophony of cravings. Heat pooled inside her. The very core of her body moaned for his contact.
He repeated what she’d started. “You want…”
“You.”
She felt his smile on her skin. His full lips thinned into a grin, and his tongue sliced across the side of her collar bone, sweeping the strength out of her legs. Nicola hooked her thumbs into his belt loops. One of her legs snaked up his thigh. Trying to breathe was a wasted effort, and—
Ring. Rrr-ring. Ring.
What was it with the interruptions?
Cash pulled back to stare at the elevator’s phone box, slid his hands down her body, letting one rest on her hip, and opened a small door with the other, grabbing the phone. “Hello.” Amused, he dragged the syllables before he made it to a long oh. A few uh-huhs later, he winked at her, flicked the elevator RUN button back to ON, and said into the handset, “Must have bumped into it. Sorry.”
With the elevator phone back in its box and their ride creeping toward the ground level, they locked in a gaze. Nothing saying. Nothing doing. Just waiting.
The doors opened, and a pudgy security guard waited for them to exit, hands on hips. “You two okay?”
Yup, definitely cameras in the elevator. Just like the CIA: someone’s always watching.
Cash took her hand in his. “Couldn’t be better.”

Cristin Harber
New York Times Bestselling Author
www.CristinHarber.com