When she was about to tell him no way in hell was she covering for his screw-up again, the line came to life. “Hel—o?”
“Hello? Mr. Briggs?” The connection cut in and out with buzzing in the background.
“This is—Briggs.”
Shit. His deep gravelly voice rumbled straight to her clit.
Laurel swallowed her gasp, collapsed into her chair, and strived for focus. Hell, she couldn’t hear half of what he said anyway. “This is Officer Hutton with the MPD. I need to get your signature on the statement you made tonight.”
“I—finish this job—by tomorrow—come Sunday—You—come to the site—all night.”
Good lord, if this guy kept talking, butchered by a bad connection or not, she would come all night. A smirk formed on her lips. Maybe Tomlin wouldn’t be the only one getting laid. It had been a long damn time.
“I’ll be there in thirty.” God, had she just said that? Laurel waited for a response. The universe didn’t gift her with any more of his voice. She returned the phone to its cradle and set out to get it for herself.
Nash returned to the job-from-hell with the panel he needed. Silence settled around him, easing the knots in his traps. When the contractors had left more than five hours ago, he’d expected to get a handle on the plagued install. Trouble had started from the first with the delivery of the wrong elevator models and ended—if he worked through the night—by finding a kid trying to toss himself off the roof.
The circus of first responders, complicated by the chaotic mix of teenage hormones and over privilege, had vacated two hours ago, but already the police had called him back about something. What? He had no idea. His phone didn’t work in the shafts. When he’d come out and returned the call, the officer had left for the day.
“Good.” He set his tool bag by the elevator doors.
The solid grumble of his stomach echoed in the marble foyer. He needed to eat for the first time since breakfast, but replacing the short-circuiting control panels in the main entry’s bank of elevators came first. He’d been going non-stop for ten hours already, getting another job underway. The muscles in his forearms throbbed from turning a wrench all day, since the damn battery had gone out in his drill.
A faint noise, almost a whispered sigh, perked his ears. The sound struck him as feminine and damn hot. When he surveilled the large room, no one was there. His dirty thoughts immediately flew to the fine lady cop on scene earlier. Her pouty little mouth had been bowed, and her sandy blonde brows pinched in concern for the kid.
She had to have been the one on the phone earlier. The hard-on the sight of her pouty mouth had given him on the rooftop roared back to life. He hadn’t heard much past his last name and the word statement. That jerk-off partner of hers probably screwed up the paperwork. The guy’d been in a rush, his mind on something else. Nash’s had been, too. Judging by the withering look the hot cop had given her partner when he’d tried to hurry Jeremy along, the reason for the haste hadn’t been the same. Nash had wanted the tough-and-tenderhearted, drop-dead-gorgeous cop. Hell, he still did. Hours later, he had wood thinking about the way her ass filled out her uniform pants and how her long blonde ponytail would feel wrapped around his palm.
Jesus H. Christ, thinking about her conjured the noise again. No, the noise had brought her back into focus. It wasn’t consistent like the air or a compressor. It came at different intervals, some louder than others.
Nash eased toward the elevator doors and pressed his ear to it. Surely, the sound wasn’t … but it was. It came from the elevator shaft.
“Holy fuck! Holy mother fuck.” If that kid had come back and tossed himself down the shaft, Nash would have to take a vacation, a long one.
“Please don’t be Jeremy.”
His knees turned rubbery. He dropped the panel, drew a deep breath, grabbed the seam of the doors and pulled, expecting to see the top of his lift dented in and blood seeping from the seams. Instead, he stared into the dark shaft at the empty space where the elevator car should’ve been. His stomach immediately settled. Curiosity, not so much.
“What the hell?”
When he’d left thirty minutes ago, the thing had been on the ground floor and only working sporadically thanks to the busted panel. He headed for the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time until he reached the freaking thirty-second floor. With several long strides, he arrived at the shiny metal bumper doors he knew so well.
Heavy, labored breaths radiated from the elevator shaft, each laced with sheer terror.
Again, Nash grabbed the seam of the doors and pulled. The car stood between the two floors below. He wedged open the doors with the wrench from his back jeans pocket, sat, grabbed the edge of the shaft, and lowered himself to the car’s ceiling. The trap door’s latch turned easily under his grip, and he didn’t understand why the person wouldn’t have unhooked it and climbed out, if he couldn’t fit through the space between the main doors.
He pulled it wide. A woman in figure-hugging jeans and a body-molding black tank pressed both palms to the back wall. Breaths wheezed loudly in the small space. Each exhale accentuated the dip of her narrow waist. Straight blonde hair hid her face, cascading over well-defined arms and shoulders.
“Ma’am?”
Her head and hands remained glued to the metal.
Hell, maybe she couldn’t hear him over the obvious panic attack happening in her head, or maybe she was high as a weather balloon. After all, they were in downtown DC after hours, and he’d already come across crazier shit tonight.
Each breath offered Laurel less and less oxygen. It siphoned from the cell she’d die inside. The metal box contracted with each passing second. Her lungs refused to expand and rational thought had fled the instant the moving coffin stopped mid lift.
Large fingers wrapped around her bicep, crushing the tiny grip she had on sanity.
She yanked her right arm high and struck with the left. Her palm heel connected to her assailant’s jaw. The snap of teeth meeting teeth sounded like a gun shot against the metal walls. The noise tore her through the tumult of panic and planted her firmly in the WTF.
A wide, unforgiving chin wrenched his neck like a flip top. Scuffed leather boots turned toes up. The massive man’s grip slipped from her arm and his well-worn jeans hit the elevator floor, jarring the unstable foundation. Squeaks and metal-on-metal scrapes threatened to pull her back under.
His groan anchored her composure. His all-American face—the face she’d been seeking when she’d gotten onto this tin can—incited her humiliation.
“Mr. Briggs?” she croaked. Heat crawled from her extremities, pooling in her cheeks. He took up most of the floor space, but the elevator seemed bigger with him inside it, bigger than the pin hole she’d been trapped inside, alone.
“Well, shit, darlin’.” He waggled his jaw with one hand. A day’s worth of scruff scraped against it. His broad shoulders teetered along with his handsome chin.
Laurel squatted next to the man and looped a hand under his thick arm. Stunning green eyes rolled back into his head. Dead weight threatened to pull her over. She reached around his back with her other arm and caught him.
The move shifted his body. He slumped toward her.
Momentum knocked her clear off her wedges onto her ass.
“Christ.” Her back landed against the narrow end of the elevator. Nash Briggs’ wide shoulder smashed her breasts worse than her bulletproof vest had all day. His back pressed between her sprawled legs.
“I’m a lunatic. The kind of crazy I put away.” Laurel relaxed her head against the wall and stared through the open ceiling hatch. None of the terror she’d experienced earlier threatened to drown her.
The scent of sweat and faint cologne wafted up her nose, stirring her earlier notions to life. She chuckled and looked down at the expanse of work-hardened muscles she’d knocked unconscious. Like any man’s ego would tolerate that.
“Not a chance, Hutton.” Her breaths slowed and steadied, ma
tching the movement of the man’s chest nuzzled atop hers expand and contract.
His pulse beat against the side of his thick neck.
Laurel pressed her fingers to it, for purely medical purposes, right? Hot skin and pointy little hairs greeted her pads. The contact traveled up her arm, warming her as it went. Several seconds passed, and nothing happened. She relaxed her hand, joining it to his feverish flesh. Sweat clung to his neck, forming a thick layer between them. Small droplets collected on his shirt between the mountains of his pecs.
Laurel’s heart beat in her throat, and excitement had nothing to do with being trapped in a small space. With this guy, she didn’t mind it so much. When he woke she probably would, but now… She let her hand slide down his neck and over his chest.
Without warning, his hand clamped over hers.
Knocked on his ass by a girl. Mark that off his bucket list. Even better, while his marbles settled, her hands roved over him. Nash caught her hand over his heart and held it there, mooring to her while he opened his eyes. A dark circle like a devil’s halo clung to his vision for a few throbbing beats, and then slowly receded.
“Pretty, and you pack a punch. I’m in love.”
“Mr. Briggs.” She tried to lift her hand away.
“Nash,” he insisted.
Her struggle stalled. “Nash.” She tested his name on her lips.
He sure as fuck liked the way it fit and wanted her to say it again. “That’s good… What’s your name, slugger?”
“Oh, I’m officer…” She stopped.
The cutest squeaky breath warmed his cheek.
“I’m Laurel.”
“Nice to meet you, Laurel.”
“I don’t know that nice is the right word.”
He wiggled back against her soft breasts and the V of her strong legs.
Her hand splayed across his chest, digging into his skin. Her gasp turned to a moan before she cut it off.
“I’m sure.” Nash nodded.
She cleared her throat. “I’m so sorry I hit you. I had no idea you were in here. I didn’t hear you.”
“Nah. It was my bad.” His thumb massaged a small circle on the silken skin of her wrist. “You were pretty caught up in your hell.”
“Yeah.” She groaned.
“What is it?”
“What is it?” She hesitated for a pile of seconds. “I lost my shit. If my partner had been here, if anyone had seen me break down…”
Nash let his head fall to the side. His equilibrium had re-calibrated enough that he could stand—in a minute. “Shhh.” He let his lips brush the inside of her forearm. “Seen what?”
“You’re nice,” she sighed, “but a loss of control like that could put me behind a desk for the rest of my career.”
A laugh rumbled in his chest. “Laurel, I’m not nice.”
“Oh?”
He lifted her wrist to his mouth and scraped his teeth across the sensitive flesh.
“Oh.”
“Nope, because by the end of the night, I’m making you lose control.” Nash kissed a trail up her palm to the tip on her index finger and sucked the tip into his mouth.
“Really?” The word became a moan.
“In a much better way.” He held onto her hand, stood, and pulled her up to meet his chest. Her soft breasts and unyielding belly pressed against his front. He straightened, lifting her off the floor. She fit pretty damn good in his arms.
“Sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Her blonde tresses clung to her striking cheekbones and strong jaw. Incongruous to her challenging words, her strong arms wrapped around his neck.
“Just as sure of me as you are.” He didn’t offer a wink or anything to take the edge off his intent.
Laurel’s full mouth gaped, and then slowly turned into a smile.
“Let’s get you out of here.” Nash set her on her feet and grabbed her hand.
“Please.”
“Up or through?” He directed her gaze to the hatch and double doors. “You’ll have about a two-foot gap either way you go. Just a matter of how you want it.”
Oh Lord. This guy knew all the right buttons, from his voice to his face and god-like-body to the delicate way he treated her. She didn’t do casual sex. It wasn’t worth the risks involved, but Nash stirred something deep inside that muted her inner police woman. “I want it the way you’ll give it to me.” He’d given her the courtesy of no BS. Turnabout was only fair.
“Dammit, Laurel. I like you, a lot. I have a feeling I’ll like you a lot more, really soon.” Nash offered her his cupped hands. “Up you go.”
He boosted her, and she pulled herself through the hatch into another world of cables, steel, and concrete. Before she could reach down to help him, Nash was there, closing the hatch and offering her another boost.
She ignored his hands and grazed her fingers over the curve of his face she’d brutally hit. “How’s your jaw?”
He leaned into her touch. “You may have to kiss it.” A simple grin stretched his hard lips.
Her heart skipped across her chest cavity. Laurel wrapped her hand around his chin and pulled his face to meet hers.
His green eyes sparked with warning. “If you start it, I’m prepared to finish it, right here. Are you?”
“I should have done this sooner.” She shoved her fingers into the waist band of his pants, pulled him close, and pressed her mouth to his.
Nash snarled like an animal unleashed. His fingers bit into her nape, locking her to him. His lips tore at hers—tasting, sucking, biting.
The overwhelming urge to let down every guard and free every part of herself had her relaxing into his hold.
“That’s it, Laurel. Let me have you.” His mouth trailed over her jaw to her ear. “I’ve thought about you all night.”
“Really?” She sounded like a phone sex operator and didn’t care.
“You’re fucking amazing and have no clue about it.” He smirked, unfastened her pants, and then ate a path down her neck. “When I saw you handle Jeremy—not take his shit and, instead, care for him—you struck me.”
He remembered the kid’s name. That little nugget nestled its way into her heart more than his compliments.
“You look like the girl next door, but you’re more. You’re strong and…vulnerable.”
His mouth found her nipple through her shirt and clamped down, encompassing it in wet heat. A hiss seeped between her teeth. “Men don’t like strong women.”
“Pussies don’t.”
He yanked down her pants and the lacy underwear she’d worn for show to her ankles, without a care for the soft material or the way the color complimented her skin tone. His hot gaze lingered on her skin.
He knelt on the elevator’s roof and worked off her shoes and pants. “I’m not a pussy, but I’ll enjoy the hell out of eating yours.”
The vulgarity of his words empowered her. Before she had a second to contemplate any nuance of the heat and elevation whipping her into a frenzy, his shoulders shoved her legs wide.
“Mmm.” His rich voice rumbled over her clit.
Her knees threatened to buckle, and he’d yet to touch her.
“Grab the cables, slugger. Strong or not, you’ll need them.”
“Damn, you’re cocky.” She straightened her back and propped her hands on her hips.
“Confident, Laurel. Let me show you the difference.”
Nash sucked his middle finger and pinkie into his mouth, and then shoved the middle one inside her.
She smiled…because a single finger wasn’t much to brag about.
His blazing green eyes flashed.
Two fingers spread her lips wide.
“Oh God.” Her middle hinged forward, and her knees threatened to buckle as his pinkie pressed slowly and insistently against the rim of her anus.
He chuckled, then his closed mouth against her clit.
Laurel’s right hand sank into his thick hair, and she tried to shift away from his pinkie.
“Ah-ah
. You want it the way I’ll give it to you, remember?” Nash’s smile eased away from her clit.
Laurel groaned, but stalled her escape and released his hair. The instant her hands touched the metal cable, hot, wet lips suctioned her clit. A moan escaped through her teeth, but she clamped down on the impulse. This guy was good, but he needed to be taken down a notch.
His fingers played her like an aboriginal drum. Every beat reverberated through her. Every stroke incited a cascade of synapses to explode. Every strum threatened to topple her.
“Nash.” His name was a sigh on her lips.
“You’re so hot, I’m going to come just hearing you scream.”
“Scream? I’m not that girl, Mr. Briggs.”
“You’ll scream.”
The pad of his middle finger curled into her pussy wall, massaging her to madness from the inside. His illicit pinkie gently pumped in and out to the tip, whirling a foreign current of ecstasy toward shore. Wet flat strokes of his tongue lapped at her clit in easy licks that built with strength and speed. Jesus, the noises rumbling from his chest and bleeding out of his mouth ratcheted every sensation.
Laurel’s belly quivered. Her thighs trembled. She held onto the cables for dear life. Her head canted toward the highest ceiling, other than the sky, she’d ever been under.
A scream, closer to a cry and a mating call, from her tantalized body poured out of her lips and echoed back. The inescapable wave of her orgasm cascaded over her in brilliant explosions of pleasure. Still he didn’t stop, pushing her on, higher, wilder.
“Nash. Oh my, fuck. I can’t. Oh yes, that feels...” She forgot every notion about taming his ego. The last bit of herself slipped through her open fingers. “Please, Nash. Give me everything.”
“That’s it, strong Laurel. Let me make you feel.” His hands continued to torment her.
“I do. I feel everything.”
His hands fell away in an instant. He stood, shucked his shirt and pants—not before snagging a condom from his wallet—dragged her shirt over her head, and hoisted her into his arms. Impossibly, she felt more there—eye to eye, heart to heart—than she had with his fingers shoved knuckles-deep inside her. The light green of his eyes called to her, and she plastered a kiss on his sloppy mouth.
Blue Collar (A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology Book 2) Page 3