Blue Dawn by Norah-Jean Perkin Read Free Book Online

her parking space in the underground garage when Allie flung open the door and sprinted towards the elevator.
    “Hey wait.”
    Her fingers hovered over the elevator control buttons as Erik caught up to her, his camera-bag slung over one shoulder. “Your keys,” he said, holding them out to her. “You forgot your keys.”
    “Thanks.” She grabbed them, then punched the button. The elevator doors slid open and she darted inside. The doors started to close behind her.
    “Hey.” Erik stuck his hand between the closing doors and forced them apart. He stepped inside.
    “I’m seeing you to the door.”
    “Oh.” Allie tried to keep her voice from coming out in a squeak. She pressed herself against the wall of the elevator farthest away from Erik.
    Doesn’t he know it’s dangerous to shut himself up in a small space with a woman lusting uncontrollably after his body? She grimaced, her nerves screaming for release, the hum inside her droning louder and more insistently. Only five floors.
    Surely she could last five floors without doing something regrettable?
    The doors slid open. Allie sprang out as if she’d been shot from a cannon. She sprinted to the door of her apartment halfway down the hall. She didn’t look to see if Erik followed. She knew he did. Every sense, every cell in her body was tuned to a fever pitch of excruciating awareness of the man silently following her down the hall. She could smell him, taste him and feel him. Desperately she wanted to touch him.
    She tried to insert the key in the door, but couldn’t focus on the lock well enough to connect.
    After a third abortive attempt, Erik took her hand and removed the keys.
    He unlocked the door, then opened it and stood aside. Reeling incomprehensibly from the brush of his fingers on hers, Allie staggered through the door and to the far side of the room. “Well goodnight,” she said with the brightness of a plastic chipmunk. “See you tomorrow.”
    “The phone, Allie. I’d like to use your phone.”
    “Oh. Yeah.” Allie picked up the portable phone from the coffee table and tossed it at Erik.
    Startled, he caught it, then frowned. My , Allie thought, he’s even more appealing when he frowns.
    The tension and humming inside her rose higher.
    She swallowed again and stepped back further.
    She didn’t understand what was happening to her.
    Was she going crazy?
    “I need the phone book, too. Unless you know the number.”
    “Oh. Yeah.” Allie had memorized more than one taxi company’s number. But at the moment, she couldn’t remember any of them. She retrieved the Yellow Pages, opened it to the taxi section, and rattled off a number.
    Erik looked at the portable phone in his hand.
    His brow creased. “I haven’t seen this model before. How do I turn it on?”
    Allie almost screamed. Why couldn’t he just leave? She grimaced again and inched towards him. She didn’t dare get too close. When she was about a yard away, she extended her arm. “Here, give me the phone.”
    Erik handed it to her, but when she took it he didn’t let go. She looked up at him in surprise.
    His eyes, always so cool and serious, flared now with the flames of a thousand tiny fires, turning the grey into a flowing molten metal whose heat she could feel from three feet away.
    The flames were reflected in the light streaks in his hair, now flaming with the same burning fires as his eyes. Though he didn’t smile, his wide mouth with the generous lips glistened with an invitation she could feel on her lips.
    Still linked by the phone, Erik drew her slowly forward. She couldn’t take her eyes from his broad face, from the fire in his eyes, from the lips whose touch she craved. The humming in her head sounded deafeningly.
    “Don’t be afraid, love.”
    Erik’s voice echoed through the hum in her head, though she didn’t see his lips move. He dropped the phone and cradled her waist with both hands, drawing her closer measure by measure.
    His lips hovered inches from