Captivated (Stranded) by Mia West

nose. What was he doing right now?
    She had thrown a lot of accusations at him and in really ugly ways. She cringed to remember them. Had she been justified to feel threatened?
    Yes.
    She thought about that for a long time, watching a wedge of moonlight ease across the floor.
    Yes, she’d had every reason to feel unsafe in that moment. She was trapped, for all intents and purposes, with a man she had met two days ago.
    But now. Now that she was snug in her basement (and he in his attic, what a fucking pair they were), she just couldn’t believe she was in any danger. Not from Evan.
    If she had been, she would have run to the kitchen balcony and started screaming, wouldn’t she? That was one thing Drew had done for her. When she got the job at school, he had insisted she take a self-defense course, worried that someone on campus might try to hurt her. She had never had to use the more vocal techniques, like shouting for help, but she liked to think they were ingrained, that she would have called for help, regardless of Evan’s protests.
    Or maybe she was making excuses for them both.
    Which put her right back at the beginning.
    Frustrated, Laine closed her eyes and tucked the blanket under her chin. Sleep would help her think more clearly.
    The only problem with closing her eyes was that images of Evan poured into her mind. Cooking breakfast, standing naked in the pool, looking shamed and horrified in the closet. As quickly as she shoved each one away, another came on: Evan cleaning the toaster oven, glaring at the rogue coffee filter, lying on top of her on Magda’s desk.
    Then one stuck. Evan, lying next to her on the rooftop grass, his shoulder pressed to hers, his hand resting on her belly.
    She waited to see if it would flit away, because she didn’t want to push it out.
    There’s your answer.
    We’ll see, she told herself.
    Eventually, she slept.
    When she rose from the floor the next morning, stiff and creaky (how did he do it?), she found a short, neat stack of clothes outside the archive doors. Boxers and a t-shirt, soft and well-worn. She put them on against her bare skin and sat on the blankets for a long time. The fabric of his clothes soothed her skin. Comfort, she thought. Safety.
    She left the library.
    He wasn’t on the ground floor. She found a sponge and bucket under the office sink and carefully cleaned the chocolate mess from Magda’s work space. Had she been insane with this prank? She couldn’t believe Evan hadn’t told her right then that she had to sleep in the basement. And let’s be honest, she’d only done it to get him between her legs, leaning into her. And let’s be even more honest and point out that he hadn’t picked up on her signals, or that if he had, he’d been man enough not to act on them. Or just scared of her crazy shit.
    “Right. Time to fix this.”
    She put Magda’s desk to rights and then crossed the lobby at a jog. She ran up the maintenance stairs to his door. It stood open.
    That was different.
    So was the noise coming from the closet. Not humming but a low rumble.
    She crossed to the closet door and knocked.
     

Chapter 11
     
    Had he heard a thump? Evan switched off the belt sander and balanced on the ladder, listening.
    Then it came again, knocks on the closet door.
    He sighed. She’d come to say she was going to spend the rest of the weekend in the archive, and would he please leave her alone and stop being a creep? He’d been dreading it since he’d given up on sleep at dawn and started sanding. Glad to have something to grip in his hand, he kicked the cord of the belt sander aside and descended the ladder. “Come in.”
    The door swung inward, and he nearly missed the bottom rung. She wore his clothes and, if his eyes weren’t lying to him, only his clothes. She didn’t notice his gomer move, though. She was staring at the wall.
    “You got rid of it?”
    “Figured you’d be more comfortable if I did.” He set the sander on a shelf. Did she seem