His face was tilted as if he were staring down at her, and she could barely feel the hot fan of his breath against her skin. She wished the stairwell were better lit so she could see his expression.
“It only matters if you’re planning on grabbing it again, Brontë.”
Now, there was a mental image she’d never be able to get out of her head. “Ah. Well. No, I wasn’t making plans to do that again.”
His chest rumbled in a low laugh. “Well, now I’m disappointed. Come on. I don’t think it’s safe to see if we can turn the power back on, so let’s look for something that we can get some light with.”
Logan opened the door to the hall, and they left the stairwell. Brontë was silent. Her mind was abuzz with the conversation they’d just had.
It only matters if you’re planning on grabbing it again, Brontë.
Ah. Well. No, I wasn’t making plans to do that again.
Well, now I’m disappointed.
Had he been flirting, and she’d just shut him down? He was normally so controlled that it seemed out of place. And yet she couldn’t interpret his words in any other way. He did say he wasn’t looking for a relationship, though, and she couldn’t think of a worse way to start one. Perhaps she was reading too much into simple banter.
As they walked through the hotel back toward the lobby, it became obvious that the hotel was trashed. There was ankle-deep water in the stairwell, but when they took a step down into the hallway, the water rose to mid-calf. They sloshed down the hall, stepping past doors that had been knocked off of conference rooms. There was low purplish light to see by, and Brontë had wondered where the light was coming from . . . until she saw the ceiling. The lobby was set up like a lofting, several-stories-tall atrium with a glass ceiling, it and it clearly had not survived the hurricane. Portions of the roof looked like Swiss cheese, open to the sky. Rain splattered inside the building, and the water around her feet felt gritty with sand.
“Wow. Your cleanup crew is going to be working some overtime, I think.”
Logan glanced back at her, a hint of a smile on his mouth. “I was planning on renovating the place anyhow. Someone told me I needed thicker walls.”
She laughed at that, feeling warm at his regard. “Good call.”
“I’m starving,” he said. “We should head to the gift shop. We can probably find some supplies there. I’m thinking water bottles, food, and maybe some dry clothes if it wasn’t too badly hit.”
That all sounded good to her. She paused and thought for a moment, then pointed ahead. “Through the lobby and to the left, I think. Near the restaurant.” And then she felt stupid. He worked here—why was she telling him? “But of course, you know that.”
“Of course.” His hand went to the small of her back, and he gestured at the lobby. “After you.”
Brontë felt her body grow warm. He was looking down at her with such an impressed, amused that she . . . well, she didn’t know what to do with herself. So she offered him her hand.
He took it in his, and her skin tingled in response when his fingers curled around hers. Touching Logan made her stomach quiver deep inside.
At least, she told herself that it was her stomach.
They waded forward, and Brontë struggled to keep up with Logan’s bigger strides as they headed into the lobby. It looked as if half of the hotel had been dumped here by the hurricane. There was more water, of course. Furniture was tipped over and scattered, and luggage was everywhere, the contents flung all over the room. Portions of the ceiling had caved in toward the glass doors, and all the glass was gone. She curled her toes, wondering where all that glass had gone. A sodden pillow floated in the water nearby, and a horrible thought occurred to her.
“You don’t think we’re going to see any bodies, do you?”
“I hope not.” He sounded grim. “If we’re lucky, everyone else was evacuated.”
“Should we check the rest of the hotel? Just in case anyone else was stranded?”
“We will,” he told her, and tugged her hand, urging her forward. “After we resupply ourselves. It won’t do us any good if you’re fainting with hunger.”
“Me? You make it sound like I’m some weak flower on my last leg. What about you?”
“I don’t faint.”
She snorted. “‘Nothing has more strength than dire necessity,’ right?”
“Another famous Plato gem?”
“Euripides.”
“Of course. That was going to be my next guess.”
“Naturally. You’re a big fan of Euripides?”
“Who isn’t?”
She laughed, shaking her head at his comeback.
They trudged through the massive lobby of the hotel, the weak streams of moonlight brighter the more destroyed the area was. The lobby was dark, but it seemed bright in comparison to the pitch-black elevator. Logan examined the ceiling as they walked, steering them clear of what seemed to be more dangerous areas. “The entire ceiling could collapse,” he told her. “We have to be careful.”
“Now who’s Suzy Sunshine?” she teased, but stayed close.
In the blue darkness, they spotted the gift shop, and Brontë sucked in a breath of disappointment. The security gate was down over the front of it. The glass behind the gate had been destroyed, but the gate itself was intact, with pieces of broken plants and other bits clinging to the metal. There was a large window to the right with a display of toppled mannequins in swimsuits, and through a miracle, it hadn’t shattered in the storm.
“Just our luck,” she told him. “Do you have the key?”
“No,” he told her crisply, and dropped her hand, walking away. “Stay there.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to be patient and failing. “What are you doing?”
He returned a moment later, carrying a broken lobby chair. “Getting something better than a key.”
“What about the alarm?”
“Either it’s not working or we’re going to need to hope that the gift shop has earplugs,” he told her, and then gestured in her direction. “Stand back.”
She sloshed backward a few feet and waited.
Logan heaved the chair up, and she felt that curious flutter in her belly at the sight of his muscles flexing. He had big, broad shoulders that seemed to ripple with strength in the moonlight. And mercy, she liked looking at him.
He swung the broken chair against the glass like a baseball player up at bat. Part of her expected it to bounce backward, as if maybe the glass were too thick to be broken by a chair if it had withstood the hurricane. But it crashed and tinkled into the water in a shower of glittering pieces.
She shielded her eyes out of instinct, glancing over when the damage was done. Logan stood there looking rather pleased with himself, his body illuminated in moonlight. He looked . . . gorgeous. His hair was tousled, falling over his forehead, and his tall frame seemed all muscles and shadow from this angle. He was definitely easy on the eyes. Too easy. She felt her pulse flutter when he gave her a boyish grin.
“Alarm’s dead. Come on.”
But she hesitated, trying not to smile at his expression of pride. “What about all the glass? We’ll cut our feet.”
He glanced down at the glittering shards. “You’re right. Stay there.”
Again? She did as told, crossing her arms and waiting impatiently as he tossed his broken chair down, then knocked the mannequins into a messy sort of bridge, and disappeared inside. A moment later, he returned and laid a Styrofoam surfboard over the floor of the window front and extended a hand toward her. “Come on.”
Stepping carefully forward in the calf-high water, she placed her hand in his warm one, ignoring that funny little jolt that ran through her at his touch. He was just being courteous, she told herself. Nothing to get excited about. She wobbled precariously on the board as it shifted and moved under her feet. “I think I’m going to—”
Her feet slipped out from under her, and she pitched forward.
Strong arms were there to catch her. Logan held her close, her breasts pressed to his chest.
“—fall,” she finished lamely.
If she tilted her face up, she’d be within kissing distance, and the thought made her feel flushed with heat.
He helped her strand upright. “You okay?”
“Just feel stupid is all.” She pushed away from him, straightening herself and trying to look casual. Brontë glanced around inside the gift shop. “Shoes? We really should have brought ours.”
Logan glanced around, then gestured at a far wall. “I see them. Stay there. Only one of us should risk cut feet.”
He waded forward, and she studied their surroundings. The gift shop was packed to the gills with a motley assortment of items, half of them on the floor. Racks of ugly t-shirts had fallen over and were currently soaking up water near her feet. A short distance away, there were equally sodden racks of beach towels, and destroyed straw hats floated nearby. Lovely.
“I found you some water shoes. What size?”
“Seven.”
“This might be a seven. Hard to tell in the dark.” He plucked a pair off the wall and turned to her.
She held her hands up, and he tossed them in her direction. Using one of the fallen racks to support herself, Brontë snapped the string tying the shoes together and slipped them on. Too big. Didn’t matter, they’d protect her feet for now. She’d get a better size when they had some light. She shuffled forward. “What supplies do we need?”
“Flashlights, if we can find them. If not, something dry to use as a torch. Lighters. Food and water. Anything else you want.” He put on a pair of water shoes and began to move behind the counter.
A change of clothes would have been nice. She glanced at the sodden heap of shirts nearby. Not exactly what she had in mind. Picking through the mess of spilled items on the counters, she was able to locate some plastic-wrapped folded shirts, and she snatched all five of them. Perfect. “I found some dry shirts.”
“Good, bring them. I found some lighters.”
She moved toward him, sidestepping the mess in the aisles. He took one of the shirts from her and ripped it out of the package, then wrapped it around one of the broken chair legs. Next, he tied it with a shoelace and then flicked the lighter on. When it sputtered and went out again, he cursed, cracked open another lighter and poured the fluid on his torch, and lit it again. That did the trick.
In the flare of the torch light, he gave her an almost wicked look. “Now we can get a really good look at each other.”
Her stomach fluttered again.
Logan was handsome, she realized. She’d known that he was clean-cut and well built, and he’d worn a suit when she’d stepped into the elevator with him. She didn’t remembered much more, though, and she’d caught glimpses of him here and there, but not a full-on look. The light flickered, outlining the planes of his face with shadows, but he was gorgeous. He had a perfect, straight nose and a gorgeous pair of full lips framed by dark stubble. His jaw was square and strong, and he had dark, arching brows over equally dark eyes. And those big, broad shoulders. A dark, circular tattoo blotted the skin on one biceps, visible through the wet fabric of a white dress shirt that was untucked from his slacks. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost his jacket. Not that it mattered—the disheveled look was working wonders for him.