Page 26 of The Escape Plan

I cross my arms and level him with my gaze. “So, you’re not actually offended, then?”

“You couldn’t offend me if you tried, Roberts.”

“Oh, believe me, I try,” I snap back, and he grins crookedly.

“Well, let it be known your efforts are commendable.” He takes a couple of steps back, raises two fingers to his forehead and salutes me. “Now, I’d best be on my way and continue with my tour of the building. I’ll leave you here to your stripping.”

“Thank goodness. I thought you’d never leave,” I reply evenly.

Beckett smirks before he puts his hand on the doorknob and pulls.

Nothing happens.

He pulls again.

The door doesn’t budge.

“Are you serious?” Beckett mutters, and this makes me feel preemptively triumphant. Because I know there’s a little trick with the laundry room door—you have to push the door in slightly before pulling—and I’m already mentally picturing how I’m going to march over there and fling it open for him. That’ll make us even after he opened my “stuck” window last night.

“Need some help?” I ask in a sing-song voice.

Beckett—clearly without the same get-even vitriol pumping in his veins—shrugs and gestures to the door. “Be my guest.”

I march right over. Place my hand on the door handle with a flourish.

Do the little trick where I push the door in slightly… and then, I pull.

Pull again.

Pull once more, with two hands this time.

Sigh in defeat.

“You’re right, it’s stuck,” I concede.

“Weird, weird place, this,” Beckett murmurs, his brow furrowed as he jiggles the door again.

The reality hits me that, for the third time in two days, I am trapped somewhere with Beckett in some kind of state of undress. It’s beyond what feels like a regular coincidence at this point. It’s almost… freaky.

And I must put an end to it. Now.

I wrap one arm around my stomach self-consciously and use the other to pound on the door. “Hello? Anyone?”

Of course, there’s no response. There’s only one apartment down here in the basement, where a really nice woman named Scarlett lives—but if she’s home right now, she can’t hear us.

“I’d call someone, but I don’t have my phone with me. Again.” I groan, more to myself than to him.

“Same,” he says. “I guess we’re stuck here. Again.”

“Lucky us,” I say sarcastically. It comes out harsher than I mean for it to.

He studies me for a moment, and then in one swift motion, he shrugs off the sweatshirt he’s wearing and hands it to me almost hesitantly. “If you want it.”

I hesitate, too, but come to my senses pretty quickly.

“Thanks,” I say gratefully, pulling it on only to almost instantly regret my decision.

The sweatshirt is big and soft and fleecy inside, and it smells… well, it smells incredible. Woodsy and clean and masculine and delicious. It’s all I can do not to breathe in deeply as I roll up the sleeves, which are comically long on me.

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