Page 20 of Lucky Laces
I’m being tossed violently to the ground.
Pain ricochets through my knees.
The floor’s rumbling.No, it’s undulating,rollingin a way I’ve never experienced before.
Then it’s like everything around me suddenly goes to max volume—the noise so loud it’s overwhelming.
And it hurts my ears.
Then my back.
No.
That’snot the noise.
It’s…the ceiling tiles—they’re falling out of the metal frames overhead and crashing down, taking the fluorescent lights with them.
One of which is flying straight for my face.
I cry out, hands coming up to shield myself, but suddenly there’s an arm around my middle and I’m being lifted bodily off the floor.The light drops right where I was a bare heartbeat before, shattering and sending tiny shards of glass in a thousand directions.
Little bites of pain on my cheeks, my neck, my arms.
“Move!”
Jerking, I realize that Hudson is the one who’s pulled me free of the light’s path of collision, the one who’s shielding me with his big body, the tiles crashing down onto his back and shoulders without him seeming to notice.
Probably because I’m frozen in place and he’s done with it.
He starts crawling, dragging me along with him, shielding me from the debris crashing down around us?—
Until we’re suddenly beneath something solid, something that doesn’t seem to be moving.
Or maybe that’s because he’s right there next to me.
Grounding me.
Keeping me safe.
That feeling is so right, so intense, so completely overwhelming that despite the world quite literally shaking violently beneath me, I’ve never felt more like myself.
He jolts and I snap out of my head, realize that while I’m crammed beneath my desk, the biggest, most stable piece of furniture in my office, Hudson isn’t.
“Come in,” I say, shoving myself farther back, giving him as much space as I’m able.
He hisses out a pained breath, but dutifully slides forward, shoving closer, plastering his body against mine.
I inhale, surrounded by the scent of him, the heat of him, thestrengthof him.
Until he grunts, hurt ricocheting across his features, and I realize that he’s still not completely shielded from the debris, not fully beneath the desk.“Fuck.My leg.”
I don’t think, just clamber on top of him, smacking my head hard against the underside of the desk.
His eyes go wide.“Wh?—”
“Getunderhere,” I snap.
My head fucking hurts, but I just start tugging at his waist when he doesn’t immediately move, bringing him farther beneath the piece of heavy oak furniture, thankful for the first time since I inherited this office that the last asshole who occupied it was on such a fucking power trip that he needed a CEO-my-penis-is-larger-than-yours sized desk so that with me pressed close and straddling Hudson’s waist, his legs bent up behind me, we’re both covered as the floor bounces and rolls and the earthquake goes on for what seems like an interminable amount of time.
