Page 12 of Brass
She falls silent, continuing to crawl. I find myself oddly transfixed by the determination in her movements—steady, methodical, refusing to give in to what must be significant pain from her injuries. This woman has grit.
The shaft pitches upward without warning, narrowing as it angles into a brutal incline. Not quite vertical, but damn close. My shoulders barely clear the walls.
“This is getting steeper,” she warns, voice tight with effort. “I can barely get traction.”
“Use the cross-braces for leverage. Forearms locked—pull with your upper body strength.”
Ahead, fabric scrapes against metal, the hitch and drag of her movement uneven in the dark. Her breathing sharpens, each pull rougher, more strained, echoing off the walls of the shaft.
“I can’t—” A gasp, then the sound of her hands slipping.
Her body jerks, then slides backward. Boots slam into my shoulders, knocking the breath out of me. She claws for purchase, but there’s nothing—just her full weight pressing down.
Suddenly, her thighs clamp around my head, heat searing through layers of fabric. I’m caged, smothered, straddled in the worst possible way inside a damn ventilation shaft.
Fuck.
My hands shoot to her hips, steadying us both before we tumble into a heap. She goes rigid at the touch.
“This isn’t exactly how I pictured our first date,” I grind out, deadpan, because if I don’t joke, I’ll lose it.
A shaky breath rattles from her. “Shut up,” she mutters, voice trembling—not sharp with anger this time, but something far messier.
We freeze there, a tangle of limbs and bad timing. Her knees clamp on either side of my ears. One boot digs into the wall, the other grinds against my ribs. Every shuddering inhale drags her against me in ways neither of us should be noticing.
Hell of a place to get acquainted.
We are fused together in the darkness. Locked in a moment so electric, sparks dance down my spine.
“Sorry,” she murmurs, voice uncharacteristically soft.
“It’s okay.” My voice sounds strange to my ears. Lower. Rougher.
I should push her forward. Should maintain whatever minimal professional boundaries still exist in this absurd situation. Instead, I find myself hyperaware of every point of contact between us.
This isn’t my job. She isn’t my assignment. I have no obligation beyond basic human decency to help her escape these men. I could have walked away after the subway platform. Should have, probably.
But here I am, wedged in a maintenance shaft in complete darkness with a woman who challenged a hit squad, risking my life for reasons that increasingly have nothing to do with professional ethics or training protocols and everything to do with the inexplicable pull I feel toward her.
“I think—” she starts, then stops. Shifts slightly, creating a friction that sends heat coursing through me. “I can try again.”
“Like I said, use the cross-braces for leverage,” I manage to say, my voice rougher than intended. “Like climbing a ladder horizontally.”
“That seems to be working better,” she says after a few moments of renewed effort.
I follow her progress up the incline, keeping enough distance to avoid another collision but close enough to catch her if needed. We make steady progress upward until the shaft finally levels out again.
“There’s light ahead,” she whispers after several more minutes of crawling.
I angle over her shoulder in the cramped shaft, and a thin glow bleeds through the slats of an access panel about fifteen feet ahead—pale, fractured, promising air and space beyond the chokehold of steel.
“Good,” I acknowledge.
We reach the panel together. I maneuver around her to examine it, our bodies sliding past each other in a full-contact exchange that I try—and fail—to keep impersonal. Her breath catches when my chest presses against her back. Mine does the same when her hand accidentally grips my thigh for stability.
“Sorry,” we both mutter simultaneously.
I focus on the panel, working my fingers around the edge, feeling for a release mechanism. “I think it opens from this side.”
