Lullaby 284

Chapter 284

Just before stepping out of the elevator, he glanced at Rowan with a trace of resignation. “I’ll have to trouble you with what we talked about earlier,” he said.

Rowan gave a slight nod, and he walked out.

As the elevator doors closed, Elissa frowned. “What’s he need you to do?”

She had a hunch this was about her.

“He said,”

Rowan’s gaze slid over her, his tone dry as kindling. “If he hadn’t realized he’d mistaken you for someone else, he’d have divorced you eight hundred times by now.”

“l

“1

Elissa didn’t believe a single word of it.

That line had Rowan written all over it.

Still, if Frank really felt that way, she’d be more than happy to oblige.

Seeing her go quiet, Rowan smirked. “Hurt your feelings?”

“What feelings?” Elissa shot back, rolling her eyes. “At least I’ve been married once. You? The closest you get is keeping a photo of your crush in your wallet.”

“Never realized you were the emotionally repressed type,” she went on, teasing, “so dignified and restrained-”

Before she could finish, he abruptly reached out and pinched her cheeks, squashing them until her words came out garbled.

She barely had time to protest before his hand covered the elevator camera and he bent down, capturing her mouth with his. Her protests dissolved in a rush of heat as he swallowed every word she tried to say.

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In the elevator, with its mirrored walls and the ever–present threat of interruption, Elissa nearly jumped out of her skin. She squirmed, muffling a startled “mmph!”

Luckily, the elevator reached their floor in seconds.

Rowan’s hand slid down to the back of her thigh, lifting her effortlessly as

he strode out. The moment they were in the hallway, he pressed her against the wall.

His kisses came down hard and hungry, nothing like the restraint she’d just mocked. He devoured her breath inch by inch, every movement purposeful and predatory, as if he held the entire game in the palm of his hand.

Elissa felt as if she were drowning, her heartbeat wild and her breathing ragged. The only sounds in her ears were the frantic clash of their lips and the hush of tangled breaths, the air between them thick with want.

Her legs turned to water beneath her, and she clung to his shirt as if it were the only thing keeping her afloat.

BANG-

Just as the elevator vestibule turned thick with heat, a door slammed

shut down the hall, the sound hurried and awkward.

Instinctively, Elissa shoved Rowan away, chest heaving, cheeks burning. She darted a glance toward her own apartment.

After Frank had barged in unannounced last time, she’d changed the door

code.

Now, only she and Tanya Foster knew it.

Tanya must’ve come home early.

And seen everything.

Elissa’s ears flamed with embarrassment. She looked up at Rowan, who appeared entirely unruffled, and forced her breathing to steady. “I’ll head

in.”

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Rowan watched her hurry off, her awkward, flustered stride making the corners of his mouth twitch in the faintest of smiles.

Turning away, he went into his own apartment.

He hadn’t expected company.

Uninvited, as usual.

Rex Wilkinson was lounging on his couch, adjusting his gold–rimmed glasses and giving Rowan a slow, appraising look. After a beat, he drawled, “Didn’t know Mr. Murphy could be so sweet–one kiss and your ears turned bright red.”

“Get lost.”

Rowan shot him a half–laugh, half–curse, slipping off his shoes and ignoring the teasing stare as he headed for the closet to change.

Rex, lacking all sense of timing, followed and leaned in the doorway, ready to keep needling him. But Rowan shot him a sharp look over his shoulder. “What, got locked out across the hall and decided to bother me instead?”

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