Free Bad Boy - A Stepbrother Romance by Caitlin Daire, Alyssa Alpha Page A

weird clanging sound and the lights started flashing, and finally, it lurched to a halt.
    Well, so much for what I’d said to my Grandma earlier about the elevator not breaking down….
    Now Finn and I were stuck in here together for god knows how long.
    Alone.
     

Chapter Seven
    Finn
     
    The elevator lurched to a stop. As if on cue, the lights blinked several times, the whole thing shook, and then it came to a standstill, obviously broken.
    Rory and I exchanged looks. It wasn’t the first time I’d been stuck in an elevator. Having lived in a hotel for the better part of my life, this wasn’t out of the ordinary for me, so I just leaned back against the wall, sighing. Judging from all my past experiences, we were probably going to be stuck here for a while.
    “So…do you come here often?” I joked, giving Rory a side-eyed glance.
    She rolled her eyes and sighed in frustration. “Let me guess, the next thing you say will be that you wouldn’t mind making me come here often,” she said, making air quotes around the word ‘come’.
    I chuckled. “I wasn’t going to say that, actually, but I like it. Very smooth.”
    She sighed again and looked around. “We have to get out of here. I need to take Grandma home after her appointment, and then I need to get to work,” she said, pulling her cell phone out of her bag. “Ugh, I don’t even have cell service in here.”
    I checked my phone. “Same.”
    She looked about as happy to hear that as a hungover person going through their sent messages folder after a night of boozing. “Well, can’t you do something? You’ve always lived in a hotel; you must know what to do with elevator stuff like this.”
    “Not much to do.” I shrugged, pointing towards the alarm button. “Press that and someone will rescue us sooner or later.”
    “Ugh…why are you so useless?” she snapped. She was getting visibly upset now, her cheeks reddening as she huffed and puffed and continuously pressed the alarm button.
    “That’s not very nice,” I replied, barely able to hide my grin.
    “Well…you’re not very nice,” she said, turning to me with a flustered expression.
    “Ha. What an original thing to say. You have the comedic ability of a leek, you know.”
    “Shush,” she grumbled.
    Her finger jabbed the button again and again, as if she expected the elevator so start moving all by itself. “That’s not going to help,” I said as she moaned in frustration.
    “I don’t want to be stuck in here with you,” she replied.
    I hated to admit that her words stung a little. I knew she wasn’t my biggest fan, given the manner in which we’d first met, but it wasn’t like I was some serial murderer, trying to slice her open, or a pervert peeking under her skirt with my cell phone for up-skirt creep shots.
    In fact, I thought I was behaving in a civil way, trying very hard not to stare at her, which was a hard feat to accomplish. Her deep breaths were making her breasts strain against the blouse she was wearing, and the sight was tempting as fuck.
    I opened my mouth to say something else, but she shut me up with a venomous look. I motioned locking my lips and throwing the key away and then watched in silence as she tried desperately to get a reaction out of the control panel in the elevator. By now, I was fairly certain the power in the panel had gone off, but of course, I wasn’t allowed to speak, so I just stared at her futile attempts with amusement.
    Rory glared at me, and I innocently averted my eyes, pretending I was mesmerized by the ceiling of the elevator. She was getting more annoyed by the second, and as the minutes ticked by and nothing happened, I could feel her frustration, the air in the tiny elevator thickening with tension.
    “Why is nothing happening?” she finally asked me, and I gave her a wide-eyed look, shrugging. Rory finally gave up. “Can you please start talking again?”
    “Panel’s busted,” I said. “The button isn’t working. Someone