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Sara has this thing about riding in elevators with hot people.
And by thing, she means she won’t do it.
The reason begins and ends with the time she came home for Christmas break and walked by Tommy and Laurel watching some movie. She has no idea what the movie was, but Sara explicitly remembers this one scene where Ryan Gosling makes out with Carey Mulligan against an elevator wall. It’s kind of strange because there are all these other people in the elevator, but it’s still really intimate and hot and, well, it affected Sara more than she cares to admit.
Thus, her inability to ride in the elevator with anyone remotely attractive. It’s weird and stupid and probably not a healthy way to go about her life when she’s interning in a building that’s like thirty stories tall, but whatever. Sara just wants to make out with Ryan Gosling in an elevator.
Which brings her to her current predicament: making eye contact with a hot stranger on his way to the elevator.
A ridiculously hot stranger at that. Like, tall and muscular and looks like he just came out of some kind of photoshoot hot. Which would be great for Sara if she weren’t in an elevator about to ride up twenty-three floors to an internship she mostly got because Tommy “knows a guy.” Because even Sara knows getting caught making out with a stranger in an elevator probably isn’t the best way to start her first day.
And, really, she knows she should just get over it. She can even hear a voice in her head, one that sounds annoyingly similar to Laurel, telling her not to do it. To grow up for five minutes and just ride the elevator with him like a normal human being.
So of course Sara begins to hit the “close” button as fast as she possibly can.
(What? If Laurel’s telling her to do it, Sara’s basically obligated to do the opposite.)
The hot stranger is close enough to make eye contact with her, but still too far to actually make the elevator. Or at least Sara thinks he is until the bastard starts running towards her. And she doesn’t mean jogging past a couple of people. No, the asshole full on sprints, not seeming to give a single shit that he’s in an office building full of people who are openly staring at him.
Except Sara, that is, who is too busy pushing the damn close button as fast as she possibly can.
The doors seem to sense her desperation and slowly begin to close. There’s no way he can make it now, she knows, but she keeps her finger firmly on the door’s close button as removing it would be a sign of weakness that the door would take as a reason to retract its closing.
(“Oh my god. You’re so dramatic,” the Laurel voice in her head says.
“Shut up,” Sara wants to tell it. She doesn’t though, not wanting to give it the satisfaction of being right. Imaginary or not, she’s always been competitive with her sister.)
A hand shoots through the almost closed elevator door and for a second Sara wonders if the arm’s going to be dismembered. (Un)fortunately, that doesn’t happen. The doors reopen and Sara’s met with a full two-armed version of her hot stranger who gives her this ridiculously charming grin before stepping onto the elevator with her. He reaches across her to push the button for his floor, but stops when he notices that her finger is still on the close button.
Sara realizes it a moment after him and finally lets the useless button go and shrugs. “I was trying to hold the door open for you,” she says with a completely straight face. “I don’t know why it closed.” She looks him straight in the eye, daring him to call her out on her blatant lie.
Hot Stranger seems genuinely surprised by her answer for a moment, but his expression quickly transforms into a big grin. “Thanks,” he says, and for a second Sara thinks it’s all over because fuck this guy is hot and nice.
That is until he pushes every single button from the second to the twenty-second floor.
She stares at the newly lit up buttons with utter disbelief, because there’s no way he actually just did that. Like, there’s being an asshole and then there’s that.
“What the hell?”
Third Floor, the elevator chimes.
Hot Asshole shrugs. “I couldn’t remember what floor I needed to go on. Thought it was better to be safe than sorry.” He gives her another smile and Sara seriously considers punching all his teeth out so he’ll stop doing that.
Fifth Floor.
Asshole frowns suddenly and looks at the fifteen lit-up buttons they still have to go through, and Sara can practically feel the regret beaming off of him. It helps – not nearly as much as decking him in the face would – but it’s better than nothing. If she has to suffer, at least he does too. And suffer he does. He grows more and more annoyed with every floor. It makes Sara think he doesn’t have the patience to be as much of an asshole as he thinks he is.
Ninth Floor.
“Enjoying yourself?”
Asshole doesn’t miss a beat and immediately shoots her that obnoxiously attractive charming grin of his. “Absolutely. And yourself?”
Really, how much trouble could she possibly get into for punching this guy? It couldn’t possibly be that much…
Her thoughts are interrupted when the lights flicker. Sara barely has the chance to get the “what” of her “what the hell” out before the elevator drops.
The drop can’t be more than a few feet, but it’s more than enough to disrupt Sara’s balance on Laurel’s favorite pair of high heels that Sara may have liberated without her sister knowing (“karma’s a bitch.”). And while Sara’s quick on her feet, she’s not quite as quick as gravity, which sends her stumbling forward. Straight into Asshole’s arms.
He’s built like a rock, she thinks. Holy crap, is this guy pure muscle? How strong is he?
Probably, she realizes, strong enough to hold her up against the elevator wall. He could probably support all of her weight without ever losing a breath. Which also means that his stamina is ridiculously high…
And just like that, she remembers why she wanted to avoid riding the elevator with this guy in the first place.
“Are you okay?” he asks as she (probably quite rudely) pushes him away.
She mumbles “fine” under her breath as she backs back into her side of the elevator. In an attempt to avoid meeting his eyes, she turns to the button panel and immediately freezes. As it turns out, not only have they stopped falling down, they’ve stopped moving at all.
“No!” she cries as she lunges forward and pushes the door open button with all her might.
“Hey!” he says with a grin that she swears she can hear. “You do know about that button.”
Sara spins on her heels and glares at Hot Asshole. “You!”
“I have a name, you know.”
“This is all your fault!”
His grin fades. “Me? You’re the one who tried to close the door in my face.”
She may still be a bit embarrassed that he caught her doing that, but she sure as hell isn’t about to admit it. “Well, considering you just broke the elevator, I was completely justified.”
“You can’t prove that!”
Sara looks from him to the flashing buttons to back at him. She crosses her arms and raises a brow.
“Yeah. Well. You started it.”
She’s about to tell him that’s real mature when he interrupts her by, well, walking towards her. Which means she’s suddenly met by very broad, very muscular shoulders. Instinctively, she tries to take a step back, but she’s already backed against her wall so there’s nowhere for her to escape. Her heart speeds up all of a sudden and she can feel the blood creeping up.
She could kiss him, she thinks. Literally – she could do it. She could reach up, grab his face, and just go for it. So what if he’s kind of an asshole? It’s not like she hasn’t had her fair share of those. And she doubts he’ll mind.
Her Laurel voice chimes in just then, reminding her that she can’t just run around kissing people because she feels like it. But Sara’s not sure her Hot Asshole really counts as a random person at this point.
Sara’s argument with her figurative sister comes to a halt when the topic of her debate leans forward… and reaches for the elevator phone.
She stares at him.
He smirks.
She glares.
His smirks grows.
Sara really fucking hates this guy.
She stands there, refusing to back out of her personal bubble that he invaded, and glares at him while he calls someone about getting them out of the elevator. His stupid grin doesn’t fade though and he watches her out of the corner of his eyes. And, once again, Sara considers punching him in the face just to stop him. It’s not like anyone would ever know. Just one little right hook to his stupidly attractive jawline…
He slams the phone back on the receiver, which brings her back to reality. (What is with this guy and interrupting her fantasies about beating up and/or making out with him? It’s pretty damn rude.) He finally backs out of her personal bubble and goes back to his side of the elevator.
“It’s broken,” he says. “It’s going to be half an hour before they can get us out of here.”
Dread fills Sara as she glances at her (signal-less) phone. 8:55. Only five minutes before she’s supposed to be at work. Which means she’s seriously screwed. All because Asshole just had to push some damn buttons.
He seems to sense her anger. “Once we get out of here, I’ll make sure your boss understands why you’re late. Where do you work?”
Maybe it’s because she’s tired. Maybe it’s because he looks like the kid of someone important. Or maybe it’s just because she wants him to shut the fuck up already. Whatever her reason is, Sara just gives in and tells him without a fight.
“Applied sciences.”
It isn’t ideal but about the fiasco with Dr. Ivo’s recent arrest, Sara didn’t have much time to find another summer internship. Which means she isn’t exactly attached to the position. But when her Asshole throws his head back and laughs, Sara isn’t thrilled.
“Sorry,” he says with a grin that shows he absolutely is not. “But wow. You’re a nerd.”
Which, as far as insults goes, is not even close to the worst thing Sara’s heard. But when he says it, something in her just snaps. Because this Asshole crashes her elevator ride, breaks the damn thing, and then laughs about her shitty job? Hell no.
She takes three quick steps and shoves him against the elevator wall. Her fists curl around his shirt, not caring that it probably costs more than what she makes in a week, and she glares up at him.
“Say it again,” she dares him.
Sara halfway wants him to so she finally has a reason to deck him in the face. Which he can probably tell, she thinks, because the shock from being slammed against a wall by a girl half his size wears off and he actually looks apologetic.
“Sorry,” he says. “I won’t do it again.”
“Good,” she says and unclenches her fists.
She doesn’t move though and her hands stand there, brushing against his chest. Her eyes linger on him and suddenly she thinks fuck it all.
Sara suspects he feels the same way, at least if the look in his eyes is anything to go off of. But she’s sure he does when his throat quivers as she leans up against him, closing the little distance left between them.
“I’m going to kiss you.” It’s a statement of desire and a request for permission at the same time. Because you know what? Screw waiting around for him – she’ll be her own damn Ryan Gosling.
Besides, Sara always did have a thing for Carey Mulligan.
His eyes widen and Sara’s not exactly sure if it’s because he’s surprised by her statement or the question. Either way, he gets over it quick enough.
“Okay.”
Which is all the permission Sara needs to grab him by the face and pull him down to her level.
His arms find their way around her back and down her waist as her hands wander through his hair and down to his neck. She thinks they probably look like a bit of a mess, suddenly all tangled up in each other with virtually no space between them. Good, she thinks as smirks against his mouth and her nails slide between his shoulder blades, Messes happen to be her specialty.
He shudders and, probably as some sort of revenge, his pulls his lips away from hers. He kisses the side of her neck and his stubble scratches against her collar bones. She gasps a little and feels his lips grin against her skin as a result. Sara thinks it’s the first time he’s done that and she hasn’t been overwhelmed with the urge to punch him for it.
His hands reach the edges of her skirt and he pauses suddenly, as if he’s unsure how much further he’s allowed to go. It makes her freeze for a moment, because the rational side of her knows that there’s no fucking way she can do this here, especially not on her first day. She has no idea how much time’s passed, which means the elevator could start again at any minute.
Which only seem to make it hotter.
Screw it, Sara thinks and nods for him. If she’s gonna live out her elevator fantasy, she might as well go all out.
Her breath hitches the first time his finger brushes against her clit. Despite not saying anything, she wants to tell him to shut up, but she accidentally swallows her words when he slides a finger into her. Instinctively, she clenches her hands into his back. Vaguely she thinks that he might wake up tomorrow with some bruises or even scratches, but Sara can’t be bothered to care.
Her hips buck against his hands and she presses her face into the space between his shoulder and neck. She still has him pinned up against the wall, so it’s only her upper body strength and his support that’s keeping her upright.
His lips start back at her shoulders, kissing her through the fabric of her blouse, and make their way to her throat. They press into the spot between her jaw and throat just as he adds another finger, and for a second Sara thinks she forgets how to breathe.
Her thighs shake and she feels the sensation all the way down to her high-heel clenched toes. She relaxes against him, giving up any consideration for holding herself up. One of his arms tightens around her waist, whether it’s because he wants her closer to him or because he’s just trying to support her, Sara doesn’t know. Doesn’t really care either way.
He kisses her once, briefly on the top of the head, a strangely intimate gesture all things considered, but she doesn’t comment on it and neither does he.
“I’m Oliver,” he says instead.
Sara blinks once and pulls her head back so that she can look at him properly. “Oliver,” she repeats, it finally registering that he could actually have a name outside of Asshole.
Oliver. It suits him, she thinks, though she cannot imagine why. It’s a pretty horrible name – like something out of one those books she barely pretended to read for school.
He grins at her. “And you are?”
The elevator jerks and the lights flicker, bringing her back to reality.
“Late,” she says as she pushes herself from him. “Shit,” she realizes, “I’m so late.” She straightens her clothes the best she can and wonders what the chances are her boss will actually buy the whole “stuck in a broken elevator” thing.
He seems surprised she cares. “I told you I would handle it.”
Sara snorts. “Yeah? And how are you going to do that?”
He stares at her for a minute. “You really don’t know, do you?”
The elevator door swings open before she can even think to respond. The building manager, a few technicians, and even a paramedic stand in front of them. Sara pushes past them, ignoring anything they say, leaving her Hot Asshole to deal with them.
It’s just as she’s about to take off running to the stairs that she notices the giant QC logo on the wall. Her eyes widen and realization hits her.
“See, now this isn’t very fair,” he says, stepping behind her. His fingers linger against her arm, just barely brushing against her, as if he’s still not sure whether he’s allowed to touch her. “You know who I am, but I still don’t know your name.”
You should tell him! Her Laurel voice chimes in. He’s cute and you obviously like him.
Sara turns and looks up at him with a grin. He grins back.
“I,” she starts as she reaches up and brushes her fingers against his cheek, “don’t kiss and tell,” she says, patting his cheeks. “Tough luck, Mr. Queen.”
His eyes widen and for a moment he looks genuinely baffled.
Sara laughs loudly as she backs up and runs to the stairwell.
Her Laurel voice is right, of course. Sara does like him. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to give him her name. After all, where’s the fun in that?