"Piper," he breathed, her name almost a question.
She couldn't look away. Couldn't step back. Couldn't remember why she should want to.
His attention lingered on her mouth, and she gravitated toward him, drawn by some invisible force she couldn't, and seriously didn't want to, resist.
"Zach."
Their breaths mingled, ragged and uneven, as the distance between them narrowed to almost nothing.
He waited, leaving that slip of a space there. He didn't move. Didn't take his eyes off hers.
No, that was her. She closed that space and pressed her lips to his, testing the feel as her whole body seemed to melt against him.
He let her take control of the kiss, until he didn't. He opened for her when she moaned a quiet sound and that was the end of that.
His hands were in her hair, and he devoured any protests she couldn't think of anymore. Heat pooled low in her belly, and it didn't matter that they were locked in a closet. It didn't matter that she didn't believe in love.
No, all that mattered was the spark deep inside he was fanning with whatever the hell that was he could do with his tongue.
She gripped his shoulders and let him do what he wanted to because he definitely knew his way around a kiss. That was for damn sure.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as panic and desire fought it out inside. This wasn't supposed to happen. She didn't blur the lines. Didn't risk her reputation with personal entanglements.
Her brain was a fogged-over windshield, logic smeared useless beneath all that heat, by the time he pulled away a fraction of an inch. She was out of breath and a solid four miles past sanity.
Carefully, he moved her to the chair where she'd been before. This time he pressed the pad of his thumb against her lips, soothing the fire that still made her want to jump him right there, professionalism be damned.
"We're gonna come back to this, yeah?" he asked.
She nodded since she couldn't form a syllable at that moment.
He seemed to understand that he'd totally wrecked her ability to communicate because he grinned like he walked straight out of a Warner Brothers’ cartoon. Which was apt, given she probably had red hearts dancing around her head.
All she could do was watch him as he cataloged the wires and followed them to the black box on the wall.
"Here." He pointed to a series of labeled buttons at the back of the panel. "These control the microphone system for each event space. If we can patch through to the main ballroom then?—"
"They'll hear us," Piper finished, already standing to reach for the controls.
Their fingertips bumped over the panel, and for a moment, neither moved away. His warm fingers gripped hers, his skin slightly rough as he squeezed her palm.
"This one connects us," he said, his voice rough as he reached past her to press a button. "Should connect us."
The spell broken, Piper blinked rapidly, trying to regain her composure as he gestured toward the microphone.
"Press this when you're ready to speak," he instructed, not quite meeting her eyes.
She steadied herself before pressing the button.
"Hello? This is Piper Daws. I'm trapped in the audiovisual room on the rooftop terrace. If anyone can hear this, please come help. The door is locked from the outside."
They waited in tense silence for several seconds before a subtle electronic whine filled the room. Suddenly, Piper's message boomed back at them, echoing through the small space at deafening volume. Her amplified voice declared to no one in particular, "…PLEASE COME HELP. THE DOOR IS LOCKED FROM THE OUTSIDE."
Piper winced, covering her ears as her distress call reverberated.
Two seconds later, the same message echoed from outside the door.
"Did that go through the entire hotel?" Piper asked, moving her gaze from the door to Zach then back to the door.
