Page 44 of Under Pressure
My fingers appear in front of me, as wet as his mouth was. I’m swollen and aching between my legs when I shake my head and realize I’m alone. Sleep clings to my mind, cobwebs slowly disappearing as I jerk upright and shove the thick blanket off me.
“Amazing. Great. Incredible,” I mutter.
My skin is on fire when I slip from bed and head to the bathroom, needing . . . I don’t even know what I need. A lobotomy, maybe. Because what the actual fuck? A sex dream? Is that really what it’s come to?
God forbid a man touches me on the face without inciting a wet dream.
My bare feet slide across the cheap linoleum in the bathroom. It’s cold. Freezing, actually. And wet.
Glancing down at my toes, I shriek and stumble backward. The soles of my feet are slick now, and I slide across the floor before gripping the edge of the sink and steadying myself.
“What the fuck!”
There’s water coming up out of the shower drain. The discoloured plastic bottom shows the water climbing up and over it, spilling all over the floor. I freeze, watching as it keeps coming and coming, not showing a single sign of stopping. The tightness in my chest gets worse when I realize it’s not going to. Especially not when I’m standing here like this.
Springing into action, I step out of the bathroom and onto the hallway carpet. It squelches beneath my feet, drawing another alarmed noise from me. I move quicker, running into my bedroom and ripping my phone from the charging cord. My fingers move on their own as I make a call and grab every single towel from my closet.
The line rings in my ear for so long my fingers start shaking around the phone. The carpet is even wetter now, with water crawling deeper into the hallway. I need to turn the water off. That’s—that’s what I have to do. If I do that, this will all be over.
“Quinn?”
The panic keeps me from blushing at the sound of Beck’s sultry, sleepy voice. “How do I turn the water off?”
“Water? What water?”
Maneuvering my phone into the crook of my shoulder, I tiltmy head to keep it in place and drop the towels on the bathroom floor. They turn dark instantly.
“The water in my apartment! How do I turn it off?” I yell, my throat closing in. “There’s got to be a shut-off valve!”
“Uh—shit. Where’s the water coming from?”
I whip my head around the room. “Everywhere. It’s everywhere.”
“It’s got to be coming from somewhere. The toilet? A burst pipe in the wall? Is it coming from the floor or the wall, maybe?”
“The shower. It’s coming from the drain,” I ramble, kicking the sopping wet pile of towels to the edge of the shower. “It’s going to get into the café. Ruthie warned me about this! She told me something would burst and I’d flood the entire place. Fuck! Fuck, I don’t know how to turn the water off!”
I’m shouting now, my throat raw as I race from the bathroom and start grabbing the blankets and sheets from the closet.
“It won’t flood the shop. Keep the floor as dry as you can. I might lose the call here for a sec?—”
The call drops, and I panic some more. The blankets and sheets fall to the bathroom floor, and the water soaks into all of the fabric. On my bare knees, with my phone still crunched by my ear, I shove the giant pile against the shower.
A beat later, my phone rings, and I answer the call. “Don’t hang up on me!”
“It was the elevator, baby. No signal. But I’m in my car now.”
I don’t give myself the time to fixate on how relieved those words make me feel. Instead, I nod rapidly and try to breathe.
“The valve might be downstairs. I’m going to look.”
“Good idea. If it’s not, we’ll check upstairs. Maybe by the laundry room.”
“I don’t have a laundry room!”
He doesn’t speak for a beat. I don’t bother with shoes as I whip open the door and run down the stairs, hoping to fuck I don’t get a giant sliver from the shitty stairs. They creak with every step I take until I finally get to the bottom floor and tearmy way to the mechanical room. I ignore the way dust tickles my throat when I inhale.
“Find it?” Beck asks carefully, the tick of a turn signal mixing with his voice.
