Lace & Lead

He shrugged off her hand as she reached out to touch his shoulder. “Sit down,” he said, but she ignored him.

“Why is your shoulder bleeding?”

Again, he shrugged and she stood in frustration. “Dammit, Mr. Taggart, how badly are you injured?”

He opened his mouth to say something, but a yell from the raft ahead only left him with enough time for a quick glance over his shoulder before he was shoving her down to the bottom of the raft.

She tried to argue but a moment later, the sound of the raft scraping against rock cut off her protests. They had made their way into some kind of tunnel, one where the rocks were crushing down on all sides. The water had picked up speed, so the raft kept moving, but Emmaline couldn’t prevent panic from rising up as she lay there pinned beneath Taggart.

The walls closing in. The darkness. The sensation that her chest was too small for her lungs.

“It’s like Plymouth all over,” she moaned, trying to focus on anything but the claustrophobia.

“Wait...Plymouth? That was you?” Taggart shifted slightly on top of her and heat pooled in her belly as she realised his hips were flush with hers. And either that was a gun, or he hadn’t been lying when he claimed she was a distraction.

If his question had had any pity in it, she knew the shame would have come. Instead, for some reason, pressed against him like this, his voice devoid of anything except clinical curiosity, she was actually able to respond, “Yes. That was me.”

Well, that was interesting. Who knew that Little Miss Prim and Proper had a backbone of steel?

Peirce tried to move a little off of her, but the harsh sound of the stone ceiling scraping against the assault rifle strapped to his back made him grimace and return to his original position. The one that left her sprawled out underneath him, her face tucked against his neck where the armour stopped. He could feel her gentle breath against his skin and was obscenely grateful his uniform was hiding his rising interest.

But if she was part of the Plymouth incident...

“Not to shit on this parade, but are you—”

“I’m fine,” she interrupted sharply.

She shifted, her hips rolling under his and he clenched his jaw to keep from groaning in pleasure. His body’s overreaction wasn’t because it was Emmaline Gregson; it was simply because there was a soft, sweetly-scented woman underneath him and that hadn’t happened in a long time.

He tried to focus. “Cuz you know, if you had a problem with tight, enclosed spaces...”

“Drop it, Mr. Taggart!”

He tried, swear to the gods, he tried. But his mind was whirling and he couldn’t seem to help himself. “How long were you trapped in there?”

She went perfectly still beneath him. For a time, the only sound was the raft rubbing against the stone ceiling. Finally she sighed and murmured, “Three days.”

Well, talk about walking through hell and back. He quickly searched his memory for anything else he could remember on the incident. The iron mine in Plymouth being visited by the aristocracy, an explosion from a pocket of methane, part of the aristocracy cut off from help. It was the fastest emergency crews had ever responded. But days later, only four survivors walked out of the mine.

And Emmaline was one of them.

He wasn’t sure why he said it, but the gruff “I’m sorry” that came from his mouth surprised them both.

“Thank you,” she said against his skin.

The sound of the water lapping against the raft echoed through the narrow stone passage. Gods only knew how much longer they’d be trapped like this. When Douglass had checked out the last surveys of the area, he was sure there’d be enough room to squeeze the rafts through. He’d told Peirce it’d be a “tight fit” but Peirce hadn’t expected this.

And if he was getting antsy, Emmaline had to be going nuts.

He was opening his mouth to ask her another question, hopefully to distract her from the thoughts that must have been running riot in her head, but she beat him to the punch. “Why’d you kiss me?” she asked quietly.

“Fuck if I know.”

Apparently it was the wrong thing to say. “Oh, thank you.” Her tone was positively frigid.

“Look, you asked. I answered.”

As she tried to move out from under him, one of her breasts brushed against his bare bicep. It may have been dark, but he could see in his mind’s eye the soft, thin, white cotton chemise with that silve