Page 64 of Trapped with the Covert Ops Soldier

She rolled her eyes. “Maybe when we’re out of here and safe.” She imagined that outcome and changed her mind. “No, on second thought, I don’t want a hug when we’re done. I want orgasms. Lots and lots of them.” She poked his chest with one finger. “And you’re going to give them to me.”

His eyebrows rose and he glanced down at her finger resting on him. “I love it when you give me orders,” he said as he snatched her close and kissed her like he was afraid it would be the last one they’d ever have.

She thrust her hand through his hair and hung on as he set her blood on fire and her soul flying.

He pulled back after a few seconds, breathing hard. “Be right back.” He moved through the tunnel until his lamp light was nothing more than a dim pinprick in the dark.

Behind her, a gust teased her hair, ruffling unseen fingers through it and sending another cold shiver down her back. She searched the dark cavern for any evidence of human activity, but aside from the passageway she crouched in, everything looked natural.

A scuff of a boot against rock had her turning her head to watch Smitty return with two more lamps. She edged out of the tunnel and into the cave. The movement of air through the space was stronger than in the passageway—almost a constant current going in the same direction.

Smitty lit one of the extra lamps and set it on the floor of the cave in front of the tunnel. He stood next to her quietly for a moment. “Do you feel that?”

“Yeah,” she answered. “There is definitely more to this cave than what we can see.”

“To have this kind of air current inside means at least two other outside openings. Maybe more.”

“Which way should we go?” Abby asked. “In the direction of the breeze or against it?”

“Against.” He pulled something out of one of his pockets and looked at it. A tiny compass.

He pointed off to the left, against the breeze. “East.” He glanced at her, then back at the man-made passageway. “You take point.”

“Me?” Normally he’d never let her lead an advance through unknown enemy territory.

He angled a thumb over his shoulder. “Biggest danger will come from behind.”

What about all the dangers in front of them? The mine had already swallowed more than two-thousand people whole. “I’m not going to go very fast.”

Some of the tension in his face relaxed. “I’m good with slow and steady. You deal with what’s in front of us, I’ll watch our backs.”

“If that’s supposed to reassure me, it didn’t work.”

The tension was back, lowering his eyebrows and tightening his eyes. “Good. It shouldn’t. This place is a death trap in more ways than one. The only way we’re going to survive is if we’re very careful, very smart, and very lucky.”

“Okay,” she muttered. “Okay, good. Glad we’re on the same page.” She lifted her lamp and picked out the most even terrain to take their first steps. “Here we go.”

The floor of the cave undulated in a curved path with clear water channels carved into it. At one time, water flowed freely through here, perhaps part of the underground river that had destroyed the mine and helped sink the town of Lost Lake. There were grooves and potholes cut into the rocky floor, as well as collections of polished stones at the edges of the old waterway.

They followed the riverbed for several minutes, finding nothing interesting or dangerous.

“This cave goes on and on,” she said in a low tone. The weight of all the rock above them making her want to whisper so she didn’t disturb it.

“Do you know how the mine got started?” Smitty asked, no louder than she’d been.

“No.” She considered his question a bit more. “I wonder if they started with natural caves and kept digging?”

“It’s possible. If some of the rock that makes up this mountain is porous, it would explain a lot.”

She pictured what a mountain would look like if some of it was more likely to be worn away by water than others. “So, if we could take an image of the mountain all the way through, we’d see water erosion throughout? Like a block of Swiss cheese?”

“Probably.”

He sounded so blasé about the possibility when it made her want to run back to the dirt cellar of her shed despite Virgil’s inevitable return. “That is a terrifying thought.”

“They were lucky the mine hadn’t caved in before it actually did.”

“They weren’t lucky at all.”

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