Page 42 of Trapped

Was he? He honestly didn’t know. And why would he? Because he didn’t trust her or because he thought she didn’t want him—and he was trying to strike first?

While he was mulling that over, a sound seeped into his consciousness. At first, he thought the guards might have caught up with them. Then he realized he was hearing a deep rumbling.

He swore sharply.

“What?” she asked, her voice turning anxious.

Without the goggles, he couldn’t see into the darkness, but he was pretty sure what was happening.

“Get down!” As the rumbling grew closer, he pushed her to the ground beside him and flung his body over hers.

It was difficult to hear anything besides a roaring noise now, but he pressed his mouth to her ear and said, “Landslide. The explosion must have triggered it.”

To their right, where they would have been walking, he felt debris tumbling down a steep slope.

As he had earlier, he shielded her, draping his body over hers. He was aware of her breasts pressing against his chest. Her hips sandwiched between his and the ground. And one of her legs thrust between his.

He tried to ignore the intimate position as rocks pounded to their right. A few small ones hit him. But he stayed where he was.

She clung to him, her face pressed to his shoulder as the rubble tumbled downward. After long moments, the earth finally stopped shaking.

Once again, dust wafted around them, and he kept her face shielded until the worst of it settled to earth.

Then he raised his head. Unable to see her in the darkness, he asked urgently, “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“Some small stuff hit me.”

“You’ll have bruises, she said, reaching up to stroke her hands gently across his back.

“I’m not worried about that.”

“Right. Because if you hadn’t stopped to rest, we would have been under a pile of rubble now.”

“Yeah,” he answered in a gritty voice.

“Thank God for that.”

The emotion in her voice mirrored what he felt. When she pulled him back down and angled her head so that her lips met his, he was as eager for the contact as she.

He made a rough sound as the reality of their narrow escape hit him. A little while ago, he had been wondering about her motives. Now he felt her clasping him against her breasts.

His lips settled on hers, sealing their mouths together. And he knew by her response that was what she wanted.

His emotions leaped up to meet hers. He had made love to many women since the night they had spent in bed together. A lot of those times had been good. But never as good as it had been with Sophia Rhodes.

He’d known all along that he was comparing other women to her. Nobody else had ever measured up. And he had also known that he wasn’t doing himself a damn bit of good.

But now she was back in his arms. And he was lying on top of her.

Holding her to him, he rolled over, reversing their positions so that he was the one lying on the hard ground.

As his hands stroked up and down her back and over her hips, molding her body to his, he felt a wave of need so strong that he wanted to deny it.

But there was no denying the erection that had risen like an exclamation point between them.

Their mouths broke apart so that they could both gasp for breath. Then, tenderly, he drew her lower lip into his mouth, sucking, nibbling, listening to the small sounds of arousal that she made.

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