A Kiss in the Dark (10 page)

“Lacey.” The word was no more than a husky whisper that caused a molten thread of desire to lick its way through her body. Bending his head, he kissed her neck, just below her ear. Lacey shivered as his lips teased the delicate skin. When he caught her earlobe between his teeth, she gasped softly.

“I want you.” His husky admission caused a tightening in her body and with a helpless exhalation, she sagged against him, tilting her head to allow him better access.

Her small surrender seemed to spark an answering surge of need in him. He made a sound that was half laugh, half groan, and swept her up into his arms. Lacey didn’t protest. Instead, she wound her arms around his neck and clung to him, burying her face against his neck. This was, after all, what she had been longing for since she had gone to bed, hours earlier, alone.

He strode swiftly through the house until they reached his bedroom. Lacey was breathless with anticipation by the time he shouldered the door to his room open and deposited her in an unruly heap on top of the bed.

“The light,” she urged softly. “Turn on the light.”

As he had their first night, Cole turned on the small lamp before dropping onto the bed beside her and gathering her close against his hardness.

“God, I’ve been dying to do this,” he growled. “I couldn’t get to sleep for thinking about you. About touching you…tasting you.” He laughed ruefully. “If you hadn’t shown up on the porch tonight, I probably would have come upstairs and begged you to have mercy on me.” His hands were everywhere, sliding over her back and down over the curve of her hips, while he buried his face in her neck and pressed his lips along the sensitive length of her neck. “God. It’s like I can’t get enough of you.”

His words were like an aphrodisiac. Throbbing with need, Lacey twined her legs around his and pressed her hips against him, telling him with her body how much she wanted him.

The man didn’t let her down. In one movement, he swept her nightshirt over her head and slid his hands beneath her bottom, lifting her so that she was pressed fully against him.

“Oh, yeah,” he breathed, his voice warm in her ear. “You make me crazy for you.” Turning his face, he captured her lips in a kiss that was searingly hot. Lacey moaned softly and wound her arms around him, pulling him closer.

This was what she had been longing for; this man in her arms, driving her wild with the things he did to her. She ran her hands down the length of his back, tracing her fingers over all that bare skin and reveling in his hardness. His lips slanted across hers and she welcomed the intrusion of his tongue, wanting to be closer still.

She was hardly aware of him tugging her panties off, and then there was nothing between them. Lacey dragged her mouth from his, her breathing fast and uneven. He pulled back slightly, keeping his weight on his elbows, and dipped his head to capture a nipple between his lips, drawing it into his mouth. She gasped in pleasure and instinctively arched against him, feeling him hot and hard, poised at the juncture of her thighs.

Lacey knew that at the slightest indication from her, he would take her to heaven. But suddenly, she wanted to be the one to take him there; to do things to him that would make him lose control. She pushed at his shoulders and with a bemused smile he rolled away from her. But Lacey didn’t give him a chance to question her, covering him swiftly with her own body.

“What? Hey—” He laughed uncertainly, but when Lacey dipped her head and traced the whorl of his ear with her tongue, he groaned and collapsed back against the pillows. She pushed his hands up above his head, and slid her own hands down the undersides of his arms, silently admiring the impressive bulge of his muscles. Her fingers continued downward, and she scooted backward until she straddled his thighs.

Sitting up, she looked down at him. Her breath caught at the sight he made. He was the embodiment of every fantasy she’d ever had. He lay still beneath her, but there was nothing remotely relaxed about him. His entire body was rigid and his eyes glittered as he watched her through half-closed lids.

“Now it’s my turn,” she whispered. “You see, I couldn’t sleep either because I’ve been wanting to do
this
all night.” She leaned forward until her breasts brushed against his chest and she traced her lips across his. He cupped the back of her head and drew her down for a more thorough, satisfying kiss. Lacey had intended to tease him, to maintain control of their love play until he begged her to release him. But when he smoothed his free hand along her flank and then reached between them to touch her intimately, she knew she was lost. He used his hands to splay her thighs even wider where she straddled him. Then there he was, hot and thick, moving into her little bit by little bit, until Lacey made an incoherent sound of need and pushed back, thrusting him fully inside her.

“Oh, man,” he groaned. “That almost feels too good.”

Lacey silently agreed, and slowly raised herself up until he was nearly free of her body, before pushing down once more, burying him to the hilt. The hot, throbbing sensation increased as she moved on top of him, gripping him tightly. His hands were on her hips, guiding her, and she watched his face go taut with pleasure. When he slid his hands upward to cup and knead her breasts, Lacey closed her eyes in mindless bliss.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Look at me.”

The words were soft but insistent. She opened her eyes and stared down at Cole, seeing the raw, masculine desire on his face.

“I want you to look at me when you come,” he rasped. His expression had tightened, and seeing his desire mount just served to fuel her own. She knew he was close to losing control, but when he reached down and slid a finger over her swollen clitoris, Lacey was right there with him. With a soft cry, she began to orgasm. She might have closed her eyes but for his soft command.

“Look at me.”

And when he reached his own climax, their gazes were locked on one another in raw intimacy, until with a last shudder of pleasure, he smiled into her eyes and tugged her down until she lay replete against his chest.

He pressed his lips against her hair, and his hands stroked soothingly down her body. When she turned her face up to his, he kissed her sweetly and she could see the tenderness of his expression. If they had been characters in a romantic movie, this would be the scene where he’d confess that he’d fallen in love with her.

“Christ,” he said ruefully, “maybe now I can get some sleep.”

She mentally rolled her eyes, laughing at her own fanciful daydreams. He was only hers for ten short days, and she told herself that she was okay with that. She’d wanted this. Wanted him. They still had another week to be together, and Lacey intended to enjoy every minute of it.

He tucked her closer against his side, and one hand traced lazy patterns on her shoulder and arm. “Are you okay? I don’t think you’ve said more than five words since we came inside.”

A reluctant smile tugged at her lips. “The words
yes, yes, oh, yes
don’t count?”

He chuckled. “Maybe if you added, ‘Please, Cole, make love to me again,’ I’d feel better.”

Lacey laughed softly and didn’t object when he drew her closer. “Cut me some slack. I’m not as comfortable with all of this as you are.”

“Comfortable? Hell, lady, I’ve been in a serious state of
discomfort
since I first met you. All I can think about is you,” he murmured into her ear, his breath warm on her cheek.

Lacey understood exactly what he meant, because it was the same for her. Rolling toward him, she rose up on an elbow to look at him. “When I came down here, I fully intended to step out of my comfort zone and live a little, but I never expected you. Or this.”

“Any regrets?” he asked softly.

Only that she had to leave, eventually. She traced a fingertip along his jaw. “Not yet.”

His mouth tilted in a half smile, but his expression was serious. “I think about that first night a lot. What if I hadn’t been hanging out at Sully’s? What if I hadn’t volunteered to answer your call for a tow?”

“Then we never would have met.”

“I’m not so sure,” he mused. “Sometimes, things are just meant to be.”

Lacey smiled. “I think you’re a romantic. It’s one of the things I like best about you. You’re so honest about your feelings. About everything.”

Cole didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled her down until she lay with her head on his shoulder, mostly because he couldn’t meet her eyes.

* * *

C
OLE
WAITED
UNTIL
Lacey fell asleep before he slipped out of bed and pulled on a pair of loose pajama bottoms. Moving silently into the family room, he pulled out his laptop case and the thick sheath of paperwork that he had brought with him from Norfolk. He sat down and began to thumb through the dozens of accident reports that had been filed by the Black River Mines. Many of them were vehicle accidents that had occurred inside the tunnels, but several involved injuries sustained from falling debris. By the time the accident reports had been filled out and a safety inspection team had been sent in to investigate, the area had been cleaned up and the risks mitigated.

Cole pored through the reports, wondering how Buck Rogan could have addressed each deficiency and corrected it so quickly. Unless the reports had been falsified, there was no way he could have.

Withdrawing a set of blueprints from a document holder, he rolled them out on the coffee table and studied them. They detailed each level of tunnels within the Black River Mines. Cole had put a small mark near where each accident had occurred. Or, he amended silently, where Buck and his foreman
claimed
each accident had occurred.

He traced his finger along the length of one tunnel, to where it abruptly ended deep inside the mountain. Fifty feet of rock and shale separated that main tunnel from an older network of tunnels that had been abandoned years earlier for safety reasons. The tunnels that made up Rogan’s Run Mine No. 5 weren’t shown on the blueprint. As far as Cole knew, they weren’t on any current blueprints. The Bureau of Mine Safety had deemed Rogan’s Run Mine No 5 too unstable to mine, despite the rich veins of ore that existed.

What if Buck had found a way to access those tunnels without anyone knowing? He would have to pay the workers a substantial fee in order to guarantee their silence. Cole knew how tempting that could be to a man with a family to support.

If Buck Rogan really was capable of that kind of duplicity, there was no telling what else he could do. Cole glanced back toward the bedroom. He wanted to come clean with Lacey about his real purpose for being in Black Stone Gap, but he couldn’t risk that information leaking out and getting back to Buck. But he promised himself one thing: Lacey would never enter those tunnels, not if there was the smallest chance that something could go wrong.

9

L
ACEY
COLLAPSED
GRATEFULLY
onto the picnic table bench. The heat and humidity of the day had completely sapped her of whatever energy she had left, which, considering how much she’d expended the previous night, wasn’t a whole lot.

In the end, she’d agreed to spend the morning with the rescue team, and the afternoon with Cole at the Pikesville County Fair. It was a small event by any standards, but as far as Lacey was concerned, that only added to its country charm.

Cole had been amused by her fascination with the quilt displays. She had lingered so long over one particular quilt that he’d finally offered to buy it for her. Lacey had adamantly refused, and had let it fall back onto the display rack.

He’d just shrugged. “If it would make you happy, then I’d like to get it for you.”

She couldn’t explain to him that it wasn’t so much the quilt itself, although it was beautiful, as the bittersweet memories it evoked. She’d had one almost like it when she was a little girl. She remembered her parents tucking it securely around her at bedtime, and how safe it had made her feel. The quilt had been lost when she and her mother had moved to New Hampshire.

“Thanks anyway,” she had told Cole. “It’s just that I had one sort of like this when I was a kid.” She smiled, embarrassed. “It brought back memories, that’s all.”

Cole had looked at her quizzically, but hadn’t pressed her. And he hadn’t bought the quilt. She glanced up at him now from the picnic table, grateful for the overhead canopy that gave some relief from the sun.

“I’ll go grab us a couple of cold drinks,” he said. “Will you be okay?”

Lacey smiled at him. “I’m fine, just a little tired.”

He braced his hands on the picnic table and leaned down to plant a warm, hard kiss against her lips. “That’s my fault,” he murmured. “But when the options are sleep or make love to you, it’s a total no-brainer. I just wasn’t thinking about the fact that you’d be exhausted.”

Lacey couldn’t help it. She reached up and drew him down for another kiss. “Hey,” she responded softly, “you don’t hear me complaining.”

He pulled back, his eyes warm. “I’ll go grab those drinks and be right back.”

Lacey watched him go, and then stretched out sideways on the bench, lifting her feet up and smoothing the skirt of her sundress down over her legs. She closed her eyes and tipped her head from side to side, stretching her tired muscles.

“Looks like you could use a good massage.”

Her eyes flew open, and for a moment she couldn’t focus on the tall figure standing in front of her. When she did, she sat upright, shoving her feet back under the table and smoothing her skirt over her knees. It was Buck Rogan.

He extended a hand to her now. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Ms. Delaney.”

Lacey accepted his outstretched hand. “Hello, Mr. Rogan.”

“Oh, please,” he said, laughing as he released her hand. “Call me Buck. When I hear
Mr. Rogan
I look around for my old man.”

“Okay, but only if you call me Lacey.”

He chuckled. “Agreed.”

He was well dressed in a pair of lightweight chinos and a blazer. Despite the heat, he looked cool and distinguished.

He indicated the bench opposite her. “Do you mind if I sit down for a moment?”

“Of course not,” she said. “I was going to give you a call tomorrow to talk about my project.”

He frowned, clearly puzzled. “Really? Cole spoke to me about that this morning, and I understood those plans had been scrapped.”

Lacey frowned. She knew that Cole had spent the morning in Buck’s office, but when he’d come back to the house just before lunch, he’d only said that the meeting had gone well. If he and Buck had discussed her project, he hadn’t mentioned it to her.

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow. Cole told you that my plans to test the prototype had been scrapped?”

“Yes, ma’am. He didn’t say why, but I got the impression that you had found another testing site.”

Lacey bit back the denial that sprang to her lips. Her gaze slid away from him and she searched the surrounding crowds for Cole, but there was no sign of him. She had no idea why Cole would have told Buck such a thing when it was blatantly untrue. But she didn’t want to expose Cole as a liar to the man who was now his boss. She knew how much he needed this job, and she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.

“Hmm,” she said instead, pretending to consider his words. “I think I know why he said that, but it was definitely just a misunderstanding.” She actually had no idea why he would have said that, and her mind scrambled furiously for an adequate reason for Cole’s statement. “He knows that I’m terrified of being underground, and probably thought he was doing me a favor.”

That, at least, was a partial truth and for all she knew, Cole might have thought he
was
doing her a favor.

Buck sat down. He put one arm on the picnic table, drummed his fingers and considered her thoughtfully. “I assure you that you would be perfectly safe in my mines. I don’t go into them much myself anymore, but I have a foreman who I would trust with my life. You would have nothing to worry about.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

They spent the next few minutes talking about STAR and what Lacey was looking for in terms of a testing environment. Buck was attentive and cordial.

“Based on the parameters you’ve described, I think I know exactly which mine would work best for you,” he said when she had finished explaining about the field test. “Now that Cole is my lead engineer, I need to take care of his girl.”

Cole’s girl.

Before she could protest that she wasn’t Cole’s girl—not really—Buck continued.

“You know what they say…
happy wife, happy life.
Oh, I know you’re not married, but I’ve seen that boy’s face when he talks about you. Same way his daddy looked when he talked about Cole’s mama.”

“You knew Cole’s parents?” she asked, curious in spite of herself.

“Shoot, I grew up with Cole’s father. When I took over the mines, he was the foreman.” His face grew pensive. “Best damned foreman I’ve ever seen. He had a real way with people, and he couldn’t have been prouder of Cole than that first day I hired him as an engineer, straight out of college and still wet behind the ears. A damned shame what happened.”

He grew quiet, remembering. Lacey knew she shouldn’t ask, but she was dying to know. “What happened?”

“You don’t know? Well, I guess it’s natural that Cole wouldn’t want to talk about it. In fact, it’s why he high-tailed it out of here five years ago.”

It took all of Lacey’s self control not to reach over and shake the man.
What had happened?
She sat patiently and waited.

“Cole left the Gap after a rescue mission went bad.” He paused, gauging her reaction. “His friend was trapped in one of the vertical shafts, and Cole had this plan on how he was going to get him out.” Buck snorted. “It went so foul it still stinks to this day. Not that anyone ever blamed Cole, mind you.”

Lacey stared at him. In her mind, she could see the scene clearly and a shiver went through her.

“The shaft collapsed, and three miners died, including his friend,” Buck elaborated, reading the unspoken question in her eyes.

Lacey’s chest constricted. She thought of her father and how his death still haunted her, nearly twenty years later. Did Cole have nightmares about his friend? She now understood his reluctance to rejoin the rescue team.

“I’m sure it wasn’t Cole’s fault,” Lacey said. “Mine rescues can be a tricky business. There are no guarantees.” She was repeating the very words that she and her mother had been told all those years ago; words she hadn’t wanted to believe then, because she’d needed to blame someone for what had happened to her father. But she didn’t want Cole to take the blame for what had happened to his friend.

“You’re right,” Buck said. “Coal mine rescues can be unpredictable, but—” He broke off abruptly and waved a dismissive hand. “That’s all in the past, and as far as I’m concerned, Cole’s come back to town with a clean slate. I was surprised to see him, though, but I guess the need for redemption can be a powerful thing.”

The implication was clear to Lacey—Buck thought that Cole was to blame for his friend’s tragic death. Lacey decided that she’d heard enough.

“Well, it’s been nice talking with you. I will definitely give you a call tomorrow to set up a time for the testing.”

Buck took the hint and rose to his feet. “It was my pleasure, ma’am. Enjoy the rest of your day.” He tipped an imaginary hat to her, before he turned and strolled away.

Lacey sank back down onto the bench, her mind whirling. Why had Cole told Buck that she wouldn’t be using the Black River mines to test STAR? And why did Buck insinuate that the accident had been Cole’s fault? If she didn’t know better, she’d think there was some bad blood there, but he’d had nothing but good things to say about Cole’s father.

She found that she didn’t want to ask any favors of Buck Rogan, but she’d do it in order to test STAR. The prototype represented years of hard work and sacrifice. But it also represented hope. Hope that no other miner would have to die the way her father had died. The way Cole’s friend had died. Testing STAR was her single most important mission right now. There was no way she’d go home without accomplishing that.

“Was that Buck Rogan I saw you talking with?”

Lacey dropped her hands away from her eyes and stared up at Cole. He stood by the table holding two glasses of lemonade in his hands and staring after Buck with an expression of concern.

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

Lacey accepted the proffered lemonade and took a long swallow. “Nothing, really,” she fibbed. “He was just being friendly. You were gone an awfully long time. What kept you?”

“I ran into someone,” he said, and swung his leg over the bench and sat down facing her. “So what did the two of you talk about?”

Lacey put the lemonade down and carefully swiped a fingertip across her lips before looking at him directly. “He was under the impression that I no longer wanted to use the mines as a testing environment for STAR. I told him there had been a misunderstanding, and that I very much wanted to bring STAR into the mines.”

For a moment he just stared at her, and then he blew out a hard breath. When he finally spoke, his voice was low.

“I wish you wouldn’t do this.”

“Look, Cole, I’m sorry to be blunt, but this has nothing to do with you.” Lacey didn’t know why she suddenly felt the need to defend her decision. “I need to get into the mines to test STAR. You know how important this is to me. It’s why I came here. My company is depending on me to do this. I
have
to do it.” Aware that people were beginning to look at them, she lowered her voice. “You had no right to interfere.”

Cole leaned forward and tried to take her hands in his, but Lacey pulled them away and looked expectantly at him, waiting for his response.

“There are things you don’t know,” he finally said, his voice rough.

“Then tell me!”

“I can’t.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Lacey threw up her hands. “You have to give me something. And not just that you have a bad feeling.”

Cole set his drink down on the table. He looked around, taking in the fair-goers at the surrounding tables and seemed to come to a decision. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Before she could protest, Lacey found herself hauled to her feet and practically dragged alongside him as he steered her through the crowds.

His features were set in grim lines and a small muscle worked in his lean jaw as they made their way through the congested fairgrounds to where the truck was parked at the back of a field. There was no one else around, and the air was redolent with the scent of freshly cut grass. Once there, he turned to her.

“I can’t let you do it, Lacey.”

Lacey tugged her arm free of his grasp. “We’ve been over this already.”

“Let me bring you to a mine where safety won’t be an issue.”

Lacey narrowed her eyes at him. “Where? West Virginia?”

“What does it matter, so long as you have a safe environment in which to perform your tests?”

“But why drive hours, when I could do it right here in Black Stone Gap?”

Cole stared at her and a muscle worked in one lean cheek. “I’m trying to protect you, damn it.”

Lacey tamped down her rising annoyance. Maybe she should have felt appreciation, but she’d heard the same message for nearly her entire life from her mother. She didn’t want Cole to see her as fragile or needing to be saved.

“This is part of my job, Cole.” She gave him an encouraging smile. “I’ve dedicated the past several years to developing this unit. I want to help make the mines safe for people like you. I want all miners to come home to their families when their shift is over. I’m sure that’s what you want, too, isn’t it?”

“That’s exactly what I want.” He opened the door to the truck and indicated she should climb in. “C’mon, let’s go home. There’s something I want to show you.”

Home.
He said it so casually, as if they had been together for years and not just days.

“Cole,” she said wearily. “Why won’t you let me just do my job?”

He searched her face. “This is important, and it has everything to do with your job. Just hear me out on this, okay? I’m being sincere when I say that I only want you to be safe.”

Lacey found her irritation evaporating. She trusted him. If he didn’t want her to go into the mines, then there had to be a good reason why. She climbed into the cab of the truck, but when Cole would have turned away, she caught his hand.

He looked over at her, his expression questioning.

“What—”

She pressed a fingertip against his mouth, and then put her other hand at the back of his head, drawing him down. She loved the rough velvet of his hair, and speared her fingers through it, reveling in the feel of his scalp. “Kiss me.”

Cole stared at her, and even with the sunlight full in his eyes, she saw his pupils dilate. “Lacey…”

She leaned forward and pressed her lips sweetly against his, tasting him ever so lightly with the tip of her tongue. At the same time, she placed his hand on her knee and slid it upward beneath the hem of her sundress. She felt him go still as his warm palm came into contact with the satin edge of her underwear. But when she lifted her hips, he didn’t pretend to misunderstand her, and swiftly drew her panties down her legs until she kicked them free.