Lace & Lead (novella) (11 page)

It didn’t take her long to figure out what she wanted. Peirce watched in fascination as she moved above him, her brown hair drifting over her shoulders, brushing his bare chest when she leaned down and rolled her hips back.

He could feel her tightening around him, knew from the change in her breathing that she was nearly there. He ran his hands up her sides, cupping her breasts, then sliding down her back to press her against him.

“Yes!” she whimpered and moved down with more force.

His toes were tingling, his chest prickling. Any second he’d lose control. He tried desperately to recall the diagrams of Stallion engines, Eagle rotors, Brumby transmissions, taking inventory of the supplies in his garage but each time he tried to focus, his concentration was blown apart by one of her moans, by his desperate need to follow whatever breathy plea she directed at him.

The orgasm was crawling its way up his spine, bowing his body up off the bed. He managed to take one more choked gasp of air and—

Emma gave a wordless scream and clenched down on him so hard he saw stars.

He spasmed, every muscle tightening, his own shout joining hers. When she finally collapsed on him, he could only manage a dazed, “Gods, Emma...” before losing his command of intelligible speech.

Her back was damp from perspiration as he trailed his hand down her spine, groaning softly as her hips and thighs flexed from the motion.

“Is it...is it always like that?” she finally whispered.

“No.” He still couldn’t feel his legs.

She picked her head up off his chest and he couldn’t help but chuckle at the worried look on her face. He brushed a piece of hair from her cheek and let his fingers linger, tracing her cheekbone, the bow of her lips.

“Best. Fucking. Sex.
Ever
,” he swore solemnly.

Her smile was so huge her eyes crinkled and she buried her face against the crook of his neck.

He let his fingers trail over her hair, content to hear the rhythmic beat of her heart against his own. For the first time since Callie’s death, he was happy.

She shifted so she was looking down at him again. She was nibbling the inside of her lower lip and looked wary, but curious. “Peirce?”

“Hmm?”

“Can we do that again?”

He chuckled and threw an arm over his eyes. “Gods, I’ve created a monster.”

“It felt good—” she began protesting, her hand travelling south, but he cut her off by drawing her hand up so he could nip at her fingertips. Safe from her eager exploration, he gave her another kiss, deeper, hotter, than before.

“It’s going to feel better,” he promised.

“I’m not sure it could...”

A short time later though, she’d changed her mind.

The pounding on his front door woke him. He was up, gun in hand, crouched in preparation before Emma had time to adjust to the disappearance of his body.

“Peirce?” she mumbled in confusion.

“Shh,” he warned.

She went still and he wished he had time to appreciate the image of her in his bed, hair mussed, drowsy eyed, tangled in his sheets. But there wasn’t time, not when the pounding continued and dread tightened her features.

“Stay here.”

He didn’t bother to throw on clothes; if it were someone looking for trouble, he didn’t want to waste precious time dressing.

He flicked on the security feed and looked at the feed image. “Aww, shit,” he grumbled.

“Who is it?” Emma asked from the bedroom door, wrapped carefully in the sheet. He smiled when he saw she was tentatively holding his boot knife in her free hand.

“Just Kai. I’d suggest you close the bedroom door unless you want to endure his smart-ass comments.”

Peirce undid the locks and opened the door cautiously. Just because it was Kai didn’t mean there were others there with him, out of range of the security camera.

“Damn, boss-man, lose your pants?” Kai griped as he stepped inside the apartment.

Peirce ignored him and locked back up before turning away and heading to the bedroom. “Food in the fridge,” he called behind him.

Emma was nearly dressed when he joined her in the bedroom.

“Why’s Kai here?”

“Brought your money from the jewellery.”

“Oh.” She turned and let Peirce help do up the last few buttons on her dress. He kissed the nape of her neck, smiling when she shivered.

He pulled on his pants, forgoing the shirt to avoid getting another one dirty. Kai wouldn’t give a shit either way. He cast one final glance at her. “Put your hair up.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be the only man who knows what it looks like down.”

Her eyes widened, but a small smile graced her lips as she followed his order.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

She nodded.

His hand was on the door when he turned and warned, “He probably suspects something already.”

“Did you say anything about us?”

“No. But I did show up to the door naked.”

The reddening of her cheeks was adorable. “Oh. Well then...”

They headed to the living room.

To his credit, Kai didn’t make a single comment that was out of line. Instead, he focused on handing over the credits, eating two boxes of take out and asking Peirce for advice about a small-time job that would require his services for a week. Peirce cleared him for the week and gave Kai the contacts for a few reliable techies who could run the necessary checks at a reasonable price. Half an hour later, Kai was gone and Peirce and Emmaline were left in the relative quiet of the apartment.

“What now?” she asked, fingers lingering on the stack of credits Kai had counted out on the coffee table. She’d gone from aristocrat to penniless runaway and back to comfortably wealthy in a few short hours. It was more than a little intimidating to have those life changes occurring in such rapid succession.

“You should get out of Monterrey for a little while.”

“Where will we go?”

“There won’t be a we.”

She instantly panicked. “I’m not leaving without you!”

He sat her down beside him on the couch and wrapped her in a tight embrace. “Honey, I don’t know what the hell your dad did to get Stone on his back, but until I figure it out, I need to know you’re safe.”

She swallowed, but her voice was even as she asked, “So once it’s over, you’ll come for me?”

He didn’t respond immediately. Gods knew what he wanted to say, but would it be safe for her? For his men? His responsibilities weighed heavily on his shoulders.

She swallowed. “In the books, the man she loves always comes to find her.”

He froze. She wouldn’t look at him, but that soft comment hung in the air between them.

There was no good response. He ignored her confession, choosing instead to kiss her until she crawled on top of him and her hair hung around his face like a curtain. They lay like that, making out like a couple of teenagers, until the suns began setting, casting the room with shadows.

She finally shifted against him. “You said you needed to know what my father did to upset Stone.”

“The more data I can gather, the sooner this will end.”

“It might have to do with the mine.”

Peirce perked up. “The mine?”

She rubbed her arms, as if suddenly cold. To his surprise, she lifted her chin and looked him square in the eyes. “Yes. Plymouth’s iron mine. The accident was my father’s fault.”

Chapter 8

Peirce was watching her with wary caution. “Explain?”

She leaned back from him, curling up on the opposite end of the couch. “The mine was my father’s latest investment venture. He was trying to make back the money he lost from my mother’s treatments.”

“Treatments?”

“Gamma poisoning.”

Peirce winced and her heart swelled from his compassion. “How long?” he asked quietly.

“She fought it for three years.”

Emmaline tried to brush past those memories. The stream of doctors in and out, her father’s increasingly erratic behaviour since there was no woman keeping him in check, the constant hum and beep of equipment in her mother’s normally peaceful room.

“I’m sorry,” Peirce murmured. “I’ve heard it’s hell.”

“It is.” She looked down at her hands. Her fingers were knotted together, but she continued, focusing on the information that might help. “Her treatments drained most of the family fortune, not that my father had ever spent carefully before that point. He put together a pool of investors to fund the mining project. The day of the accident we were all visiting to see the progress that was being made.”

“It was a methane explosion, right?” Peirce was up off the couch, moving toward the coffee table and picking up a tablet.

“That’s what the authorities claimed.”

He gestured at the tablet, already on. “Do you mind?”

She shook her head. Maybe if he was focused on something else, it would be easier to explain what had happened down there.

“You say they claimed...”

“My father had taken a lot of shortcuts. He may not have personally ignited the methane pocket, but he was just as responsible for the consequences of the accident.”

“The workers weren’t prepared for it?”

Her laugh was still too brittle, even a year later. “They knew it was bound to happen. My father didn’t see the point in wasting money on safety features. If he’d spent some of the money installing blast doors like the engineers suggested, the explosion would have been contained to one tunnel. Instead, the blast radiated out, taking out supports in six different tunnels.”

“You were in one of them?”

“Half the touring group was. Aristocrats, servants, mine workers. The beam above us went. Three people were crushed when the ceiling fell.”

“Who was in your group?”

She appreciated his even tone. If he was feeling anything as she relayed the details, she wasn’t seeing any signs.

“There were eight of us. Three were injured in the blast and died from their wounds within the first day.”

“That’s how you were injured?”

“Yes.”

“Anyone else hurt?”

“Not seriously. I got the worst of it.”

“Tell me who was there.”

The faces flashed before her. She recited, just as she had for the Lawmen who investigated, “Me, two young girls who had been visiting to deliver their father his meal, a young boy who was there to train for a position and...”

She’d avoided saying his name for so long, afraid that saying it aloud would be like calling up the devil himself. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Peirce’s eyes narrowed and his fingers flew across the tablet. A moment later, “Charles Riecher?”

His eyes flicked to hers for confirmation. She nodded. The apartment fell silent but for the sound of his fingers tapping the surface. He finished whatever he was noting and said casually, “Only four made it out. Riecher wasn’t one of that group.”

“No.”

She couldn’t stay sitting. Pacing the length of the room helped a little, but her stomach continued to roil.

“They say he died from blunt force trauma sustained during the rescue operation.”

“Well, it was blunt force trauma.”

“From?”

She smiled at him weakly. “The rock I bludgeoned him with.”

He managed to keep his expression neutral, afraid that any sign of his inner turmoil would close her off from him completely. “You killed him?”

She was shaking but started to explain anyway. “Mr. Riecher was not a good man. Even my father warned me away from him. He had...a reputation...among the higher class for his rather selective tastes.”

Peirce could cut through that fine living bullshit. “He was a rapist?”

She nodded. “Underage girls. Servants especially. Women who wouldn’t be able to say no to him.”

“Bastard.”

“Oh, yes. I managed to keep the girls with me for the first two days. But the third day, one of them wandered off to find water for her sister.”

Emmaline breathed out deeply, sucked in another breath, pressed her hands to her face. Peirce caught himself reaching for her and stopped. She didn’t need his comfort now. He knew that better than most; reliving a nightmare was only worse if others interfered and helped you forget for a brief moment. It made coming back to the memories even worse.