“How long is this thing?” Gray muttered as he joined her at the top of the platform. “I thought it was like a minute-long adventure.”
“Are you kidding? It took the kids before us almost ten minutes, and they’re a hell of a lot more limber than we are.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Oh, come on. You’re hardly Tarzan.”
“Me, Tarzan. You, Jane.”
“This new side of you is giving me a headache,” she said, even as she found herself smiling.
Oh hell, she thought as she looked down at the winding slide in front of her. “They want us to go down that? Onto what?”
“I’m guessing they’re not going to have us land on cement,” Gray said.
“Still, what if I land funnily on my hand? The stitches are out and it’s healed,” she said as she hesitantly settled into a sitting position, “but what if—HEY!”
Gray planted a palm against her back and gave her a shove. With a squeal she went sliding into darkness before landing indelicately on what seemed to be a very bouncy mattress-like trampoline.
“Look out,” Gray called from the top of the slide, and she rolled to the side so she didn’t get crushed.
“Shit,” he muttered as he landed with a grunt. “I think you might have been right. This was not my best idea,” he said as they lay on their backs, trying to catch their breath.
Sophie couldn’t help it. She started giggling. After all that they’d been through, who’d have thought it would come to this? Both o
f them panting, slightly sweaty, and completely defeated by a pile of plastic, nylon, and nets. Turning his head to look at her, he smiled back, and then he too was laughing.
“Nobody can see us here, right?” he asked.
“Nah, I think they designed this as a reprieve. It lets the oldies like us catch our breath without prying eyes.”
“Good,” he said firmly.
And then he rolled toward her, and before she knew what was happening, Sophie found herself pinned between the padded floor and a hard male body. His mouth took hers with such fierce possession she gasped from the shock of it.
Unlike the kiss in the office, which had been a slow and deliberate exploration, this kiss felt like a brand. The insistent pressure of his lips against hers and the slick rhythm of his tongue left her brain no room to wonder or consider or analyze. There was nothing to do but feel.
He used his arms to brace himself above her, but wanting to feel more of him, she slid her hands around his shoulders and tugged, urging him to put all of his weight on her.
Gray complied and they both groaned at the contact. She didn’t know how long they stayed there, her arms locked around his neck, and his hands framing her face as they learned each other’s taste, their heads tilting this way and that without their lips ever breaking contact.
She felt his him grow hard against her thigh, and she rubbed herself against him. He swore and nipped her neck with his teeth. Dimly, Sophie became aware of the laughter outside dying out, and worried questions from the outside began to pierce her passion-drugged consciousness.
“What happened to them in there?”
“Are they stuck?”
“Should we send someone in after them?”
Turning her head to the side slightly, she pushed her hands against Gray’s shoulders. “Gray,” she said, her voice sounding husky.
“Mmm,” he said as his lips roamed over her face.
“We have to get moving. They’re going to send someone in after us. They think we’re stuck.”
Slowly he pulled back from her, and for the briefest moment she saw some new expression in his eyes that she hadn’t seen before. Something that went beyond desire or amusement. But it was gone before she could identify it, and she saw the moment reality slammed back into him and his eyes retained their usual cool, overcast expression.
With a fluid movement, he pushed to his feet, pulling her with him. “This way,” he said roughly, pulling her toward the next, and hopefully final, tunnel.