Page 379 of Dirty Discipline, Vol. 1

“Drop the bracelet!” Morgan shouted from behind her.

Audrey spun around, and just as fast screamed until her throat felt clawed. The spider was coming up fast just behind Morgan. Looking dumbly down at the band of gray gold around her wrist, she grabbed it. She tugged and wrested at it, a lopsided and frantic one-woman tug-o-war with her own arm, but the bracelet refused to be dislodged.

“It’s stuck!” she yelled, as Morgan reached her side.

He grabbed at the bracelet too and they both pulled. For such a thin band of gold, with both of them yanking in opposite directions, it felt as though the precious metal were skinning her hand from the wrist on down.

“OW!” she shrieked. “It won’t come off!”

“Hold still.” Morgan bent over to spit on her arm and Audrey saw the dark shape of the spider coming up the steep incline fast behind him. The bright light of the sun fell across it in time for her to watch as saliva dripped from its fangs in anticipation of its impending meal, and she screamed all over again.

She hardly felt the pain as Morgan skinned the bracelet off her wrist, dislocating her thumb as he jerked, spun and threw it on the ground at the spider’s feet.

She barely noticed when Morgan touched the side of the cave, and yet the entire ceiling structure buckled with a deep earthy roar and fell inward, crushing the spider just before it reached them. Morgan missed being crushed in the gusting avalanche of rocks and dust by inches.

She had no idea what she tripped on, but when she fell, she rolled onto her stomach and covered her head as a rain of pebbles and small rocks fell over her. Morgan dropped over her and stayed there, shielding her under the almost comforting weight of his own body. He pressed her into the hot sand, wrapping his arms over her head and burying his face in the side of her neck even as he covered her head with his hands.

They had just risked their lives, and yet she could think of no more erotic a sensation than that of feeling his hips pushing against her buttocks. His chest was flat and hard against her back. His hot breath billowed across her nape and along the shell of her ear as they waited for the rocks to stop falling. She turned her head to keep from choking on the dust only to stop when she felt the sun-diminishing heat of his lips brush her cheek.

Behind them, the rumbling of the falling rocks eased into silence with the occasional clatter of stones bouncing on stones keeping them flat on the ground for a full minute longer just to make sure the danger was past. With the taste of dirt in her mouth, Audrey tentatively raised her head and looked at him.

Morgan’s eyes were open and he was staring back, unsmiling, the look on his face intense in a way that probably should have frightened her if only she hadn’t already felt the bulge of him stiffening against the cradle of her buttocks.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Don’t look at me,” he said back. “If you do, I’m going to make love to you and then we’ll have to redo this scene over again.”

Insanely, she actually found herself thinking she wouldn’t mind, but then she moved her hands off her head and her thumb began to hurt. Pain was a good distraction; she glanced back over his shoulder to the cave instead.

From out beneath the avalanche of rocks, the base of which lay less than two feet from the bottoms of their shoes, protruded the clawed tips of two spider legs.

“You get to kill it, but I don’t?” she asked.

Morgan shifted, sliding his legs apart to straddle her hips, lifting his greater weight off her without actually having to get up. “It’s in the script,” he said simply, and followed it with a husky, “God, you’re beautiful when you’re covered in dirt.”

His erection was still pressed snugly against her. It hadn’t diminished with the slight distance that he’d put between them. Neither had the intensity of her urge to reach back and cup it with her hand. “Maybe you’d better get off me.”

“Right.” Coughing on the dusty air, he pushed to his feet. Slapping the worst of the sand from his clothes, he then reached down to help her to her feet.

She tried not to look at him and, failing that, not to look any lower than his waist. And failing that, she did her best not to look like she was looking, particularly not while he was readjusting his jeans.

“Focus on the scene,” she told him, hiding a smile as he swore.

“Right. But in my defense, you make it hard when you keep staring at me like that.”

“It was hard before I ever looked at it,” she teased, wiping the dirt from her mouth.

He gave her a very dry glare. “Go ahead. Keep that up and see where it gets us both.”

She walked her gaze slowly down the length of his body to the crux of his jeans. “Dealing with something hard, I hope.”

Morgan turned to face her fully, his expression both dark and erotically delightful to behold. “Finish the scene,” he told her.

“Isn’t it over?” she asked, lightly running her fingers up over her legs to the waist of her dress. She began to inch her skirt upwards by the barest degrees.

“Yes, it’s dead,” he said flatly, advancing on her with measured steps.

“Now look who’s not putting his best effort into acting.”

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