Hearts in Darkness

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  The Wild Rose Press

  www.thewildrosepress.com

  Copyright ©

  First published in 2011

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing

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  At first, he thought he imagined it: her fingers, exerting pressure against the back of his neck. But she continued on with the steady stroking. He just wasn't sure. He concentrated all his focus on the movement of her hand and...I didn't imagine it that time, did I? There it was again—her fingertips pulling him toward her.

  Please let me not be imagining that.

  He licked his lips and moved his head forward just an inch or two. God, he wanted to kiss her. His fingers itched to finally thread their way into all that red hair. His lips fell open in anticipation of claiming her mouth. He wanted to taste her. He wanted to feel her under him.

  "Makenna,” he rasped.

  "Yes, Caden, yes."

  It was all the confirmation he needed.

  He pushed himself across the carpet until his chest encountered her side. He slowly lowered his head so he didn't hurt her in his blind impatience. His mouth found a cheek first, and he pressed his lips against the soft apple of it. She moaned and wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders. His right hand landed in a pile of silky curls, and the satisfaction he felt at finally touching her hair made him swallow hard.

  "So soft,” he murmured, meaning her hair and her skin and the mound of her breast pressing against his chest where he was atop her.

  Caden let out his own moan when her lips pressed against the skin in front of his ear. She exhaled roughly. The rush of her breath over his skin brought goose bumps to his neck.

  He trailed soft kisses across her cheek until he found her lips.

  And then he couldn't go slow anymore.

  And neither could she.

  Hearts

  in

  Darkness

  by

  Laura Kaye

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Hearts in Darkness

  COPYRIGHT (C) 2011 by Laura Kaye

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Rae Monet, Inc. Design

  The Wild Rose Press

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Champagne Rose Edition, 2011

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  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To Lea, My Soul Sister

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;

  and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

  ~William Shakespeare

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter One

  "Wait! Can you please hold that?"

  Makenna James huffed her frustration at her crappy day as she jogged toward the waiting elevator. Her cell phone rang in her suit jacket pocket. She shifted her bags over her right shoulder to pull it out. The bleating ring tone was as annoying as an alarm clock in the morning, but it was probably just that the damn thing hadn't stopped ringing all afternoon.

  She glanced up just long enough to glimpse a big tattooed hand holding the elevator door open as she finally freed the small black phone. She spun it around in her hand to answer it and fumbled, sending it crashing and skidding along the dull marble floor.

  "Shit!” she muttered, already fantasizing about the bottle of wine she was going to demolish once she got home to bring a quick and mellow end to her day. At least the phone skittered toward the still-waiting elevator. God bless the patience of the Good Samaritan holding it.

  Makenna bent down to retrieve the phone, then stumbled into the elevator. Her long hair swung into her face, but she didn't have a free hand to push it back.

  "Thanks,” she mumbled to the Good Samaritan as her laptop strap fell off her shoulder, bringing her purse with it to the floor. The elevator beeped its impatience even as the man removed his hand and the doors eased shut.

  "No problem,” came a deep voice from behind her. “What floor?"

  "Oh, um, lobby, please."

  Distracted by her purse and the day in general, Makenna hiked her laptop strap higher on her shoulder, then reached down to grab her purse. She slung it over her arm once more and looked down at her phone to see whose call she'd missed. The LED screen was black.

  "What the...?” She flipped the phone around and found a gaping rectangular hole where the battery should be. “That's just perfect."

  There was no way Makenna could be without her phone. Not with her boss calling every five minutes to check on the progress of her work. That it was Friday night and the beginning of the weekend made little difference to him toward the end of a project. She'd be glad when this contract was up.

  With a sigh, she reached a tired hand over to the panel and jabbed at the button to return to the sixth floor. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed just how tall her Good Samaritan was.

  Then the elevator jolted to a stop and everything went pitch black.

  Caden Grayson tried not to chuckle at the frazzled redhead careening toward the elevator. Why did women carry so many bags anyway? If it didn't fit in the pockets of his worn-soft jeans, he didn't carry it.

  As the woman reached down to scoop up her phone—another thing Caden refused to carry unless he was on call—he found himself mesmerized by the way her hair tumbled over her shoulder in a long waterfall of soft, wavy red.

  When the woman finally made it into the elevator, she murmured distractedly that she was going to the lobby too. He stepped back against the rear wall and bowed his head as he always did. He didn't really care if people stared at his piercings and ink, but that didn't mean he went out of his way to see their looks of disapproval or, worse, fear.

  Caden shook his head in amusement as the woman continued to juggle her belongings and spat out a string of expletives under her breath. His day had been a complete pisser, so he was almost ready to join in with her—though his particular coping mechanism usually had him looking for the humor in a situation. And he found Red damn funny. He was grateful for the distraction.

  Red reached in front of him to press a button. Caden almost laughed when she punched it at least five times. But the laughter died in his throat when he caught the scent of her shampoo. One of the things he loved about women: their hair always smelled like flowers. And that scent, combined with the redness and the softness and the waviness...Caden shoved his
hands in his jeans pockets to keep from running his fingers through the thick mass of her hair. But, Christ, how he wanted to, just once.

  And then Red disappeared, along with everything else, as the elevator jerked to a stop and the lights went out.

  Caden gasped and stumbled back into the corner of the elevator. Clenching his eyes, he lowered his head into his hands and counted backward from ten, trying to remember his breathing techniques, trying to keep from flipping the fuck out.

  The confined space of the elevator was one thing—years of therapy had gotten him past that. Mostly. But confined spaces with no lights? No way. The pounding of his heart and tightness in his chest told him that was a complete fucking deal breaker.

  He was on five when he realized Red was making a noise. He managed to push through his fear enough to hear she was laughing. Hysterically.

  Caden opened his eyes, though they were useless. But he could tell from Red's laughter she was still near the bank of call buttons. And, amazingly, the more he focused on her, the faster his panic receded—or, at least, it didn't worsen.

  God, he wished he could see her. He could almost imagine her shoulders shaking and her eyes tearing and her clutching her stomach from the force of her now breath-stealing laughter. When she snorted, Caden had to quirk a lopsided grin, as her less-than-graceful noises set her off to laughing once more.

  But he didn't mind, because he found himself standing upright again, breathing more normally. He'd beaten back the panic. Thanks to her.

  Makenna would've shouted if she could've, but she was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. Perfect! This is just freaking perfect!

  Nobody would believe the big steaming pile of crap her day had been. It started when she broke the heel on her favorite pair of strappy sandals walking up the stairs out of the metro. She'd had to turn around and make the twenty-minute trip back to her apartment to change shoes, simultaneously making herself late for work and earning herself blisters on both pinky toes from choosing the only other shoes—a pair of new heels—that matched her suit. It had all gone downhill after that. And now this. It was like...some stupid sitcom. With canned laughter and all. She snorted at the thought. The ridiculousness of the sound and the situation and her whole blasted day had her laughing again until her right side cramped and her cheeks burned from how wide she was smiling.

  Finally, she dropped her bags somewhere on the floor next to her and reached out a hand until she felt a cold metal wall. Bracing herself as she tried to calm down, she used her free hand to wipe away tears and fan the heat crawling up her face as she remembered Good Sam was in there with her.

  Oh God. He probably thinks I'm a complete lunatic.

  "Sorry, sorry,” she finally choked out as the laughs turned into occasional chuckles. Now she was laughing at herself.

  Good Sam didn't reply.

  "Um, hello? You still with me?"

  "Yeah, I'm here. You okay?” His voice resonated in the confined space, surrounded her.

  "Um, yeah. I have no idea.” She brushed her hair back off her face and shook her head.

  The low sound of his chuckle made her feel a little less ridiculous. “That bad, huh?"

  "The worst,” Makenna said and sighed. “How long do you think we'll be in here?"

  "Who knows. Hopefully not long.” His voice had an edge to it Makenna didn't understand.

  "Yeah. Don't these things usually have emergency lights?” She ran her fingers over the bank of call buttons and randomly pushed some looking for the alarm button, but none of them seemed to do anything. And she knew from working in this building for the past two years that the receiver was missing from the emergency phone cord. The hazards of working in a 1960s-era office building, apparently.

  "The newer ones do."

  Makenna finally gave up on the buttons. She turned toward the door and rapped her knuckles against the metal three times. “Hey! Anybody there? Can anyone hear me? We're stuck in the elevator.” She pressed her ear against the cool surface of the doors, but after several minutes it was clear no one heard her. Makenna bet the elevator stopped somewhere between the third and fourth floors, which housed satellite offices of the Social Security Administration. The agency closed at five and was a ghost town by quarter after. It would certainly explain the lack of response.

  Sighing, she held her hand up, but couldn't see it, even when her palm got close enough to touch her nose. “Damn, this is the very definition of pitch black. I can't even see my hand in front of my face."

  Good Sam groaned.

  Makenna dropped her hand. “What?"

  "Nothing.” His voice was clipped, tight.

  Oookay.

  He huffed out a breath and moved around. Makenna yelped in surprise when something hard crashed into her ankle.

  "Damn, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

  Makenna reached down and rubbed where his shoe, apparently, had kicked her. “Yeah. Did you sit down?"

  "Yeah. Might as well get comfortable. I really didn't mean to kick you, though. I didn't realize..."

  "What? You couldn't see me standing here?” She laughed, trying to make light of their situation and break the ice a little, but his lack of reply rang loudly in the small space.

  Makenna sighed and used her hand to guide her way back over to “her side” of the elevator. She tripped when her left foot got caught in the strap of one of her bags. Her heel slipped off. She kicked the other one off in defeat. It tumbled...somewhere into the darkness.

  "I guess I might as well get comfortable, too, then,” she said, as much to fill the dark silence as to make small talk with him. She found the back corner of the elevator and sat down, then carefully stretched her legs out in front of her and crossed her ankles. She smoothed her skirt over her thighs and then rolled her eyes at her actions. It wasn't like he could get a peek right now anyway.

  She couldn't tell how much time was passing. The darkness was so disorienting. Not a hint of ambient light filtered in anywhere. Her impulse was to use the led on her cell phone to shed some bluish light on their predicament, but its battery was currently somewhere in the elevator lobby of her floor. And, because this day was what it was, she'd drained the battery to her laptop earlier, so it wasn't any use either.

  She wished she knew what Good Sam looked like. His aftershave was clean scented. She bit back a laugh as the thought of running her nose up his throat dashed through her head.

  She twiddled her thumbs, counting to a hundred twiddles as she also shook her ankles back and forth.

  Why isn't he saying anything? Maybe he's shy. Or maybe you shocked and awed him with your graceful entrance, elegant nervous breakdown, and sexy snorting. Yeah, clearly that's it.

  Caden wished Red would laugh again, or at least talk. Her reminders about just how goddamned dark it was in this suffocating box of an elevator had quickly reawakened his anxiety. When the tightness settled back into his chest, he'd sat down so he didn't embarrass himself by passing out or some shit and kicked her when he'd stretched out his legs. She hadn't uttered more than two sentences since.

  Good going, man.

  He heard her over there fidgeting and sighing and shifting. He started concentrating on the sound of her legs shaking against the short-napped carpet of the elevator floor, and the distraction helped him slow his breathing. The deep breath he finally pulled into his lungs relieved and surprised him.

  Caden was kind of a loner. He had a few close friends—people who'd known him most of his life and knew what happened when he was fourteen—but otherwise he didn't spend much time talking to people he didn't know. Part of that he did himself. The ink and the piercings and the skull trim all gave off an antisocial vibe, even if that was more image than reality. So it was odd for him to siphon calmness off another person the way he was doing with Red. He didn't even know what she looked like, for God's sake, or what her name was.

  There was one way to fix that. “Hey, Red?” His voice sounded loud in the small space after the long mom
ents of quiet. “What's your name?” he asked in a quieter voice.

  She cleared her throat. “Everyone calls me M.J. You?"

  "Caden. Is M.J. your name, or just what everyone calls you?"

  She chuckled. “Well, Caden"—her emphasis on his name brought an unexpected smile to his face—"my name is Makenna, but M.J. seems to have stuck."

  "What's the J for?"

  "My last name is James."

  "Makenna James,” he whispered. He liked the name. It fit all that thick, luscious red hair. “You should go by Makenna. It suits you.” Caden grimaced as he waited for her reaction to his unsolicited opinion. His mouth had worked faster than his brain.

  "Hmm,” she replied noncommittally. He thought he'd offended her until she continued, “Well, one advantage of M.J. is it doesn't make me stand out in my firm."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm the only woman."

  "What do you do?"

  "Are we playing Twenty Questions now?"

  He grinned. He liked a woman who gave as good as she got. For an instant, the darkness felt almost freeing—she wouldn't be able to judge his appearance. And he was enjoying her openness. “Why not?"

  She laughed softly. “Well, in that case, I've answered a lot more than you. What's your last name?"

  "Grayson. Caden Grayson."

  "And what do you do, Mr. Grayson?"

  He swallowed thickly at the sound of her saying his name that way. It...did things to him. “Um"—he cleared his throat—"I'm a paramedic.” Caden had known what he wanted to be since he was a teenager. It wasn't easy seeing other people, other families, in situations like the one that'd changed his life, but he'd felt called to do it.

  "Wow. That's great. Very impressive."

  "Yeah. It pays the bills,” Caden said, embarrassed at the compliment. He wasn't used to receiving them. As he thought, he brushed a hand back and forth against the short-trimmed hairs on the top of his head. His fingers trailed over his most prominent scar. “How about you?” When she chuckled, he wondered what amused her.