The Espionage Effect(51)
I grabbed Alec’s hand and moved past him. A series of quiet snorts, resembling silent laughter, huffed out behind me as I tugged him down the stairs. He gave my hand a light squeeze. “Look who’s suddenly in charge.”
I paused midstep, blinking. I was in charge. For the first time in my life, I’d begun to control things outside of myself, beyond my inner prison. I’d ventured into the world at large, where countless forces exerted pressure from all sides, ricocheting people like pinballs to bounce helplessly in reaction to the cruel, unforgiving environment around them. Only now, I manned the levers—controlled the timing, the speed, the moment of impact.
Pleased at the revelation, I continued down the shadowy staircase with a smile tugging at my lips. But the room we descended into gradually stole my attention away from the epiphany.
In the dimly lit stairwell, I slid my hand along the cool roughness of the stone wall, gaze pausing briefly on one of many small niches that glowed softly from a recessed light hidden in its upper arch. As we descended, each successive caramel travertine step expanded in size from the last, stretching wider and wider, curving into the room as we neared ground level.
Only when we reached the bottom, did the sheer vastness of the unique space take shape in my mind. In a matter of seconds, I counted upward to identify the angled necks of exactly sixty rows of wine bottles that spanned from floor to ceiling. I would’ve estimated how many in sum total by scanning right to left, however the wall curved from sight behind the base of the stone staircase before undulating forward and backward in a general rectangular shape. Had the waves been stretched farther into the room and narrowed, they would have resembled library rows. As they were, the increased surface area flowing along the room’s perimeter, except for the staircase, had to cast the number of stored bottles in the vast cellar into the thousands.
Four giant logs, each easily three feet in diameter, stood like silent sentries. They sprouted from burnished rust-brown concrete, which resembled a forest floor with various botanical impressions in its surface, and reached upward until they disappeared into the ceiling. Soft beams of angled light along their trunks aiming upward brought the intricate tilework of the barrel-vaulted ceiling to life, making the tiny iridescent tiles in diverse shades of leafy green shimmer like a real overhead canopy as I moved.
Although the air was cool and humid, as I moved from one area to another, the specifics of both varied to the slightest degree, the atmosphere of each section tailored to the type of wine housed there. A faint fragrance seemed natural to the space, tinges of dust and a woodsy aroma from the support logs and furniture in the room scenting the air.
The entire space held a mass that I felt all the way to my bones, like the walls were alive, breathing right along with us, changing and reacting—as if each bottle of wine waited with patient anticipation, preparing on a molecular level to be called to service, to fulfill its long-awaited destiny.
“Wow,” I whispered.
The breathless reaction was the only brilliant word to populate my stunned but impressed mind. Not in any way a wine connoisseur, I appreciated the artfulness and creativity that went into crafting the unique space we stood within.
And I shared an odd, deep kinship to those ever-patient wines.
The chill in the air stirred across my skin, and I shivered.
Alec immediately moved into my view and pulled his tuxedo jacket off, revealing a holstered gun in a black leather shoulder harness worn over his formal white shirt. He flared the jacket out and around before draping the warmed fabric over my shoulders.
Then his lips twisted into a smirk and the corners of his eyes wrinkled ever so slightly, amusement sparking in them. “Now that you’ve dragged me down here, what are you going to do with me?”
My flushed skin suddenly felt thin, transparent. Like he could see right through me.
As my mind spun with possibilities, I searched the open floor space, spotting the many tables in the center with stately carved wooden arm chairs tucked beneath them. Pools of yellow light dappled the simulated forest floor.
Instinct reigned supreme when all other faculties failed me. Without thought, I took small steps backward, moving toward the safer shadows of the room as my desires rang clear. “No.” My voice came out gruff. “Not me to you. I’m the guest. You’re the one breaking your own rules. You want me? Take me.”
In truth, I maintained control. I knew it, understood the concept now. But I wanted him to take what I freely offered.
Alec tracked me, matching every step I took, predator to prey. The heat in his gaze intensified, unrelenting as his eyes narrowed.
Easing backward, I led us behind the staircase, into the darkest part of the enormous room. Before long, my jacketed shoulders hit the stone surface of the wall. Seconds later, his body pressed flush against mine, both arms braced on the wall above me, caging me in.
A shiver ran through me, stark need throbbing an aching drumbeat of arousal into my veins. Exposed, yet protected. Desired, yet full of want. Raw, yet comforted. In control, yet so completely out of it. A dizzying juxtaposition of emotions and feelings whirled together into magnificent chaos.
No other place I’d rather be.
My eyes drifted shut, and I inhaled deeply, drawing his intoxicating musky spiced scent into my lungs. My body reacted, our chemistry attuned.
His warm breath tracked down the column of my neck, blazing a fiery trail as it descended inch by slow inch. At the base, where it sloped into my shoulder, his lips connected. He sucked gently, drew my heated skin into his mouth, past the sharp edges of his teeth. With slow purpose, he pulled my storming blood to the surface as he marked me.