I swung experimentally, and in one smooth motion, faster than I would have thought possible, Ian’s hand shot out and the bottle thunked into his palm in the middle of my swing. “That is not a weapon.”
“Everything’s a weapon, if you know how to use it.”
His brows rose. “You’re holding a two-hundred-dollar bottle of wine, and all you want to do with it is bash someone’s head in? I think that statement clearly illustrates the source of your problems. Everything doesn’t have to be a fight, Kori.”
“And that statement clearly illustrates the source of your problems.” I enjoyed throwing his own words back at him. “You’re chin-deep in the fight, and you don’t even know it.”
“I know it,” he insisted, and suddenly that seemed possible. The rare somber look in his eyes hinted at some dark depth I hadn’t truly seen yet. “My point is that some weapons are more suited to a delicate touch than to blunt-force trauma.”
“I’m a blunt-force trauma kind of girl, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I have. And so has Tower. Part of your problem is that he knows what to expect from you. So let’s give him something new.” Ian held the bottle up, like he was modeling it for a commercial. “Think of Jake Tower as the fly, and this bottle as the honey.”
“Ooh, are we going to poison the honey?”
His brows rose higher. “No.”
“Then how is it a weapon?”
“It’s a distraction meant to outshine any report of trouble in the park. More a shield than a sword.”
“Just as well.” I sighed. “Killing Jake isn’t an option.” And it never would be. In fact, I dreaded the day of his death almost as much as I dreaded every breath he took. When Jake died, something worse would rise from his ashes to claim his kingdom.
Ian was watching me again, like maybe he’d heard more than I’d actually said. Then he handed me the bottle with a warning frown and turned back to the racks.
“Why do you know so much about wine?” I asked as he read label after label.
“My father was an enthusiast. He tried to make his own several times when I was a kid, but by the time I was old enough to share his passion, he’d admitted defeat and committed to enjoying the fruits of someone else’s labor.”
“Oh. My dad drank tequila. The kind with the worm in the bottle.” In fact, that was my clearest memory of him. “Your dad teach you about fighting, too?” I asked, and Ian chuckled.
“My dad was a pacifist. He marched in antiwar rallies before I was born.”
“And your brother was a soldier? I bet Thanksgiving was interesting at your house.”
“Yeah.” Ian glanced at me, then pulled another bottle from the rack. “Where’d you learn to fight?” he asked, and I got the impression he was trying to change the subject.
“My grandmother said I needed a healthy way to burn energy and express my natural aggression, so she enrolled me in my brother’s martial arts class when I was ten. I loved it.”
“I’d say it loved you, too,” he said, and before I could reply, something creaked from the other side of the cellar—a door swinging open—and light flooded the entire room. I froze, my heart racing. Footsteps clomped down a set of stairs I couldn’t see from our position, and my hand clenched around the neck of the bottle, now slick with nervous sweat.
I backed toward the end of the aisle, my boots silent on the floor, and Ian followed, both of us peering through the open racks at what we could see of the rest of the cellar. High stools around high tables. The dark wood bar that had been lined in wineglasses and manned by two servers at every event I’d accompanied Jake on. And the open space in the middle of a cellar full of racks, where guests would mingle, and gossip, and examine the collection surrounding them.
Jake’s wine-tasting parties were interminably dull, and I’d sometimes wished someone would try to kill him, just to bring a little excitement into the most boring room I’d ever stood in.
Now I had excitement, and I wanted nothing more than the dark, quiet cellar back.
“As you can see, there’s plenty of room for the event, and we can set up more tables,” a man said, and I recognized the slightly nasal voice of John Yard, the winery’s events coordinator.
“How are you fixed for lighting?” Another man asked as their steps echoed closer. “This is nice for ambience, but my wife will fuss if the light isn’t sufficient for people to admire her shoes.”
“That’s not a problem.”
A switch flipped somewhere and another set of lights came on. I flinched, though the cellar was still much dimmer than the park in broad daylight. This was starting to feel too familiar. An underground room. No windows. Someone standing between me and the exit. Darkness that should have been a comfort to me, made terrifying by the light source caging me.
There were huge differences between Jake’s prison cell and the wine cellar. But knowing that didn’t stop my pulse from racing or my next breaths from sliding in and out of my mouth too fast to satisfy my need for air. Logic couldn’t stop my feet from carrying me backward across the concrete, as quietly as I could move, my heart pounding, until my back hit something warm and solid, and I gasped.
A hand closed over my mouth before I could scream and another took the bottle of wine from me before I could drop it.
I clawed at the fingers over my lips and stomped on the foot between my own, and Ian sucked in a breath, so close his chin stubble caught in my hair. “Kori, relax,” he whispered, so soft I understood more than heard the words. “Don’t move, or they’ll see us.”
When I nodded, he let go of my mouth and stepped back to give me space, still holding the bottle he’d taken, and I concentrated on breathing slowly. Counting the breaths. This wasn’t Jake’s basement. Ian wasn’t Jonah. I wasn’t being punished.
But we both would be, if we got caught. Stealing a bottle of Jake’s favorite wine as a gift to him was one thing, but getting caught looting his favorite winery was something else entirely.
I stood as still as I could, waiting for Ian to pull darkness around us again, so I could walk us out of trouble. The cellar was much darker than the park had been, so it shouldn’t have been any problem. But no shadows gathered at our feet, cooling me from the toes up. No darkness built. And the voices only came closer.
I turned to glance at Ian and found him much closer than I’d expected. He was trapped between me and the wall, obviously trying to give me as much space as possible. I opened my mouth, but he pressed one finger against his own lips, still holding the bottle in his other hand.
I rolled my eyes and stepped closer until I was pressed against him, going up on my toes to whisper in his ear, acutely aware of how solid his chest felt against mine. “Make it dark, and I’ll get us out of here.”
“Can’t,” he whispered in return, so softly that it took me a minute to figure out what he’d said. Then he pointed at something behind me and I turned to find my cell phone lying on the floor across the main aisle from where we stood. It must have fallen out of my pocket, and thanks to the rubberized case, neither of us had heard it land.
We couldn’t leave without it. I wasn’t allowed to keep syndicate names or numbers programmed into my phone, but I hadn’t cleared the call list since last night, and it would only take a cursory glance through the contents to figure out who the phone belonged to, and only a phone call after that to link my name with Jake’s.
He was going to kill me.
My pulse raced again, so fast the room started to go dark around me, though the lights hadn’t faded. John Yard and his customer came closer, still discussing whatever event they were planning, and I could see them now, through the single floor-to-ceiling rack of wine separating me and Ian from the main open area. Which meant they could see us, too, if they glanced our way. Or if any movement from us drew their attention.
“Shh…” Ian whispered into my ear, and I inhaled slowly, then exhaled slower still. His free hand slid down my right arm and I stiffened and would
have pulled away if I weren’t afraid to move. But then his hand brushed my palm and his fingers twined around mine, and I clung to his hand, not out of fear, but out of relief. I wasn’t alone. I may have been feet from getting caught and minutes from facing Jake’s wrath, but for the first time in years, I wasn’t alone in either predicament.
Ian wouldn’t let me take all the blame or bear the brunt of the punishment, even if Jake and I both tried to give it to me. He wouldn’t desert me like Cam had. He’d said he’d sign—he’d promised to commit the next five years of his life to a monster—to keep Jake from killing me.
Ian wouldn’t leave me.
I let myself lean against his chest, my heart pounding in some intoxicating combination of fear and indefinable need, and his hand tightened around mine. And for a minute, I couldn’t breathe.
I’d never done this. I’d never felt anything as intimate as the feel of his hand in mine. His breath against my ear. His chest warm against my back.
I’d had sex. I’d even had sex multiple times with the same man, and until that moment, I would have considered that intimacy—the fact that I could tolerate one man enough to sleep with him more than once. But I was wrong. With Ian pressed against me, his heart beating in sync with my own, I understood that no connection I’d ever made had been more than physical gratification. Mutual back-scratching. I’d never lingered with anyone else. Never touched just to touch. Just to feel.
I’d never truly experienced or been experienced by anyone.
When Yard took his customer into another section of the cellar without noticing my cell phone, I breathed a little easier. They were still close enough that we could hear their voices, but far enough away that they wouldn’t notice our movement if we were quiet. So I turned and looked up at Ian in the shadows, and his dark-eyed gaze searched mine. Waiting. Silently asking a question words couldn’t have clarified.
I let go of his hand, and he looked disappointed—until I laid it on his chest. His breathing deepened, and his heart raced. I could feel it through his shirt. I slid my hand up slowly, over his sternum, then his collarbone. My fingers rounded the curve of his neck, scratchy with stubble, and I pulled his head down as I went up on my toes. Then I kissed him.
Twenty
Ian
Kori kissed me. I’d half expected her to rip my arm off for touching her hand, but instead she kissed me, and every bit of spark in her—every blaze of temper and passion she smothered just to survive in her world—it all burned bright in that kiss. She’d found an outlet for everything she felt but couldn’t show, and I took it all. I swallowed her pain and her anger. I devoured her isolation and frustration. And I reveled in the hunger she was showing me, and in my own need, awakened by hers.
When she finally dropped onto her heels again, her hand trailing down my neck and lingering on my chest, I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t see anything but Kori, and the confusion and desire warring in her eyes. Flickering across her expression, one side of her face shadowed, the other illuminated by light shining through the racks from the lit section of the cellar.
Then the men’s voices grew louder, accompanying their footsteps toward the cellar entrance. They’d have to pass by us again to get there, and if they got a sudden craving for an eight-year-old Cabernet—or even just glanced to their left—we were screwed.
Kori’s breathing grew shallow and quick. She turned toward the sound of their steps and her gaze flitted back and forth as she tried to spot them through the racks all around us. I knew what she was thinking. What were the chances that they’d miss us twice? How could they not spot her phone?
I pulled her close, careful not to grab her arm and trigger automatic resistance, and with her pressed against my chest, her cheek on my shoulder, I wrapped the shadows around us. Not true darkness—an anomaly like that would be noticed in a semilit room—but just a thickening of the existing shadows, decreasing the chances that a casual glance our way would reveal us.
We both wore dark clothes, which blended easily into the shadows, leaving her face and hair the only pale spots in my darkness. So as the voices came closer, the footsteps echoing from mere feet away now, I wrapped my arms around her and turned us both carefully, putting my body—my own dark head and clothing—between her and the rest of the cellar.
She tensed, but didn’t object, and I knew she wasn’t used to being sheltered. Kori was the type to throw herself in front of a bullet to protect someone else, but I wanted her to know it didn’t always have to be like that. That she didn’t have to fight the world alone. That I wanted to fight with her. If she would let me.
The host and his customer passed our aisle, and I turned my head to watch their progress across the open area. And as I rotated us again, I couldn’t resist touching her hair, where it trailed down her back. It was so impossibly soft, as if her hard edges couldn’t quite tame that one feature, or disguise its beauty with function.
When the lights went out and the cellar door finally closed, we both exhaled in relief. But I held her a second longer, with no good excuse. And when I let her go, she stayed pressed against me for one more second, and my heart beat harder. I wanted to freeze that moment in time and live there for eternity. Alone in the dark with Kori. No immediate threats. No fear strong enough to push her away from me. No lies standing between us.
However, like all good things, that moment expired and real life descended again, bringing with it bitter obligations we couldn’t ignore. But things were different now. Real life had been changed forever by that moment, at least for me, because Kori had let me in. She’d trusted me, and I didn’t have to be told how rarely anyone saw past her shields to the woman beneath.
But with her trust came an obligation to prove myself worthy. If I let her down—if I betrayed her trust just once—I would lose her forever.
When I couldn’t figure out how best to acknowledge what had passed between us without scaring her off, she finally gave me a tiny smile, then brushed past me to grab her phone from across the aisle. “You know, it’s a minor miracle that we’re not being drawn and quartered by Jake at this very moment,” she whispered, shoving her phone into her pocket.
“That’s a rather antiquated form of punishment,” I said, handing her the bottle I’d picked out for Tower. “Please tell me you don’t mean it literally.”
“I’ve never actually seen anyone ripped limb from limb, no, but Jake’s certainly pulled people apart figuratively, and that’s bad enough.”
“No argument from me…” I pulled another bottle of Cabernet from the rack to my right, then headed deeper into the cellar in search of something lighter and fruitier.
“Ian, we’re not shopping, we’re escaping. Let’s go.”
“One minute…”
“Thirty seconds,” she conceded, following me past the blushes and into the whites. “Then I’m leaving you here.” But she wouldn’t, and we both knew it.
I pulled a bottle of pinot grigio from the nearest rack, crossing my fingers, since I was unfamiliar with the label, then I let her pull me into the shadows. A moment later, we emerged in the unlit bathroom of the hotel suite.
Kori followed me into the living room, where I set all three bottles on the occasional table against one wall. “I believe you still owe me lunch,” I said, pulling open the minifridge. At which point I realized I was too hungry for snack food. “But I’m guessing going back to the park would be a bad idea.”
“I think leaving the west side at all would be bad, with Cam and Liv after you. But if your stomach’s set on nitrates, there’s a decent street vendor a couple of blocks over.”
“Or, we could order in.” I held up the room service menu. “There’s a vegetarian section, if you think your sister might like to join us.”
Kori frowned. “Okay, I get that you want to get to know the person who’s about to bind you to Jake Tower. But if I invite Kenley over, her bodyguard of the day will come, too, and I really don’t want to spend the next hour with someone who?
??ll report everything we do or say directly to Jake.”
“Okay. No problem. What do you want from room service?”
“A burger. A big one.”
Kori ducked into the bathroom and I placed an order, then texted Aaron for an update on Steven and Meghan. I’d just hit Send when I heard the bathroom door open, and when the message went through, I deleted it from my phone, just in case. I wanted to tell Kori the truth. I would tell her. But I couldn’t, while the chain links on her arm were still live marks. And to fix that, I needed to talk to Kenley. Alone.
When Kori walked into the living room, she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at her phone. Staring at it. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
Instead of answering, she dropped onto the couch across from me and handed me her phone.
On the screen was a picture of a framed photograph on an end table. It was a photograph of Meghan. And me.