“Wow, this is nice,” I said as I stepped inside.
There was a dining table in the center of the room, and four wine glasses rested upside down on a silver platter in the middle. There was also a brown love seat and a wet bar against the far wall.
“Does your family do many tastings in here?” I fingered the neck of one of the bottles in the rack beside me. The label was pretty.
“No. We hardly ever use it.”
The room wasn’t really a cellar, it was a lounge meant for entertaining. “That’s a shame. This room is amazing.”
“No one comes down here, but you can whenever you want. It’s quiet.”
It was quiet. It felt like Royce and I were all alone, hidden underground. My tone was grave. “I have to tell you something.”
He stiffened, bracing for whatever was coming. “What is it?”
“It’s about Alice and Vance. When I was coming back up the hill, I . . . saw them together.”
Royce blinked slowly. “Together,” he repeated flatly. “Were they fucking?”
“Uh, she was going down on him.”
His expression didn’t change. “Sorry you had to see that.”
“You knew?” I gasped.
“Yeah, they’ve gotten sloppy recently about hiding it. As you can attest.”
I turned my gaze away, staring at the rack and the bottles that lay on their sides. “I don’t understand. Alice cares so much about image, and if they were caught—”
“Yeah.” His firm word drew my attention. “It’d be a big scandal. One that’d be much too big for my father to ignore.”
How did he mean that? Was Alice doing it to get her husband’s attention?
“He doesn’t know?”
“I don’t think so, but hardly anything happens here he doesn’t know about.” He took a step in my direction, closing most of the space between us. “Whatever she had with my dad, it’s gone now. It ran its course. She still loves him, and she can’t leave him—although I don’t think she wants to, anyway.”
Nervousness sapped all the strength from me. “Is that going to happen to us?”
God, his eyes were intense, and it was so beautiful, it was hard to look at. He said it quietly but with conviction. “I hope not.”
Why was it painful to admit? “I like you.”
“I kind of figured that out already.” His half-smile was irritating.
“Royce.” I didn’t appreciate him being cocky when I’d made myself vulnerable.
But he slipped his arms around me and tilted his forehead until it was pressed against mine. “If you haven’t figured out yet just how much I like you, then you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”
He delivered his first kiss slow and sweet. But the second one? It smoldered. It hinted there was fire waiting for me on the other side. All I had to do was stoke it and we’d both burst into flames.
I skimmed my hand down the front of his shirt, not stopping until I hit the bulge growing behind his zipper. In retaliation, he grasped a handful of my ass through my shorts and squeezed.
Everything went hard. His grip on me. His dick under the stroke of my hand. His mouth moving against mine.
And the sudden need to have it finally be our moment.
Whatever he was thinking about, the decision had been made. He turned us, and I stumbled back into the corner between the brick wall and the side of a wine cabinet, making the bottles rattle quietly on their perches.
Royce’s hands weren’t gentle or cautious. He clasped a palm over my breast and, dissatisfied it was covered, he jammed that hand up under my t-shirt. It took him no time to find my nipple through the cup of my bra, and his pinch left me hot and achy in more than one place.
It distracted me from my task, but not for long. I raked my fingernails over the denim shielding his erection and enjoyed how his eyes clouded with lust.
“We’re doing this now, huh?” His whispered question was full of seduction.
“You said no one comes down here.”
He stepped away, leaving me panting against the corner, but it was only so he could close the door. As he stalked back to me, his determined focus made heat pool in my body and flow to my center.
His kiss was aggressive. Brutally passionate. Tension built in me, in both of us.
He jerked the hem of my shirt up, and I raised my arms, helping him strip it off. As soon as it was done, I returned the favor, stretching his cotton shirt up over his head and hurling it to the floor.
I traced the lines of his bare chest, marveling at how good he felt in my hands. There was a ring on my finger saying I was his, and tonight he was absolutely mine.
“I want you naked,” I pleaded.
He grinned a smile full of sex and sin, and it announced he had every intention of giving me what I wanted. As he reached around my body and undid the hook of my bra, he murmured it in my ear. “Same, Marist.”