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He poured a glass of wine and offered it to her.
She shook her head. “No thanks. I don’t drink.”
He nodded, as if this was not news to him despite their earlier interaction, and took a sip from the glass.
“I thought we were leaving.” She settled her gaze on the boxes. She itched to lift their lids and peek inside. She didn’t. But she knew one thing. Wherever those boxes were going, she was too.
“We will be soon.”
The faint but unmistakable beeping of a fire alarm, maybe on the floor below, had her heart skipping.
“That’s our cue. One more thing.” He held up her phone. “This can stay here.”
He raised his hand to smash it against the marble countertop.
Grace lunged for it, but he blocked her. “No, wait! Please. My photos.”
Holding the phone out of her reach, he considered her, those unusual irises holding far more emotion than she’d ever seen in Cordelia’s mismatched eyes.
“Please. They’re the only photos I have left of my daddy.”
He backed away, and Grace’s heart sank.
“Have you saved them anywhere?”
“To the SIM card, yes, but…nowhere else.” She should’ve. She’d meant to after the attic roof at her mama’s house was damaged in a storm and the originals were destroyed by the rain.
He opened a drawer, then another, searching through the contents. When he found what he wanted—a toothpick—he ejected the SIM card and tucked it in with her passport in the inside pocket of his jacket. Then he dashed her phone against the edge of the kitchen countertop, smashing the screen and the case. For good measure, he tossed it into the sink and turned on the tap. He snapped her license and her credit card in half and tossed them in, too. With a satisfied smile, he turned off the tap and scooped up the boxes. “Now we’re leaving.”
Crud.
With a palm at the small of her back, he led her from the kitchen and down the hall to a room at the end. Her SIM card in his pocket one more reason to follow this through.
“Allume la lumière.”
The lights flickered on, and Grace came to an abrupt halt.
Shut the front door.
The lighting was soft, creating shadowy corners, but nothing, nothing could disguise what this room was. Black velvet drapes covered several windows. Interspersed between sections lined with black and gold marble-like wallpaper hung floor-to-ceiling mirrors with ornate gold edging. On a raised platform, the focal point of the room, was an enormous four-poster bed with a black leather studded headboard and a mattress covered in what looked like smooth black rubber. In one corner, a huge cross with restraints at each point. In another, some sort of padded swing not at all suitable for a kid’s playground.
She took a step into the room and spun around, taking it all in. Brushed past a chain hung from the ceiling, and the rack of whips and crops and ropes beside it. Along one wall was a sleek black bench with a dozen drawers, shallow ones, like in a science lab, designed to hold precision tools laid out flat. Above it, a pegboard with more restraints than Riker’s Island.
She caught her reflection in a mirror, her startled face staring back at her. Though this room was all black with gold accents, it was a bona fide Red Room. Just like in the movie. A BDSM playroom.
Chapter Eleven
Alain stilled, his muscles frozen as he took in the rapid blinking of her eyes and the strangled noise in her throat. His turn had come. Like Pierre and Louis, and others before them, he’d found his mate. He was as certain of it as he was that this room, and what it represented, had been his saving grace when he’d needed it. And she was beautiful and bold and intriguing. A witch, a purveyor of herbs and potions, no less. Everything he could ask for. Except she was part of the King family, she was after the grimoire, and she was the most wholesome woman he’d ever had in his playroom. Grace, his Grace, was further out of her comfort zone than a fish in the desert. Gaping like one, too.
Oui. The Fates were having a laugh at him.
Usually, when he brought a woman here, her eyes would light up, and the room would be saturated in her need to be dominated, her desire to relinquish control. He’d drink it in, let it coat the back of his throat, his nostrils, his tongue as he planned out the scene he would play with them. Not Grace. She’d taken one look at his rack of whips, the chain, the restraints on the wall, and…
Putain de merde. Fate had got it wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.
She stepped up to his rack of whips and floggers and ropes. Ran her hand across the top, trailed her fingers down to a black suede flogger. His mouth went a little dry. Were he to choose one to use on her, that would be it. Perfect for a slow introduction to impact play. He could tease and tickle her with it, work his way up to the hint of a sting. Only with her consent. That might well be a more difficult conversation than usual.
She pulled her hand back, frowned at the flogger, then reached out to touch it again. He caught her scent in the air and his heart pounded louder than a bass drum. Maybe fate hadn’t got it so wrong after all.
