“Yes,” she says. “Let’s go inside.” She pushes away from me, and as if defying that wall I’ve sensed present, she doesn’t hesitate. She walks right inside.
I follow her, shut us inside, and arm the security system, all while I watch her take in the small basement foyer, with an elevator in front of her and a set of stairs to her right. “The elevator doesn’t work,” I say, once we’re safely sealed inside.
She whirls around to face me. “I thought you said the power was only an issue outside?”
“The elevator isn’t a power issue. My mother had it dismantled. She was claustrophobic and hated it.”
“Oh. Do you know why?”
“She fell in a hole on the lower end of the property when she was a kid and almost died.”
Her eyes go wide, her voice grave. “I see. That had to have been horrible. This castle is magnificent and—” Her voice trails away.
I step to her, my hands settling on her waist. “Scary?”
“Full of your family history,” she amends.
“And scary.”
“Tragic.”
“Indeed,” I say, and she’s hit about ten fucking nerves. She has no idea just how tragic. My eyes shut as memories try to beat their way in, but I don’t let them have their way with me. My brother’s words, his warnings about the Knight family, also trying to beat their way in.
“Jax?”
At Emma’s voice and the touch of her hand on my chest, I open my eyes, a punch of awareness between us with that connection. Suddenly, it’s me who wants out of my head, the way I’d sensed Emma had on the dock. It’s me that is cupping her head and lowering my mouth to claim hers. It’s me who’s drinking her in with a demand that refuses to be ignored. I want her. I want her now. And I want all of her, no limits. No inhibitions.
That’s the escape she’d asked me for on the dock.
That’s the escape that I’m going to give her right here, in this castle tonight.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jax…
Still kissing Emma, I walk her backward and press her to the wall just beside the elevator, and somehow, her back ends up on the call buzzer for the car. Of course, it works, when the car itself doesn’t, just to be a pain in my ass right now. It starts to screech, and Emma gasps, jolting with the poorly timed, ridiculously loud sound. I move her over two inches, punch the damn thing and lower my mouth to hers again. “It’s the elevator alarm,” I tell her and already my mouth is back on her mouth, my fingers walking her skirt up her legs until I’m cupping her backside.
She moans, a soft, sweet, drive-me-fucking-wild moan, that has me pressing her forward, arching her hips and settling the thick ridge of my erection into just the right spot. My cellphone rings, and I want to throw the thing across the room. I catch the hem of Emma’s blouse and pull it from her skirt. “Jax,” she murmurs, catching my hands. “Your phone.”
“Fuck my phone and my damn brother for what he did to you tonight.” I lean in and kiss her. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”
“So are you,” she replies, and that’s all I need.
I turn her and pull my jacket off her shoulders, tossing it to the ground. My phone stops ringing, thank fuck. My hand goes to the zipper on her skirt, tugging it down. She glances over her shoulder. “Here?”
This room might not be the fanciest, it’s a basement entry off a garage outside the door to the left, but it’s just fine for fucking. “Here,” I say, sliding her skirt over her hips, watching it fall to the ground, pooling at her ankles. I lift her and kick it away, and she loses her heels in the process, which is only slightly disappointing. I set her back down, and my gaze rakes over her perfect round backside, and I give it a smack.
She yelps, and I find myself smiling, despite all the hell of this night, I turn her around again, pressing her against the wall, kissing her before she can speak, before she can object, not that I think she’s of that mindset at all. “For me,” I say, repeating my earlier words, and damn it to hell, I feel this woman in ways I didn’t know I could feel anyone. I didn’t want this. Ever. But it’s too late. I want her. I want her to the point that I can’t be without her. “Don’t move,” I order softly, before I settle on my knees in front of her, my hand closing around the slice of lace between me and her. My eyes meet hers, and I yank her panties away, shoving them in my pants pocket.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she whispers.