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I catch my balance and fire back at him, "You're the one who hauled me off the beach and carried me to the basement and you're calling me crazy?"
"There's a tornado watch, you go to the basement. Common sense."
"It's onlya watch!"
"You hear the wind?"
The screaming wind is quieter down here and I still hear Pat Benatar playing, but yes, the wind is battering the house upstairs.
For the first time tonight, my eyes get a chance to look at him up close. The rain has made his white dress shirt transparent, showing off the tattoos on his toned chest and arms. His wet hair is plastered to his forehead. A drop of water hangs from the dimple in his chin. God, he's hot as hell.
"Um..." The quick turn of events from failed party and wanting to die to hiding in a wine cellar with Foster has me dazed and reeling.
His gaze locks on my chest and his smirk reappears. My sundress is soaked and the fabric is clinging to my cleavage like an x-rated wet T-shirt contest. My hard nipples show through the red fabric of my bikini. Darn.
Click.
The room goes black.
Pat Benatar cuts off.
There's only darkness and howling wind.
"The lights. We've lost power. Oh no. We're going to die!"
"No we're not." The chuckle in his voice and his unflappable confidence would bother me if I wasn't fighting panic. It's pitch dark. The kind of dark where you keep waiting for youreyes to focus but they don't and when they do, you see a ghostly figure looming.
"Oh my God, it's dark. We need light. I can't do this. Holy crap. Where are you?" My arms search in the void but find nothing. It's like I'm about to jump off a ledge, but I don't know where the edge is.
"I'm right here." A bright beam shines on his face and makes his cheekbones look ashen and spooky.
My gasp sounds loud in the small room. It's just his cell phone but it was enough to make my heart jump into my throat.
"You scared of the dark?" He's eyeing me again, waiting for another chance to razz me.
"No," I say indignantly. I'm not sharing my fears with him.
He chuckles.
"Stop laughing. It's not funny."
"A few seconds ago you were asking to die out on the beach. You fought like a banshee every step I took to get you safe. Now you're terrified you're gonna die because the lights went out? Are you suicidal or scared as shit?"
"I have no idea!"
"Exactly, so relax and trust me on this one."
He grins and shines his cell phone flashlight around the long narrow room. Wine bottles stacked in wooden racks cover the walls on each side. The arched brick cove at the end makes it feel like a crypt.
"What if the tornado rips the roof off?" I ask.
"We're below ground. We're safe." He digs into a drawer and pulls out a wine opener. "Hold my phone." He grabs a bottle of wine off the shelf like it's a beer and starts pushing the corkscrew into the cork as he holds the bottle between his legs.
My shaking hands make the light bounce around.
"Hold the light still."
"I'm trying."
