Shadow's Edge (8 page)

She squared her shoulders, raised her chin, stalked out of her office and through the kitchen, holding the Latour in her arms like a child.

Without another glance backward, Jenna strode through the swinging doors.

Leander watched her approach with equal parts fascination and awe.

It wasn’t her figure or her gliding walk or her regal carriage, the determined way she held her head. It wasn’t her ivory skin or the shape of her jaw or the mass of shiny golden locks cascading over her shoulders that set her apart, that drew admiring glances from every male as she passed by.

It was simply that she shone like a flame, a flawless diamond breathing living fire among so many dead lumps of coal.

As she moved gracefully through the swinging doors of the kitchen, past the tables of diners, coming toward him through pools of warm candlelight and patches of dappled shadow, slender and lovely and tall, she blazed brighter
and more brilliant than the noonday sun, illuming the air around her like a torch.

She stepped past the bar, lifting her arm with the grace of a swan to snare a Bordeaux glass as she passed. The Blood of the
Ikati
was clearly visible in her figure, the sensual lines of her body, the way she floated like a panther hunting its prey in the forest. She was lissome and sleek and glorious.

Her beauty made his skin prickle.

But it was those Eyes that drew him in, strange and clear and haunting, that look of something carefully hidden, something guarded. She was brittle and brash on the outside, full of poise and confidence and strength, but her every glance was oddly wounded. Even as she mocked him and called him pathetic, there was some fathomless depth of...

“I suppose I owe you both an apology
and
a thank you,” Jenna said primly, eyes downcast as she presented the bottle of Latour, label up, for his inspection.

Her voice, quiet and melodious, sent a fresh shiver crawling up his spine. He was glad for the stiff leather of the banquette against his back, real and grounding. He made a conscious effort to keep his body relaxed, his breathing regular.

“You’ve already apologized. And no thanks are necessary.” Leander stroked a thumb over the fine layer of dust on the Latour’s label, keeping his own eyes focused on the bottle.

He nodded toward the bottle, approving.

She set the Bordeaux glass on the white linen tablecloth and used a foil cutter to remove the foil cap over the cork. A corkscrew appeared in her hand.

“I’m sure you must have said something to the maître d’. My job has miraculously been restored.” An elegant turn of her wrist released the cork from the bottle. “Not that I deserve it,” she added, almost inaudibly.

Leander glanced up at her face. His acute hearing had allowed him to overhear every word that dreadful little rat of a man had spoken to her in the kitchen. He had wanted to take Geoffrey’s neck between his hands and squeeze very, very hard.

“I informed him that I plan to dine here every night for the remainder of my...vacation...and simply made clear my expectation that his talented and insightful sommelier would be on hand to assist me with my wine selections.”

He accepted the cork she held out to him without further comment. She watched him stroke a finger up and down the slender stem of the wine glass.

“Shall I decant?”

“No,” he replied, raising his gaze to the poem of her face. “But you should bring another glass.”

“Is someone joining you?”

“Yes. You are.”

He saw how that surprised her. Her slender fingers tightened around the neck of the wine bottle. She shifted her weight to her opposite foot.

“Ah...” She shot a glance toward the kitchen doors. “I don’t really think that would be the best—”

“Come now,” he interrupted with a small smile. “I don’t think your maître d’ would approve of you denying the request of His Holy Dignity, do you?”

It was a provocation—and a deliberate one. He wanted her to be curious, wanted her to wonder how he knew the
ridiculous moniker Geoffrey had called him, wanted her to want to get closer—

Jenna slammed the Latour down upon the table with a jarring
thump
, the wine sloshing in the bottle. Hectic spots of color stained her cheeks.

“Is this some kind of joke?” she said through stiff lips. “Am I on camera or something?
How did you hear that
?”

Leander made a mental note for future reference that she didn’t like being provoked. Nor did she appear to have any problem being direct. He forced back the smile that wanted to curl his lips.

“Why don’t you sit with me and I’ll tell you?” he murmured, holding her fierce gaze.

A fighter
, he thought.
Magnificent
.

She remained tense and silent at the edge of the table, breathing raggedly with that flushed face, those glittering eyes.

“Please.” He gestured to the empty seat next to him. “I have something I’d like to ask you, at any rate.”

Jenna continued to assess him with a long, measuring look, as if she could pluck the very thoughts from his mind.

He hoped to God she could not.

He was close to conceding defeat when she suddenly bent her knees and elegantly slid into the booth next to him. She reached out, picked up the bottle of Latour, and poured it into his glass. A perfect arc of liquid swirled into a pool of smooth claret within the crystal bowl. The color was dark and rich, ruby fading to amber at the edge.

She set the bottle on the table, grasped the stem between her thumb and forefinger, and slid it smoothly across the tablecloth toward him.

“So,” she said, turning to fix him with her sharp stare. “I’m sitting. What is it you wanted to ask me?”

He did his best to ignore her eyes of frost that seemed able to strip every secret from his soul. Instead he picked up the wine glass, swirled the wine around in the bowl, and lifted it to his nose.

He closed his eyes.

First: the aromas of game, smoky oak, herbs, and vanilla, something indefinable, wild and powerful. Next: truffle, leather, mineral, and sweet, jammy aromatics, viscous texture, cedar, blackberries, currant. Finally: the thick and caressing finish, lingering on his tongue like ambrosia. He tasted the sun and the rain that had nourished the vines, the gravelly soil, the wood barrel it had aged in, harvested from an ancient forest in France.

Tronçais
, he thought.
No–Jupilles.
The toasted vanilla flavors had more finesse than wine aged in Tronçais oak.

It moved him every time, this thing of perfect beauty, this work of art, the glory of nature confined within the shape of the bottle.

His father had had exquisite taste. The ’61 Latour was quite possibly proof of God’s existence.

He felt her shift in the booth next to him, heard the rustle of her silk dress against leather and bare skin as she moved, and handed over the glass without opening his eyes. She took it; he felt the sudden weightlessness in his hand.

“What I wanted to ask you is this,” he said quietly. He opened his eyes to stare with full intensity into her pale and unsmiling face. “What do you taste?”

It had surprised him that she was the sommelier, but it gave him hope. This line of work was not for those with dulled senses. It was a clue, a possibility...

Her brows, pale and finely arched, drew together. “Is this some kind of test?”

You’ve no idea
, he thought. But he only shook his head no and looked at her.

She licked her lips and swallowed, then let out a long breath through her nose. “After this, you’ll answer
my
questions.” She lifted her chin, defiant.

He finally allowed his lips to twist into a smile. He nodded.

She raised the glass to her nose and inhaled.

He saw it then, the way it came over her, the way she opened her senses to allow the flavor in. Her eyes fluttered closed, her lips parted. She held the breath on her tongue and stilled, every sense alight, every fiber and nerve attuned with perfect concentration to the bouquet of the wine in front of her.

Ikati
, the animal inside him whispered, rising up to strain against his skin. It was a pulsing sting of recognition, hot and strong and uncontained.
She is Ikati. Like me.

She took a sip of wine, rolled the liquid over her tongue, paused for one long, silent moment, then swallowed.

“Oh,” she said, letting out a little, astonished breath. “Oh, God.”

“Tell me,” he murmured. He leaned forward on instinct, catching the subtle, feminine perfume of her skin, watching the flush on her cheeks spread down to her neck, her chest.

“I’ve never...it’s...”

She swallowed again and turned to look at him, wonder and reverence evident in every feature of her face. The guarded tension was gone, all the reticence, the quiet melancholy. In its place was amazement, delight, exhilaration. Joy.

He suddenly found it very hard to breathe through the steel band that tightened around his chest.

“It’s magnificent,” she breathed. “After all these years—after all this time it should be faded, it should be...” She shook her head, blinking. “But it’s
perfect
.”

“Yes,” he murmured, admiring the way the candlelight glowed amber and honey against her hair. Pinned half up, half not, tumbling to her waist, she looked as if she’d just rolled from some very warm bed. “It is. Just at its peak now, I would say. It may even have another ten years ahead of it.”

She set the glass on the table with precise, exaggerated care, then slid it back toward him. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “That was incredible. And very—” She hesitated and swallowed, raised her eyes to his. “Very
non
-pathetic.” A tiny, wry smile twisted her lips.

Without moving his gaze from her face, he reached for the glass and let his fingers settle over hers, the barest friction between their skin, the slightest pressure possible.

“You haven’t answered my question.” His voice came out just as quiet as before, but now it was shaded somber, almost tense. “What did you taste?”

She held very still, the tiny smile fading as she gazed back at him, and he became abruptly aware of a heat and ache in his groin and the almost overpowering urge to plunge his hands wrist-deep into her hair and pull her hard against him.

“Black currant,” she said. “Toasted oak. Limestone.”

He heard her breathing increase, her heart a growing thrum against her ribs, and wondered what caused it, hoped that maybe, somehow, it had something to do with him.

Jesus
, he thought,
she is so beautiful.
That skin, those lips, that fragile, perfect—

“Easy,” he scoffed quietly, still holding her gaze. He allowed the tip of his index finger to graze the side of her thumb. She didn’t move or blink, but her pupils dilated a fraction of an inch.

“What else?” he murmured, leaning toward her, inhaling the scent of her skin. The ache in his groin grew to a throbbing, uncomfortable stiffness.

“Spanish cedarwood. Anise. Cinnamon.” She paused. “Woodsmoke.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Woodsmoke?”

The tip of her tongue flicked out to moisten her lips and he almost groaned, it was so erotic. “You won’t believe me,” she said.

He leaned closer and smiled at her. It was a dangerous smile, a hungry smile, he knew by the way her eyes widened when she saw it, but he couldn’t help himself. It took all his willpower just to keep from kissing her. “You would be surprised at what I would believe, Jenna,” he said, low. “Try me.”

She sank her teeth into her lower lip, hesitating, then came to some unspoken decision with the slight lift of one shoulder. “There was a wood fire burning near the vines during the growing season, budbreak to harvest. Flowering prune trees, I think.”

He looked at her. Still and lovely, eyes glowing like green embers, she was clearly afraid of his ridicule, of his disbelief. A tremor passed through him. He inched closer.

“Windbreaks.”

“I’m sorry?” she said, throaty. Her gaze flickered down to his mouth.

“Prune trees are used as windbreaks around the vineyards in Pauillac,” he said, teetering on the brink of
self-control. The way she was looking at him, looking at his mouth...“France had an outbreak of phylloxera that season, thousands of trees were infected.”

She glanced back up at him and he was pinned by the power of that gaze, the beauty and haunting luminosity of those eyes. Not only were they a startling, clear green, the irises rimmed with shimmering gold, but they contained gorgeous deep flecks of amber and citrine embedded within that sparked fire into their cool emerald depths.

He pictured her reclining atop his massive four-poster bed at Sommerley, her curves nestled into the glossy fur coverlet, those lucid eyes mirroring his own desire, her body nude but for the diamonds he wanted to give her: at her throat, around her wrists, on her finger...

“They had to burn all the trees that year to stop the spread of disease,” he whispered.

The desire rising inside him suddenly transformed into a beast, hissing, clawing just under his skin, poised to devour him. His fingers tightened over her own and he parted his lips, letting the flavor of her burn bright against his tongue.