After their workout, he showed her to a beautiful pool that was hidden, nestled as it was among the trees and gardens at the far side of the house. There, they spent a few hours in the hot afternoon sun, sipping chilled white wine, swimming, talking, and snacking off a tray of fruit, crackers, and cheese.
At one point, Alice’s eyelids started to grow heavy while she lay on a chaise lounge. They flickered open again at the pressure of Dylan’s mouth brushing against hers. Her hand went to the back of his head, and their kiss deepened, turning hot, wet, and deep.
“Let’s move this party to the bedroom. You’re getting a sunburn,” he murmured next to her lips a moment later. His fingertips skimmed the inner swell of her breast. Despite the heat, her nipples tightened. Wearing the skimpy swimsuit, skin that was usually covered was exposed, both to the sun and Dylan’s admiring stares and caressing fingertips.
“That’s your excuse for getting me into bed?” she teased, nipping at his lower lip.
“Do I need an excuse?”
“No, but it’s cocky just to assume.”
He opened a big hand on her hip and ass, his fingertips sinking into a buttock. “I am cocky, though,” he said, and she saw the gleam of his eyes in the shadow of his lowered brow. A thrill went through her. She loved the way he touched her: so possessive. So sure. He never held anything back. “Is this a complaint?”
“No,” she whispered. “Not at the moment, it isn’t. I reserve the right to change my mind though.”
His small smile widened a tad.
“You go ahead. I’m going to clean this stuff up and take it in,” he said, waving at the remains of their meal and wine. “Go and take a quick shower to cool off your skin. I’ll meet you upstairs in a minute. Pull down the covers all the way and lay down on your back,” he said, his eyelids heavy and his stare hot as he looked down at her. “I’m going to restrain you.”
“Any other commands, master?”
His brows slanted. “Quite a few, in fact,” he said, ignoring her sarcasm.
She laughed.
A moment later, she walked along the slate stone path alone through trees, shrubbery, and waving flowers. The workout, two glasses of wine, and the hot sun had her feeling drowsy and content. The pool area was extremely well secluded. When she reached a split on the stone path, she hesitated. They’d taken a different route from the workout facility to the pool. Knowing she’d eventually find her way back no matter what, she chose the left-hand path.
It was the wrong way. She realized that as soon as she heard the waves hitting the shore in the distance. She continued forward, knowing that when she left the trees, she could just walk through the backyard and terraced garden to the house. There was a clearing just ahead.
She emerged from the wooded area, breathing deeply of the fresh breeze. She saw the gray and white cobblestone fence at the very end of the property, and the blue, sea-like Great Lake taking up the entire horizon. A memory popped into her head of seeing Thad, Brooke, and Tory Hastings—another Durand counselor—standing at the edge of the bluff at the fence and down at the lake. She’d seen them in the distance on the evening of the counselors’ welcome to Camp Durand several weeks ago. It’d been the night Dylan had found her, alone and disoriented in the castle’s dining room, convinced she’d heard a gong. Later, she’d stood shoulder to shoulder with Dylan, staring down at the Camp Durand party that took place on the terrace. Thad, Brooke, and Tory had stood at this very fence.
Alice herself had never ventured to the end of the yard or the edge of the bluff. The fence was quite sturdy, though—at least four feet high and nine or ten inches thick. It was a fence made for safety, not a delicate garden ornament. Curious, she stepped forward and cautiously glanced down.
The waves collided against the shore far below her, startling her.
Of course it was all so strange, everything that had happened to her since coming to Camp Durand. But the reality of her singular circumstances seemed to crash in at that moment with as much force as the waves hitting the rocks below.
r /> A feeling of dizziness assailed her. She’d had no idea the bluff was so high up from the shore, or that it was such a drastic drop-off from the edge. Forty or more feet below her, the waves struck an ominous-looking beach of glistening, jagged rock. No wonder she’d never wandered down here. Instinctively, she must have realized that with her fear of heights, it was a very undesirable place to be.
For a few panicked seconds, however, she couldn’t move. She stood frozen, staring down as if hypnotized by the sight of the waves hitting the dramatic, stark shoreline. The sound held her in a spell, too. The rhythmic rush and slap of the waves struck her as forceful and bizarrely intense, given the sublimely beautiful summer day.
Violent.
“Alice?”
She spun around at the sound of Dylan’s voice, the action unsteadying her. She faltered and reached out in a panicked fashion to catch hold of something.
“Ouch,” she cried out when her hand struck a cobblestone hard, and pain shot through her. For a split second, she had the experience of falling in the direction of the shore. The wind rushed in her ears. Vertigo and blind terror struck her.
Then Dylan’s arms were around her and he was pulling her away from the stone wall.
“Are you okay?” he demanded tensely.
Alice stared up at him, knocked utterly off balance. Not just physically. Mentally. Her entire being had rocked there for a moment. She stared over his shoulder, her mouth gaping open. The fence looked perfectly steady and solid. It’d just been her vertigo that made it feel as if it were giving way, and that she was falling.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled. Embarrassment swept through her when she noticed his fierce, anxious expression as he looked down at her.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were going up to the house,” he said sharply.