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bathroom that hadn’t been here before, then a door at the end of the short hallway. She walked toward it, wondering what was behind the door. Probably just a storage room, but he didn’t really need more storage with a large area with shelves behind a door on the other side of the rec room.
    Maybe it was a home theater. Or a room with a pool table. But some instinct told her it was neither of those things. She reached for the doorknob, fully expecting that it would be locked.
    The doorknob turned.
    Of course. Why would Zane keep it locked? He lived alone.
    She pushed the door open and peered inside. She found a light switch on the wall beside the door and flicked it. Lights turned on, but not a bright overhead light. Instead, mood lighting that cast a shadowy light on what she could only describe as a dungeon.
    She stepped inside, the door closing behind her, and gazed around at the gray stone walls. There was a big leather chair and couch in deep burgundy leather and rough-hewn, wooden furniture in the room—a tall armoire and various other benches and padded wooden furniture she wasn’t sure of.
    Then the glint of steel on the wall caught her eye. There were sturdy steel rings protruding from the wall, with thick metal cuffs dangling from chains.
    God, what was this place?
    She walked to the chains and touched one of the cold, hard cuffs. They were positioned just right to chain a person to the wall.
    It looked like Zane was into some pretty kinky stuff.
    As that unsettling notion crept through her brain, she thought she heard something and glanced around. She sucked in a breath, realizing how eerie it was in this dimly lit room in the far reaches of the basement. She heard another sound, and swung round to face the door, just as it burst open. Zane stormed in, his face a storm cloud of anger.
    She sucked in a breath of relief,
    “Chelsea, what the hell… I didn’t know where you were.”
    “You knew I couldn’t be far,” she retorted. “You haven’t really given me a choice to leave.” She raised an eyebrow. “Or did you think I’d decided to walk to town?”
    “I wouldn’t put it past you,” he said as he approached, like a panther stalking its prey. “And with the downpour outside… and the lightning…”
    He knew she didn’t like lightning. That she used to hide away in her room. He didn’t know that she used to sometimes come into the basement, so she couldn’t see or hear the thunder and lightning.
    But back then there’d been nothing like this room down here.
    “I wanted to get away from the lightning.” She didn’t know why she revealed that to him.
    He stepped closer. “I’m sorry.” Concern etched his face. “I didn’t mean to leave you alone in a storm. I know how much they bother you.”
    He hadn’t said that she was afraid of them. He hadn’t diminished her by making her sound like a fearful child.
    “It’s okay. I can take care of myself.”
    His gaze searched hers, the depth of concern in his cobalt blue eyes unsettling.
    “I kept thinking of you outside, wandering through the woods, with the lightning flashing and the boom of the thunder…I didn’t like to think of you alone and dealing with that.”
    “I would be perfectly capable of dealing with the situation.”
    He ran his hand from her elbow to her wrist. “You’re trembling.”
    She stepped back to put distance between them, but he followed. The stone cold wall pressed against her back.
    “It’s cold down here. I think we should go upstairs,” she said.
    But he didn’t budge, his big, masculine body trapping her against the wall.
    “I think we should talk about our relationship.”
    She tried to step sideways so she could dodge around him, but he grasped her arm.
    “Are you going to keep running away from this, Chelsea?” he demanded.
    “I’m not running. I just want to go upstairs,” she insisted.
    “The storm’s still pretty bad.”
    She hesitated at the thought of flickering fire flashing across