‘Have I ever asked you to come running? It was you who wanted this meeting today. The arrangement you suggest sounds like a perfect solution to our little problem. I seem to have lost my appetite. Do please excuse me. By all means stay and finish your meal. You are, after all, the executor of my estate.’
I shot up from my seat and would have stalked off in a fit of temper, but his hand shot out and caught my wrist. My anger fled and all that was left was a deep, deep wound. I didn’t want to fight with him. I had enough enemies. I didn’t need him to be my enemy too. The truth was I was so alone and a little frightened. I stared down at him and tried to control the dam of emotions inside me. As much as I tried I could not stop my eyes from filling with stupid tears. They rolled down my face.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ he said and, standing up roughly, pulled me against his hard body.
I was so shocked I stopped crying. Inside me strange things started happening. My heart was suddenly beating faster. My fingers curled into the crisp material of his shirt. I looked up at him wide-eyed.
‘Oh, shit,’ he groaned.
‘What is it?’ I whispered.
He cleared his throat and, releasing my hand, moved away from me. He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Look, I’m sorry about what I said. I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course, you must come to me with all your problems.’
Oh my God. I wanted him to kiss me. I looked at him stunned. I felt confused. At the place we found ourselves.
He pushed his hand through his hair again. ‘I really should go. Thanks for the meal and I’m sorry it turned out this way.’ Without looking at me he turned and started to stride out of the dining room.
‘Ivan,’ I called.
His head swiveled back, his face only half-lit.
‘About Rosalind and …’
‘Legally they don’t have a leg to stand on, but stay well away from them. They’re poison,’ he said harshly.
Suddenly it seemed very important that he left on good terms. ‘I plan to. They give me a serious case of the creeps,’ I said, and pretended to shudder so exaggeratedly it must have made me look a downright fool.
An involuntary smile slipped onto his lips. ‘Right. Call if me you need me,’ he said.
‘You are my friend, aren’t you, Ivan?’ I asked. I don’t know why I asked. Maybe I just couldn’t bear him to leave yet.
‘Friend?’ He laughed, a hollow sound. ‘Yeah, sure I’m your friend. The best fucking friend you have. Goodnight, Tawny.’
Chapter 9
Tawny Maxwell
I slept badly and woke up feeling restless and dissatisfied. After a big breakfast of toast, ham, eggs, pancakes smothered in butter and jelly and coffee, I dressed in my riding gear and went outside. There had been more snow during the night, and the top layer was perfect powder. There was a freezing chill in the air, and above me the sky was an uninterrupted clear blue.
Thin frozen puddles by the entrance of the stables crackled under my winter boots. Jack, the groom, had already saddled up my horse, Dutch. Jack’s ears were reddened with the cold.
‘Thanks, Jack,’ I said, looking at Dutch with real pleasure. He was such a beauty, slender limbed and glossy as silk. I could see his breath come up in great puffs in the freezing chill of the air. I took a sugar cube out of my pocket and held it in the palm of my hand. His breath felt lovely and warm and his lips scraped my skin.
‘It’s cold so don’t work him too hard now,’ Jack cautioned.
‘I won’t,’ I said, nuzzling my face into Dutch’s cold fur and listening to the sugar crunch between his teeth.
‘Great. Give us a shout when you get back,’ he said.
I climbed onto Dutch, gave him a pat on the neck, and picked up his reins. I shifted my weight and dug my heels into his sides and he took my lead perfectly, and began to trot, his mane bouncing with each stride. In perfect rhythm we went out into the frigid, ice-kissed world.
The leaves and berries in the bushes were bejeweled with frost. No one had disturbed the snow and except for a few fox marks it lay in a pristine layer on the ground. I looked at the beauty around me, breathed in the still silence, and felt pure joy. Dutch too seemed pleased to be out.
We had travelled peacefully for about fifteen minutes when my skin began to tingle. Not from cold. It was an unfamiliar sensation. My hands felt as if they were numb and yet so sensitive I could feel the blood throbbing inside the vessels. I squeezed my hands into fists.
However, the odd feeling persisted.
Then my head started to feel light and strange. Concerned, I slid off Dutch and my boots sunk into the snow. I held on to Dutch and tried to understand what was happening to me. The tingling in my hands spread to my arms and culminated in a delicious warm glow all through my body and brain.
I should have been frightened, but I wasn’t. How could I? It felt incredible. I felt as if I could taste the air. It tasted clean and I could actually feel the oxygen in the air I was breathing. Every little movement and thought made me extremely happy. Everything felt good to touch. Even my clothes against my skin was pleasurable. I rubbed my face against the fur lining on my collar and it felt as if I was not rubbing a strip of dead fur, but the indescribably soft warm fur of a baby chincilla that was alive and curled around my neck.
I experienced the beauty around me the way I had never before done. I started to feel as if I was one with the landscape, as if I knew how the trees and animals felt. We were all one organism. It was, you know, peace and love. At that moment I loved every single person on earth. I guess I was being in the moment. There was no yesterday and no tomorrow. There was only now, where everything was perfect.
I saw the most gorgeous squirrel run down a tree and come towards me. He stopped about ten feet away. The little creature’s eyes were so bright and alive I felt as if he was my special mate.
I dug around in my jacket and tried to share my cookie with him. I was disappointed to the point of tears when his beautiful bright eyes stared greedily at the cookie in my hand, but he refused to come closer.
I became sure that the reason he was refusing to come to me was because I had once eaten squirrel meat.
‘Look, I’m really sorry,’ I told him. To my ears my voice sounded high and cartoon like. I paused, giggled, and continued. ‘Now that I know you I’ll never do such a thing again.’
I threw the cookie towards him. He scampered away at first and then came back to snatch the cookie and rush away back up a tree. Sitting on a branch, he began to nibble at the cookie. I laughed so hard I had to hold my belly. His antics seemed to me the funniest thing in the world. To my delight it started to snow again. Big, fat flakes. What grace. What elegance. I opened my mouth and they melted on my tongue. Delicious. Absolutely delicious. I lifted my face to the heavens, and with my hands outstretched, I twirled around just savoring the marvelous sensation. It made me dizzy and I fell to the ground. Feeling deliriously happy, I stared up at the white sky.
One moment I was eating snow and laughing, and the next I was a snow-covered lump in the bleak landscape. I don’t know how long had passed. I was conscious I was becoming cold, but my legs felt funny and I didn’t trust myself to ride home. Anyway, the horse was nowhere to be seen.
I should call someone, but the only person my buzzing brain wanted to call was Ivan. He had such a sexy mouth. I remembered again the way he had looked at me for that one second during dinner last night, and I was determined that I really, really, really should kiss those lips. At least once.
I fumbled around in my coat pocket, found my phone, and peered at the screen. The colors on my screen seemed so bright. Strange but I couldn’t remember his number. Finally, I managed to locate it in my phone. I hit the call button and missed. That seemed funny and I giggled and tried again.
Yes. Result.
But it rang out.
I put my phone back into my pocket and looked up at the sky. Wow! Psychedelic man! I lay back on the soft snow and smiled.
/> ‘You missed out, Ivan,’ I said into the silent air, and nearly jumped out of my skin when my phone suddenly rang.
‘Shit,’ I exclaimed, sitting up and grabbing my phone.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘You called,’ Ivan said. His voice made me feel really happy.
‘I think you have a really, really, really sexy mouth,’ I told him.
For a few seconds there was pure silence and a quick intake of breath. Then his voice came down the line, as mad as a wet hen. ‘You dragged me out of a meeting to tell me that?’
‘I just wanted you to know. Just in case you didn’t,’ I sang, oblivious to his irritation.
‘Tawny?’ he said quietly.
‘Yes?’
‘Where are you?’ His voice was cautious.
‘I think I might be about five minutes away from Jupiter house.’
This time the silence stretched even longer.
‘Robert told me all about your tree house,’ I explained.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Well, I think someone at the house spiked my drink with ecstasy, and I’m totally off my cake, but otherwise I am just fantastic.’
‘What?’ he barked suddenly in the receiver.
I jerked the phone away. Whoa, his voice had been like a mini explosion just outside my ear. ‘It’s all right,’ I said with a laugh. ‘I have popped a pill once before so I’m not frightened or anything.’
‘Tawny, are you dressed warmly?’ he asked urgently.
‘Oh yes,’ I said confidently.
‘Good. Do you think you could last out there for another hour?’
‘Sure. I was thinking of walking back to the house.’
‘No,’ he said urgently. ‘Listen to me. Don’t go back to the house. Can you see the tree house from where you are?’
‘Yup.’
‘Can you make it there?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be able to?’
‘Good. Can you go there, close the little trapdoor and wait for me?’
‘Yeah, I can do that.’
‘Great. You will be out of the elements. Call me when you reach it, OK?’
‘OK,’ I said breezily.
‘Be careful,’ he said.
‘I will.’
‘Go on. Get moving.’
I stood up unsteadily. ‘Whoa.’
‘What?’ he growled.
‘Nothing. Just gravity problems.’ And that seemed funny to me and I began to laugh uproariously.
‘Fucking hell, Tawny. Get a hold of yourself.’
‘OK, OK. No need to shout. I’m on my way,’ I said, wanting to feel grumpy, but totally unable to. He was sweet that Ivan. Real sweet. I could eat him. I smiled to myself. He didn’t know that I had a thing for him. I stopped short. Did I? Nah. He was not for me. He should be with a woman, what was her name again. Oh yeah, Chloe. I bet she read Robbs Report every month. I know Rosalind reads it. Robert said he never wanted me to read such a magazine.
‘It’s for snobs who want to find out the most snobbish way of spending their money,’ he used to say.
I trudged through the snow, falling a few times, until I reached the tree house. My ears were numb and the bitter cold had seeped into my gloves, numbing my fingers until they were so thick and stiff I could not bend them properly.
How I climbed the tree was a miracle in itself. But somehow, despite my shaky legs, I managed to get to it. Using my already frigid hands, I scooped the snow drift away from the rough wooden door and used my body to wedge it open. I crawled in and closed the door. I curled up in the opposite corner and, although there was a draft that oozed in from under the door, it was much warmer inside Jupiter. I must have dozed off again because the next thing I knew someone was calling my name.
‘Here,’ I called. ‘I’m here.’
And then Ivan was there. He was scowling, but I looked at his lips and I wanted to kiss him. I reached out and, hooking my hand around his neck, pulled him down until his mouth was inches from mine.
‘My, my, what a lovely boy you are, but one kiss, and I could turn you into a man,’ I whispered.
I saw his eyes darken.
‘One kiss … and oh, oh, you’ll never want to leave.’
Then I kissed him. His lips were full of magic, a warm curse, that is until he grabbed my forearms and pushed me away, but oh, boy, oh boy, that was the best and most incredible kiss of my entire life.
I stared up at him in wonder. ‘You’re such a great kisser. Are you from New Orleans?’ I asked in a hushed awed voice, as if I was imparting some great cosmic secret to him.
‘God, you’re fucked,’ he said.
‘Profoundly fucked,’ I corrected him, my voice slurring.
Then I passed out.
Lord Greystoke
I looked down at her blue-tinged lips on the dusty, rough wood floor of my old tree-house and felt like upper-cut punching the coward who had done that to her. I took it personally. As if every inch of her body belonged to me and some god-dammed bastard had harmed what was mine.
I felt such fury that it drove me to tears. It actually filled my eyes and leaked down my face. I swiped them away with my palms. Fucking hell! Where did that come from? Never thought I had it in me to care that much for a woman. Let alone the gold digger!
Easy, Ivan. You’ve never met anybody like her.
I knew I needed to get her somewhere warm fast so I concentrated on that. But I swore that if it was the last fucking thing I did, I would find the worthless piece of shit/shits who did that to her and get even.
Fuck it to hell. Robert gave her to me.
Chapter 10
Tawny Maxwell
When I came to I was alone in a huge bed, in a room I had never seen before. The heavy curtains had been pulled shut and it was very dim, but I could make out that it was large with high ceilings and sparsely furnished. I sat up and listened intently. Nothing. It was dead quiet. No music. No sound of human activity.
I shouldn’t really have been frightened, but because I had no idea where I was and I felt so disorientated, I became suddenly petrified. How did I get here? Who brought me here? What was their intention? Was I someone’s prisoner? The fear totally changed the trip of the drug I had been given. It was like going from thirty miles an hour to one hundred and fifty. The wonderful high from when I was outdoors in the snow felt like a dream.
I felt my heart start beating so hard and fast that I could hear it. My breath came out in short sharp gasps. Then my hands began to tremble uncontrollably. I looked at them in horror. Indescribably frightened and horrified at what was happening to my body, I curled up into a tight, shivering ball, and peered out into the gloom. I was absolutely and inexplicably convinced that monsters were going to come out of the darkness.
Suddenly my petrified gaze was pulled to one corner of the room. I thought I had seen movement. With my heart racing like a mad thing, I fixed my eyes in that bit of gloom, and to my horror I found that there was a crack in the wall … and oh God! The crack was growing, becoming bigger and bigger. Inside the crack were moving shadows. A cold wind blew through it.
I suddenly understood its significance.
The crack was a door to another dimension and something was trying to come through, but I knew without any doubt whatever it was, it was not a good thing.
I wanted to stand up and run out of the room, but I had no control over my body. It was locked solid in its fetal position. Frozen with unnameable terror and dread I stared at the widening gap. Suddenly I heard a scuttling noise, an eerie scratching.
Oh sweet Jesus! It was coming!
I wanted to scream for help, but my mouth was numb and useless. All I could do was stare helplessly at the gap in the wall.
Something was coming.
Another scratching sound. This time closer. Louder. It sounded like nails or claws.
I began to pray fervently. I had never been so afraid.
Then it popped out.
The squirrel.
/>
My eyes bulged with surprise. The squirrel I had given the cookie to? No, this one was different. This one had fierce eyes. I knew instantly without being told that it was related to the squirrel I had eaten all those years ago. It was hopping mad at me. It began to grow. Until it morphed into Rosalind!
She advanced into the room and looked around with crazy, bulging eyes. Spotting me cowering in the bed, she gave a murderous howl of rage and began swaying like some kind of demon from a horror movie towards me. My teeth chattered and my whole body was shaking with abject fear.
I wanted to beg her not to hurt me, but I could not. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would burst. I had never felt such fear. She was coming closer and closer. Silent tears started to pour down my face. This was it. I was going to die. Killed by my stepdaughter. Somehow I managed to force open my mouth and let out a scream.
The door to the room flew open and a man came in. Instantly the squirrel disappeared into the crack and the crack began to close. I turned gratefully towards the man who had come in, but he had a mean face and he was nearly as tall as the ceiling. He was saying something, but his voice was so distorted it sounded like a demonic wail.
I was very frightened of him, because there was no doubt in my mind his plan was to hurt me. It was clear that he had brought me here to hurt me.
I opened my mouth and screamed for Ivan.
He suddenly strode towards me and cradled me in his arms. The gesture surprised me. He was the bad guy. What was he doing? I felt cold. So cold that my teeth were chattering. His body was warm and though he was the enemy I snuggled up to his splendid warmth.
He said something and I knew it was urgent, but I could not make the words out. The edges of his face were blurred. I tried to form words, but even to my ears they sounded like the sound of wind wailing in the distance.
‘Mommy,’ I yelled.
He said something else, but I still I couldn’t understand him.
‘I want my Mommy,’ I begged.
The stranger rocked me in his arms and crooned something, but the words ran into each other so I couldn’t understand a word he said.
The Bad Boy Wants Me: A Bad Boy Romance Page 28
