If I Dream

by K. M. Scott

  “I love it when you look at me like you are now,” he said in a voice edged with need that hit me deep inside.

  “What kind of look is that?”

  “Like everything you need is in me.”

  Although I didn’t know what he saw in my face, that was exactly how I felt when I looked down at him. Ryder offered me refuge from the world of my father and Oliver. In him, I found love and caring I’d never found in any other man.

  “Everything I need is in you, Ryder,” I explained, loving how he smiled when I said that.

  Leaning forward, he kissed a path down over my stomach to my hip, making me tremble with each time he pressed his lips to my skin. His touch was reverent, adoring me more than merely fucking me.

  His hands trailed down over my hips and squeezed for a moment before he spread me wide with his thumbs. Open and vulnerable, I stood watching as a look of desire washed over his face, and then I felt the most exquisite sensations as his mouth began its work on my pussy.

  The tongue that thrilled me when he kissed me just minutes earlier now teased my needy clit with careful and measured movements that made me weak in the knees. I adored that mouth and its ability to deliver such perfect sensations.

  And then when I was sure the next flick of his tongue over my tender clit would send me over the edge, he stopped and moved his mouth to the inside of my thigh. Desperate to come, I whined, “Why did you stop? I was so close.”

  Looking up at me, he smiled. “That’s why I stopped.”

  My mouth turned down in a pout even though I couldn’t say I was angry with him. I knew how much he loved to get me to that point where I was practically begging for him to let me come, and in truth, I loved it too. He read my body perfectly, knowing how to push me to the verge and then how to hold me there, edging me closer and closer to release until my orgasm exploded through me.

  He returned to kissing my leg, concentrating on the tender area near where it met my body and teasing me by being so close to where I so desperately wished he’d go with that beautiful mouth of his. I touched his soft hair, longer now than when I first met him, and delighted at the feel of its silkiness against my fingers. I loved when his hair would touch my cheek on those nights when we’d lay on his bed and talk before I was sent off to Italy. It was a part of him I could have even if the rest of him was out of reach.

  As I remembered those nights, I looked down and saw him watching me as he slowly eased one finger and then two up inside me. Hands that had pummeled opponents and these days took care of my father’s enemies and those who stood in his way gently caressed me in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible. Those fingers that directed such anger and aggression to others worshipped my body, bringing it to the point of no return.

  “Yes…don’t stop, Ryder,” I whispered as he gently thrust two long fingers inside me.

  “I can feel you’re close. Tell me how close you are.”

  I bit my lip knowing that as soon as I told him he’d stop and answered truthfully, “I’m right there. Please don’t stop.”

  But I knew he would. He wanted to make our time last, and a quick fuck like we’d had earlier in the car wouldn’t be enough for either of us. Like me, he wanted to feel that refuge he found in what we were for more than a few seconds.

  Slowly, he slid his fingers out of my body and took them into his mouth, sensually sucking my juices off them. “You taste so fucking good. I can’t wait to bury my face in that pretty cunt of yours. But first, I want to tease you a little more.”

  Tilting my head, I looked down at him as he licked his lips and pouted again. “You’re mean, you know that?”

  “No, I’m not. Not with you.”

  I cupped his cheek and smiled, knowing how much it meant that with me he could be someone other than that brutal man he had to be in every other part of his life.

  Taking my hand, he weaved his fingers through mine and leaned forward to press his lips to me, sending shockwaves through my body. This time, he didn’t want to merely tease me. With his free hand, he slid two fingers into me and began fucking me hard as his mouth sucked and nipped at my clit.

  My legs buckled as my orgasm began to wind through me, and then with one last flick of his tongue over my swollen clit, I came apart and nearly fell back as my head swam from the sensations he expertly produced in me. His hand squeezed mine as the other one stopped me from falling, but he didn’t move his mouth away until the last of those sweet tremors dissipated.

  Sitting back on his heels, he looked up at me like a man satisfied with what he’d done. “That was payback for what you did in the car. And, by the way, you’re lucky I didn’t drive off the road from what you did.”

  Crouching down, I kissed him on the lips and tasted myself on them. “Death by blowjob. Not exactly what most people want written on their headstone.”

  He smiled one of those rare broad smiles he gave me when he was truly happy. “Speak for yourself. I think going out that way would be the best way I could imagine.”

  “Mangled in a car wreck just as you came? I don’t think so.”

  Twisting his face into a grimace, he shrugged. “Okay, maybe that part wouldn’t be so great, but the blowjob part is still one of the best ways to go. Especially from you.”

  I rolled my eyes at his praise and knelt before him. “I love when we get to be like this. No one makes me feel like this but you.”

  Pulling me to him, he kissed me. “It must be real love then.”

  I looked into his eyes and saw the gentleness I’d searched for all my life. “Must be.”

  Whatever this was, it was as real as anything I’d ever felt. As real as the fear I’d lived with every day since I realized what my father was and what he could do to me. As real as the hope that one day I’d escape this world and find what everyone else seemed to take for granted.

  Love, security, and freedom.

  Taking my hand, Ryder stood from the floor and lifted me up. “Time to move this to somewhere more comfortable. Floor sex is great, but my body’s taken too many beatings to do it for too long.”

  As I followed him to his bedroom, I thought about how hard his life had always been. Bringing his hand to my mouth, I pressed a kiss into his palm. He stopped and looked down at me, and I did it again.

  “I thought you should feel kindness to help you forget everything you’ve had done to you.”

  Shaking his head, he said, “I don’t want to forget the beatings. They make the time I get to spend with you even more special. If I forget the beatings, I might take this for granted, and I never want to do that.”

  I unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off his body, seeing firsthand the evidence of the life he didn’t want to forget. Unable to tear my gaze from the scars from those beatings, even hidden in the tattoos that covered his arms, I ran my fingertips over the one near his left shoulder as he stepped out of his pants and tried to imagine the pain that left that mark.

  He pulled me down onto the bed and kissed away my sadness from seeing his pain displayed so clearly on his body. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, even though I hadn’t caused any of it, but with the first slow thrust of his cock into me, all that disappeared, replaced by the sweetest and purest happiness I’d ever felt.

  Only Ryder, a scarred and broken human being like me, could give me that. I couldn’t risk losing him or all he gave me. I wouldn’t.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ryder

  Robert’s office buzzed with activity when I walked in at nine sharp. He didn’t tolerate lateness, so often his employees arrived early, but after spending much of the night holding Serena in my arms and talking about the day the two of us would finally get away from this place, I barely got a shower and dressed in time to make it to work as Robert’s massive grandfather clock struck the hour.

  Looking up from his laptop, he shot me a look that told me he knew exactly how close I’d cut it. “Sleep in this morning, son?”

  For a moment, the fear that he knew
what I’d spent last night actually doing raced through me, but when he punctuated his question with a smile that didn’t resemble his usual crocodile grin, I pushed that thought out of my mind. I doubted he’d be able to joke so casually with me if he knew about Serena and me.

  “Rough night. Too much whisky and not enough sleep, to be honest,” I said as I took a seat in one of the red leather chairs he’d recently bought for right in front of his desk.

  “Well, I need you on your game today, so get some coffee in the kitchen and wake yourself up. It’s an all-hands-on-deck kind of day.”

  Looking around for some clue as to what he meant, I saw the other men he usually kept around shrug as if to say, “We have no fucking clue either.”

  “Okay, boss. I’ll be right back. Can I bring you one too?”

  Robert shook his head, already engrossed in something on his laptop screen, so I headed out to the kitchen and grabbed a cup of coffee. Always unusually strong on Robert’s orders, it never took more than a few gulps to snap my brain out of whatever morning funk affected it.

  Not that I really wanted the caffeine to rouse me from the haze still clouding my brain. My time with Serena softened the hardened edges, making me not so much dulled as kinder. I liked that she brought that out in me, but I knew that Ryder wouldn’t be very good at the jobs her father needed me to do.

  The work version of me had to be part junkyard dog, part professional ambassador for his business dealings. Neither of those allowed for my kinder side.

  By the time I returned to his office a few minutes later, everyone else had left on their assignments for the day. I stood at the door watching Robert as he frantically typed away on his computer and then scowled at what appeared in front of him. Over and over, he repeated this until something finally made him smile, but I knew it couldn’t be anything good.

  Whenever that crocodile smile spread across his face, nothing good ever came from it. That was the sign that someone was in for a world of pain.

  I just hoped it wasn’t Serena or me.

  Still fixated on whatever he was reading on his laptop, he said, “Ryder, sit down. You’re making me uncomfortable in my own damn office standing at the door like some goddamned sentry. I don’t need a bodyguard in my own home.”

  Taking a seat in one of those red leather chairs again, I said, “Sorry. I didn’t want to interrupt. You look like you’re engrossed in something.”

  He looked up and nodded, his mouth turning down in a frown. “I am. In fact, what I’m looking into involves you today.”

  Another spike of fear tore through me. As calmly as possible, I asked, “Me?”

  My question hung heavy in the air as he didn’t answer for a few torturous moments, but then he looked up and nodded in a matter-of-fact way. “Yes, you. I’m going to have you do something for me today. Nothing out of the ordinary. Well, a little, but I have no doubt you’ll be able to handle it.”

  I knew what that meant. I’d be acting as one of his henchmen today, as Serena liked to call those of us whose job was to convince people to see things as Robert wanted them to.

  “Okay. I’m on it.”

  My answer sounded far more enthusiastic than I truly felt. While I didn’t mind roughing people up, I just wasn’t in the mood for putting a beat down on some guy today. Maybe that was because I’d spent the night happily fantasizing with Serena about the future and how someday we’d go far away and begin a brand new life for just the two of us. A dream so full of promise and love, it made me wish for the softer things in life, not the reality of busting some guy’s nose so he’d realize paying Robert was in his best interests.

  As I reminisced about my time with her, Robert continued pounding on the keys, likely writing some nasty email that wouldn’t elicit the right response, which would then lead to me having to do my job. Who would it be today? One of the club owners who never seemed to be able to understand paying the boss wasn’t optional or maybe Floyd over at the Pit?

  Part of me wished it wouldn’t be Floyd. I’d rarely seen him since I stopped fighting, but I held no ill will toward him. He had more sense than most of Robert’s business contacts and paid his money on time. But maybe he’d gotten greedy lately and started skimming off the top again. I knew he’d done it once or twice while I was fighting for him.

  I wouldn’t beat up Floyd, though. I wouldn’t have to. Half my size and nearly double my age, he knew better. He’d spent enough time around fighters to know even those out of the game for a while could still hurt him more than he could handle.

  Finally, Robert closed his laptop and sat back in his chair, a sign he was ready to begin. I sat up in my chair and finished the last of my coffee, wide awake for whatever he planned to have me do.

  “I heard something unsettling last night, but I needed to investigate a number of issues before I did anything in response. I know you and Serena are close, so I want your input on this and then I’ll decide what to do.”

  His mention of Serena made me sure I didn’t want to know the next words to come out of his mouth, but I still forced myself to smile and nod like everything in the world was okay. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

  Knitting his eyebrows, he grimaced. “I’m afraid my daughter isn’t happy with her marriage to Oliver. I’d hoped they’d grow to care for one another, but that hasn’t happened. He clearly likes her. That show of jealousy over you driving her to her sister’s proves that. But he doesn’t seem to understand that all whip and no stroking isn’t going to make that mare do what he wants.”

  I tried to control my face as my expression threatened to morph into something full of disgust at his comparison of Serena to a horse. Thankfully, he appeared too involved in his own thoughts to notice my reaction.

  “That he’s not very good with her disappointed me, but last night pushed it too far. She told me he said his brother told him she was a whore and he was marrying down. I defended him to her because the last thing I need is her getting the idea I don’t support that union, but the more I thought about it, the more it ate at me. Oliver’s brother rubbed me the wrong way the first time I met him, but since he wasn’t marrying Serena, I didn’t let it get in the way of the marriage, but that kind of insult can’t go unanswered.”

  Serena had told me everything Oliver had said to her, including his brother’s claim that she was a whore and that was why no one wanted her. If I could have without risking hurting her, I would have gone over to that fucker’s house and beat the hell out of him when she told me. She’d also told me about her father’s reaction to what her brother-in-law said, and I hadn’t been surprised.

  Nothing mattered as much to Robert as much as business. Not even his daughter’s honor. He wanted part of the Landons’ company, and if that meant he tolerated some shitty talk about Serena, he’d take it because in the long run, he’d get what he wanted.

  That he planned to have me do something in response to these insults surprised me. However, I knew if he intended to have me retaliate for him, it meant he had some trick up his sleeve that would make the Landon brothers understand who they were dealing with in Robert Erickson.

  “So I think it’s time to make a statement, don’t you?” he said, less as a true question than a statement of fact he expected me to agree with.

  “Absolutely.”

  I agreed with him and looked forward to smacking Oliver’s brother around. Hell, if Oliver was still at his house, maybe I’d give him a few shots just because the fuck deserved it.

  “Then take care of him tonight. I’ve found out he usually spends a half-hour or so in his hot tub on the back deck of his estate around eight o’clock, and I’ll make sure his brother doesn’t go anywhere near there tonight. The rest is up to you. Don’t let me down, son.”

  My mouth dropped open in shock. I’d expected Robert to tell me to teach the guy a lesson, not give me the order to get rid of him. Robert never said to take care of someone unless he wanted them dead. I’d only heard that order four or five
times in the entire time I worked for him. Fuck, as vicious as he was, ordering someone to be killed wasn’t something even he did every day.

  Killing Oliver’s brother didn’t bother me so much as surprise me. That was his son-in-law’s family. Striking like that meant Robert wanted to make a real statement to him.

  A statement he wouldn’t misconstrue. Keep mistreating Serena and the next person to go would be him.

  Without another word, Robert opened his laptop and began typing feverishly again. Clearly, he didn’t see any need to elaborate on what he wanted, and I didn’t need to be told twice. I knew my role, and tonight it meant getting rid of the brother of the man I hated more than anyone else in the world.

  I should have felt bad knowing what I had to do. But I didn’t. If anything, I relished the idea. I knew he wasn’t paying for what he’d said about Serena so much as for stepping out of line with Robert, but it didn’t matter all the same.

  I knew what had to be done and I’d do it, just like always.

  Ignoring how much I wanted to message Serena and tell her I loved her before I did what I’d been ordered to, I left the house just before eight and took the Mercedes she and I had used just days before. Even though I made sure to get it detailed afterward, as soon as I closed the door I smelled the scent of her vanilla shampoo. Struck by how that could be the only scent left over from our time together, I passed through the estate’s front gate and began my trip to Jacob Landon’s home.

  I drove the roads there in a daze, my mind filled with thoughts of what Serena and I had talked about the night before. A time when we’d live together and spend each day making one another happy. Nobody to order me to be a killer, and nobody to demand she accept the role of property to be traded from one person to another.

  We knew for now it was more dream than even possibility. Her marriage to Oliver, as much as it was a sham, kept her tied to the estate, but I knew even without him in the picture, she’d still have to overcome incredible odds to get away. Robert had gone from simply being cruel to her to being obsessed with controlling her life, and even if Oliver disappeared, he likely would simply replace him with another man whose business connections offered Robert a chance to improve his own wealth and power.