In His Wildest Dreams

by Marie Treanor

  Her mouth fell open. “A dream?” she repeated, sounding no doubt as stupid as she felt. Had she just spilled far too much information on account of a dream?

  “Told you you wouldn’t believe me.” He closed one eye. “Don’t worry. I keep my dreams to myself.”

  She stared at him. “You’re weird, Glenn Brody.”

  “Yes, I am. But quite safe.”

  She could feel another of those desperate laughs coming on, so she hastily pushed open the door and slid out. He watched her go. “Thanks,” she said, though whether for the lift or the roundabout promise of discretion, she had no idea. She closed the door before she was tempted into further speech, and he drove off.

  Inevitably, almost as soon as she entered her own self-contained flat, her phone rang.

  It was Louise. “Was that Brody himself gave you a lift home?”

  “Yes, it was,” Izzy replied and hastily distracted her friend by adding, “Guess who I met tonight? Fiona Marr herself.”

  “I’ll bet she’s disappointingly plain without the makeup,” Louise remarked.

  “No,” Izzy said with regret. “She really is beautiful.”

  “Want to catch a quick drink at the Auld Hoose? I can nip out for half an hour now, and you don’t often get the opportunity.”

  Neither of them did. Louise had hoped to have a few guests from among the television people, but they all appeared to be staying in Mallaig. And her parents must have been having a good spell.

  “All right,” Izzy said. “I’ll call Morag to meet us there.”

  Chapter Six

  Glenn only realized what time it was when he stood up and stretched in front of his bedroom window and saw that it was daylight. He’d been working most of the weekend on his score for the game company and had finally completed it—all but a few tweaks, which he reckoned would take him a couple of weeks, max. He was well on schedule and pleased enough with the results to have hopes of more commissions. Plus, he’d managed a good load of work on it this weekend, despite the TV people hanging around from time to time.

  Of course, he’d been glad enough to hide away—from the boredom, mainly. But he’d seen on Friday night that they all knew something of his history. It wasn’t a surprise. Fiona Marr had clocked him on their first visit—his picture had been in all the papers when he was arrested ten years ago, and again when he was released—and she wouldn’t have been human if she’d kept it to herself.

  Glenn had long ago given up hiding from himself or anyone else. He’d found he could make that work for him. Even this weekend, when he’d run into the wary Ms. Marr, he’d amused himself by being particularly courteous and confounding her views of a Glasgow hoodlum.

  It must have been after nine, he realized, as he saw Izzy hurrying across the front terrace. She seemed to be constantly in a rush to get here and then to get away again. He half hoped she’d glance upward and see him. She might wave, as a friend would. Or run screaming from the stalker.

  It hadn’t taken him long to find out who she was. A Google search, albeit a very thorough one, had found the five-year-old newspaper announcement of the marriage of Anna Ross to Raymond Kemp the financier and all-round businessman.

  Or at least that was what the newspapers called him. In Barlinnie, they knew better. If she’d crossed him, no wonder she was hiding.

  She hurried inside without looking up. Just as well.

  Glenn yawned and pulled his sweater and T-shirt off in one unit. He dropped them on the floor, stepped out of his jeans and fell naked into bed. He was asleep as soon his head touched the pillow…

  Perhaps it wasn’t surprising he dreamed of her. He’d just seen her, just been thinking of her. And he hadn’t had any waking dreams for days—if you didn’t count the one totally unrelated to Izzy where, by the orange glow of firelight, he’d watched a woman’s hand hide some kind of leather-covered packet behind the loose stone of a wall. He’d dismissed that one instantly; he wasn’t interested in any dreams that weren’t of Izzy.

  Once, the waking dreams had been rare. They’d troubled him only once in every couple of months on average, often much less. But since coming here to Ardknocken House, Izzy had been such a frequent visitor to his head that, despite the raging torment of his body, he missed her.

  So when he opened his eyes and the autumn sunlight had changed direction, altering the shadows within the room, he was ready in more ways than one. She wasn’t in his arms, but she was bending down right next to the bed, her shapely rear only inches from his face. He reached out and pulled her onto the bed, locking his mouth to hers.

  She’d cleaned his room on Friday. It wasn’t his turn again. Nor was it yet midday, her favoured time for bedroom cleaning. But after dealing with the weekend mess in the dining room, she deliberately hauled the vacuum cleaner upstairs and marched straight to his bedroom. The door was ajar as it tended to be, but she knocked loudly.

  Please be in… It was a decision she’d made over the weekend. She needed to talk to him, to make sure he understood. If necessary, she thought she could trust him. She wanted to trust him, even though trusting criminals was what had got her into this mess in the first place. Only Ray still denied he was one. And maybe, if that lawyer was right, Glenn had never really been one.

  Only silence came from inside. She knocked again, more loudly. “Mr. Brody?”

  She’d called him Glenn on Friday night. Twice. But a more formal approach seemed sensible when entering his bedroom to ask for a favour. On the other hand, he obviously wasn’t there to hear. Sighing, she went in anyway. He might be on the roof garden, she acknowledged. Or he could come back while she was working. If he didn’t, she’d just work on this floor until he did. Or clean the music studio if there was time.

  She dropped the Hoover just inside the room. The door to the roof garden stood open, but before she even got as far as that, some faint sound from the bed drew her eyes there instead.

  Shit. He was sound asleep. A mound of quilt with a naked shoulder against the pillows.

  Her heart thundered in her breast. At the base of her throat, she felt her pulse galloping, and swallowed to try to slow it down. This was where she should leave. Turn and tiptoe from the room, and he’d never know she’d been.

  But the still, sleeping figure drew her like a magnet. Sheer, unforgivable curiosity, just to see what he looked like asleep. Somewhere, she had a vague idea that it would solve the enigma of Glenn Brody, if she could just see his unconscious face when he couldn’t hide, pretend or bamboozle. He would just be Glenn.

  She walked slowly toward the bed, still trying to talk herself out of it. What if he woke and saw her staring? It was too late to run. She’d seen him.

  He looked as if he hadn’t shaved all weekend. His hair had come only partially loose from the elastic band he normally bound it with, and it fell softly around his hard, scarred face like an incongruous picture frame. His eyelashes, unexpectedly long and dark, fanned across his cheeks like a child’s. Still and peaceful, he’d curled half on his side, one naked, muscled arm flung outside the quilt as if he needed to feel even the cold air from the open window while he slept.

  She wanted to touch the bulge of his biceps, run her fingers up and over the broad, muscular shoulder. She wanted to trace the line of his lips, softened in sleep, with her fingertips. For a long moment, she couldn’t move. Because in his own unique, entirely male way, he was beautiful, despite the scar, or even because of it—it all made him Glenn. And because she wanted so badly to be there with him, to feel those strong arms around her, making her safe, making her wild with passion. She’d just bet he knew how to pleasure a woman with that body, with those big, sexy hands and that enticing, sensual mouth…

  How can I want him so much when I barely know him?

  Because I haven’t let myself look at a man in three years. More, if you counted the last year with Ray. And because she w
as lonely and randy and somehow, in spite of everything she knew about Glenn, he was just…hot.

  And she was behaving like a stalker. Ashamed suddenly, she bent to pick up his clothes from the floor, as if that had been her sole purpose in coming in. Before she could straighten, an arm closed around her like a vise, hauling her upward and dragging her under the hot male body on the bed.

  Before she’d even taken it in, Glenn Brody’s mouth closed over hers and ravished it.

  If he hadn’t taken her quite so much by surprise, she might have fought him off. She might. Even lusting after him as she undoubtedly did, she was only too aware of the dangers on so many levels of any kind of involvement. So she might. Stunned as she was, she didn’t stand a chance. Not after the first touch of his lips.

  Right away, he delved deep inside her mouth, demanding, taking like a starving man. She’d never felt such hunger in a kiss, and yet there was nothing brutal about it. It battered her with tenderness, with utter sensuality, while his erection, unmistakably huge and rigid, fitted between her denim-covered thighs and stroked. His arms, just as powerful as she’d imagined, held her close, his hands in her hair.

  Her mouth had fallen helplessly open under the onslaught of his, but it was impossible to remain passive under the weight of his passion and her own rampaging lust. She slid her tongue along his and caressed his lips with her mouth. Her hands clutched his shoulders, at first, perhaps, to hold him off, but if so, not for very long. She pushed her fingers into his hair, loving the softness and the way she could then pull his mouth even deeper. She ran her hands over the spiky stubble on his face and neck and down over his rippling shoulders and back, and with her every touch, he moved in instant response. His chest grazed her breasts, his back undulated under her fingers and his cock stroked and stroked against her pussy until she knew she could come from this alone.

  She moaned with the need, with the sheer, unthinking, physical delight of being held, almost worshipped…

  “Oh, this is good,” he whispered against her lips, trailing his fingers down her throat, over her sweater to close on her breast. She gasped, and he seemed to drink in her pleasure. “I can do what I like to you…” His lips sank back into hers, and she gave them eagerly, almost toppling over the edge of bliss at the vision offered by his words.

  She wanted her clothes gone now. To hold his totally naked person to her entirely clothed body had its own peculiarly arousing qualities, but it was time, surely, for skin on skin. To have him inside her, oh God yes…

  Unless he just wanted to drag his cock over her covered pussy one more time first… She’d come. She’d really come, and it would be so delicious…

  He stilled. Slowly, he detached his mouth from hers and gazed down into her face. Although his eyes were clouded with the storm of lust, he was thinking again. And anxious. Surely anxious.

  He said, “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

  She stared. Unable to speak, she simply shook her head.

  “Oh fuck. I’m sorry.”

  She tried to speak, swallowed, then said hoarsely, “For the swearing or the kissing?”

  “Both.”

  It felt like a knife in the gut. At least he seemed to feel it too, for he drew in a breath that definitely shuddered.

  “Well, actually,” he corrected himself, “I can’t be sorry for the kissing, because I liked it too much. On the other hand, you probably want to beat me over the head with stones, which I am sorry about.” He bowed his head, giving her access, but since the action only brought his face far too close to her breasts, he quickly raised it again.

  She tried to laugh, and at the vibration of her body, his breath caught.

  “When I get off you, will you run or scream?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I came to talk to you in private,” she managed. Her voice barely shook at all. “Although I must admit I didn’t envision anything quite this intimate.”

  “Sorry,” he said again, still not moving. “Mornings are bad for me.”

  “But good for your lover,” she said and then squeezed her eyes shut in horror. Oh shit, did I really say that?

  He was silent. She could feel his heart beating against her breast, quick and strong. Beneath her jeans, her knickers were soaked with sexual arousal, and despite her embarrassment, it was still happening. If he kissed her again, she was lost.

  Kiss me again.

  “You flatter me,” he said at last. She opened her eyes to see if he was laughing at her. He might have been. It was too hard to tell when his eyes were misted still with his morning lust. It wasn’t personal. She wished it was personal, so that she didn’t feel quite this embarrassed, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to push him off. They both knew, she suspected, that all she had to do was lift one finger and he’d go. But neither of them moved.

  He stirred slightly, his chest rubbing against her breasts. She couldn’t prevent her gasp, and instantly, he stilled once more.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said. “I know I should roll over there, as far away as I can get without flashing you. After which you should quietly leave and we’ll talk later—in the garden, or somewhere else cold.”

  He stopped, his gaze dropping to her lips, setting off a fresh batch of those tingling butterflies in the pit of her stomach.

  “The thing?” she reminded him.

  “Yes. The thing is, I keep playing another scenario in my mind, and I can’t bring myself to leave it until you tell me. Or hit me.”

  I’m not even going to ask…

  But he told her anyway. “I could stay where I am,” he said. “I could take off all your clothes and kiss you some more. I could make love to you here, in front of the open window and the sea, with the sun streaming in on our backs.”

  Oh God, yes. Everything in her leapt. Bliss. She’d know bliss with him, and in such a way…

  What way? The one where he doesn’t care if you’re Izzy, or Chrissy, or some floozy he picked up in a bar? The way you’re just an available hole for that impressive erection? Get a life and some self-respect.

  She twisted her head to one side, in an effort to escape herself more than him. And the next instant, his weight was gone. He and the quilt were a foot away from her. She sat up and slid off the bed on trembling legs.

  “Good decision,” he said. “Though it went against me. What did you want to say?”

  “Nothing,” she said incoherently. “Nothing. I’ll come back when you’re gone.”

  Somehow she got herself out of the room, dragging the vacuum cleaner with her, and closed the door. Just for a second, she had to lean against it, to grasp that she was out of there, with all the fury and disappointment and relief that entailed. She drew two long breaths meant to calm her, and on the second, she suddenly feared she was being watched.

  She snapped her unseeing gaze down from the ceiling, scanning the hall and the open doorways and the stairs. She couldn’t see or hear anyone, but her skin still prickled. With shame, probably, because of what had gone—or not gone—before. Certainly all was quiet here. The only sound came from inside the bedroom. His bed creaked, which was enough to set her scampering across the hall to the one bedroom on this floor that she’d missed on Friday. She knocked loudly and went in. This time, she checked out the empty bed from the safety of the doorway.

  When she’d gone, Glenn punched the pillow hard, then buried his face in it, willing some of the blood in his rigid cock to filter back to his brain before he bored a hole in the mattress.

  What the hell had he been thinking of? So he’d made a mistake, thinking she was a dream and dragging her into his bed. But even when he’d realized his mistake, he hadn’t let her go. He’d stayed there, naked between her legs, just because it was a sweet place to be and he really didn’t want to move off her deliciously hot, soft body. It had been a long time. A fuck of a long time. But that was no excuse to pro
position the girl. She worked for him. She’d come to ask his help, and he’d grabbed her, groped her and insulted her.

  That she was insulted, he couldn’t doubt, and deeply enough to far outweigh whatever initial pleasure—or mere surprise—she’d felt in his arms. She’d probably been too scared of him to push him off until he really pissed her off by inviting her to stay, because he was always randy in the mornings. Or perhaps she’d been appalled from the beginning, and he’d just been too drunk on blind lust to see it.

  He groaned into the pillow. He’d never had a chance with Izzy Ross. He’d always known that. But to have so thoroughly fucked up all chance of friendship or even mere cooperation between them—that was a spectacular achievement, considering he’d only been awake ten minutes.

  As if to get away from the scene of his crime, he all but threw himself out of bed and into the bathroom. Cold shower time. If only the rest of his difficulties could be dealt with as easily.

  When she glanced in through the library door, no one was there. Since it had filled up with the TV equipment, the residents seemed to be avoiding it, and there was no sign of the crew. Chrissy had said they were collecting shots of the village and the road up to the house. So, making the most of their absence, Izzy hauled the vacuum cleaner in and set about dusting the shelves.

  Although the room seemed different now, the atmosphere still drew her. She hoped the peace would heal her shattered nerves, stop her mind replaying the scene in Brody’s bedroom over and over. The trouble was, this kind of work didn’t engage the brain, and although she worked almost feverishly, dusting, vacuuming, polishing in between cameras, computers and God knew what all the other contraptions were, she couldn’t abolish the vision of Glenn Brody’s lustful face looming above hers, his broad, naked shoulders rippling with muscle as he held her close.

  “What troubles you so, my daughter?”

  Izzy froze, her duster in one hand, the book she’d moved to polish beneath, in the other. She turned and looked carefully around the room for the disembodied female voice. Her heart drummed.