As You Wish (15 page)

Her head hurt, and her stomach rebelled at the thought of food. “I’m fine. We can eat in the kitchen. It’s more comfortable. I’m going to go upstairs and change.”

“What do you want for dinner? I’m sure any place in the city will deliver to this address.” He followed her to the foot of the stairs. “Or I could go get something. Do you want me to go get something?

“Just get a pizza. Call the number on the refrigerator. They know what I like.” Patricia dragged herself up the stairs. It should have been easy to tell David to forget it, and if she had been born to any other family, she could have. But she couldn’t dismiss her late parents’ wishes and that
“To those whom much is given, much is expected.”

* * * *

Ryan leaned on the stone wall at the back of the patio, spying on them through the window. Some small, sane part of his mind whispered that he shouldn’t be here and he shouldn’t have the keys to the house in his pocket. That small voice was overwhelmed by his need to know. He pretended he wasn’t waiting to see if she was making a fool of him, but he couldn’t convince himself. Had she been honest with him yesterday, or was she stringing him along?

Screened by bushes, he’d watched them while they talked in the great hall and then while they ate dinner in the kitchen. By the time they’d moved back to the great hall, darkness made hiding in the bushes needless.

Patricia seemed to be listening to David’s plea, but his flowers still lay on the table inside the door. In all the time he’d been watching, she hadn’t smiled or laughed at anything David said. Instead she’d rubbed her temples and bitten her sweet lips. She’d also picked at her food while David appealed his case over pizza. That had to be good. She wasn’t being fooled. But she also hadn’t told David to leave.

Ryan had known the disaster was coming, but he hadn’t realized it would be so soon.

How could she be falling for that guy’s line? Rita called David a slimeball, and so far it fit. Couldn’t Patricia see the greedy glint in his eyes when he looked around the estate? So what if he had the right color blood?

Why can’t she love me that way?
Ryan knew why. He’d never been the kind of boy you took home to mother. And when home was a huge manor and mother was an entire city named after your forefathers…

He’d never be good enough for Patricia. Not unless he died and came back as a Rockefeller. At least she wanted him. Yesterday that had been enough.

Inside the great hall, they settled on the couch, and David kissed Patricia.

Ryan gripped the stones behind him. He wanted to crush the granite to powder. David slipped his hands around Patricia’s back, pulling her close while he tasted her slender neck. Why didn’t she push him away? Did she want his kisses? Her head turned, allowing David greater access to her silken throat and the throbbing pulse just below her skin. Ryan remembered exactly what her skin tasted like. She wore a sweet hazy expression on her face.

Bitterness choked him. Would he have to stand here and watch David make love to his Patricia? Or would David take her upstairs to her big white bed and make love to her there? Would they leave the lights on so Ryan could watch the lit window all night, imagining what went on behind the glass? Frustration coursed through him. Yesterday she had been in his arms. She had begged for his kisses. Why did it have to be gone so soon?

* * * *

Patricia held herself very still. This didn’t feel right at all. David’s grip wasn’t strong and sure. His lips weren’t soft and insistent. He was awkward, clumsy, inept. “Wait,” she whispered.

“You’re so beautiful. So beautiful and desirable.”

His tone held a note of begging. She tried to make some kind of sense of what was happening. What was that word? “Cease.”

“Please, Patricia. I love you. I’ll be so sweet for you. For the rest of your life, your wish will be my command.”

She tried to pull back, but he followed her. He had said he would always stop if she told him to. He had promised, and he’d kept all his promises. It was the magic word. “I said cease.” Struggling to pull farther away, she found herself tumbling over backward. Vertigo caught her and spun her around. She pressed her hands against his shoulders to push him away, but she didn’t have any strength, and his shoulders were too narrow.

This wasn’t Ryan. “David, stop,” she ordered.

David flinched, reeling backward. His hair was mussed, and he looked confused.

Patricia stood up, pulling her clothing back into order. Her skin felt overwarm but not from his touch. The entire room teetered, and spots crawled across the walls. She tried to put a hand on the arm of the sofa to steady herself, but it was miles away. “I think you should go.”

“Patricia, I’m so sorry.” David stood up also, facing her from the opposite end of the couch.

“You say that a lot.” Patricia heard the echo of Ryan in her words. He’d said it Saturday night in the parking garage. The floor had turned to shifting sand.

“I know. It’s just that when I get close to you, it’s so hard to control myself.” He reached out to her. “Please forgive me.”

“Of course I forgive you.” She couldn’t think past the programmed responses ground into her since childhood. She wanted Ryan here. He always knew what to do.

“Then do I have to go?” David took a tentative step toward her.

She took a step back, and her legs faltered. Where was Ryan? He knew how to do things. He would make David leave. Where was her grandfather? Her grandfather would never have allowed this horrible situation to happen. “No, David, I think you should leave. It’s late, and I’m tired.”

He nodded and turned to the door. “I’m sorry I got carried away tonight,” he said at the door. “You’re just so desirable.”

Patricia couldn’t even remember how it had started. They had been talking on the couch, and he’d leaned forward to kiss her. She recalled turning her face so he kissed her cheek instead of her lips. Beyond that, things got very confused. Her head felt stuffed with cotton. Had she been drinking? She didn’t recall finishing that first glass she’d poured for something to do when he arrived.

“May I kiss you good night?”

She offered him her cheek. He took a long time deciding to kiss it, but he did. In the open doorway he lingered as if he thought she would change her mind. “Good night, darling.”

“Good night, David.” She pushed the door closed behind him and locked it. Then she leaned on it until she heard his car leave. It wasn’t that late, but her blood seemed to have been replaced with cold molasses. Maybe she would have a drink before she went to bed to sleep off all this. She started back toward the great hall.

Rough hands grabbed her, pressing her against the wall. “Does he make you feel the way I do?” Ryan growled. His mouth closed over hers. He parted her lips, delving into the hot softness of her mouth.

Chapter Ten

Patricia shivered as his hands awakened every part of her. His knee pressed between her legs, pushing her body tight to the wall until the apex of her thighs rested on him, burning and chafing. The heated contact blurred everything into a constant pulse of hunger. His hand caught her wrists on the wall high above her head while the other stroked the length of her body, cupping her buttock and lifting her tighter against him.

“Do his kisses make you as hot as mine?” Ryan whispered, kissing her throat. “Do you moan like this when he touches you?”

Patricia leaned against his mouth. His hard length pressed into her thigh, and her body cried out to feel it inside her. His mouth covered hers again before she could plead with him to take her. His hand slipped under her shirt to cup her breast. His fingers stroked her nipple until she writhed against his body.

This was what she wanted. This heavenly force. This sweet surrender.

But this was wrong too.

“Ryan,” she gasped between kisses.

“He can’t make you feel like this, Princess. Only I can,” Ryan whispered.

“Ryan, cease.”

His support disappeared so suddenly Patricia had to grab the wall to keep from falling. When she looked up, he had staggered back to the other side of the hall, staring at his hands like they had betrayed him.

“Oh Patricia,” he groaned. He rushed down the hall toward the music room door, stumbling as his feet caught on the carpet.

Patricia chased after him, reaching out to grab his arm. Moonlight spilled across the music room carpet like milk. She wasn’t sure why he had appeared in the house, but she didn’t want him to leave. Why did he want to leave?

“No, don’t go. You just startled me. Please stay with me.” When she tried to grip his arm, her fingers wouldn’t close. Tears of frustration welled up her throat.

“I’m sorry, Patricia. I can’t stay. I can’t. I might hurt you, and I couldn’t live with that. I’m so sorry.” He pulled away, scraping her short nails down his forearm. Something dropped on the floor between them.

“Please, don’t leave me.” His bundle of keys glinted in the moonlight. Didn’t he need those to check the doors? Why was he leaving them on the floor? She reached down to pick up the heavy steel ring and nearly fell down.

“I shouldn’t be here.” He rushed across the music room, tripping over the settee in front of the fireplace. “Oh God, I shouldn’t be here. I’m so sorry.”

“You dropped your keys,” Patricia pointed out, confused. She didn’t want him to go, but she couldn’t figure out how to make him stay. Was he angry? If he was angry, why was he apologizing? Had he done something to David’s car? What did that have to do with the house keys? Her body throbbed and ached in equal measure.

“I shouldn’t have them. I can’t be trusted.” He yanked open the patio door. Why was it unlocked at all? Last night, he had been careful to lock all the doors, testing each one and showing her the key while she waited on her knees. He had taunted her while he did it, saying she was locked in with him until he chose to let her go.

“But you need your keys,” Patricia whined. She put her hand to her head, hoping that would somehow help her think more clearly. “And I need you. Please don’t go.”

He stepped through the door and stopped. In the moonlight, tears coursed down his cheeks. “I’m dangerous, Patricia. Lock all your doors.” He flicked the lock and pulled the door closed behind him, testing it once before running into the darkness beyond the house.

Patricia wavered on her feet. She stared at the keys in her hand. Every key to every lock on the estate hung from this ring, including doors that hadn’t been opened in decades. She picked through them. Most were very functional. The keys to the front door and the kitchen. And the key to the ballroom door. The music room had two keys because the back door had a newer lock, while the side door locks had not been replaced since the house was built because they were so rarely opened. That key was very ornate and lovely. Why didn’t one of these keys explain why Ryan ran away from her when she needed him? There were so many, and they were all equally useless.

She dropped the keys on the floor and walked out of the room.

* * * *

Ryan had to lever himself out of his house in the morning. He’d run to the far corner of the estate last night and stood with his forehead pressed against the high fieldstone wall until the glaring fever in his brain subsided. If the wall hadn’t stopped him, he would have run farther. He considered climbing over it so Patricia would be safe from him, but doing that would make things worse. It would set off the perimeter security, and when the police showed up, it would turn into a circus pretty quick. He couldn’t do that to her, not after he’d spied on her and broken her trust by using the house keys to break in.

When he walked back to his house, he found he’d left the gates open so that David could leave, but since he couldn’t set the system from the outside, he couldn’t lock himself out with all the other crazies who threatened Patricia. He settled for barricading himself inside his cottage in the hopes that if he lost his mind again, he would get it back in the time it took to unbarricade the door.

This morning, walking up the drive in the cold October drizzle, Ryan decided he’d rationalized himself into staying when he should have gone last night even if it meant leaving the gate swinging open behind him. She would have been safer with every criminal in the city prowling the grounds than with him there. He touched the back of his head. In the middle of the night, he’d banged it on the nightstand while falling out of bed after a nightmare. The lump had cleared his mind as effectively as it had ended any possibility of sleep.

He’d been dreaming about Patricia. Dreaming he’d really lost control. She had been begging him to stop, and he’d just kept hurting her. Exactly what he’d been doing hadn’t been clear, but the agonized sound of her voice still rang in his ears. He doubted he would have been able to sleep again even if he hadn’t hit his head.

He had to quit. This afternoon when she got home from work, he had to tell her the whole ugly story about Atlanta. After hearing about his past, she would be more than willing to see him pack up and go. She’d be furious with her lawyers for hiring him in the first place. Tonight, when she parked her car in the garage, he would stop her, and tomorrow he would start packing. Did he have enough money to buy a piece of land somewhere in the middle of Alaska so he wouldn’t have to see anyone other than the occasional moose? He obviously couldn’t be trusted.

A flutter of white material caught his eye. Her car was still sitting where she’d left it in the drive last night, though she should have already left for the hospital. He hadn’t heard her car pass the caretaker’s cottage, but he’d assumed she’d gone by while he was in the shower. The front door stood open, banging against the house in the wind. On the walk between the door and her car lay a puddle of white. Ryan sprinted toward her.

He dropped to his knees beside her. “Patricia?”

She whined, and her eyelids fluttered.

He lifted her off the driveway. Her case slipped out of her lax fingers and thumped on the drive. Her body felt hot, and her face looked pasty. Even her breathing sounded heavy and difficult.