If I Dream Read online

  Was he hurt?

  Slowly, I opened the door to see him lying in the bathtub, his eyes closed as the water filled in the space around him. His muscular body looked just as I’d imagined it—tanned and rugged, like every muscle strained against his skin—but his right shoulder looked swollen and his face had bruises all over it.

  I didn’t know if I should apologize for prying or offer to help him. He opened his eyes and turned to look at me as I stared at him, effectively eliminating my indecision as to what to do.

  “I would ask what you’re doing in my bathroom, but from what it looks like, you’re back to studying me. See anything you like?”

  Averting my gaze from traveling over the muscular and tanned peaks and valleys of his washboard abs to between his legs, I focused on his bruised face. “Was it your smart mouth that got you beaten up like that?”

  He winced at my mention of his injuries and shook his head. “Nope. Why don’t you give me a couple minutes and I’ll come out seeing as you don’t look like you intend on leaving?”

  I agreed and closed the door as my heart began slamming into my chest again. If my father caught me in Ryder’s room with him dressed or not, he’d go crazy. The man had tried to convince me to stay a virgin until I was married, sitting me down for a rare serious talking to when I was sixteen like I hadn’t had sex yet. I admittedly hadn’t had that many boyfriends, but I wasn’t some virginal little girl, no matter how much he wished I was.

  While all this raced through my mind, Ryder appeared wearing only a white towel slung low on his hips. God, his body was incredible! He looked like a statue carved out of granite. Hard and chiseled, every inch of him perfect, from his broad shoulders and muscular chest to his hip bones that formed a V shape guiding my eyes down to where that towel barely hung on to him, he stood in front of me and my mind scrambled to decide what I should focus on.

  Those gorgeous muscles or all those tattoos that covered his skin.

  For a moment, I stood dazed, but then I saw clearly how beaten he was. The bruises on his jaw and under his right eye were bad enough, but his shoulder looked terrible. Swollen and purple, it had to be agonizing for him.

  The urge to help him washed over me, and I asked, “Would you like me to get you an ice pack for your shoulder? It looks very painful.”

  He winced again as he looked down at it. “It hurts like a son of a bitch, but no, thanks. How about you just turn around while I put some clothes on?”

  I couldn’t help myself. I let my gaze slide down his still damp body to where that towel barely clung to him as I nodded and said, “Okay.”

  Closing my eyes, I turned around as I listened to him open a drawer and then close it, all the while imagining what he looked like standing there naked.

  “Okay. You can turn back around now. I’m decent,” he said with a chuckle.

  I turned around to see Ryder walk past me in just a pair of black basketball shorts and a red t-shirt to lie down on his bed. He put his arms behind his head before lowering them a second later, probably because as much as he wanted to appear cool, he was in real pain.

  Unsure what to do or say, I slowly inched toward the bed as I asked, “What happened to you? Where have you been for the past three days?”

  His deep green eyes stared up at me for a long moment before he said, “Right here.”

  “You haven’t left this room for three days?” I asked, sure I’d never heard anything so bizarre.

  “Nope.”

  Frustrated by his unwillingness to tell me anything, I snapped, “Is that all you can say? Nope?”

  Slowly, the corners of his mouth rose into a sexy smile. “Why, Serena, I didn’t realize you cared so much.”

  I sighed and sat down at the foot of his bed. “So you aren’t going to tell me what happened to make you look like that?”

  He started to answer nope but stopped. Still smiling, he said, “It’s better you don’t know. Just assume I pissed someone off. That sounds believable, doesn’t it?”

  Screwing my face into an expression that showed how frustrated he made me, I grumbled, “Yes.”

  “Well, then that’s my answer. Now I have a question for you,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes.

  I turned to face him and crossed my legs. “What’s that?”

  “Why are you here in my bedroom at midnight? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  God, I hated the way he acted like he was so much older than I was!

  My stomach tensed and I leaned forward toward him, my hands landing on the bed next to his legs. “I’m not a child, Ryder. We’re about the same age, so why would I be in bed at midnight?”

  “Then I’ll rephrase the question. Why are you here in my bedroom?”

  I didn’t exactly know the answer to that. I’d missed spending time with him after we’d stayed up talking the other night, and I certainly was curious why he’d suddenly disappeared. But I didn’t know how to explain all that.

  So I blurted out the first thing that jumped into my mind. “I was in a talking mood and no one else is home.”

  Neither of those were exactly lies, but as far as excuses went, neither was the truth. The problem was I didn’t really know how to express to him why I’d gone looking for him that night.

  “It’s just the two of us?” he asked with a curious look on his face. Was he concerned about that?

  I nodded. “Yeah. Janelle is out for the night, and my father went to see his latest girlfriend. There are still staff around, but other than that, it’s just us.”

  He processed what I said for a moment and nodded. “That sister of yours is a piece of work, isn’t she? I don’t think I’ve ever seen hate at first sight like she had for me.”

  “She’s just unhappy because she’s stuck here. Oh, and because she’s sure our father brought you here to be a stud with her.”

  Ryder laughed and then winced as he cradled his shoulder. “Ow. A stud? As in I’m supposed to sleep with her kind of stud?”

  “Is there any other kind?” I teased.

  He shook his head. “I guess not. Well, you can tell her that’s not why your father brought me here. In fact, he made a point of telling me I wasn’t to be with either of you.”

  Relieved I’d been right, I moved up the bed toward him. “I told her that. She’s just a little crazy sometimes.”

  “If crazy means bitchy, I guess.”

  We sat there silently for a minute before I asked, “Why did my father bring you here?”

  I saw by the way his face stiffened that he wasn’t going to tell me the truth. “I work for him. That’s all I can say.” His expression softened, and he added, “I promise I’m not working as his stud, though.”

  “Well, you aren’t the gardener or the pool boy because we already have them. And you don’t seem to cook or clean or drive his cars. So I’m not sure what you could be other than the obvious.”

  He chuckled. “Stud?”

  “Nope. Son. You’re here to make up for what he’s never had.”

  I hadn’t intended on sounding so sad when I said that, but it was the truth. Janelle and I weren’t males. Our father liked us well enough and may even have loved us, at least when we were smaller and less hassle, but the simple fact was we would never be what he wanted most of all.

  Ryder shook his head. “And what’s that mean?”

  “An heir,” I answered, forcing myself to smile. “Someone he can pass down the business to since he can’t pass it down to Janelle or me.”

  “I hate to disappoint you, but he doesn’t want me here to be his heir. I’m pretty sure of that.”

  He wasn’t going to tell me why my father brought him to the house, but maybe it wasn’t to take the place of the son he never had. I couldn’t think of any other reason to bring him home, though.

  It didn’t matter. Ryder was like my father. I could ask until I was blue in the face, but I wasn’t going to get the truth until he wanted to tell me.

  Changing the subject, I jumped
up from the bed and said, “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

  I ran to the kitchen for an ice pack and returned to the bedroom. “Whoever hit you did a number on your shoulder. You should put ice on it to bring down the swelling. You might even want to see a doctor about that.”

  Dismissing my offer, he said, “It’ll be fine. I just need to keep it immobile.”

  “Move over,” I ordered as I sat down next to him on the side with the hurt shoulder.

  He looked surprised but did as I said, making room for me to sit next to him on the full-size bed. “You’re pretty demanding when you want to be.”

  Pressing the ice to his shoulder, I held it there and said, “And when others don’t want me to be.”

  We sat silently next to one another on his bed as I kept the ice on his shoulder until I worked up the nerve to ask him about the tattoos that covered both his arms from his wrists to his shoulders and half his chest.

  “That’s a lot of tattoos. Did it hurt to get so many?”

  For a moment, he seemed surprised by my question. Or maybe he thought it was stupid. Whatever he thought, he smiled and looked down at his arms like he’d forgotten all about his tattoos until I mentioned them.

  “No, not really. Maybe on some parts of my arms, but not really. Do you have any?”

  I stared down at the myriad of images on his skin and shook my head. “No.” Pointing at his left wrist, I asked, “What’s that supposed to be? It looks like some animal or something.”

  “It’s a dragon’s eyes.” He lifted his arm to show me the underside where the rest of the creature hid. “There’s the rest of him.”

  Leaning forward, I stared at the dragon with a long spikey tail that traveled up toward his elbow and looked like it practically came off his skin. “Why are all your tattoos black and white? You don’t like color?”

  Ryder shrugged. “I could lie and say I think black and grey are more artistic, but the truth is I didn’t have a lot of money when I first started getting them so I skipped the color.”

  I looked up at him and wondered why he’d chosen to be so honest with me. Every guy I’d ever spent any time with would have gone with a much cooler lie.

  “Oh. Well, they’re nice even if they are black and grey,” I said, correcting myself.

  My compliment was met with silence. Unsure if I’d said something wrong, I waited for him to speak and when he didn’t, I filled the empty space on my own.

  “So some guy didn’t like your smart mouth and beat you up?” I asked as I watched his expression to see if he’d get any closer to the truth when he answered this time.

  A slow smile spread across his mouth, showing his straight teeth. “How do you know it was a guy? It could have been a girl.”

  His teasing made me chuckle. “No way. You’re pretty big and I’ve never seen a girl who could do that kind of damage to someone your size. Nope, it was a guy, and I bet you did something like hit on his girlfriend to make him angry.”

  Ryder raised his eyebrows in surprise. “So that’s what you think of me, huh? I’m just some guy who would try to steal another guy’s girlfriend. Sounds pretty shitty.”

  Instantly, I felt bad for saying anything and my hand holding the ice pack slipped from his shoulder. He winced in pain, compounding the damage from what I’d said and making me feel even worse.

  I quickly replaced the ice on his shoulder and apologized. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say you were shitty like that. I just…I guess I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

  He stared at me as I spoke, his eyes slowly narrowing until he looked like he was studying me. When I finished, he remained silent for a long moment before saying, “You worry a lot about hurting other people’s feelings, don’t you?”

  Something in the way he said that as he practically glared at me hurt my feelings. Turning my head, I looked away toward the door and shrugged. “I was just trying to apologize. Sorry.”

  I should have left at that moment since the conversation had clearly turned sour, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t know why, but Ryder intrigued me and I wanted to spend more time with him.

  Even if he didn’t feel the same about me.

  After a few moments, he said, “So that sister of yours seems to hate me more every day. Is that going to be an issue with your father?”

  Turning to look back at him, I shook my head. “I don’t see why. If you’re not here to stud with Janelle, he’d probably just as soon have you avoid her. Most people do since she’s a little difficult.”

  “What about with you?”

  I thought about my relationship with my sister and didn’t know how to answer that question. Not exactly close, she wasn’t as bad as she could be. “Well, she’s like a typical big sister. Anyway, we’re all we have since it’s just us and our father.”

  Ryder grinned in a way that was nothing less than wicked. “And me. Now you have a brother.”

  Rolling my eyes, I said, “No, I don’t, unless my father has decided to officially adopt a grown man now.”

  He chuckled. “You never know.”

  I pressed the ice pack to his shoulder to stop it from slipping again. “I guess I don’t, but I still don’t think I’ll ever consider you a brother. I never wanted a brother anyway, so I’m sorry to say you can’t be that.”

  My dismissal of the whole brother thing didn’t seem to bother him much. He simply continued to look at me like he was studying me, which quickly became unnerving. Turning away, I asked, “So do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “You mean other than you and Janelle?”

  I looked back at him and shook my head. “Stop. You know what I meant. Real brothers or sisters.”

  For the first time since I’d intruded on him lying there in that tub, he looked truly unhappy. “No. It’s just me.”

  “What about your mother and father?” I asked, needing to know what he meant by that answer.

  “Dead,” he answered in a clipped tone.

  I wanted to ask how they’d died, but I didn’t because the way he said that word told me he didn’t want to talk about that. I could understand. Even thinking about my mother sometimes made me so unhappy I didn’t want to talk either.

  “So how long will your shoulder take to heal?” I asked, hoping my change of topic would bring back the person he’d been before.

  He looked down where my hand held the ice pack to his skin and then up at me. “I don’t know. A while, I guess. It’s not the first time I’ve injured it.”

  Like with his parents’ deaths, I wanted to ask about what kept hurting his shoulder, but I got the sense that he wouldn’t give me any answers to that question either.

  The ice pack began to feel warm against my palm, so I stood up and said, “You can get another cold one from the freezer in the kitchen. We have a bunch of them. Once the swelling goes down, you’ll feel a little better.”

  “Time to go already?” he asked with a sly smile.

  I had the sense that he didn’t want to stop our talk so soon, but the whole time I’d been next to him holding that ice to his shoulder, all I could think about was how incredibly sexy he was. Between the muscles and the tattoos, his body was a distraction no matter which way I looked at it. Concentrating on what we were discussing became harder and harder with every minute. The urge to touch him, to run my fingertips over his skin and feel the softness of it over the hard muscles beneath nearly overwhelmed me, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself if I stayed much longer.

  As I walked upstairs to my room, I knew the answer to why I’d gone to see him tonight. The only question was why did he want me to stay?

  Chapter Five

  Serena

  The staff buzzed around the house setting up flower arrangements and checking food deliveries as I wondered why all this activity was going on. My father hadn’t told me about any party, so why did the florist and caterer seem permanently stationed at our house at five o’clock on a Thursday?

 
Poking my head into his office, I saw him seated behind his desk staring at his laptop. He didn’t look upset or angry, so I took a chance and knocked on the doorframe.

  “Do you have a minute?”

  He looked over at me and nodded. “What is it, Serena?”

  As one of the housekeepers passed me with an enormous purple and white flower arrangement, I said, “I was wondering why we’re getting all these deliveries, Daddy. You didn’t mention a party, but it sure looks like something’s going to happen here today.”

  His face lit up like something I said had turned on a light inside his head, and he stood up quickly. “I forgot to tell you. We’re having a little get-together here tonight. You, your sister, and Ryder are expected to be dressed and ready by seven.”

  “Ready for what in two hours?” I asked, mentally going through my closet for something to wear to my father’s surprise party.

  “Just a little get-together. I want you to make sure Ryder is dressed appropriately, so find him and make sure he’s in good shape. I had some things brought to his room this afternoon.”

  I hadn’t seen Ryder in two days, so I didn’t mind checking up on him. “Is this a black tie affair?” I asked, suddenly dying to see him in a tux.

  My father shook his head and waved away my question. “No, just a little cocktail party. I know you and your sister will be your usual charming selves, but I want to make sure Ryder is ready too, so be a sweetheart and make sure he’s got things under control.”

  “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I knew you would, honey.”

  I didn’t think an eighteen-year-old man would need help with a regular suit and tie, but since my father had ordered me to assist him, I’d check on him after I dressed and make sure he understood what would happen that night. I couldn’t imagine he would be happy about this party, though. Since he’d arrived at the house, Ryder had done everything he could to remain as unobtrusive as possible, staying in his room more often than not. I suspected that was so he could avoid Janelle and her nastiness, so having to spend a night with her and my father’s business associates who attended his parties probably didn’t top his list of things he wanted to do.