Cereal Killer

creating a monster there, treating her like a princess.”
    “It’s good for her,” Ryan said, smiling at the departing couple with obvious affection.
    “Yeah, but it’s lousy for me. Next thing you know, she’ll be expecting to get paid. She’ll want medical and dental... weekends off... vacations and coffee breaks. Where will it all end?”
     
    “Every house should have a library like this one,” Savannah said as she and Ryan slipped into the dark room and closed the door behind them. He found the light switch and flipped it, bathing the room in a cozy golden light.
    Mahogany-paneled walls and shelves filled with leather-bound classics set the mood in the room, one of quiet repose and thoughtful serenity. Overstuffed chairs and a banquette sofa in burgundy velvet beckoned readers to lose themselves in other, more graceful, ages and places.
    “I think I’ll redecorate the living room,” she said, ‘just like this. Persian rugs, oil paintings, and all.”
    “We’d all like that,” Ryan replied as he walked over to an ebony-and-ivory inlaid desk in the far corner of the room.
    “What are you talking about? Your living room is just like this.”
    “Not exactly. My ‘Persian’ rugs aren’t actually from Persia, any ‘ivory’ inlay I have is mother-of-pearl, and not only do I have non-leather books in my shelves, I even have some paperbacks in my collection.”
    “How revolting! I’m appalled.”
    He dropped to one knee behind the desk and looked under it. “I was walking down the hall once, and the door to this room was open. Wentworth was sitting here at the desk with a batch of his cronies around him. They were doing some major kissing up. One of the other guests told me that was his favorite party pastime. If we put it right there, between the desk leg and the wall, we might get something.”
    She handed him the recorder. He turned it on and tucked it into the dark space.
    No sooner had he stood and brushed off his trouser knees than they heard someone turning the doorknob.
    “Damnation,” Savannah said.
    Before she even had time to think about how to handle the sticky situation of getting caught planting an illegal bug, Ryan had swept her into his arms and was bending her backward over the desk. As the door opened, he smothered her with the most passionate kiss she had ever had the pleasure of receiving.
    And while she had fantasized about this moment at least a thousand times since meeting him, the kiss was immeasurably better than she could have imagined.
    Ryan Stone wasn’t just gorgeous. He was the world’s best kisser, hands down. In the first three seconds, he had broken the record previously set by her high school boyfriend, Tommy Stafford, in the back seat of his Chevy Bel Air... a record that had stood until that moment in the Wentworth library.
    As if through a haze, she felt his mouth, firm and insistent on hers, his hands, large and warm on her back, pressing her body to his, the taste and the smell of him as intoxicating as—
    “Ah... excuse me.” A harsh, unpleasant voice pierced the pretty pink fog that had so quickly enveloped her. “I thought I might use my own library, but I see it’s occupied.”
    Ryan released her, and she nearly fell backward onto the desk. “Sorry,” he said. “We were just...”
    “Yeah, well, take it upstairs, would you? I’ve got some work to do in here.”
    Savannah shook her head, recovered her senses, and decided that she would hate Charles Wentworth III for the rest of her life. Curse him for ending the kiss of the century! she thought. May his teeth rot, his hair fall out, and — unlike the mighty South—may his Wiener schnitzel never rise again!
    With some more murmured apologies that were definitely lacking in sincerity, Ryan pulled her across the library and out into the hall. He closed the door behind them, blocking out the picture of a scowling Charles Wentworth, his white tuxedo, and his slick blond hair.
    When they were several yards down the hall, Savannah started to giggle. “That was close,” she said. “Fast thinking.”
    He laughed and put his arm around her waist. “It worked, and that’s what counts.” He gave her a squeeze and added, “I’ll have to tell John that we were right about you; you are a good kisser.”
    Savannah stopped in the middle of the hall and stared up at him, her mouth hanging open. “Do you mean to tell me that you and John have speculated on what kind of a kisser I am?”
    He