Unquenchable Desire (6 page)

When Brian smelled the faint scent
of Jasmine, he turned toward the double oak doors. His breath caught. He stared
in awe, unable to stop lusting after Valerie up with hungry eyes. Seeing the
sensational, beautiful creature in the yellow, mid-thigh length sundress with
her long, lemony hair with golden highlights dusting her shoulders was enough
to drive any man to ogle. He had to get a grip on himself and remember his rule
about remaining detached.

Valerie locked gazes with him and
he felt like she might be sending him a frantic, desperate signal from deep
within the soul of her Bermuda Triangle. He couldn’t read the message but it
lifted his spirits that, even for an ninth of time, she bestowed her attention
on his lonely heart. He winked, hoping to give support to whatever was going on
in her head. Maybe he had a chance in spite of the presence of the richer,
better dressed college boy.

“Wow, Valerie, you look
sensational,” Rory said.

Brian groaned internally.
Why didn’t I say that? I was definitely
thinking it.

When the servant rolled a cart into
the room loaded with a bounty of steaming food, Brian felt he’d stepped into a
forbidden world of plenty where a man raised by wolves and a lonely, bitter
recluse definitely didn’t belong.
But I’m
here now.
And Valerie is smiling at
me.

Valerie’s Dad introduced the
servant as his houseman, Kyle Cooper. He was a carrot-top with the spiky hair
and pale, water-blue eyes. After Kyle served everyone, he reached into the
lower level of his serving cart, withdrew a box of chocolates with a big red
bow and an envelope, and handed them to Valerie. “From Chuck Nichols, the
delivery man. Nichols said he’d wait at the back door for five minutes in case
you want to say hi or anything.”

Brian frowned.
Just how many suitors are swarming around? Based on the present number
alone, my chances just dipped. And, with her looks and intelligence there are
probably more about to crawl out of the woodwork like hungry roaches.

Valerie gave a small smile, set the
candy aside, and read the note.
 
When she
finished reading, she said, “Excuse, me, please. I’d better handle this.”

“Don’t leave the house,” Damon
growled. “And come right back; we have guests, you know.”

She sent him a narrowed-eyed,
sidelong glance. “I know, Daddy.”

Brian stifled a laugh at the
sarcastic tone in her voice.
You tell
him, Val.

****

Valerie sighed. With her issues out
of sight, she heard her dad go into financial concepts with Uncle Hugh like
diversification and dollar-cost-averaging, terms she’d heard since childhood
and was learning to appreciate, but it was probably boring their guests to
death. Or maybe not, what did she really know about them? Maybe they found time
horizons, risk tolerance, and available funds to invest just too exciting for
words. She doubted that Brian caught all that gibberish, but maybe Rory did. He
looked like the stiff-collar type who was more into money than people. Thank
God her dad could balance those things. In fact, he was so into family that
sometimes he drove her crazy, like today.

Pressured by her confused emotions,
Valerie slipped through the huge, spotless kitchen to the back door to talk to
the candy-bearing deliveryman, Chuck. It was weird to suddenly find herself
dealing with three men who all wanted a piece of her. Her dad would say they
all wanted the same thing, but she wasn’t so sure. She forced a grin. “Thank
you, Chuck. I can only talk a few minutes. Dad’s on a rampage.”

Chuck looked down at the floor. “I
thought maybe we could go to a movie tonight.”

She winced. Even if she wanted to,
she couldn’t go out while the moon was still full. She crossed her fingers
behind her back. “I’m sort of going with someone.”

Somehow after seeing the three men,
more or less at the same time, she realized Rory and Chuck didn’t really ring
her chimes.
Should I return the candy?
Maybe that would only add insult to
injury and make it look like I thought he had ulterior motives for giving me
the gift.
Which of course, I do.
But he doesn’t need
to know that.

Why had Chuck and Rory lost their
appeal to her? Was it because her wolf connection with Brian ignited a fire and
strengthened a common bond that was impossible to sever? Was that special tie
the beginning of love?

Impossible.
She barely knew Brian. She recalled Dad telling her there were two kinds of
werewolves—those who embrace wolf tendencies of their free will and those like
her family who’d inherited the condition and were merely victims of their
birth. If what Brian told her was true, it sounded like he’d been thrust into
the same category and perhaps that made their bond even more unbreakable.

She headed back to the dining room,
determined to shut down any interest Rory had in her.
 

Kyle had kept her plate warm and
she ate quickly.
 
When she finished, she
wiped her mouth and said, “May I be excused, everyone? Dad’s right. I’m exhausted
and need to hit the sheets for a while.”

“Good idea,” Rory said. “But later,
how about going out to an early dinner with me, say around five-
ish
?”

She leaned back in her chair. “Thanks
for the invite, but I promised Mom I’d go to the library with her and
afterwards Dad wants me to stay in tonight and help him with his account
books.”

Mom looked at Dad. He shrugged.

Rory narrowed his eyes and curled
his massive fists into a tight ball. “But you have to eat.”

“Right, but I promised Brian I’d
personally cook him some lasagna for dinner in thanks for seeing me home.”

The surprised grin on Brian’s face
was priceless.
 

The tension in the room soared. Everyone’s
eyes shifted to her. Brian’s long, piercing look worried her. It was too early
in their friendship to know his expressions. But even though she didn’t know
Rory any better, his hard, unblinking stare and tight expression verified he
was getting her kiss-off message loud and clear. So why didn’t he back off? Dare
she push this tightly-strung guy a little more?

Rory frowned and folded his arms
across his chest. “I thought inviting him for breakfast was supposed to take
care of that.”

“That was Dad’s thank you, not
mine.”

She hated lying and wasn’t very
good at it. But she didn’t care as long as the excuse discouraged Rory.

His gray eyes raked over her like a
razor-sharp tongs. “What about brunch tomorrow?”

She blew out a gust of air and
massaged the stiffness at the back of her neck. “I’m going to stay close to
home for a couple of weeks.”

Rory stood. He was silent a moment
then asked, “Can we talk outside for a few minutes?”

Dad stood as well and squared his
shoulders. “She’s talked enough. She needs her rest.”

Rory smirked.
“Yes,
Sir.”

Valerie wanted to kiss her interfering
father.
Thank you, Daddy
, she
mouthed.

Rory stood, hesitated, and then
said, “Thanks for the breakfast. It was—” Without finishing his sentence, he turned
and left the house. Valerie expected the front door to slam, but she barely
heard it whisper closed.

Brian’s eyes glinted. “Are you
really fixing Lasagna for me?”

“Good heavens, no!” she said,
feeling exasperated.

His disappointed expression made
her add, “But, after you finish the yard, I’ll give you another sandwich.”

He grinned. “That’s cool.”

****

Damon swore to himself. The glint
of fire in his wife’s eyes told him he was in deep hot water. He’d better
explain quickly. He followed Angela as she hurried up the long, winding
stairway to their bedroom. Inside, as the door clicked closed, he drew her
toward him. Her intoxicating flowery scent wafted around him. He swelled with
desire and drew her closer. He lifted her hand and kissed the tips of her
fingers, slowly one by one. Then he caressed her ring finger. “Wearing a
wedding ring on the fourth finger of the left hand dates back to ancient
Egypt
.”
He kissed her knuckle. “It was believed the vein of love ran from this finger
directly to the heart. And seeing you wearing it close to that specific blood
flow always excites me.” Had he laid it on too thick? He enfolded her into his
arms and pulled her tightly against the heat of his body and tried to kiss her
neck.

She pulled away. “That won’t work
this time. What did you think you were doing down there? You can’t order our
grown daughter around like that. I want to lock her away, too, but she’s
twenty-one and has to learn to handle the curse and men herself.”

“She too sweet, too polite, and
needed help. How many ways did the poor kid have to say no before that jerk took
the hint? He kept pressing her until I wanted to punch him.”
 
Damon pulled Angela into the circle of his
arms again and kissed her forehead.

Again, she pulled away. “First you
ordered her to get dressed and later you wouldn’t give her a chance to decide
if she wanted to talk to Rory outside. A young woman her age deserves the
opportunity to prove she can handle herself.”

“Maybe in a world
without the walking dead.
 
Reeves
could’ve morphed into anyone, even Rory. Besides, she didn’t want to be alone
with him. I saw her mouth the words, thank you, Daddy.”

Angela took a deep breath and blew
it out. “Damon, you can be extremely aggravating. I thought you’d curbed your
controlling ways, but after today—He threw his hands in the air. “I don’t need
therapy. I’m just worried as hell about our girls, especially Valerie and—”

“All right, but I think you owe Valerie
an apology and a promise to soft-pedal being a dictator dad.”

He drew Angela back into his arms
and gave her a passionate kiss. When he didn’t receive her usual enthusiasm in
return, he dropped his hands from around her. “I guess neither of us will feel
squared until I go apologize. But keep those luscious lips puckered. I’d like
to finish what we’ve started.”

She laughed and arched a naughty
brow. “Don’t I always?”

****

Damon tapped lightly on Valerie’s
door. “Are you still awake, Honey?”

“Come on in, Daddy.” She sounded
younger than her twenty-one years and very vulnerable. He remembered how
frantic he’d been when she was kidnapped as a little girl and the horror of
seeing Lazar shoving her into his car five years ago—and the heart-stopping
instant when the car lunged over the cliff and exploded.

Blinking back the moisture that
rushed to his eyes, he opened the door and hurried toward her. He drew his
grown baby into his arms. “I’m sorry I over-stepped my bounds during breakfast,
and I apologize for not letting you handle Rory, but I don’t like the guy. I
think he has an agenda for dating you. Besides, he doesn’t know how to take no
for an answer. It’s a man like that who ends up raping women.”

“Perhaps you’re going a little
overboard in your conclusions about him. But I can see why it was so easy for
Victoria
to dump Mr.
Obnoxious.” Valerie gave Damon one of her adorable, dimpled smiles. “Don’t fret,
Daddy, you don’t need to worry about me going out with him again.”

“Who do I have to worry about?”

She tilted her head and sent him
another saucy grin. “I don’t know, Daddy. But I’m sure you’ll think of someone.”

He winced. She had him down pat. “What’s
going on with you and Brian?”

“Nothing much.
But I like him. We can talk about anything.”

“Anything?”
His throat felt dry. “What have you told him about our family?”

“Nothing that your
dictorial
ways didn’t give away.”

“All right.
I deserved that. But don’t get in over your head with that young man. He isn’t
like us.”

Valerie laughed. “He’s more like us
than you know. He’s a hard worker, and has goals and dreams just like we do. Don’t
even try to mess up our friendship, or I’ll go live with Grandma. And
don’t
even thinking of locking me away like some monster.”

Damon felt like she’d slapped him. His
once timid little girl was threatening him, and the worst part was he believed
she had the spunk to follow through. One daughter had flown the coop and he
sure as hell wasn’t ready for the other one to leave the nest so soon.

“Just be careful, Baby, we don’t
know much about him.”

“Don’t worry, Daddy. I’m good at
finding out what I need to know about a person. And I promise
,
he’s one of the good guys.”

“He’d better be. I plan to keep an
eye on him and ask Hugh to do the same.”

****

Reeves fumed all the way back to
the college dorm where he lived as Rory Mansell. He lit up a reefer and
surfed
the internet until he found some arousing porn. The
girl had long blonde hair like his niece.
What
the hell did I do to turn off Valerie’s interest in Rory?
The kid, his
host-body, was exceptionally well built and his features fantastically
good-looking,
and he’d mostly controlled his temper. Surely
the other two males sniffing after her couldn’t hold a candle to Rory in any category.

Damn the whole family. It was a
double whammy that both twins discarded him. But he’d get even—get even with both
of them and the men they’d chosen over him.

Damon hadn’t changed. He still
ordered people around and tried to control everything.
But he can’t control me.

As Reeves watched the naked girl on the screen touch
herself, violent images swirled in his mind—blood and the ripped out throats of
his past women. Overpowering hatred ate at him like a cancer, and he lusted for
revenge. He wanted the Lamont family and everyone connected to them, especially
Damon, to suffer a million deaths. Then after everyone suffered to the max,
he’d tear out his half-brother’s throat while looking into his eyes.