Unquenchable Desire (24 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Crouching in the itchy,
stinking scrub brush, Brian
adjusted his sunglasses against the bright afternoon sun. He yanked his new
camouflaged cap lower, while keeping his gaze locked on Valerie. He hadn’t let
her out of his sight for a second from the moment she left the mansion.

He shifted position and took a deep breath, feeling as
tense as a wolf stalking his prey. The trap had been set. Would Rory spring it?
Valerie’s mom had called him and he’d heard her inform the
would-be
college boy that Valerie had wandered off. When she hung
up, Angela said he’d promised to keep an eye out for her and agreed to call if
she turned up at his place. Would he take the bait and come looking for her in
the hills?

Brian smiled when Valerie picked up a rock that fit
nicely in her hand. She seemed to weigh it, as though deciding if it would suit
her purposes. She wasn’t supposed to let whoever showed up get that close. But
he admired her for securing her own weapon. He loved that about her—her
self-reliance—loved everything, really.

She leapt up on the carefully selected table-boulder
like a gazelle. She sat down and placed the rock beside her. She stared at it
for a moment,
then
wriggled around a little. Next she
adjusted her bright red, sleeveless bare midriff top and her Daisy Duke
cut-offs, flattening and smoothing the materials tightly against her curves.

His heartbeat accelerated. When she lavished sunscreen
on her tanned skin, the beat literally galloped in his chest. But, darn the
little tease, she wasn’t finished torturing him with her slow, seductive
smoothing. Next, over the sunscreen, she spread baby oil over every inch of her
bare flesh. When she glistened like sweat after sex, she stretched like a saucy,
lean, Siamese cat and lay on her back, pressing her lovely shoulders against
the stony surface. Her full breasts jutted skyward, like mountains rising from
the desert.

His breath caught.
Dear,
God, how much does she think a man can take?

The wolf within wanted to rush forward and ravish her. He
tightened his jaw, trying to contain his lustful desire. Unwittingly, his
male-flag
saluted. Damn, damn. He’d
warned her not to overdue the sexy bit. Then it hit him. Perhaps her seductive
game had nothing to do with the plan. Aware he crouched nearby watching, she
was probably torturing him on purpose.
The little minx.

She lifted her stomach and pubic area to the sun as if
she were its
Goddess,
and it her lover. If that wasn’t
enough, she began to undulate and writhe. He’d get her for this.

After minutes of excruciating torture and heat rising
in his groin, she stilled and put a tissue to her eyes and began to sob softly.
Dear, God, she looked so sad, alone, and vulnerable. He fought to keep himself
from running to her side to comfort her. The little imp should get an academy
award for her performance.

Suddenly, in the distance, with his wolf hearing, he
detected wide-spaced, fast footfalls coming toward them. Since no cell phones
were allowed, he removed a small mirror from his pocket and flashed it toward
Damon’s station to alert him. Then he tensed and
crouched
lower, ready for battle.

****

Victoria
heard footfalls. She glanced at her mother
and Rick, who both crouched

beside her, and gestured with her head. Her mother, totting a rifle
like the sharp-shooter Annie Oakley, nodded and licked her lips. Rick, armed
with a .38, jerked his head upwards slightly in his signal of understanding.

Victoria
figured Hugh, with his lupine hearing, heard
the prey approaching as clearly as she did. But fairly certain Deeto wasn’t
gifted with such sharpe senses, she pulled her mirror out of her pants pocket
and flashed it to alert him. A shivery foreboding about having an outsider like
him in on this proposed assasination chilled her spine.

Using her long-range feral sight, she observed her twin and tried to
read her. Valerie had changed. When had that happened? She laughed inside at
her sister’s little sex show for Brian. Poor guy, if they both lived through
this, he’d have his hands full with her.

She admired her twin’s guts and bravery. Valerie had really come into
her own. But too much courage could be deadly. To heighten the risk, her once
predictable sister had become unpredictable.

Dear God, let everything go
smoothly with no surprises from Valerie or our enemy.

****

Damon croached behind a boulder, feeling as if he were walking on a
tight rope

between two hot wires. One missed step or the slighest breeze and
things could sizzle out of control.
That’s
my baby girl out there.

Valerie’s little sex-kitten show didn’t help bouy his confidnce that
the risky setup would work. He’d told her no games. Damn it, he shouldn’t have
agreed to this. Even Deeto was unpredictable. He was used to charging in too
soon. Would Kit’s biker wait for the signal? The loose-cannon wanted the man
who’d torn out his lover’s throat—wanted him badly.

Damon said a silent prayer that everyone would abide by the rules and
somehow the trap would snap shut on his brother without a hitch.

He’d provided everyone except Valerie with camaflage outfits and made
each one repeat the game-plan twice to be sure everyone understood.

Suddenly, a dark cloud obscured the sun and cast the hills in deep,
menacing shadows. Lordy, Lordy, even the weather had turned against this setup.

****

Valerie shifted on the giant boulder that grew harder
and more uncomfortable by the second. She glanced up at the dark clouds
blocking the sun and wondered if they’d have to scrap this skirmish due to
rain.

Overhead a
helicopter’s rotors whirred. She sat up, her body as rigid as stone, and rubbed
her arms. Was the pilot one of her dad’s employees? Or had the killer hired a
chopper? Her brain pulsed in cold fear; she’d be a sitting duck.
Don’t let this get to you.
She
wasn’t prone to panic, but her ground backup, somewhere out there in the
underbrush, would be as helpless as she’d be from a sky attack.

She shivered,
feeling totally alone.

Suddenly, on the
path directly in front of her, she heard thudding footfalls approaching fast,
growing louder as the runner came closer and closer. With their wolf hearing, Brian,
Uncle Hugh, and Victoria would’ve heard the footfalls before she did. Knowing
that gave her a measure of hope.

She stared at the
path where the sound of
feet thundered toward her, then glanced up at the chopper
hovering nearby. Would the attack come from the sky or ground?

Her gaze fixed on the path. She waited for Rory to
bound
into view.

But the man who charged forth wasn’t Rory—it was Kyle!
 
Could
Reeves have morphed into their kindly houseman?

Abruptly, Kyle stopped running and
approached
slowly. His already heavy breathing accelerated and his water-blue eyes lit up.
“Valerie! What are you doing way out here alone?”

His voice was lower than ever before. The surprising
guttural rumble pulsated with lust.

The brush around her shook as though filled with rabid attack
monkeys. She hoped he didn’t notice.

“Stay back, Kyle!”

He kept coming. When he reached for her elbow, she
scooted backwards to the edge of the boulder, out of reach. She grabbed up her
stone and wielded it menacingly. “I mean it, stay back!”

Suddenly, her backup surrounded him. Brian jumped Kyle
and knocked him to the ground, slamming his fist into Kyle’s jaw, rendering him
unconscious.

Deeto
lifted Kyle as though he
weighed nothing and dumped him into the steel-mesh cage that Hugh had dragged
from the bushes. Brian slammed the door shut. The whole maneuver had taken less
than two minutes.

Before Valerie could assess the result of the capture
and how she felt about caging Kyle, Brian leapt up on the boulder and drew her
into his warm, strong arms.
 
He smelled
like sweat and dried foliage. “Thank God, you’re safe,” he murmured in his deep
voice.

Abruptly, the unmarked helicopter swooped low and a
marksman inside riddled the area with bullets. A projectile whizzed past her
head. Brian dived off the boulder, taking her with

him
, then yanked her behind the
boulder for cover.

Chaos
reined
. Her group ducked
for shelter. Rick and
Deeto
fell to the ground
clutching wounds. Someone in her party returned fire, and the chopper veered off
and disappeared into the dark clouds.

“Let’s get the hell out of here, fast,” Dad shout, “before
the chopper circles back.”

Chapter
Twenty

Reeves wouldn’t admit it to his counterpart, but he’d
needed him and saw his usefulness. Rory had contacts and the use of his rich
daddy’s credit card. That alone was enough, but he also had a pilot’s license. Reeves
glared out at the dark clouds. Unfortunately, the surprise attack from the sky
wasn’t as much fun as he’d thought it would be.

His blood boiled for the physical release of
up-close-and-personal killing. Shooting from the air may have maimed and
perhaps even killed, but it gave no satisfaction. Men crumbled and fell,
clutching their sides, but the true elixir for his vital, devilish spirit would
come only when he could rip out the throats of everyone who’d stupidly tried to
set a trap for him. His fingers itched to unlock the door of
his
mansion, throw it wide, and stride
kingly across marble floors, as was his birth right. Soon, he told himself,
soon.

****

In
Haven
Wood
Hospital
’s
waiting room, Valerie’s mind shot off in a number of directions as she
attempted to make sense of the tangled turmoil of prior events.

They’d escaped with their lives. And she was alive
because of Brian. When it was safe for them to leave the surprise-attack site,
her dad, as usual, had taken control. Everyone did their part without having it
spelled out for them. An image of Uncle Hugh racing toward the steel cage made
her want to hug him. Forgetting the danger to himself, he ran low, opened the
door, and yanked the limp Kyle out and hoisted him over his shoulder.

Dad and Brian shred their shirts into strips for
bandages and quickly secured them by knotting the material. Once they’d
rendered basic first-aid and did all they could to make Rick and
Deeto
comfortable on makeshift stretchers—quickly woven
from pole limbs and soft brush—they headed back to the mansion, with everyone
running most of the way. The minute they got inside, Dad arranged for a medical
chopper to take the injured men to Wood Haven, the nearest hospital.

Later, in the antiseptic smelling waiting room, the
family consoled each other in low whispery tones while waiting to hear Rick’s
and
Deeto’s
condition. From the exchange, Valerie
learned that Angela, Damon, and Hugh had been the ones who’d returned fire,
probably saving all of their lives. She was proud of everyone in the group, but
especially her rifle-packing mama. Her fierce alpha-mother surprised her more
every day and oddly made
her
want to
be a mother some day and surprise her child.

She glanced at Brian who sat close beside her. He
squeezed her hand. They’re going to be all right,” he whispered.

“I know. She glanced over at her twin and sent her a
thumbs-up sign. Then, capturing Brian’s gaze again, she softly said, “I didn’t
know exactly where you were, but I sensed your nearness and was comforted by
it.”

“I was to the west of you, crouching in the itchy,
stinking scrub
brush.”

She
smiled.
“Poor baby, having to suffer so desperately to keep
me safe.”

“Don’t
mock me. I never
let you out of my sight for a second from the moment you left
the mansion.” He flashed his blinding grin. “A guy could get eye-strain, you
know. He drew little circles on her hand with his thumb. “I got a kick out of
it when you picked up that rock. But it was a blow to my ego. Didn’t you think
I could protect you? Besides, you weren’t supposed to let anyone get close
enough to need your crude weapon.”

“What can I say? I’m a self-reliant girl who tries to
think ahead and anticipate and prepare for the unexpected.”

His brilliant grin shot a cupid arrow to her heart. “I
hate to admit it,” he said, “but I love that about you.” His husky, whispered
words twisted the arrow’s tip until it bored deep and irretrievable.
 
He tilted his head. “What was the deal with
that little seduction routine?”

She shivered in delight. “You noticed, did you?”