Wilder, J. C. - Shadow Dweller 1 Read online

  One With The Hunger

  by

  J.C. Wilder

  ISBN 1-55316-070-3

  Published by LTDBooks

  www.ltdbooks.com

  Copyright © 1998 Lisa Hamilton

  Previously published by Dreams Unlimited.

  Cover Art by Emily Black

  Cover Art copyright © 2001

  Published in Canada by LTDBooks, 200 North Service Road West, Unit 1, Suite 301, Oakville, ON L6M 2Y1 [www.ltdbooks.com]

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law.

  National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Wilder, J. C., 1965-

  One with the hunger [computer file]

  ISBN 1-55316-070-3

  I. Title.

  PS3623.I45O54 2001 813'.6 C2001-902072-4

  * * *

  Dedication

  For those who dare to dream...

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  "I think you should take a lover."

  Shai paused, her baked potato-filled fork poised in mid-air. She stared aghast across the table at her friend. "Excuse me?"

  "Ohhh, yes," breathed Melanie, "tall, dark and handsome." She twirled a lock of icy blonde hair around her forefinger and fell back against her chair, a smile curving her full mouth. "And rich, of course."

  "I think it's a wonderful idea, if I do say so myself." Vivian, the instigator of the conversation, leaned forward, her elbows on the pristine white tablecloth. The stub of a Spanish cigarillo burned between her fingers as she pointed at Shai. "Just what you need to get out of your rut." The rich smoke from the imported cigarette drifted lazily around her head then vanished, vanquished by the efficient air conditioning in the restaurant.

  "I wasn't aware I was in a rut," Shai said pointedly.

  Vivian rolled her beautiful blue eyes and looked at her as if she were, at the very least, a dimwitted child. "Well, of course you don't see it, dear, that's what your friends are for... to point out these things."

  "Even if I don't ask you to," Shai muttered.

  Erihn ignored her. "Why do you think we bought that outfit for your birthday?" She waved her speared shrimp in Shai's direction. "Vivian said we had to prime the pump, so to speak."

  Shai glanced at the new clothes she wore. Granted, the clothing that had appeared in a beautifully-wrapped package on her doorstep earlier in the afternoon weren't her normal cup of tea. The short, black velvet skirt, long-sleeved black silk blouse and brilliant emerald green silk jacket weren't bad. In fact, they looked lovely on her, she admitted shyly.

  Before tonight she would never have dreamed of wearing such a revealing ensemble. She had to fight the urge to tug down the skimpy skirt every time she moved. She'd never worn anything in public that only covered her to mid-thigh; it simply wasn't proper. But it wasn't the clothing that worried her; it was the lingerie that had accompanied the gift.

  "I'll bet she isn't wearing them," Jennifer, a dark-haired, sloe-eyed woman, speculated.

  "Think so?" Vivian stubbed out her cigarette. "Enlighten us, little Shai. Are you wearing the naughty underwear Jen and I picked out?"

  "That's rather personal." Shai stalled, setting down her fork with a clang before reaching for her wineglass. The deep burgundy resembled blood inside the Irish crystal. In the dim lighting of the restaurant, the liquid glowed and shimmered as if lit from within.

  She took a hesitant sip, her mind scrambling for an excuse for not wearing the deliciously sexy lingerie. Too small, maybe? No, Jennifer would see right through that one. Damn! She wished they'd not gone shopping together last week. She set her glass down once more.

  Maybe she could say a panty raid had occurred while she was in the shower. Or armed guerillas had entered her apartment and stolen them at Uzi- point.

  "Looks like you're right. She isn't wearing them." Melanie untangled her hair from her finger and returned her attention to her plate.

  "I'm not sure why I put up with you guys," Shai grumbled. She picked up her fork and stuffed the now-cold bite of potato in her mouth, chewing as she glared at her four friends.

  "Because we're family in every way that counts," Erihn answered matter-of- factly. "And you love us."

  Jennifer grinned like a well-fed Cheshire cat. "That still doesn't answer the question. Are you wearing the naughty bits Viv and I bought for you?"

  Shai felt the blush heating her cheeks. While she'd been delighted with the clothing her friends had picked out, the lingerie was intimidating for someone who'd religiously worn plain white cotton all her life.

  The black lace demi-bra and matching thong had lain on the bed until the very last minute. As she was getting ready for the evening, she'd kept glancing at the lingerie, torn between her desire to don it and her wish that it would vanish into thin air. In the end, she'd relented.

  Sitting in the trendy New York restaurant wearing an outfit and lingerie that would have cost her a week's pay, Shai felt truly free for the first time in her life. She shifted in her seat, her bottom bare against the black silk half-slip. The whisper of black-seamed thigh highs felt foreign and sexy against her skin.

  "Yes, I am." She slapped her fork down on the table with a thump. "And I like it."

  "Bravo, darling." Viv raised her glass in a mock salute.

  "I suspected as much." Jennifer shrugged out of her black velvet bolero-style jacket to reveal gleaming porcelain skin and a tiny black leather bustier. "Maybe I should take another lover," she commented to no one in particular.

  "Wore out Marcel already?" Melanie asked. She picked up her glass of wine and finished it off.

  "That's the problem with men today." Vivian reached for a new cigarette from Melanie's pack. "No stamina."

  Erihn swallowed a gasp as she ducked her head. Her face half-hidden by a wing of rich brown hair, she busied herself with digging a chunk of crabmeat out of a claw. "More ginseng? Powdered deer antler?"

  "It would be hard for anyone to keep up with you, Viv dear. How many days a week do you go to the gym?" Melanie asked.

  "Three." With a flick of a gold lighter, she lit a fresh cigarette. "I can crush a tin can between these thighs."

  "Is that why you go through so many men? You crush them to death?" Melanie teased.

  Shai glanced at Vivian. "And this is a good thing...how?"

  "Maybe Viv is into recycling," chortled Erihn.

  Vivian eyed Erihn's Rubenesque figure. "It wouldn't hurt you to go once in a while."

  "Oh no, not me." Erihn caught the waitress's attention and waved her hand at the empty wine bottles to show that they needed another one. "What would I do with a man?"

  A tender look entered Vivian's eyes. She reached over and brushed Erihn's hair away from her face. Her nimble fingers lightly traced the scar that marred the young woman's cheek.

  A madman in Central Park had ended Erihn's budding modeling career seven years ago. In broad daylight, he'd grabbed her as she'd left a photo shoot. He'd kidnapped and terrorized her for three long, agonizing days before the police had caught up with him. She'd escaped with her life and a horrendous scar that would forever mar her face. But it wasn't the exterior scars that concerned her friends, it was the ones hidden deep inside they worried about. To this day, Erihn refused to speak of the incident that had forever changed her life.

  "I think you're perfect the way you are," Vivian murmured.

  Tears glittered in Erihn's deep brown eyes. "Thanks."

  Shai felt the tears stingi
ng her own eyes. This was why she loved these women. Because they were family in the ways that counted the most. They were there when they needed one another and even when they didn't. For the past two years, they'd laughed and cried together, sharing their lives as only they could with other women. In a silent toast to her friends, she picked up her glass and drank.

  "Well, I for one have no desire to crush anything between these thighs," Jennifer spoke. "Anything that gets between these legs will sigh with pleasure...not pain." Shai choked on her wine. Without missing a beat, Jennifer pounded her on the back as she continued. "I haven't had any complaints yet."

  "Nor will you ever, dear," Melanie said. She grinned as the waitress appeared with another bottle of burgundy. "Can you grab some of these here?" She waved her hand at the empty wine bottles that littered the table before returning her attention to her friends. "Of course, that doesn't fix the matter at hand."

  "Which is?" Erihn asked.

  "Finding a lover for Shai," Vivian frowned at the young woman. "Weren't you paying attention at all?

  "Well, of course I was. I'm sitting right here."

  Shai leaned back, the base of her wineglass hitting the plate with a chime of fine china. "How in the world did we get on this topic? Who says I need a lover anyway?"

  "I did, dear." Vivian captured the bottle of burgundy before Melanie could help herself. She leaned around Erihn to fill Shai's glass and then her own. "It's your thirty-first birthday today and, in the two years I've known you, you've never mentioned a man once."

  "So?"

  "This needs to stop." Melanie liberated the bottle from Viv and filled her own glass. "Come to think about it, I've never heard you speak about any men. What's up with that?"

  Shai picked up her glass and took a quick swallow. How in the world was she going to get out of this one gracefully? She set the glass on the table before she spoke. "Just because I don't need a man to make my life complete, does this make me a freak?"

  "Yes," they all spoke in unison.

  Shai rolled her eyes. "So much for woman's lib. It's lost on you guys. I don't see anything wrong with being alone."

  "I do. It simply isn't natural." Jennifer leaned forward to pick up her case and extract a cigarette. "Take me, for example. I'm a very successful journalist and I'm not in a relationship. However," she dropped the case on the table, "I do have several gentlemen I can call to entertain me and take the edge off."

  Shai blinked. "Take the edge off what?"

  "Sex, dear." Vivian snared a crab claw off the platter in the center of the table and set to freeing the succulent white meat. "You know, to get your rocks off?"

  "To get nailed," Jennifer returned, her tone wry.

  "To poke the hole in the doughnut," Melanie chimed in.

  "You ladies are so vulgar," Erihn spoke without heat.

  Vivian grinned, "Thank you, little mouse." She popped the chunk of crab, dripping with butter, into her mouth.

  "Oh, brother." Shai rolled her eyes again.

  "You're a virgin," Melanie announced.

  Silence reigned at the table as Shai found her friends hushed for the first time that evening. They watched her, their expressions ranging from doubt to wonder as they pondered this idea. She squirmed in her seat, uncomfortable with their questioning stares.

  She wasn't a virgin...but she wasn't far from the mark either. In fact, Melanie's off-hand statement was a little too close for comfort. Hasty fumblings in college with a nearsighted computer major didn't make for a satisfied woman. After her somewhat anti-climactic experience, she'd decided that sex wasn't all it was cracked up to be, so she hadn't pursued it further. However, technically, she wasn't a virgin.

  "I am not," she protested. "Just because I don't sleep with half of the New York Yankees..."

  "I object." Vivian dipped another bit of crab into her container of drawn butter. "It was only the first baseman and the shortstop." A sensual throaty laugh escaped her. "And let me say, my dears, he was anything but short."

  "Really?" exclaimed Melanie. "Do tell."

  Vivian shifted in her seat. A soft smile played about her thin, red-painted lips. "He had this thing about biting my toes as he came." She shook her head. "Very strange, as I'd never seen that particular trick before. But he did have this amazing maneuver with..."

  "Stop!" Erihn's hand came up to halt any further revelations, her cheeks crimson.

  Jennifer reached for the wine. "That's a word that's never passed Vivian's lips."

  "Oh, I don't know, the word don't might have been in front of that." Melanie cracked a lobster tail with a practiced flick of her wrist as the ladies dissolved into laughter.

  Shai drained her wineglass. Her cheeks were hot and she just knew she was blushing to the roots of her already-red hair. She'd never understood how all of them had become friends over the years. They were all so different with very little in common.

  She glanced at Vivian, stunning in her blue silk jacket and black leather pants. Her clothing, cultured accent and mannerisms screamed money. Divorced several times, Vivian was known for her outlandish lovers, her flaunting of society's mores and her family's seemingly limitless supply of cash. She was lesser known for her charitable works with the homeless within New York City, but that was something she rarely spoke about. A stunning brunette with a wicked sense of humor, she moved in circles that Shai could only dream of.

  Jennifer, physically, was almost Vivian's twin. Both had black hair, Jen's long and straight while Viv's was short and curly. Distinguished and elegant, Jennifer was one of the nations' top print journalists and Shai's co-worker at the New York Times. Jennifer was also one of the lucky three percent who made the big money at it. After writing a piece on a little known war in South America and winning a Pulitzer, the sky was the limit for her and she wrote her own ticket. Shai knew little about her background and Jennifer volunteered very little personal information.

  Melanie was the vivacious one of the group. Blonde and a bit ditzy, she'd worked for a late night television talk show as the cue card girl. Her many appearances on television when the show's flamboyant host had picked on her during the show had given her entrée to commercials and soon she was headed to Hollywood to make her first movie. She dreamed of making it big in the movies and marrying Mel Gibson. While the Mel Gibson part was out, they all wished her well and supported her at every turn.

  And then there was Erihn who was like none of them. She was a romance writer and a long-time friend of Jennifer's. Erihn and Shai had met when Shai, on her first assignment as a reporter, had been sent to interview her on the changing face of romance novels. Both women were almost painfully shy, but they'd hit if off immediately, becoming the best of friends.

  But someone was missing.

  "Where's Evie?" Shai asked.

  Vivian shrugged and reached for a roll. "Maybe she got tied up?"

  Melanie sighed. "Only if she's lucky."

  "No. Don't tell me that white-bread man you're engaged to ties you up?" Jennifer drawled.

  Erihn leaned forward, the candlelight flickered over the scar, making it softer, less apparent. Shai could practically see her jotting mental notes for yet another book.

  "Only once." Melanie's creamy skin grew flushed and Shai couldn't tell if it was from the alcohol, conversation, or the memories of the event in question. "It was wonderful. Liberating, actually."

  Vivian licked butter off her fingers and grinned at her blonde friend. "Isn't it just?"

  Shai blinked. After all the years of outrageous conversations, she should be used to this kind of talk by now. But she wasn't and it made her uneasy. Sex was foreign to her and, in her mind, overrated. She picked up her wineglass and drained it yet again. She'd already had much more than she was used to drinking and tomorrow she'd pay the price.

  "So, what's your ultimate sexual fantasy, Jennifer?" Erihn asked, her eyes bright with curiosity and far too much wine.

  "Mmmm," Jennifer paused, her lips screwed up in concentration
. "I don't know." A wicked gleam entered her eyes. "How about handcuffed in the back of a police car? Cuffed to the dividing cage while Joe Police-guy frisks me with his really hard...baton."

  Erihn and Melanie dissolved into laughter as Vivian smiled. "Been there, done that. His last name was Mathison from the 13th precinct here in New York." She sighed and picked up her wineglass, her eyes growing dreamy. "And, oh my, what a baton he had."

  "Okay." Jennifer stubbed out her cigarette, her tone challenging. "What's your ultimate fantasy, Viv dear, and don't be shy."

  "Yet another word that's never been associated with Viv," Melanie laughed.

  Vivian paused, her glass halfway to her mouth. Her expression turned whimsical. "Well, I can't honestly think of many things I fantasize about when, let's face it, I've lived most of them. I suppose, if I really had to come up with one, there is the bar wench fantasy, the Madame and slave fantasy, and the bad cop fantasy is always a good one..."

  "Just one, Viv. You needn't recite your entire repertoire of tricks," grumbled Jennifer. She picked up the now-empty bottle of wine and waved it in the direction of the waitress.

  "Hmm...probably the saloon girl fantasy." Vivian shifted in her chair. "I'm working in a saloon in the old west as some trail riders come in. Three of them, I think. They order a drink as they eye me in my revealing peasant blouse." She traced her fingertips lightly over the suntanned skin showing between the lapels of her jacket. A sensual smile curved her lips as she began to lose herself in the fantasy.

  "The tallest man's name is Stud Lonewolf and he's a sight for sore eyes. With long blond hair, dark blue eyes and pecs that would make a romance cover model cry with shame. As I set his drink in front of him, he grabs my wrist and pulls me into his lap." She shifted in her seat once more before crossing and re-crossing her legs. "I can tell it's been a long time since he's seen a real women. He whispers in my ear all the wicked things he wants to do to me. As I lean back against his chest, he reaches up to untie my blouse and my breasts fall free. Callused fingers tease my nipple as his knee parts my thighs.