Hungry for You
LYNSAY SANDS
HUNGRY FOR YOU
AN ARGENEAU NOVEL
Contents
Cale was just raising his hand to knock at the door
when it swung open. A tall fellow with short dark hair and a phone pressed to his ear peered out at him.
“Cale Valens?”
“Yes,” Cale answered, knowing the guards at the front gate had called up to the house warning of his arrival.
“Come on in.” The fellow stepped back to make way, pushing a button to end his call before offering a hand to Cale. “Justin Bricker. Most people call me Bricker.”
Cale accepted the hand, shaking it politely as he stomped his feet on the welcome mat a couple of times to remove the worst of the snow on his boots. He then stepped inside. “I was told I should speak to Garrett Mortimer.”
“Yeah, I know. The boys at the gate called the house and said as much, but Mortimer’s down at the garagewith Sam.” Bricker shut the door and then turned to face him, waving the phone vaguely. “I was just calling down there to tell him you were here, but there’s no answer. Hopefully that means they’re on their way to the house.”
“Hopefully?” Cale removed his brown leather winter coat.
“Yeah, well, they may have been getting busy in one of the cells,” Bricker explained wryly as he took the coat and quickly hung it in a closet beside the door. “They’ve only been life mates for eight or nine months and are still pretty into each other.” He closed the closet door, swung back to Cale, and then headed up the hall toward the back of the house. “Come on. I’ll get you a bag of blood while we wait.”
Cale followed, recalling what his uncle Lucian had said about these men. Mortimer and Bricker used to be partners, enforcers hunting rogues vampires, but now they ran the enforcer house together. Bricker was the younger man and backed up Mortimer, who was now in charge of all the rest of the enforcers.
“One bag or two?” Bricker asked, leading him into a large, cupboard-lined kitchen with an island in the middle.
“One is fine,” Cale murmured.
The younger immortal immediately opened a refrigerator to reveal a large amount of bagged blood stacked up alongside various mortal foodstuffs. The sight was a bit startling. Cale hadn’t eaten mortal food in more than a millennium and only ever had blood in his own refrigerator. The thought crossed his mind to wonder ifit was really hygienic to have raw meat and vegetables so close to the blood.
“O positive all right?” Bricker asked, sorting through the bags in the fridge.
“Fine.” Hygienic or not, he was hungry.
“Here you go.”
Cale accepted the bag Bricker held out with a murmured thanks, waited the few seconds it took for his canines to descend, and then quickly popped the clear bag of crimson liquid to his fangs.
“Grab a seat,” Bricker urged, using his foot to hook one of the wooden barstools tucked under the island and dragging it out for himself. He slapped a bag of blood to his own teeth as he sat on the stool.
Cale pulled a second stool out, but had barely settled on the high seat when the soft
shush
of sliding glass doors opening and closing sounded from the next room. He followed Bricker’s glance expectantly to the open door across from them. It led into what was obviously a dining room. The end of a dark oak table was visible, as well as an end chair, but the door and whoever had entered were out of sight. However, their voices reached the two of them easily, and Cale found himself unintentionally eavesdropping on what he soon realized was a private conversation.
“Are you sure you’re ready, love?” a man asked in solemn tones.
“Yes, of course, I’m sure,” a woman answered, although she didn’t sound all that certain in Cale’s opinion. He wondered who she was and what she was claiming to be ready for.
Apparently the male speaker had noted the uncertainty as well. “Are you, Sam? It’s been eight months and you—”
“I know,” the woman interrupted. “And I’m sorry I’ve dragged my feet about it as I have. It wasn’t because I don’t love you, Mortimer. I do, but—”
“But you didn’t want to leave your sisters,” the man said with apparent understanding.
Cale felt his eyebrows rise as he recognized the names. Mortimer was who he was here to see, but so was Sam. She apparently had a sister named Alex, and Aunt Marguerite had a “feeling” this Alex might be the woman he’d waited for his whole life. Cale wasn’t holding out much hope that Marguerite was right. As old as he was, he’d pretty much given up hope on ever finding a life mate. He’d pretty much resigned himself to being eternally single. But he also hadn’t wanted to offend the woman, so had agreed to come meet this Alex.
Curious now to see the couple who were speaking, Cale shifted slightly on his stool, leaning to the side, but it was no good. They must have stopped at the door they’d just entered. They also obviously thought they were having a private conversation, and he glanced to Bricker, expecting him to make some noise to alert them to the fact they weren’t alone, but the younger immortal almost seemed to be holding his breath as he waited for what they might say next.
Cale found himself frowning around the bag in his mouth and was about to scrape his stool back to warn the couple, but the woman’s next words made him pause.
“It wasn’t because of Jo and Alex.”
Cale stilled curiously, hoping to hear more about this Alex.
“That was just an excuse, Mortimer. One I even had myself half convinced of,” the woman admitted on an apologetic sigh. “But Jo said something to me after she met Nicholas that made me realize it wasn’t the real reason.”
“What was that?” Mortimer asked quietly.
“She pointed out that, after you turn me, I would still have ten years to try to find them life mates. She said I was just afraid, and I think—no, I
know
now she was right.”
“Afraid of what, Sam?” Mortimer asked with quiet concern. “The pain of turning?”
“No … Although that’s scary on its own,” she admitted on a wry laugh. Her voice was more serious when she added, “But really I was afraid that you would wake up one day and realize … well, that I’m just me,” she finished helplessly.
“I don’t understand. I know who you are, Sam. What—?”
“I know, but—This is silly, but, while I’m smart, and hardworking, and basically nice, I’m not …” Sam’s voice was slightly embarrassed as she said, “Well, I’m just not some sexy, gorgeous vamp type of gal who can hold the attention of a guy like you for eternity.”
“Honey, you’re beautiful. I—”
“I look like Olive Oyl, Mortimer.” The words burst into the air on a breath of exasperation, as if she thought that should be obvious.
Cale tore the now-empty bag from his mouth and glanced to Bricker with confusion, his voice a bare whisper as he asked, “Olive Oyl?”
Bricker removed his own bag and explained in a hushed tone, “Popeye’s girlfriend.” When Cale continued to stare at him blankly, he rolled his eyes. “She’s a cartoon character; dark hair, huge eyes, and spindly as a stick figure. Sam is—”
“Honey, I have eyes. I know you look like Olive Oyl.”
Bricker stopped his explanation on a low curse and squeezed his eyes closed briefly. He then turned his head back toward the door, muttering with disgust, “You old guys are so bloody smooth. Honestly.”
Cale would have liked to argue the point, but really, even he—who hadn’t bothered with women in what seemed like forever—knew Mortimer’s words had been the wrong thing to say. Obviously, Mortimer realized it too because he began to babble, “I mean, you’re beautiful to me. I love your smile and the way your eyes twinkle when you’re amused or teasing and—”
“But I still look like Olive Oyl,” Sam said in tones that made it obvious she wasn’t impressed with the man’s efforts to save the situation.
“Not really.” There was a distinct lack of conviction in Mortimer’s voice, but it was stronger when he added, “Look, honey, the point is, I don’t see you through rose-colored glasses. My love isn’t based on some shallow fantasy image of you, and I’m not going to suddenly wake up one day and notice you have knobby knees.”
“Knobby knees?” she cried.
“I—No,” he assured her quickly, sounding a bit panicked now. “No, of course they aren’t knobby. I just mean I know exactly how you look. I
do
see you, and you’re what I want, not some silly fantasy like Jessica Rabbit was.”
“Jessica Rabbit?” Sam echoed with disbelief. “You had fantasies about Jessica Rabbit? A
cartoon rabbit?”
Cale’s eyebrows rose at that. He’d been alive a long time and had fantasized about a lot of things, but never a cartoon rabbit.
“Well not as a rabbit,” Mortimer muttered, sounding a bit chagrined. “And not as a cartoon character. I wasn’t really—I mean, I didn’t want to hook up with her or anything. She was just a representation of the type of woman I thought I might end up with.”
“Voluptuous and sexy,” Sam suggested.
“Exactly,” Mortimer said, sounding relieved.
Cale didn’t need Bricker’s groan to tell him that was possibly the stupidest thing the man could say. Dark hair, huge eyes, and a stick figure didn’t suggest voluptuous and sexy to him.
“Mortimer,” Sam said, her voice hard, “I’m neither voluptuous nor sexy. If that’s what you want, why spend eternity with me?”
“Honey, you
are
sexy. You’re smart, and brains are really sexy as hell.”
“Right,” Sam snapped, obviously not buying that line.
“Gad!” Bricker barked.
When the younger immortal leapt off his stool and hurried toward the dining-room door, Cale followed. He entered the room on the other man’s heels, his eyes moving with interest over the couple peering toward them with surprise.
Bricker’s description of dark hair, big eyes, and spindly as a stick figure fit Sam, Cale decided. It was probably also the most unattractive way to put it. The woman did have dark hair, but only in that it wasn’t blond. There were tints of light brown and even red in her hair that made for a lush, almost auburn. As for her eyes, Cale had always found large eyes an attractive feature, but they did tend to dominate this woman’s thin face. He suspected they would be lovely if she had a little more meat on her to round her cheeks out a bit. Actually, the woman could have done with a little more rounding everywhere. Her body was on the point of being emaciated. It made him wonder if she didn’t have some ailment of the thyroid or something.
He shifted his gaze to Garrett Mortimer then, but barely got an impression of fair hair and a muscular body before Bricker paused before the couple, and snapped, “For cripes sake, you two! What are you doing? Sam, you love Mortimer, and he loves you, and that’s what he’s trying to tell you, he’s just too stupid to get it out right. But he loves and wants you
just the way you are.”
He shook his head with disgust. “You should be secure in that knowledge by now for God’s sake. The two of you have been going at it like a pair of bunnies for months, with no sign of letting up.”
“Bricker!” Sam squawked, flushing bright pink as she glanced from the enforcer to Cale with a mortification he suspected wouldn’t be nearly as strong had he, a stranger, not been present.
“Oh, right,” Bricker muttered, glancing back toward him with a sigh that suggested he’d briefly forgotten Cale’s presence. “Sam, Mortimer, this is Cale Valens. Cale, this is Garrett Mortimer and Sam Willan.”
“Cale,” Mortimer said slowly, offering a hand, and then recognition lit his face. “Martine Argeneau’s son.”
“Yes.” Cale shook the offered hand politely and then glanced again to Sam. Much to his surprise, the embarrassment that had been coloring her face a moment ago appeared to have slipped away, replaced with an interest that was sharp and focused.