Hunter's Desire

by Meg Ripley

  Not this close; not when her search might finally be over.

  “So, is there anything particular you’re looking for from the dig?” he asked, guiding her past table after table of seemingly random items.

  “Same as always. Ritualistic items, ceremonial tools; anything that might shed light on the spiritual or religious beliefs and practices of the community.”

  He motioned to a small collection of items on a stark, metal table at the back of the room and then followed her there, standing back while she looked over the rocks, crude idols and other paraphernalia. She jotted down a few notes on the pad of paper that was ever-present in her purse.

  Though it was true that her search had begun as a selfish venture, she had become genuinely fascinated with the plethora of religions that had held sway over civilizations for millennia. Most had similar roots, founded on the basis of worship and sacrifice to a deity or group of divine beings, but each culture was also unique.

  Some benign societies sang and danced, and offered crops to their ethereal divinities. Others offered up their own people in sacrifice, like those hanged to Odin, the Norse God of War at Onsholt, or those sacrificed to Mizuchi, Kuzuryū and other vengeful dragons.

  For Claire, though, the most fascinating—and terrifying—part of all her research was that it wasn’t all mythology. Other historians and archeologists could look upon their findings with a safe and comfortable detachment, no different than reading a fantastical fairy tale for the first time.

  But Claire couldn’t do that. She knew better. She knew that while plenty of it was myths and folklore, some of it wasn’t. But just how much of it was true, she had no idea.

  Though her hands trembled now, she slipped off her gloves and reached out to inspect one item and then the next. If she were anyone else, she would have been escorted from the building the moment her uncovered flesh touched the precious items—friend of the guy in charge or not. The relics hadn’t been handled without gloves since they were buried at least ten thousand years ago. But such was the benefit of her position in the archaeological community, and her familial connection to the great William Thomas, her uncle. It gave her the ability to conduct her research in the only way that would prove valuable to her.

  Her heart pounded so hard it thumped against the wall of her chest, and the blood in her veins whooshed past her ears, drowning out the hum of the fluorescent lighting above. She passed over one item, and then the next.

  Waiting.

  Hoping.

  She came to the last of the items in the small collection: a rock no larger than her fist, painstakingly carved into the rough shape of an oblong, humanoid-looking being with lopsided breasts and a lumpy, protruding belly. Her fingers lingered there, willing the idol to be the answer to the question that had burned in her brain for too long.

  But there was nothing. Nothing was different.

  Doing her best to hide her disappointment, she slipped her gloves back on her hands and made an appropriate comment about the magnificence of the team’s discovery. Of course, Will agreed with whole-hearted enthusiasm, obviously pleased with her assessment.

  As soon as she was able to, she left the building, though Will followed right behind her. There was no way he could know how big of a disappointment the collection had turned out to be, and she couldn’t tell him. So, she did her best to plaster a smile on her face as they strode down the street in companionable silence.

  Seconds passed, or maybe it was minutes—she wasn’t sure—but she spied an open-air café up ahead and swerved off the sidewalk toward one of the empty seats, narrowly missing stepping on Will’s toes in the process. She apologized, but he waved it off.

  “Distracted by thoughts of something tall, dark and handsome?” he smiled, apparently attributing her misstep to the infamous Noah Hunter.

  Before she could respond, a waiter appeared and she gave her order to the young man, who couldn’t have been a day past nineteen. He did his best to maintain eye contact with her as he spoke, she could tell, but his gaze kept slipping, like so many young men’s gazes were apt to do, covering her from neck to toes and back again in a single sweep. The light blush that crept across his cheeks as he met her eyes again was adorable. It was clear to her he was a guileless young man, and it made her smile, though carefully, so as not to encourage anything more.

  She wondered, as he strode inside, how different his response to her would have been if he knew the truth?

  “I don’t get it Claire,” Will said when the waiter was out of earshot. “You could have your pick of any guy out there—from gangly, young waiters to filthy rich hotel owners—and yet, I’ve known you for the better part of five years, and I can’t remember you talking about hooking up once. Not once.”

  “Maybe I just believe in discretion,” she said, not willing to admit that there was a very good reason she hadn’t spoken about a single man in the past five years: there hadn’t been any. But it wasn’t easy for Claire; being with a man was a lot more complicated than it was for most people.

  “Yeah, maybe,” he conceded with suspicion evident in his tone. “So, tell me then, what was wrong with Mr. Bigshot the other night?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she replied sarcastically, “Maybe arrogant, egotistical, rich boys just aren’t my type.”

  He laughed. “So, you’d prefer the meek, poor guys? Because if that’s the case, I don’t know why we didn’t hook up years ago.”

  He was teasing, of course—or at least mostly. He’d expressed his interest in her shortly after they’d met. She’d let him down as kindly as she could and was pleasantly surprised when he stuck around, content with the friendship they’d developed since.

  “He was on a date, Will. What kind of guy asks someone out when he’s with another woman?”

  “The kind of guy that gets a lot of women. And so what? I’m not suggesting you marry the guy, but where’s the harm in a little pleasure-seeking? They don’t call this place Sin City for nothing, Claire.”

  Dismissing the conversation, and the image of pleasure-seeking with Noah Hunter that it brought to mind, she slipped off her gloves, pulled out the pad of paper from her purse and crossed off the Ghwair I excavation from her list. There were only eight possibilities left: four of them in the Americas, and the others in India, Nigeria, Turkey and the Scottish Highlands. She’d researched and investigated dozens of sites and archeological collections, trying to retrace all the places she and her uncle might have visited or the collections they might have come in contact with. As much as she hated to admit it, it became more likely each day that all her effort had been in vain. Still, she couldn’t help but to browse through the notes she’d made about each of the remaining sites and collections.

  No, she wasn’t ready to admit defeat just yet. There was still hope.

  As the young waiter arrived with her coffee, she breathed in the fresh, pungent scent. Stuffing the notebook back in her purse, she closed her eyes, determined to focus on nothing but the sun’s warmth on her skin and the gentle breeze that served to moderate the day’s heat. There would be plenty of time to plan her next step. For now, all she needed was a few minutes to not think, not worry.

  A few minutes to forget all about the heavy weight she carried around on her shoulders.

  Damn Noah Hunter for creeping into her head right then, filling her mind with ideas—ideas that might just be inappropriate, even for Sin City.

  Chapter 2

  Noah had to get away. His secretary, his assistant, two event planners and the blonde who was eagerly awaiting an invite to the evening’s big event had hounded him relentlessly all morning. He’d slipped away without a sound, even leaving his Aston Martin parked in its reserved space in the hotel’s lot. It was too much of a risk. He wouldn’t have made it behind the wheel before one of them had piped up with another question or problem.

  And so, he found himself wandering down one street after another with no desire to make his way back anytime soon. It was irrespon
sible of him, he knew, but it wasn’t like anyone would chastise him for it. That was just one of the many benefits of owning an empire that made him one of the wealthiest men in the United States. Of course, one might argue that such a man shouldn’t be forced into the streets in search of a moment’s solitude, but he didn’t mind. Large crowds were fine because there was seldom the expectation of social interaction, but he could only tolerate humans one-on-one so much before he reached his limit.

  And this morning had clearly pushed him there quickly.

  It wasn’t entirely through fault of their own. He’d spent the entire weekend trying to escape the memory of the woman from the variety show. The moment she’d stood up from her seat and started toward the stage, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. She was beautiful and graceful, but there was something else about her, too, though he couldn’t figure out just what that something was. He hadn’t been able to resist getting closer, an impulse so strong that it muted every logical objection and had him walking up on stage without a moment’s hesitation.

  Up close, her pull had been even more powerful: her scent, her dark, satin hair, expressive eyes, and porcelain skin. It was uncommon, here in the Nevada desert where sun-bronzed complexions were the norm, but it wasn’t just the color. He knew without a doubt that if he touched her, she would feel as soft as silk. And god damn it, he’d wanted to touch her.

  He hadn’t been able to resist following her out of the theater, though he hadn’t known at the time what he’d intended to do when he caught up with her. He’d known with every step he should have turned around and gone back to the mundane blonde at the front, but he wanted the mysterious woman.

  And he’d grown quite accustomed to getting exactly what he wanted.

  He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d walked away from a woman empty-handed as he had that night. He was good looking—and he knew it—and those that weren’t swayed by his appearance or his reputation in bed, tended to be swayed by his eleven-digit bank account.

  But not this one.

  Back in his seat, the show had held little appeal; the blonde beside him, even less. He’d debated going after the woman, but that thought had been the final straw. No woman—no human—would ever have Noah Hunter following behind her like a lost puppy.

  He’d left the theater—with every intention of taking the blonde upstairs, using her to banish every thought of the lovely woman on stage—but he’d taken her home instead, fleeing in his Aston Martin, navigating the highway at a hundred and thirty miles an hour.

  Twenty minutes outside the city, he was finally where he needed to be. He’d parked the car and strode out into the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but the sandstone peaks of the national conservation area.

  He’d looked around, listening at the same time for any signs of human life, but the area was empty. So, he’d closed his eyes, letting the heat that was ever-present in his core spread outward, winding its way through his extremities. It took only seconds, though many centuries ago, it had not come so quickly. It had taken many years to perfect the swift change that would let him morph from one being to the other in little more than a blink of an eye.

  When the heat filled him entirely, blazing in every fiber of his body, he let it spread out further. It burst from his fingertips and toes, and radiated from every muscle in his body as it took over and changed him, morphing his body into the massive beast within. But he hadn’t paused to revel in the long stretch of his plated neck or the wide spread of his wings. He launched off the ground with the push of his powerful legs and soared high above the clouds, feeling the need to escape, not from his home or the confines of his human life, but from the woman who lingered in his mind.

  Yet she stayed with him no matter how far he flew, always there in the forefront of his mind, and eventually, he’d abandoned the effort to escape her and returned home. Surely, it was only the unfamiliar sting of rejection that kept her there, and she would be nothing more than a vague, unpleasant memory by morning.

  It was better now, the desire to seek her out mitigated some by rational thought, though he could in no way describe his memory of her as vague.

  Vivid eyes.

  Irresistible curves.

  Coupled with the chaos awaiting him at the hotel, it would no doubt be some time yet before he was ready to return, so he walked on, covering the sidewalk in long strides. Certainly, he looked like a man on a mission, but he just wanted as much speed as possible. Walking was such a slow method of locomotion, but it wasn’t like he had much of a choice in broad daylight.

  He was just about to turn the corner, seeking out the path riddled with as few obstacles to his brisk pace as possible, when the scent of something irresistible wafted past him. He stopped, chastising himself for letting her into his thoughts once again. But it wasn’t a memory drudged up at random; she was right there, sitting at an open-air café not twenty yards away across from a tall man with jet black hair.

  Was he something substantial to her? Was he the reason she’d turned him down? He bit back a snarl at the thought, baffled by how much the thought bothered him. Not willing to consider the unfamiliar jealous streak, he focused his attention fully on the woman instead.

  She looked like a model, dressed for a 1940s vintage photo shoot. Sitting with her legs crossed primly, her hands were wrapped loosely around a mug in front of her on the table, and her head was tilted up to the sun. Her eyes were closed and her cupid bow lips slightly parted, as if the sun itself was caressing her with a lover’s touch.

  The jolt of desire that shocked through his body mimicked the response she’d caused in him the other night, but he forced his gaze away. There was no way in hell stirring things up with her was a good idea, even if she hadn’t turned him down. She wasn’t the type of woman to screw and then forget, and forgettable, substance-free women were the only type of women for him. So exactly why the hell his feet were leading him in her direction was beyond him.

  It wasn’t until she opened her eyes that he realized he was standing directly in front of her, separated only by the small table where her hands now gripped her coffee mug tightly.

  But her eyes hadn’t looked like that the other night, had they? He would have described them as sapphires then, but no, that would be too mundane. They were brighter, and a lighter shade of blue, like the rare Paraiba tourmaline from Brazil.

  He cringed mentally to himself; since when was he the type to wax poetic over a woman’s features? It wasn’t like this was his first—or even thousandth—time running into a beautiful woman.

  “So, we meet again,” he said to her before turning to nod to the man who was already in the midst of standing up.

  “Mr. Hunter,” the guy piped up with a goofy grin on his face. “It’s an honor to meet you. It’s too bad I was just leaving, but I’m sure the lovely Claire Thomas would be delighted if you’d join her.”

  The woman didn’t respond, but she looked up at the man with enough venom in her glare it was a wonder the guy didn’t drop dead right there. Instead of dropping on the spot though, he smiled brighter, waggled his fingers in a quick wave and left without another word. The guy was an interesting character, it seemed, but good riddance to him, nonetheless.

  “May I join you…Miss Thomas?” he asked politely, turning his attention back to the beauty in front of him.

  Despite her lack of interest the other night, it still threw him for a moment when she didn’t respond enthusiastically. Instead, she glanced around surreptitiously, as if she was seeking inspiration for an excuse. Apparently, finding none, she nodded slowly. And he discovered something else he liked about her: she didn’t squirm beneath his gaze like so many were apt to do. She was a strong woman, not the least bit intimidated by his presence.

  “Good morning, Mr. Hunter. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

  There was no sarcasm in her voice, only the tone of polite decorum, but he got the distinct impression she wasn’t finding his
company pleasant. He could change that in seconds; if he could touch her soft, sexy body, he’d have her moaning in pleasure so quickly, her head would spin.

  But he forced his hands to remain at his sides and sat down in the empty seat across from her. “I was actually in the middle of getting as far away from my hotel as possible,” he admitted honestly, though with a wry smile.

  “Well then, please don’t let me keep you from your task.” She smiled, again politely, but without jest. She genuinely wasn’t happy to see him, and as egotistical as it was of him, it still came as a surprise.

  And it intrigued him.

  “I think I’ve escaped far enough,” he said, glancing back in the direction of the hotel, though it was far enough away at this distance that it couldn’t be seen beyond the buildings and billboards surrounding them.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Hunter, but I really must be leaving,” she said in a tone devoid of any hint of apology, not that he would let that dissuade him if it were there. She may have it buried beneath one hell of a cool demeanor, but she was responding to him whether she wanted to or not.

  “Please, call me Noah, and I’d be more than happy to accompany you anywhere you need to go.”

  “You’re offering to stalk me around the city?” she asked wryly, a smile drawing up the corners of her lips.

  “Not stalk, accompany; the difference being I would walk beside you wherever you’re going, not behind you.”

  “I see. Well, I appreciate the offer…Noah, but it’s not necessary. I don’t actually have anywhere I need to go.”

  Her lips drew up in a full smile then, one that seemed to make her eyes shine even brighter.

  “But you’re in a hurry to leave?”