One With the Hunger Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  One With the Hunger

  ISBN # 1-4199-0488-4

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  One With the Hunger Copyright© 2006 J.C. Wilder

  Edited by Sue-Ellen Gower.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Electronic book Publication: January 2006

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This book has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  Shadow Dwellers:

  One With the Hunger

  J.C. Wilder

  Dedication

  For those who dare to dream…

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Levi Strauss: Levi Strauss & Co

  Marlboro: Philip Morris Incorporated

  Uzi: Israel Military Industries of the Ministry of Defense of the State of Israel

  Valium: Hoffmann-La Roche Inc.

  Chapter One

  “I think you should take a lover.”

  Shai paused, her baked potato-filled fork poised in midair. “Excuse me?”

  “Ohhh, yes.” Melanie spoke, “Someone tall, dark and handsome.” She twirled a lock of icy-blonde hair around her forefinger then fell back against her chair with a sultry purr. “And he should be wildly 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 current rut.” The rich smoke from the imported cigarette drifted lazily around her head then dissipated, vanquished by the efficient air-conditioning in the restaurant.

  Shai frowned at Vivian. “I wasn’t aware I was in a rut.”

  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 in times of blindness.”

  “Even if I don’t ask you to,” Shai muttered.

  Erihn ignored Vivian’s words and spoke up. “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 wasn’t her normal cup of tea. The short, black velvet skirt, long-sleeved black silk blouse and brilliant emerald green silk jacket weren’t too bad. In fact, they looked lovely on her, but she would never admit that out loud. Who wanted to give in to the fact that they dressed like a complete frump most of the time?

  Before tonight she would never have dreamed of wearing such a revealing ensemble. Even sitting down she had to fight the urge to tug down the skimpy skirt every time she shifted in her seat. 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 for you?”

  “That’s a rather personal question.” Shai stalled, setting down her fork before reaching for her wineglass. The deep burgundy resembled blood inside the Irish crystal glass. 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 adequate excuse to change the subject from the deliciously sexy lingerie she wore. Too small, maybe? No, Jennifer would see right through that one. Damn! She wished they’d not gone shopping together last week. That’s what she got for allowing Jen to assist her in buying new granny underwear, as Jen had called them. Shai set her glass down once more.

  Maybe she could say a panty raid had occurred while she was in the shower. Or maybe guerilla warriors armed with Uzis had broken into her apartment for the express purpose of liberating the lingerie.

  “Looks like you’re right. She isn’t wearing them.” Melanie released her hair 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, dearest. Are you wearing the naughty bits Viv and I bought for you?”

  Shai felt the blush heating her cheeks. While she’d been secretly delighted with the clothing, 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. Unfortunately that hadn’t happened.

  Now, sitting in the trendy New York restaurant wearing an outfit and lingerie that would’ve 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 seamed thigh-highs felt foreign yet arousing against her skin.

  “Yes, I am wearing them.” She slapped her fork down on the table with a solid thump. “And I like it.”

  “Bravo, darling.” Viv raised her wineglass in a mock salute.

  “I suspected as much. You are so much braver than you give yourself credit for.” Jennifer shrugged out of her black leather 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 with all the finesse of a trucker chugging a beer.

  “That’s the problem with men today.” Vivian re
ached for a cigarette from Melanie’s pack. “No stamina.”

  “Mmm, maybe it’s caused by women who are reluctant to breastfeed,” Jennifer said. “It could be they’re lacking some essential amino acids during their formative years.”

  Erihn swallowed a laugh and 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. “Maybe they need 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 the purloined 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 then waved her hand at the empty wine bottles to show that they needed some refills. “What would I do with a man? I don’t have a barbeque grill, I can hang my own pictures and I certainly don’t need someone to spell their name in the snow without using their hands.”

  Jennifer and Melanie laughed while 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.

  “I think you’re perfect the way you are,” Vivian murmured.

  Tears glittered in Erihn’s deep brown eyes. “Thanks.”

  Shai swallowed hard. 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. Shoving her into his van, he’d held her in complete darkness, terrorizing her for three long, agonizing days before the police had caught up with them. 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.

  Shai blinked away the tears that beckoned. This was why she loved these women so much. Because they were family in the ways that counted the most. They were there when they needed one another and, most importantly, 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 deep.

  “Well, I for one have no desire to crush anything between these thighs,” Jennifer spoke. “Any man who gets between these legs will sigh with pleasure…not pain.” Shai choked on her wine. Without missing a beat, Jennifer reached over and pounded her on the back, a smug grin on her elegant face. “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 please grab some of the dead soldiers?” She waved her hand at the empty wine bottles littering 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 hit the plate with a chime of fine china. “Just 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 in your bed. That is quite a dry spell if you don’t mind my saying.”

  Shai shrugged. “So what?”

  “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 ever. What’s up with that? Are up a lesbian and you haven’t told us yet?”

  Shai rolled her eyes. “Not that it is any of your business but no, I’m not a lesbian.”

  “It would be okay if you were.” Vivan picked up her fork. “We all know Melanie is buy-sexual. If she doesn’t get what she wants from that fiancé of hers, she just goes out and buys it.”

  Her friends laughed as 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 shook her head. “So much for women’s lib as it’s lost on you guys. I don’t see anything wrong with being alone.”

  “It simply isn’t natural for a woman to be alone all the time.” Jennifer leaned forward to pick up her purse 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 bag 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 melted 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 new 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 offhand 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 anticlimactic 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 ‘stop’.” Melanie cracked a crab claw with a practiced flick of her wrist as the ladies dissolved into laughter.

  Shai took a hearty drink of wine. 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 work 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 nation’s top print journalists and Shai’s coworker at the New York Times. Jen was also one of the lucky few who made good money. After writing a piece on a little-known war in South America she’d won a Pulitzer, the sky was the limit. Shai knew little about her background and the other woman volunteered very little personal information.

  Melanie was the vivacious one of the group. Blonde and a bit scattered at the best of times, 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 probably out of the question, she was already well on her way to becoming a star.

  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 landscape of romance novels. Shai, who’d never read a romance, and Erihn, who’d never read the Times, had hit it off immediately, soon becoming fast friends.