Insatiable

her Wüsthof knife set in the kitchen—froze. “What? Bite me? What are you talking about?”

The man did something then that totally astonished her (not that anything he’d done

since she’d opened the door hadn’t thoroughly astonished her). He grasped her chin with the

hand that wasn’t holding on to the sword and turned her head first one way, then the other,

examining her neck the way her general practitioner checked for swollen lymph nodes.

“What are you doing ?” Meena demanded. It would have been one thing if he’d been

going to kill her.

But with every passing moment, Meena felt less and less that this was actually what was

going to happen.

Especially when he threw the sword aside entirely—it fell to the hardwood floor with a

musical clang—sat up, and, still straddling her, pulled down the front of her slip, along with a

sizable portion of her bra.

“Hey!” Meena yelled, bucking beneath him.

“Shut up,” he said. “Lie still.”

“I will not, ” Meena raged, punching him in the chest.

“He bit you,” the man said, laying a hand upon her clavicle and shoving her back down

to the floor. “He had to have bitten you. He couldn’t not have. Look at you. Your skin is like

silk. I want to bite it. The question is, where did he do it? Not the carotid artery, obviously.

You don’t have any bruising. Sometimes they go for the heart. Have you looked?”

Meena, her bra and slip straps dangling around her shoulders, just lay where she was,

staring up at him.

She could never even have written a scene like this. And even if she had, Fran and Stan

would never have let it air.

Because no one would believe it. It was just too bizarre.

“Who are you?” Meena asked.

“I am Alaric Wulf,” the man said patiently. He didn’t actually sound like a lunatic. Or

look like one…sword aside. He was good looking, if you liked tall blond muscular types who

dressed well and spoke with a slight Germanic accent.

Which ordinarily Meena supposed she would have. If he wasn’t sitting on top of her,

calmly checking out her chest for some kind of mystical bite.

“And I work for an organization that’s very interested in finding Lucien Antonescu. So if

you would kindly just tell me where he is, I’ll gladly leave you alone, Miss Harper.”

He looked like he meant it. He looked like he really didn’t like her very much at all.

Which was fine with Meena, since the feeling was 100 percent mutual.

“I’d like the name of this organization,” Meena said, “so I can report you to your

superiors. Does your employer know this is how you treat women, terrifying them to death and

then sitting on them? Get off me—” She twisted under him, punching him in the chest some

more.

And then, as he was warding off her blows with open palms, there came the sound of a

key being turned in the lock to the front door.

In a blur of motion, Alaric Wulf leapt to his feet, simultaneously yanking Meena to hers

by the wrist with one hand and grasping his sword in the other.

By the time Jon had the door unlocked and was standing in the entranceway, Alaric had

Meena thrust behind him and his blade pointed just inches from Jon’s throat.

“Shit!” Jon said, and dropped the bag of Chinese food he’d been holding, along with a

DVD.

Jack Bauer immediately darted forward and began eagerly to lick up the spilled liquid

from the bag, completely oblivious to the fact that there was an armed man threatening his

mistress a few feet away.

But Lucien Antonescu, Meena thought cynically, he’d barked at all night. Great guard

dog she’d selected. Just great.

Alaric lowered the sword when he saw who it was that had come in.

“Jonathan Harper,” he said, his broad shoulders losing some of their tension. “Age

thirty-two. Former systems analyst for Webber and Stern. Unemployed for the past seven

months. Arrested once for public intoxication and indecent exposure for urinating against a

parking meter in Miami Beach, Florida, while visiting his parents four years ago.”

Meena’s jaw draw dropped. “ Jonathan! ” she cried.

She’d always thought it was strange Jon had kept having to go back to Miami “for

business.” He’d said he’d been thinking about investing his share of the inheritance from

Great-Aunt Wilhelmina in a vacation condo near their parents’ in Boca, which was weird in

and of itself.

But then nothing had ever come of it.

“Shit,” Jon said again in a different tone, quickly closing, then locking, the front door

behind him, as if he was afraid the Antonescus might overhear. “It was four o’clock in the

morning! Outside of a Subway. That was closed. No one was around! I really had to go.”

Meena shook her head. “Still…”

“And I paid all that money to those lawyers to get my record expunged,” Jon said

mournfully.

“Lawyers,” Alaric said, shrugging. He turned back to Meena. She didn’t like the glint in

his ice-blue eyes. “We need to talk,” he said, and pulled her, not very gently, over to the sage

green couch. “Sit down,” he said, and pushed her down onto the cushions with a single large,

commanding paw.

Meena, her anger having reached a boiling point, popped right back up to her bare feet.

“No,” she said. She didn’t have to put up with his manhandling. “I will not sit down. I

still don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here. I’m calling the police. Jon.” She

turned toward her brother. “Please call the police. This man forced his way in here against my

will, and then he—”

“Sit down, ” Alaric said again, and shoved her back onto the couch, this time by

spreading his mammoth fingers across her face and pushing down.

Meena, completely stunned by this barbaric treatment, just sat there, staring at the

kitchen pass-through in astonishment. Who even did that?

“What exactly is going on here?” Jon asked, looking down at the destroyed bouquet of

roses and the broken pieces of Meena’s BlackBerry scattered across the floor. Jack Bauer, in

the middle of it all, was still licking up liquid from the overturned Chinese food cartons. When

he glanced up at Alaric, his tail wagged happily in greeting. Her dog. Her own dog !

“Your sister did that,” Alaric Wulf said to Jon about the mess. “She’s being very

uncooperative.”

Meena made a noise that was half whimper, half protest. What? She was the one who

was being uncooperative?

“Meena Harper,” Alaric went on in a completely deadpan voice, ignoring her, “is in

grave danger. Lucien Antonescu is a soulless monster. It is imperative that I find and destroy

him and that you do exactly what I say if you want her to live.”

Jon stared at the man with the sword standing in the middle of Meena’s living room.

Then he looked down at Meena, who mimed dialing a cell phone. Then she mouthed, Call the

police.

“Uh,” Jon said to Alaric. “Sure. Right.”

“Meena Harper,” Alaric said, even though he wasn’t looking in her direction. “I see what

you’re doing. If you don’t stop, I will have no problem handcuffing you to something. In fact, I

will enjoy it.”

Meena, furious, said, “Lucien isn’t a monster! Okay, he might have tricked me and said

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