Most Eligible Wolf, Julie Steimle [important of reading books .TXT] 📗

“Alright,” Daisy said casually. “Each to his own and all that. I see you take it seriously.”

“And you don’t?” Audry turned around toward her. “It affects everything.”

Shrugging, Daisy did not seem bothered at all. “Oh, come on. It is the way of nature.”

Audry rolled her eyes.

“You, studying animals and you don’t see that?” Daisy asked, her lips twisting in amusement.

Facing her, Audry replied, “We’re not talking about animals. This is about human beings. Human beings have responsibilities.”

Flinching, Daisy pulled back with a disgusted huff. “Oh, glory be—you are talkin’ just like him.”

Audry stiffened.

“‘I have responsibilities’,” Daisy mocked, tossing her fluffy blonde hair. “What about his responsibility to me? He got me pregnant.”

Those around them hushed.

For Audry, it felt as if her stomach had fallen. Again, Rick just didn’t seem that kind of guy. But of course, sex led to pregnancy. That was biology. That is what those organs are for—reproduction. But him, just leaving her?

Daisy waved it off. “Oh… don’t make that face. He didn’t abandon us or nothing’. His father made him not come around. And I miscarried besides. But if I had the kid, he would have been there. We were goin’ to get married. He was goin’ to make it happen.” She then sighed. “Only… four years. That’s a long time not to make contact.”

It would be, if he truly loved her.

But was what happened love? If it really happened at all. This Daisy could in fact be full of it. Audry regarded the woman from the side of her eye as she continued to sort some things out under the table. Perhaps she was just talking this way because she wanted to stir up a scandal. That was the trend now-a-days—concoct a scandal for extortion.

Audry eyed Daisy more. Honestly, she also didn’t seem to be his type. Yeah, Daisy was pretty. In fact, the way she was dressed, it was if she was planning on drawing him in so she could get laid. It wasn’t ‘sexy’ per se, not in the kinky short tight skirts and revealing clothes sort of deal. But rather her clothes were the loose flowing type, the kind that could easily be slipped off and drew eyes to her breasts. In fact, it didn’t look like she was wearing a bra. And the kind of girl she seemed to be, Daisy probably wasn’t wearing any underwear either. His type? Just looking at—say—Jessica whom Rick most likely did have a crush on at one time, or that famed California surfer chick—he liked the sporty, principled types. And this Daisy was nothing like that. Rolling around in the grass with men seemed to be the only sport she was into.

 “What?” Daisy asked, watching Audry watch her.

Audry finally said it. “I’m sorry… It’s just, you dismissing his responsibilities is really rude. And, again, not to be rude, but I am having a hard time imagining that guy just… setting them aside for a—”

“A night of mad pleasure?” Daisy cut in with enjoyment, leaning her hand on chin and her elbow on the table. She fluttered her lashes at Audry. Her dress was barely hanging on, giving her booth mates too much of a view down her dress. She definitely wasn’t wearing a bra.

Groaning, Audry was ready to walk away. The only reason she didn’t was that she was in charge of the booth. She could not leave it.

Chuckling deeply, knowingly, Daisy said with a voice that was no longer honey sweet, but well-knowing and almost seductive—like Joan Collins in her early roles, “Oh… it was a bit of work to get him to sleep with me, to be honest. But once he was hooked, he didn’t want to stop. I mean his manhood was like…” Daisy demonstrated with her hands. “And wow. Seriously. I can’t tell you how many times I—”

“Enough!” Audry paled, feeling sick. This woman was bragging?

Daisy dug out from her purse a small jar not too different from Audry’s own container of Tiger Balm. She held it out. “You see, Rick has got a super sensitive nose. He can be driven wild by certain scents. Lose all control, you know.”

Audry stared at the jar, leaning away from it. “You used a perfume to manipulate him?” She was utterly disgusted. This Daisy was total slut. Audry had yet to hear one thing about Rick as a human being from that woman’s mouth. Jessica had plenty of things to say about Rick as person—good and bad. So did Silvia. But it was becoming clear that this Daisy saw Rick as a piece of meat. It was revolting.

“No.” Daisy shook her head, twisting off the cap. She held it out for Audry to sniff. “It’s a pheromone enhancer.”

Blinking at her, Audry stiffened. “What?”

Taking a small daub out from the jar, Daisy rubbed it her chest just above her breasts then into her cleavage. Then she rubbed it along her jugular, both sides of her neck. “Pheromone enhancer. It enhances the smell of a woman’s pheromones. And if a man is attracted to the scent of those particular pheromones, he gets intensely aroused. It drives him wild, actually.” She handed Audry the jar, then rubbed it into her wrists. “If you want to get laid, all you gotta do is rub some on in discrete places where your blood is close to your skin, and the man of your dreams will come runnin’.”

“No way.” Audry could not believe it, holding the jar as if it were a sharp piece of glass.

“Admittedly, Rick didn’t just jump on me at first smell or anythin’,” Daisy casually drawled out. “I had to lead him along. You know, tease him with it. But once he really breathed it in, it was really hard for him to resist. And after we’d made love for the first time, his desire for me almost impossible for him to ignore. He fought the temptation a short bit, but in the end he came to like a puppy dog and begged for me. If he had stayed in our town, I would have gotten laid any time I wanted. He gets turned on just with a whiff of my scent now. Or did. It’s been four years, ya know.”

 Audry still could not believe it. By a smell? Rick abandoned all sense and ended up having sex with this girl because of a jar of balm and her pheromones?

“But I bet if he smells me now, he’ll invite me back to his hotel room, and we can finish where we started off,” Daisy murmured, sniffing her wrists. She then heaved a hormonal sigh, just dreaming about it. Audry could not smell a thing.

Audry sniffed the jar. Nothing. It just smelled a little oily.

“Why are you tell me all this?” Audry stared at her, especially grossed out about Daisy’s continued bragging. It was disgusting.

With a twinkle in her eye, Daisy smirked at her. “Because all men are the same, dearie—deep down. And you are naïve. And I want to educate you.”

Audry bristled, gingerly holding the jar in her hand. She felt like chucking it at Daisy’s head. Hard.

Daisy continued to talk this way. “Besides, I know you’re not after Rick, so I don’t feel any animosity toward you for maybe accidentally honin’ in on my territory.”

“Honing in?” Audry jerked back. “You think I kept him away from—?”

“No,” Daisy laughed, shaking her head with her hands raised in protest. “His dad did. He wanted to end us. And I am sure daddy has big plans for his son—and that includes marriage. I’m sure he is selectin’ his son’s bride as we speak—and I don’t think it is you.”

Audry had a hard time believing in all that arranged marriage nonsense also. It just felt so backward. And Mr. Deacon did not seem backward. And Rick did not seem the type either to go along with such a thing. The fact that he had rejected Selena Davenport was proof. He could have had a posh girlfriend from among the elites. Easily. In fact, back at that party she had gone to with Vincent—where she had bumped into Rick last, where Harlin had embarrassed her to death—Rick was not actually in attendance. His mother and stepfather were there with his grandparents. He had elected to babysit his half-brother and sister—most likely to get out of it. He had only shown up at the thing to sneak out snacks for the little kiddies.

Besides, it didn’t make sense that Rick would have just jumped into the sack with this woman just because she had smelled good. It was stupid. It had to have been a lie. All of it.

Several of Daisy’s friends jogged back to their booth, breathless, grinning. One of the guys gleefully reported, “We saw him!”

“Which one?” Daisy tersely asked. “Rick or—”

“Rick.” The guy nodded firmly, cutting her off with a look to those nearby. Audry wondered whom else they were waiting for. “We didn’t get to ask him any questions or anything. And the audience was too dark for him to see us—so he didn’t see us. But he’s here! And he’s gonna be around here the whole day.”

Audry frowned, glancing at the others at her booth. None of them were waiting to ask the Deacons for permission with doing projects on his land that she knew of. But it was likely he would walk the convention center and probably pass by. He did that.

“Look what I found!” A girl from their group trotted up. She was holding up a pendant necklace of a Celtic moon.

“Ooh!” Daisy reached out for it. “Tola! Where did you find this? This is amazin’.”

Tola pulled the long chain over her head, shaking out her blond curls so that the cord lay safely under it. “A booth over there. They’ve got Diana moon charms and earrings. I’m gonna wear this at the next full moon ritual.”

Daisy immediately trotted away to get herself one. Even before she was out of earshot, her friends cast her mocking looks.  

“Jealous…” The guy with them laughed.

Tola nodded in agreement. “But she got moon-bonded with a mingled-soul wolf, so she deserves to feel jealous about something.”

“Now who’s jealous,” the guy said to Tola, laughing more, this time at her.

Huffing, Tola hissed to him (though Audry overheard), “It’s not fair. How many pups has she got from drifters? The pack elders spoil her. They gave her that house, and she does not have to watch her own. I’m just saying if she hadn’t miscarried his pup, the pack would have had a great deal more leverage over those heretics. And he would have been really useful to us. She blew it.”

None of that conversation made sense. It had to be code language.

Or… the inside language of an insular group of cultists, which was what Audry realized they had to have been. The reason she believed it was that, was because she knew four years ago Rick had been dealing with something that had really messed with his life. One of the main rumors was that one summer he had fallen in with a cult that had tried to brainwash him. No one knew the truth, of course. Mr. Deacon II have made sure of that. But here was a group of double-speaking, manipulative people who claimed to be Rick’s friends—and Daisy herself said she had enticed Rick into having sex with her.

Panic seized Audry. She could feel it, and now she knew it. These people were dangerous.

She looked around for convention security guards. She had to alert one.

Daisy returned in a heavy-footed march. She shot Tola a hard look. “You took the last one.”

Grinning at her, Tola declared, unrepentant, “I did.” She then trotted off, even more unrepentant.

These were nasty people. How in the world did Rick fall among them? How? Clearly he had barely escaped them. And she needed to.

“Can you leave?” Audry finally said to them. “You’re making it hard for people to visit our booth.”

Daisy glanced back at her. Her periwinkle blue eyes examined Audry sharply. But then