Everlasting Desire Read Online Free

her head. “I can’t imagine what else you could possibly need. Honestly, if you live to be a hundred, you’ll never wear all the clothes you’ve bought in the last week!” She frowned when he burst out laughing. “Did I say something funny?”
    â€œYou have no idea.” He slid his credit card across the counter, signed the receipt, and bid her good night as he scooped up his bag.
    He was still chuckling when he left the store.
    As had become his habit, Rhys lingered in the shadows, watching her. What was there about Megan DeLacey that intrigued him so? True, she was lovely, but he had known a lot of lovely women in the last five hundred and twelve years. Maybe it was the way her eyes met his, a faint challenge in their depths. Maybe it was the tone of her voice, the smell of her skin, or the way her heart beat a little faster when he entered the store. Maybe it was the way she filled out that green wool dress, or the way her legs looked in those three-inch heels. Hell, maybe it was all of those things—or none of them.
    Of one thing he was certain. She was afraid of him.
    Smart girl, he mused, as he turned away from the window and strolled down the sidewalk, still thinking of his undeniable attraction to Megan.
    He hadn’t gone far when two young men clad in dark jeans and leather jackets, their heads covered with black knit caps pulled down to their eyebrows, hurried past him. They reeked of cheap alcohol and cigarettes. The added scents of potassium nitrate, sulphur, and carbon told him one of them carried a gun.
    A quick brush of his mind against theirs and Rhys tossed his packages in a Dumpster and turned to follow them.
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    Megan was getting ready to tally the night’s receipts when the front door opened, admitting a pair of young men. One look and she knew trouble had just entered the store. The taller of the two remained near the door, one hand tucked inside his faded black leather jacket.
    A thin white scar bisected the left cheek of the other young man. He swaggered toward her, a smirk on his swarthy face.
    â€œLet’s make this short and sweet,” he said. “Just give me all the money in the drawer, and we’ll be gone.”
    Megan had always thought people who put their lives in danger to protect large sums of cash were idiots, and she had no intention of doing so now. Mr. Parker was well insured, and he could always earn more money. She had only one life.
    She had just opened the cash drawer when Mr. Parker emerged from his office.
    â€œWhat’s this?” he exclaimed. “What’s going on?”
    â€œNone of your business, old man,” Scar Face said. “So shut your mouth before I shut it for you.”
    â€œSee here, you young punk!” Parker retorted indignantly. “Get the hell out of my shop before I call the police!”
    â€œYou ain’t callin’ nobody, old man.”
    Parker’s face turned a deep red as he pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket. “We’ll see about that!”
    Megan let out a shriek as the thug near the entrance pulled a gun and leveled it at Mr. Parker.
    What happened next happened so fast, Megan wasn’t sure how much was real and how much she imagined. The front door opened, and a blur of black leather flew into the store seconds before the man fired the gun. In the space of a heartbeat, Mr. Parker had been pushed out of harm’s way, the two would-be robbers were unconscious on the floor, and Rhys Costain stood in front of her, the robber’s pistol in his hand.
    â€œAre you all right?” he asked.
    She blinked at him. “How…? Where…?” She glanced at the front door, still swinging, at the two young men, both out cold. At Mr. Parker’s ashen face. At the ominous red stain spreading down Rhys’s left arm.
    â€œI think you’d better sit down,” he said, slipping the pistol into his coat pocket. “You look a little