Kidnapped / I Got You Babe

by Jacqueline Diamond

  “It’s, uh, down there?” she asked.

  “Does that bother you?”

  “No!”

  “Then help yourself,” he said.

  Melanie stared back at him, stunned and exhilarated.

  “Yes!” she cried, succeeding in unfastening his pants.

  When she pulled them down, Hal knew he could no longer disguise his advanced state of yearning. Relying instead on distraction, he pointed to his scar. “There it is.”

  “That’s nasty,” Melanie said approvingly. She crouched, with the gossamer dress creeping up to hip height

  Hal could hardly restrain himself. Once in motion, he was known for his sheer velocity, as he had demonstrated to Melanie at the pier. However, he was not fool enough to undertake such action with his pants around his ankles and his feet encased in shoes.

  “In bad weather, it still hurts,” he lied shamelessly.

  “It does?” She cupped her palm over the scar, which had not yielded so much as a single twinge in more than twenty years.

  “It is throbbing right now,” said Hal, which was more or less true, depending on how you interpreted “it.”

  “How awful.” Melanie regarded his thigh enviously, as if wishing she too sported war wounds.

  “Excuse me,” he said, and stepped out of his pants, leaving his shoes behind as well. Now he was ready for action.

  Melanie did not appear to realize that she had changed from huntress to hunted. “Does this help?” she asked, and her mouth closed over his scar.

  Did it help? Did bottle rockets help calm the Fourth of July?

  Colored fountains leaped and shimmered through Hal’s brain. “Oh, lady, it sure does,” he said, and, swooping down, caught her by the waist and hoisted her in one smooth motion onto the bed.

  MELANIE WAS NOT SURE how she went from applying first aid to being launched into the air. She considered filing an official protest, and decided that would be not only futile but foolish.

  Because, in truth, she didn’t mind at all that her perceptions had just gone topsy-turvy and that Hal had vaulted from a statue into a human dynamo. Before she could even figure which way was up, she lay flat on her back with her wispy dress around her waist and the lowcut neckline pulled down, pinioning her arms and baring her breasts.

  With an ease that astounded her, Hal positioned himself over her, his mouth probing down her throat to the straining peaks of her breasts, his hands roving along the insides of her thighs and gently removing her panties.

  He had her completely within his control, and, to Melanie’s astonishment, she loved it. It had happened so quickly that there had been no need to yield; besides, she knew she had created this situation.

  It was she who had disrobed and tantalized him. Only a complete nitwit could have remained unaware of his burgeoning male need, and she was not such a hypocrite as to lead a man on and then deny him.

  She wanted him. Wanted him to go right on claiming her nipples and stoking her inner fires. Wanted him to…

  And then he stopped. One minute he was compressing her breasts to near ecstasy while one knee skillfully separated her legs, and then he lifted himself away.

  “Hal?” she said.

  He reached into a drawer in the bedside stand. “A gentleman must be prepared.” Swiftly he rolled the transparent protection over himself.

  “I thought being prepared was for Boy Scouts,” she said.

  “They should not need to be prepared in this manner unless, like me, they are over twenty-one,” he responded. Now suitably attired, he proceeded to enter her without so much as a by-your-leave.

  For an instant, Melanie thought they had been struck by lightning, so sheer and blinding was the pleasure that riveted her. When Hal drew himself away, she reached up to clutch those slim hips and bring him back again.

  “I may be known for my speed,” he said, “but there are occasions when a man does not wish to jump to conclusions.”

  “Mind if I do?” asked Melanie.

  “Be my guest.”

  She arched toward him, thrilled when their mouths met, delighted when she felt his body begin to pump. They connected with a jolt in an unbroken circuit, the electricity flowing through them at white heat.

  She had always believed that when it came to making love, men should be rated like ice skaters: one score for technical merit and another for artistic impression. But in Hal’s case, it was impossible to distinguish technique from artistry.

  The hard vigor with which he thrust into her was like the heat of battle, or, at least, the way Melanie had always imagined a battle should be.

  She flamed against Hal. His tongue found her nipples; his soft hair brushed her chest She hadn’t realized she could be sensitive to so many textures at one time.

  Then everything came into focus deep within, in a place that only he could reach. A place that Melanie had guarded without realizing it.

  A great wonder blossomed within her, spreading to encompass her entire being. Hal must have felt it too, because his shaft intensified its driving, and his muscles tightened, and she felt his wild shudders, as if the joy was almost too sharp to bear.

  He groaned and cried out, and then she realized that some of those noises were issuing from her own throat. It was impossible to tell which sounds were whose, any more than she could distinguish his elation from her own.

  As he sank against her, Melanie clutched this big hunk of a man, this gangster, this marauder, and wondered how soon they could do this again.

  HAL GATHERED Melanie close as cool air settled in around them. Beneath the covers, they lay safe, even as the wind whipped at the walls of their love nest.

  Slowly, the afterglow of sex fused with his longing for closeness. He could no longer separate the pleasure of her company from his desire for a home.

  Through the mists of deep-seated satisfaction, a discovery rose into Hal’s consciousness. The realization shocked him to the depths of his complacency.

  Cupid had shot him with the wrong arrow.

  He loved Melanie Mulcahy, not Rita Samovar. He had never loved any woman until now, had never even imagined what real love felt like.

  Birds sang and rainbows flourished and valentines throbbed on lace-wrapped boxes of chocolates. Hal felt himself sinking hopelessly into a bog of sentiment.

  But he must think clearly. For one thing, they were surrounded by gangsters who did not wish him well. For another, Melanie did not strike him as the type of dame to fall into a swoon upon receiving a declaration of love.

  Most of all, he did not dare to marry her. His reputation had already been tarnished by the depredations of his previous wives. Melanie, being the poorest of the lot, would also no doubt expect the most.

  One more hit on his good name, and Hal would lose the respect of Grampa Orion’s gang. He might even need to dispose of someone to reestablish his reputation, and that someone would be Melanie.

  He could not bear it. He must make a preemptive strike to prevent such an eventuality.

  A premarital arrangement might be feasible, but an unscrupulous attorney would shoot it as full of holes as the hit men had done to Bugsy Siegel. Hal racked his brain for an alternative.

  “Let us make a deal,” he said at last, sitting up.

  With a yawn, Melanie hoisted herself beside him. The covers draped picturesquely around her bosom. “A deal?”

  “You cannot deny that you felt it,” he said.

  She draped one forearm suggestively across his thigh. “I certainly did.”

  Hal was grateful that the darkness hid the color that sprang to his cheeks. He could not see himself blush, of course, but he recalled that embarrassing sensation from adolescence, and the ragging it had provoked on the part of other youngsters who were not yet acquainted with his talent for giving ice baths.

  “I refer to a sensation in the coronary region,” he said. “Of an emotional nature.”

  “Are you trying to say you’re in love with me?” Melanie asked in amaze
ment.

  Hal cleared his throat. “I am fond of you.”

  “Well, good,” she said. “Can we do that again, then?”

  “As often as you like,” Hal said. “Once we draw up the contract.”

  He had not been aware that she was moving in any way, until he noticed how still she had grown. “Contract?”

  “The specifics are, of course, negotiable,” he said. “An initial lump sum and annual maintenance payments, with large increments and trust funds for each child. Does that sound reasonable?”

  “Are you trying to buy me?” she asked.

  Suddenly rain began to pound on the roof like drumbeats. Lightning flared and thunder rolled. But inside the room, a deathly hush reigned.

  “I am suggesting a traditional arrangement in which the male cares for the female who produces his children,” he said.

  “You forgot the fur coat.” Her voice had a brittle ring.

  “Any species you like,” he said.

  “And the sports car.”

  “A station wagon would be safer,” Hal mused. “But that can wait until after the birth of the first child.”

  “I hate fur coats,” said Melanie.

  He knew he was in trouble. “You were not negotiating in good faith?”

  “I’m not for sale,” said the woman of his dreams.

  Hal stared at her in dismay. “Arrangements of a financial nature are a man’s responsibility to the woman he…cares for. To protect her. To reassure and comfort her.”

  “Do I look in need of reassurance and comforting?” growled Melanie.

  Lamplight raised emerald highlights in her eyes and transmuted her skin to spun gold. Her spiky brown hair and long slim body gave her a waiflike air that, Hal knew, would make any man want to cherish her.

  But most men were not as steadfast as he. Or as well able to provide for a mate.

  “You are a creature of passion and fire,” he said. “I would treat you like a queen.”

  “Which queen would that be?” she snapped. “Anne Boleyn or Marie Antoinette?”

  Hal could not believe that Melanie had misunderstood him so thoroughly, or that she was reacting with such disdain. Most ladies of his acquaintance would by now be bargaining for the highest possible down payment.

  Never before had he met a woman who did not wish to be kept in luxury. He sometimes suspected that he had been deliberately taken advantage of, but that was better than to abandon his principles.

  His sense of honor had always required him to offer a marriage license along with the fancy accoutrements. However, it was this same sense of honor that demanded he protect Melanie from the danger she would incur if she went the same mercenary route as his previous wives.

  “I apologize if I have offended you,” he said. “I am simply proposing a contract that would be advantageous to us both and would safeguard the future of our children.”

  Melanie flung off the covers and drew herself up, which had the effect of chilling and inflaming him at the same time. “I’m not letting any gangster put out a contract on me, and I’m not having any children, either!”

  She jumped out of bed and began scrounging around for her clothes. Hal had never felt so torn. He knew better than to attempt to restrain her in any way, and yet he could not allow her to leave.

  He considered blustering, begging or stony silence. Firing a gunshot into the ceiling might gain her attention, but as usual he had put no bullets in his gun.

  “I am certain there is some way that we can resolve this issue to our mutual satisfaction,” he said.

  “Sure we can!” She yanked on her underpants and reached for her leggings. “You go stuff yourself and I’ll watch!”

  She was magnificent when angry, Hal reflected. It was her very unpredictability that delighted him.

  He swallowed hard. A lump of conflicting emotions stuck in his throat, like an elephant inside an overly ambitious snake.

  He was, Hal decided, allowing himself to yield to adolescent emotions because the lady had caught him off guard. Surely this emotion that he imagined himself to be feeling was a delusion. If love existed, it would have found him long before the age of thirty-six.

  Let Melanie pull her camisole into place and tug on her red-and-white-striped sweater. If she did not notice that it was inside out, why should he tell her? Let her yank on the black jacket, too, and stick her shapely feet into her boots.

  Let her leave, if she chose. Why should he care? The hard lump burning inside his throat, Hal thought, was nothing that a dose of antacid and a few beta-blockers couldn’t remedy.

  He felt calm again. He could handle anything.

  Then the earth shook.

  At first, Hal thought this was some new and unwelcome side effect of being in love. Then he saw Melanie stumble and heard a chair crash to the ground.

  “Earthquake!” she cried. Then, more hopefully, she asked, “Bomb?”

  “I am not sure.” It took Hal a moment to register that the shaking had stopped. In retrospect, he assessed that he had felt one large jolt, following by earnest trembling.

  Springing to his feet, he grabbed a pullover sweater and jeans from the closet Whatever had happened, it was too powerful to ignore.

  Rounding the bed, Melanie opened the blinds and peered into the inky night. “Something’s changed.”

  Sudden alterations that followed large bumps in the night were unlikely to be good news, Hal reflected as he donned his windbreaker. “Can you be more specific?”

  “The lighthouse is gone,” Melanie said. “It’s a good thing Drop Dead is with Grampa or he’d be gone, too.”

  Crossing the room and leaning over her, Hal studied the billowing, rain-pricked fog. Indeed, the dull luminosity that had previously hinted at the boundary of the island was missing.

  “It was equipped with a rod for lightning, so that cannot be the cause,” he said. “It must have been the wind.”

  Below him, Melanie stiffened. “I don’t think so.” Her voice had a stunned ring to it

  “No?” said Hal.

  “I think something hit it,” said the woman who had just enchanted his bed and left his nerve endings in a state of advanced agitation. “Look, there are little lights out there.”

  “Where?” He frowned.

  “Don’t you see them?”

  Narrowing his eyes, he made out a row of pinprick lights in a straight line near where the tower had been. They looked like windows in the ocean.

  “It is a ship,” Hal said in surprise.

  Then he remembered which ship had been scheduled to pass offshore tonight. A modest-size cruise vessel whose row of lighted portholes would be about that size, if memory served from the last time he had sailed on it with its owner, Sammy “Cha Cha” Adams.

  But right now he did not think of it as belonging to Cha Cha. Tonight it was Rita Samovar’s ship.

  7

  MELANIE FELT infinitely cold. What ship could this be but the Jolly Roger?

  She had hoped to stow away in its hold, and now it had come to her. Perhaps beaching it was part of Rita and Hal’s plot to rob the passengers, but the possibility that she had caught them dead to rights provided no satisfaction.

  Couldn’t the ship have stayed at sea an hour longer? It seemed unlikely she and Hal would ever see eye to eye, but they might at least have fallen into each others’ arms and enjoyed a rematch. Now that Ms. Samovar had docked, albeit in a somewhat unconventional manner, the choice was no longer Melanie’s.

  She told herself that it would be foolish to care about a man who transferred his affections from one object to another at the drop of a ship. She reminded herself that Rita had been there first—wherever “there” might be—and had the prior claim; but this was not, after all, a matter of waiting in line at the post office.

  It did not even help to reflect that Melanie had felt a flash of prescience: when the tree fell on the conference room, she had formed a mental image of a ship hitting a lighthouse.

  So w
hat if she could finally sell a story to a tabloid? Claiming to be psychic was hardly the sort of tactic calculated to boost her reputation as a journalist.

  And that’s what she was, she told herself, moving from the window to throw on the overcoat. A reporter. Which meant she needed to investigate the scene of the disaster.

  Hal zipped up his windbreaker. “Let us go.”

  “To the lighthouse?”

  “You need not come, of course.”

  “Try and stop me!”

  “Do you know first aid? There could be injured—”

  “I passed my cub-level test in guerrilla warfare, okay? Let’s move!” She led the way.

  In the suite’s living room, they encountered a bedraggled Chet, who had just come in. When Hal explained that a ship had run aground, the young man insisted on accompanying them.

  “How is Grampa?” Hal demanded. “He might catch a chill.”

  “He and Drop Dead are playing cards in his room,” Chet assured them. “They keep accusing each other of cheating. He’ll be fine.”

  “Where are the others?” Hal shouted over a whoosh of wind as he opened the door.

  “They ran for cover when they heard the crash,” said the young man. “But I imagine they’ll want to check out the lighthouse soon enough.”

  “Good,” yelled the Iceman. “We will need them.”

  To do what? Melanie wondered as they ducked into the deluge. Plunder the ship and rob the passengers?

  From the guest list, she recalled the names of Beverly Hills society matron Noreen Pushkoshky and chain-store owners Gerard and Bitsy Germaine. What chance did someone named Bitsy have against people called Bone Crusher and Drop Dead?

  Melanie shuddered to think of the helpless, jeweldraped guests at the mercy of hardened bandits. There was, after all, no law enforcement on this island.

  They staggered through layers of mist and blinding rain. Fortunately, the island was not large and they soon reached the point where the lighthouse had stood.

  Glass and twisted steel littered the shore. From here, looming through the fog, they could see the Jolly Roger, tilted in an impressive if small-scale imitation of the Titanic.