GRIPPED (Romance Mystery & Suspense Box Set)

by Abbott, Alex

  “That’s my final word.”

  A petulance came over Melanie that Jack had never seen. She folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot. “You’re not the boss of me. I can do whatever I want and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  He couldn’t help but be amused by this display of girlish stubbornness. “Try me.”

  “I’ll call Bill and tell him—”

  “And tell him what? That you’re on a suicide mission to Paris and won’t he join you? He’s a cop, Mel, not your personal bodyguard.”

  It was the first time he’d called her Mel, and she seemed to respond favorably to the endearment.

  “Bill was right. You are a jackass.”

  Or not. “Better a jackass than a lousy protector.”

  Melanie shifted her weight and tapped her other foot, her arms now akimbo. “What if you come along? You can protect me. And didn’t you promise me yourself last night you’d take me to Paris on the Thalys?”

  “That was before the goon squad showed up and redecorated my face. They know you’re here now, and are probably keeping an eye out.”

  “They won’t dare come near me again.”

  “They will and you know it.”

  “All I know is that my name starts with a V and I live in Paris and that’s all I need to know. I’m going.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  She let out a grunt of annoyance, and before he could stop her, stomped to the door.

  He quickly bounded after her and grabbed her around the waist, dragging her back.

  “Let me go, you brute!” she yelled, pummeling his arms with her fists.

  “Not while I have my strength,” he grunted. “You’re staying put and that’s all there is to it.”

  Suddenly she went limp in his arms, and a feeling of alarm went through him.

  “Melanie? Mel! Are you all right?”

  He quickly turned her in his arms so she was facing him. Her eyes were closed and she didn’t respond.

  Oh, God. What had he done? She was still suffering from the consequences of the head injury she’d sustained. He should never have handled her this roughly.

  He easily lifted her slender frame in his arms, and carried her over to the sofa, gently laying her down on the soft pillows.

  He turned to fetch a towel so he could wet her brow, but the minute he turned his back he sensed movement. Wheeling around, he was surprised to find Melanie sneaking toward the door, her eyes wide with excitement and a flush suffusing her cheeks.

  When their eyes met, she stuck out her tongue, and broke into a run.

  This time, when he made a grab for her, she squealed with laughter, and when they both went down in a heap of flailing arms and legs, he was laughing as hard as she was.

  Suddenly, and he didn’t know how it happened, he found her lips on his, and instead of rolling on the floor laughing, they were kissing with a passion that took him by surprise.

  Lying on his back, she straddled him, her mouth on his, and when he reached for her, she firmly took his hands and pinned them to the floor, then took his mouth once more, slower this time, and more deliberate.

  Her tongue plunged into his mouth, and he wrestled it with his, tasting the sweet nectar of her with a relish that rocked his world.

  He relaxed, then, and answered stab with stab, giving as well as receiving, while they explored each other deeply, drinking the other in and enjoying every moment.

  He licked a trace across her lips, and when she suckled his lower lip, then nibbled it lightly, he bucked his hips against hers, feeling the telltale signs of his arousal awakening in his groin.

  It didn’t matter that she was in his care. All that mattered was that she was here, and so was he, and he wanted her and she wanted him. That was all the reason he needed to break his sacred oath.

  He bucked his hips harder now, and threw her off balance. Landing on the floor next to him, he moved over her, darting kisses across her face, her neck and the hollow of her throat until the sighs and moans she emitted could no longer be ignored.

  He placed his hands on her breasts and when she arched her back, he moved his growing bulge against her hip, pushing in.

  “Oh, yes, Jack. Don’t stop,” she pleaded.

  He plundered her mouth, licking his way deeply into her, and she drank him eagerly—voraciously.

  Grasping her breasts, he kneaded them under his fingers, and was just about to pop the top button on her shirt, when a soft cough sounded in his rear and broke the spell.

  They both looked up in alarm, only now realizing they’d been making out in front of the busted-up front door.

  A liveried young man stood framed in the doorway, staring down at them, wide-eyed. He was holding a tray in both hands and seemed at a loss as to the proper code of etiquette in this type of situation. Hotel school had clearly never prepared him for this.

  He cleared his throat. “Excuse me, sir. Your breakfast, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Jack’s answer was a single bark. Rufus, who still hadn’t had his morning walk due to all the excitement and confusion, seemed to recognize in the young man a dog walker sent from heaven.

  The Carlton man raised a single eyebrow at the prancing pup. “Indeed, sir. As you say.”

  Chapter 11

  As Melanie and Jack sat enjoying their breakfast, they kept darting surreptitious glances at one another. Not a word was spoken as they savored the freshly squeezed orange juice, the hard-boiled eggs and dribbled maple syrup and liquid honey on their warm pancakes.

  “I, erm, feel an apology is in order,” Jack finally said.

  Melanie was surprised. An apology? “What do you mean?”

  “I should never have jumped you like that. It wasn’t... appropriate.”

  She couldn’t help but elicit a tinkling laugh at that. “Appropriate? Come on, Jack. This is not the nineteenth century and we’re not living in Victorian England. I enjoyed you jumping my bones.” She wagged a fork at him. “And it was my distinct impression you enjoyed it too.”

  He gave her one of his half-smiles. “I confess. I did enjoy our little... tryst.”

  “Not as much as Rudolph did.”

  Before the room service man had left, he’d divulged his name, expressing the hope ‘Mr and Mrs Carter would enjoy their breakfast and the continuation of their... frivolities.’

  “Tryst. Frivolities. Where I come from we call things by their real name.” She leaned in. “Sex.”

  He smiled. “Ah? So that’s what it’s called, huh? I’ve always wondered.” Then he cocked his head. “And how do you know that’s what it’s called ‘where you come from’? To my recollection you don’t know where you’re from, my dear.”

  She buttered another piece of toast. “Why, Paris, of course. Didn’t you listen to a word Bill Rattner said? My name is V and I’m from Paris.”

  Jack frowned. “Myes. I still wonder how he figured that one out. Rattner is usually not the brightest bulb in the bulb shop.”

  “Pure and simple deduction, my dear Watson. Elementary, what?”

  Bill had checked Melanie’s phone records, which, unfortunately, had yielded little result. The phone she carried was a disposable one, and he’d reasoned she must have stolen it from her captors, for the only calls made from it were to yet another disposable phone, all within range of a cell phone tower located on the outskirts of Paris. He had also discovered a single message received.

  ‘Take V to Rue Notaire 55. Welcome committee fueled and ready.’

  Not far from that same cell phone tower there was indeed a Rue Notaire. French police had been notified, but a search of the premises had revealed little. The house was abandoned, home to occasional squatters and derelicts.

  If V had been held there, there were no traces of her keepers or her presence.

  “V. Could be Veronique. Or Valerie. I like Valerie.” She took a sip from her jasmine tea as she gazed out the window across Brussels by morning. Sheer curtains were billowing in the
breeze. Jack had opened the window a crack to let some fresh air in.

  A persistent smog enveloped the city, accompanied by a light drizzle. Normal for this time of year, Jack had assured her. It was, after all, only March. Too early for spring.

  Somehow she associated herself with a warmer clime. Perhaps she was a native of the South of France?

  “Could also be Virginie,” suggested Jack.

  She almost choked on her tea. “I don’t think I’m a virgin, Jack. Not from the way I...”

  She bit her tongue before revealing too much about herself.

  He fixed her with a sultry stare. “I know. I don’t think you’re a Virginie, either.”

  She pursed her lips, amused by the way the morning had turned out. She liked Jack more and more, and not merely physically. He was fun to be around, and obviously very intelligent. And caring. The way he was determined to look after her had touched her heart. And other parts of her anatomy...

  “You know what? Why don’t we fly to Paris? I’ll ask my dad to lend us the jet. That way we can make the trip undetected, and once we’re there, we simply vanish in the crowd.”

  “You have a private jet?”

  “Well, not me. My dad.”

  “Your family must be rich.”

  “We’re doing okay.”

  She grinned. Judging from what she’d seen, and from Bill Rattner’s opinions on the Carter family, that was quite the understatement. “All right. Let’s take the jet and fly to Paris.”

  He held up a finger. “On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “No hanky-panky on the plane.”

  She gave a bemused snort. “Oh?”

  “Dad is a bit of a prude. And contrary to what you might have been led to believe, even pilots on private jets have a tendency to blab.”

  She eyed him from across the breakfast table, and slowly let the tip of her tongue slide along her lips. “Are you sure you’ll be able to control yourself? Jack?”

  His eyes shot sheets of flame back at her, hot enough to singe the tips of her blond tresses.

  “I can if you can. V.”

  She laughed, enjoying the light banter and sexual innuendo. The danger she’d faced the day before and that morning seemed far away and she had Jack to thank for it.

  “I like you, Jack Carter,” she said softly.

  He grinned, never taking his eyes off her. “Same here. There’s just one thing I’m afraid of.”

  A twinge of fear crept back into her consciousness. “What’s that?”

  “That we’ll discover you’re some princess from a faraway land whose father has already promised your hand in marriage to a handsome prince.”

  She laughed at the notion of her being a princess. “Right. Me. A princess. Dream on, prince charming.”

  He chuckled amusedly and shrugged. “Who knows what we’ll find in the City of Light?”

  She turned her gaze to the window again, staring out at the Brussels skyline, the gray business city that never slept. Jack was right. There was no telling what they would find at the end of the rabbit hole. What awful or wonderful truths awaited them.

  She was simply glad that Jack would be there to face them with her.

  Chapter 12

  “I knew she’d get away from you, you witless lug.”

  Rainer glared at the woman he’d come to know as the scourge of his life, but didn’t retort. The simple truth was that Jeannine was right. She had predicted the girl’s escape, and when finally they’d managed to track her down and she’d slipped through their fingers once again, he hadn’t disputed his part in the fuck-up.

  Jeannine’s suggestion of hitting the young man over the head with a big stick and grabbing Valerie had met with strong resistance from his part.

  Though he looked like the villain in a Hollywood B movie, Rainer was in fact an accomplished painter, and his refined artist’s soul rebelled against the prospect of knocking out perfect strangers who had done him no harm.

  Jeannine, daughter of a butcher and wife of a feeble-minded thug, didn’t have such compunctions about using violence to further her needs. And if it hadn’t been for her, he wouldn’t even have slugged Jack Carter across the face in the first place.

  The deed still rankled. He didn’t like slugging people and now, in the space of forty-eight hours, he’d done so twice, the first time a woman no less.

  Granted, the wench probably deserved what she got, but still. It just wasn’t right. All they’d ever wanted was to get what was rightfully theirs, and taking Valerie had seemed like the best way to accomplish that simple goal.

  “How was I to know she’d get help?” he lamented.

  “She’s a young whore. They always get help.”

  To describe Valerie Lorgnasse as a whore didn’t seem right. While it was true she’d had her share of lovers in the past, she didn’t differ from most young women in that respect. And anyway, that was none of their business. To each his own.

  They were seated in Jeannine’s pea-green battered Peugeot just across the street from the Carlton, still reeling from the altercation with the young man who’d quickly turned into the bane of their existence.

  Jeannine, lighting her next cigarette with the last, chewed her lower lip.

  God, she was ugly, Rainer thought as he studied her from the corner of his eye. Now that she’d dropped all pretense to be anyone’s mother, she’d reverted back to her usual self, her greasy gray-streaked hair hanging limply around a pock-marked face, bushy eyebrows accentuating black eyes, and a mustache that would have done many a hipster proud.

  If she hadn’t been his cousin’s wife, he would have never agreed to the distasteful task, that much he knew.

  “So what’s next?”

  Her head jerked up and she threw him another one of her nasty looks. “What’s next is that if we don’t get a hold of the bitch, she’ll be squealing to daddy and then you and I will be spending the rest of our lives in abject poverty, lamenting the loss of what we could have had.” She closed her eyes and frowned, drawing together her twin bushes of fur. She tapped her head with her knuckles. “Think, Jeannie. Think!”

  While his accomplice thought, Rainer sat and stared forlornly out the windshield, thinking about his cozy little Paris studio and the painting he’d started but hadn’t had time to finish.

  It depicted a sailboat, and when ready would, he hoped, find a buyer amongst the many Parisians who lived for the arts.

  He just hoped his little stall near Faubourg Saint-Antoine would still be there when he got back.

  If only he hadn’t allowed Seth to drag him into this mess, he would be home now, finishing the boat and preparing to go out on his daily sales round amongst his friends, the pigeons.

  He looked up when movement attracted his attention. Two people, along with a dog, exited the hotel, approaching a waiting limo. His eyebrows shot up when he recognized them as Valerie and the man who’d declared himself her protector.

  “J-j-j-jeannine!” he stuttered excitedly.

  “Shut up, you moron. Can’t you see I’m thinking?”

  “B-b-but it’s them!”

  Her eyes snapped open and she eagerly followed his pointing finger. The girl and the Carter guy stepped into the limo, its driver, a bald, bulletheaded thin chap walking round to the driver’s side and getting in.

  “Start the car, you fool!” yelled Jeannine. “They’re getting away.”

  “Y-y-you want me to follow them?”

  She stared at him blankly. “No, I want you to sell them one of your horrible paintings.” She punched him on the shoulder. “Of course I want you to follow them, you idiot! Follow them to the ends of the earth if you have to. We need that girl!”

  Keeping a keen eye on the limo, Rainer started up the engine and rolled the car into early morning traffic. Making an abrupt U-turn, he ignored the dozens of honking horns, and stepped on it in pursuit of the limo. He might be a lot of things, but a bad driver he wasn’t. Years of experie
nce in Paris traffic had taught him the skills to navigate big city traffic. A smaller town like Brussels didn’t hold much of a challenge.

  Before long, they were cruising along, allowing three cars in between them and their quarry.

  “I think we’re going to the airport.”

  “Didn’t I tell you not to think!”

  After a moment’s silence, Jeannine piped up, “Dammit. We’re going to the airport.”

  Rainer shook his weary head. How he wished he’d never even heard of Valerie Lorgnasse...

  Chapter 13

  “Come on. Don’t give me that crap.”

  “I swear, Mike. I can’t make it tonight.”

  Jack looked nervously over to Melanie, who sat gazing out the limo’s tinted windows and scratching Rufus behind the ears, pretending not to listen.

  “What’s wrong with you, dude? You never skip a meeting of the brotherhood. Wait. Don’t tell me. It’s a girl, right? You met some chick and now you’re hooked? You can’t abandon your best mates for a piece of ass, chum. It’s rule number one.”

  “It’s not a—it’s not that. It’s just that—” He so didn’t want to be having this conversation right now, but Mike was a hard man to shake once he smelled blood.

  A hyena-like screech had him hold the phone away from his ear. Rufus gave an excited bark, and even Melanie looked up at the primitive sound. He gave her an apologetic shrug.

  “Look, Mike. I simply can’t make it. I have to go to Paris on business, so...”

  “I don’t believe you. No. I simply don’t believe you. It’s a piece of ass. I just know it is. Who is she? Just tell me her name. Her name is all I’m asking.”

  “Bye, Mike. Have fun tonight.”

  “Don’t you dare hang up on a brother, Jack. Don’t you—”

  “Goodbye, Mike.”

  “On business, huh?” Melanie eyed him with a humorous glint in her eyes.

  “Yeah, well... That was, um, Mike. An old friend of mine. College roommate in fact.”

  “Is he one of the guys from the fireworks incident?”

  Dang. He’d hoped the topic would never come up again. Thanks a bunch, Mike. “Yes. Yes, he is. In fact he was president of the fraternity.”