Once in Paris (10 page)

“Where are we?” she asked one of the men, portly and a little less formal than the other two who had kidnapped her.

“Island.”

“Yes, but which island?” she persisted.

“Jameel,” he replied, confirming her worst suspicions. He laid his head back against the seat and gave her an appraisal that sent cold chills through her body.

He smiled. His teeth looked as if they hadn't been brushed in the past decade, and there was a faint odor of liquor on his breath. “Very pretty,” he said.

She glared at him. “If you work for Philippe Sabon, you'd better remember that he makes a bad enemy,” she said, taking a chance.

It was a good shot. The man sobered at once.

The taller of the two other men, the one who'd held the gun, said something abrupt and
sharp to the man, who murmured in a conciliatory way.

“You not to worry,” the tall man, graying at the temples, told Brianne. “Nobody hurt you.” He glared at the portly man, who turned his head quickly toward the window, watching the low scrub flora of the island whiz by the tinted windows.

Brianne felt sick to her stomach. The only way her remark would have affected that portly man was if Sabon really was behind this kidnapping. Now she knew that he was, and she would be in his clutches soon. Pierce was as powerless as she, overwhelmed by sheer numbers and automatic weapons. The island was like a prison, from which they couldn't escape. Sabon would have her!

She closed her eyes, fighting against the fear as she remembered what she'd heard about Sabon's perversions. How would she bear it? That man, touching her. As Pierce had once said, she didn't have the experience to fake sophistication. The perversions that Sabon would inflict on her would destroy her as a woman.

She wondered if any of Sabon's men would recognize Pierce. If they did, he didn't stand a chance. They'd either hold him for ransom and
then kill him or they'd kill him on the spot. Almost certainly, Sabon wouldn't risk a kidnapping trial involving the United States. Pierce might not be an American citizen, but Brianne was, and Sabon was counting on Kurt's congressional friends to save his oil fields.

That brought forth another unpleasant thought. When Sabon had finished with her, he couldn't risk releasing her. She stood to vanish, too, perhaps turned loose in the cruel desert of the country adjacent to this island, where Sabon was in power.

She couldn't die like this, in such a sordid way. She had to use her brain. There must be some means of escape, if she were vigilant and kept her eyes open for opportunities.

She wasn't going to let Sabon win without a fight. She might die in the attempt, but death was almost certain regardless of her compliance. As her beloved father had once said, it was better to go out in a blaze of glory than in an insignificant puff of smoke. A blaze it would be, somehow.

 

Pierce was thinking the same thoughts, with more pessimism than Brianne might ever know. Here, on Sabon's home ground, he had no
chance of escape, and neither did she. He couldn't protect her. He thought of her ongoing pleas and could have kicked himself for not giving in to them. Sabon would soil her sexuality in a way that no psychologist could fix. He would degrade and humiliate her. That delightful spontaneity she had about intimacy would be gone forever. He would mourn it. And he would forever blame himself for its loss.

He'd spoken to Winthrop just before their flight home, and Winthrop would land shortly in Freeport to meet him. He relaxed just a little. Tate Winthrop was the best security chief he'd ever had. He could track a butterfly over concrete. He'd find Pierce and Brianne. The question was if he could do it in time.

 

The old limousines pulled up at an imposing house overlooking a huge body of water—probably the Persian Gulf, if Brianne remembered her geography. There was a lot of sand, and the vegetation was similar to that in the Caribbean, which this certainly wasn't. There was an Arabic flavor to the scene, and the white-garbed servants that came onto the long tiled porch
along with uniformed guards looked Arabian to Brianne.

She and Pierce were bound and prodded into the wide, airy house and along a wide hallway to a small room with one high window too small for either of them to escape from. There was a small bedframe with a single rolled-up dirty mattress and no linen, a rattan chair, a small table, a lamp and bare tiles on the floor. There was a bathroom, nothing but a tiny room with a commode and a sink. No facilities for bathing were provided. There was a thin sliver of soap on the cracked oyster-colored porcelain of the sink. The pipes were old and rusted, like the water in the toilet.

“You stay here,” the short man told them, sticking his pistol in his belt.

“Could you at least untie us?” Brianne asked wearily, holding out her arms. “What if I need to use the rest room? I can't do it with my hands tied.”

The guard spoke in Arabic to the taller, older man, and they seemed to be arguing. The tall one used a harsh word and pointed to the high, iron-barred window, and then to the heavy lock on the door itself, made of thick carved ebony
wood. He seemed to be saying, How would they get out?

The short man must have seen that they couldn't. Even if they stood on the chair, they couldn't possibly reach the window, which had iron bars.

“Okay,” the first man said. He untied Brianne's hands, but left Pierce bound. The men went out, closing and locking the door behind them.

“Thank God we're alone now….” Brianne said, running to Pierce to untie him. The knots were heavy and cumbersome. She finished her task and said, “Well, Jack, old boy, where do we go from here?”

Pierce brushed the loosened ropes away and rubbed his wrists. “We stay put until they decide what to do with us,” he answered.

She sat down on the chair with a heavy sigh and glanced at her once-clean outfit, now dirt-streaked, and wrinkled beyond mention.

Pierce was wearing slacks and a sports shirt with a white jacket. He didn't look like a millionaire today. He was dressed the way his real chauffeur often dressed, never in uniform.

No wonder they hadn't realized who he was! But Sabon would. The minute he saw his old
enemy, he'd know him. He was furious with Pierce as well as Brianne for standing between him and his plans. No doubt he'd find new ways to make them both suffer. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

“Well, this is another fine mess I've gotten you into,” she told Pierce with a hint of her old vivacity.

“We'll get out of it,” he assured her with a faint smile.

“Think so?” She glanced toward the high window. “If we only had a ladder and a sledge hammer,” she said with a sigh.

He was watching her with narrow, speculative dark eyes. His face grew harder by the minute as he contemplated what could happen to her at Philippe Sabon's hands. Her first experience of a man shouldn't be disgusting or frightening. She'd be scarred forever if Sabon had her.

“Dream on.”

She glanced at him. “You're leering at me,” she murmured and grinned. “There's a bed in here, just in case you can't restrain yourself a minute longer,” she said, pointing to it. “I wouldn't mind at all. In fact,” she added per
suasively, “you'd literally be saving me from a fate worse than death.”

“Namely Sabon,” he agreed solemnly. His eyes grew narrow and hot. “I can't stand the thought of Sabon as your first lover.”

Her heart jumped up into her throat. She felt her breath catch as she met his searching eyes. “Neither can I. So while there's still time, why don't you do something about it? We're married, you know.”

His eyebrow jerked and he chuckled softly. “We must be. You haven't stopped reminding me since the ceremony.” He got up from his chair slowly, glancing idly from corner to corner. There were no surveillance cameras. He hadn't expected that there would be. The house, while beautiful, was old and had no modern fixtures that he'd noticed. He could be certain that no spying eyes would see them.

He took the chair he'd been sitting in and propped it under the door handle so that no one could walk in without making a lot of noise.

Then he turned to Brianne. His expression was one of resignation, but his eyes were smoldering as he considered the delights that lay ahead for both of them.

“Are we really going to do it?” she asked breathlessly as he approached her.

He took her arms and pulled her up against him with a soft, amused smile. She was incorrigible. “You look a little nervous,” he murmured as his hands caressed their way slowly over her taut breasts and down her belly to the fastening of her slacks.

“Who, me? I'm only trembling with sheer anticipation!” She locked her arms tight around his neck and felt her breath catch at the expression on his face. “Oh, Pierce, I've waited so long for you! It's going to be…heaven!”

He was feeling a similar emotion. Taut with need, he glanced sideways at the bed and hoped it would hold both of them without crashing to the floor. Then he met her excited gaze and, as the zipper gave way, he stopped being concerned about it at all.

B
rianne met his lips halfway, holding on hungrily as he kissed her.

He drew away a breath, chuckling. “Not so fast, baby,” he murmured as he let his slacks fall to the floor. “We're pressed for time, but it doesn't have to be that quick.”

Her nails dug into his shoulders. “I'm just making sure you don't let go,” she whispered.

“Not a chance,” he bit off against her mouth. “Brianne…!”

She'd thought that he was going to be quick, and that she wouldn't be able to enjoy it. She was wrong. The feel of his big, faintly callused hands on her bare skin was like a narcotic. He
touched her delicately, tenderly, while his mouth opened and probed at her lips in quick, hard contacts that were violently arousing. She hadn't really expected that she could be so immediately overwhelmed even by Pierce, but she was. He unfastened her tunic and slid her lacy bra aside, then his head bent and his mouth slid onto one soft little breast, his teeth gently catching the nipple and tasting its firmness. She could feel her body swell instantly as he suckled her. It trembled as he found that most intimate part of her and traced around it in an exploration that was at first teasing, and then all but unbearable. She lifted toward him, moaning, because she needed more than this maddening suggestion of pleasure.

She heard her own quick, fluttering breath. Even when he'd made love to her on the island, it had been nothing like this. He used all his skill to arouse her, and it was vast. In the space of heated seconds, she was wild for him, so aroused that she was fighting her briefs and his own with trembling hands to get them out of the way.

“Yes,” she choked into his hard mouth. “Yes…please…please…please!”

She tugged his hands back to her bare flesh
and held them there as she whispered feverishly what she wanted. He helped her, amazed at his own headlong rush into passion, despite the circumstances. He groaned and lifted her gently onto the bed, sliding alongside her with aching pleasure as the newness and the sweetness of their intimacy made fires inside his starved body. He pinned her hips with his own, his stomach bare against hers, the thick hair tickling as he positioned her, and slowly, delicately entered her for the first time, careful not to hurt her, because he was more potent than he'd been in a long time. He trembled helplessly at the surge of passion the contact aroused in him.

He heard her shocked gasp at her first taste of true intimacy, and he opened his eyes to look straight into hers as he moved hungrily against her.

He couldn't stop, but he had to ask. “The doctor…you asked him to give you something?” he bit off.

“Yes, and he did—” she sobbed.

Her voice broke on a wave of red-hot pleasure before she could add that she'd forgotten to bring the pills to the States with her and that she hadn't yet taken more than one. It would be dangerous. Very dangerous.

The knowledge that she could become pregnant only made the intimacy more poignant. She gripped his shoulders hard enough to leave tiny marks from her short nails in his skin, but he didn't seem to mind. He groaned softly as he moved even closer to her.

He shifted her, and his mouth bit into hers as his body imposed itself on hers, closer and closer and closer, in an intimacy that far exceeded her dreams about him. She could feel the heat and power of him there, in her most secret place. She could feel him throbbing, as her own body throbbed around him, the hot silence broken only by the urgent rush of their breath and the faint sound of their bodies sliding against each other as his rhythm became quick and rough and demanding.

It was like falling into lava, she thought when the explosion of heat rushed up from her loins. She stiffened under the crush of his powerful body and sobbed like a child, her teeth clenched, her whole body convulsing as if with some unknown and frightening fever. Spasms of pleasure so deep they rivaled pain, contractions that went on endlessly, carrying her along, blind and deaf to everything else. She felt his hot breath at her ear. He was whispering some
thing that she couldn't quite hear, his own voice breaking as he convulsed, too, and gave himself to the violence of the ecstasy that they achieved.

He shuddered in the aftermath, still holding her pinned to the bed. There was a film of cold sweat on his chest and abdomen, and on hers. They clung together unsteadily, breathing in strained, spastic jerks.

She still throbbed where they were joined, a pleasure that lingered on even after the cataclysmic passion, and she moved experimentally to enjoy it again.

He stilled her hips with a weary chuckle. “No. There's no time,” he whispered, bending to her mouth. He kissed it slowly, softly, as he broke the intimate connection that had joined them so closely.

He refastened his own clothing before he did the same for her. She was so weak that she could barely stand alone, overwhelmed by her first passion. He kissed her eyes with a tenderness he hadn't felt in years, cradling her head in his big, warm hands until she was breathing normally again.

He bent and kissed her tenderly, searching her eyes with remembered pleasure. She kissed
him back, her soft green eyes drowsy with love and fulfillment. She grinned at him irrepressibly and chuckled. “Talk about cheating the hangman,” she murmured dryly.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Sabon's loss.” He pushed back her damp hair and took a long breath. “I'm sorry it had to be so quick,” he murmured. “One day I'll make it up to you.”

She pursed her lips and looked him over blatantly. “When? Name a date and a time. I dare you.”

He turned away, shrugging it off, but the comment made him feel guilty. His motives had been somewhat unselfish, but now the enormity of what they'd done hit him squarely between the eyes. “You can have the bathroom first,” he said quietly, holding the door open for her.

She passed him, confused, but she didn't reply.

He closed the door behind her and went lazily to the chair and pulled it out from the door. He sat down, his legs crossed, his arms folded over his broad chest, outwardly the very picture of bored indifference. Inside, he was churning at the experience he'd just had. He'd never imagined that he and Brianne would come together for the first time in such a staggering
passion. He'd have preferred it somewhere else, of course. Not in the beach house, though, because that was where he and Margo…

Margo!
He clenched his teeth as he thought of her. He'd betrayed her with Brianne. He'd sworn that he'd never touch another woman as long as he lived, and he'd lied.

No. He'd only done it to spare Brianne the horror of Philippe Sabon as her first lover. Yes, that was why. It had nothing to do with desire or love, it was an act of charity.

He laughed out loud at his own rationale. That—an act of charity! It had been the most explosive fulfillment in years, very nearly equal to the passion he and Margo had shared. He'd thought of nothing except the softness of Brianne's body under his, the shy enticement of her mouth, the sobbing delight of her ecstasy under such terrible circumstances. Her first time, and she'd achieved satisfaction with him. It gave him a feeling of pride on one hand, and then of shame on the other. They were married, of course. A man was certainly permitted to make love to his wife. But it was a sham marriage, contracted only to protect her from Sabon, just as the intimacy had been to spare her the madman as her first lover.

Yet, what he felt with her was surely more than surface desire. He scowled as he remembered his own pleasure. Over the years, before his marriage, there had been women. Some were beautiful, some were very experienced. He'd enjoyed those encounters. But none of them had compared with those brief, heated minutes in Brianne's arms. It puzzled him that he should have had such a reaction to her. Of course, it could have been her innocence. There was something deliciously primitive about initiating her to passion. And not only to have initiated her, but to have done it without fear or pain on her part. He'd given her as much pleasure as she'd given him.

His thoughts were interrupted by her emergence from the bathroom, her face free of makeup, her hair unbrushed but tidier in a braid down her back. She couldn't quite meet his eyes now, and the fact of her shyness made him feel protective.

“What do you think they'll do with us?” she asked, sitting down on the bare bedsprings of the tiny bed with her hands folded on her thighs.

“Good question,” he replied.

“I can't see them letting us go,” she added.

He drew in a long breath. “Frankly, neither can I,” he agreed, deciding that honesty was best in the long run.

She looked up and searched his eyes briefly before she dropped her gaze back to her legs. “Well, it's been nice knowing you.”

He almost missed the faint gleam of mischief in her green eyes as they flashed to his face and fell again.

“It's been nice knowing you, too, Miss Martin,” he replied gently.

She drew in a long sigh and looked toward the locked door. “I don't suppose you've got a battering ram in your pocket?”

“If you had a hairpin, I could try picking the lock,” he murmured.

She grinned. “Actually, I do have one.”

She pulled it out and handed it to him, just as the doorknob rattled and a key turned in the lock. The door opened. Two men came in. One held a small automatic weapon on them while the other rudely pulled hairpins from Brianne's hair and hand.

“No escapes,” the shorter man said in thick English. “Monsieur Sabon arrive tonight.” He grinned at Brianne. “You make present for him.”

The other man frowned and said something. He looked at Pierce and back at his comrade.

The shorter man looked suddenly worried. The two of them spoke in Arabic. Brianne didn't understand a word, but Pierce was able to understand a few phrases. The men were worried that Sabon wouldn't like having a man in the room with his intended, not even a servant.

The taller man broke off and moved to jerk Pierce up by his arm. “You come with us,” he said.

Brianne opened her mouth to protest, but a sharp look from Pierce's black eyes stopped her instantly.

“What are you going to do with Mr. Hutton's bodyguard?” she asked haughtily.

“We put him in room by himself,” the shorter man said. “To remove temptation.”

“Temptation indeed!” Brianne huffed. “I don't play around with servants!”

The men prodded him out the door at gunpoint and Brianne was left sitting alone in the room.

 

It was dark when the two men returned with bread and cheese and a glass of red wine. The
tall, older one held the weapon in a vaguely threatening way while the shorter one placed the tray on the small table. Brianne glared at the glass.

“I don't drink red wine,” she said shortly. “Can't I have water?”

The shorter one looked harassed. “Wine is good for nerves.”

“I don't have nerves,” she said, glaring at him.

The two men exchanged amused glances. The shorter one took the wine and left, returning shortly with a tall glass of water. He put it in front of her with a flourish.

“I'm Brianne,” she said. “Who are you?”

The shorter man was surprised. “Rashid,” he told her.

“And you?” she asked the tall one.

“Mufti,” he murmured, and seemed embarrassed.

“Have you worked for Philippe Sabon for a long time?”

“Only briefly,” Rashid informed her, and his broken English slowly gave way to formal enunciation, as if he hadn't spoken the language in a while but was beginning to remember more of it. “He has given much to our village—
money to buy medicines and food for the poor.”

She was surprised, but it occurred to her that even evil men must have a glimmer of good in them somewhere. “His mother was an Arab, wasn't she?” she asked, recalling a glimmer of gossip.

Rashid nodded. “All his family.”

“But he has a French name.”

Rashid glanced at the tall man, Mufti, and grimaced. “There are things of which I must not speak. Suffice it to say that Monsieur Sabon has the best interests of our country at heart. He is a brave and good man.”

“He is a kidnapper,” she said firmly.

He shrugged. “Things are not what they seem,
mademoiselle.
We live in perilous times that may see us undone, but we will do what we must to survive.
Inshallah
,” he added, which was Arabic for something like “God willing.” He paused, then continued. “We are constantly under threat of invasion by our enemy, who envies us even the small reserves of oil we have only just discovered.”

Brianne listened. She'd never questioned where raw materials came from before, or how they were obtained.

“Miss Martin,” Rashid told her, “the Western nations are dependent on petroleum. We have the largest supply in the region. In other times, the West sought to control and exploit the spice production of the Indies, the rubber production of Africa, the tea production of the Far East. Even now, the rain forests are dwindling because the West wants its lumber, and fast food chains want to clear it for lands on which to enlarge the production of beef.”