by Michele Hauf
“Let’s do it after we find your sister.”
“You’re serious? You’ll really help me find her?”
“I wouldn’t have come here if I wasn’t interested.”
“You’re trying damned hard to keep this impersonal and professional.”
“How am I doing?”
He squinted against the sunlight, but smiled broadly. “Let’s walk.”
I took up his side, the bedraggled carless driver alongside the hunk in a tattered robe. We walked to the right bank, toward the Bastille area in the 12th arrondisement. I followed Sacha’s direction for some time, content to just be at his side. Conversation wasn’t necessary.
I tried to decide what our theme song should be. “Come What May”? Maybe. Perhaps a bit too romantic for this furious heart. Try “Radar Love.” Yeah, that would work.
Eventually we turned into a residential area. Rich and quiet, there were high-rises here that Trump couldn’t touch with his gold checkbook.
“Going to visit your rich uncle?” I wondered. “I do have a car to pick up…”
Sacha clasped my hand and tugged me into a quick walk.
“I told you I have homes all over. A man can’t become complacent in my kind of work.”
“And just what is your kind of work?”
He stopped, one hand at his hip. I was so accustomed to the bare chest and hard abs by now that I didn’t even look twice. No, I just lingered, that first look being a good long one.
“This is my truth,” he said, pressing his palms together and punctuating his words with beats of his hands. “So listen up, because I’m only going over this once. I’ve been convicted of grand theft auto and some minor betting scams. Five years ago, I served eighteen months in a Brooklyn minimum security lockup. While I was in, I decided I wasn’t my father. I’ve been following his trail, trying to clean up his mistakes ever since. I never expected Ava would succumb to the profession. I should have stayed in touch, but I thought distance would keep my influence away from her. The princess was the first time I’ve kidnapped. It was necessity, Jamie, you have to believe me. I would have never harmed her.”
“I know that.”
“I’m not clean. You need to know that.”
“Neither am I. Just because I never committed the crime doesn’t mean I’m not an accessory. But from this day forward, clean is the new me.”
Sacha placed both palms on top of my shoulders. Emerald, his eyes. I decided that blue was his cool and angry look; green meant he was focused and real. “What if devious means are required to help this woman track the Network?”
“If the end result is finding your sister, I’ll do what I have to.”
He nodded. “I trust that you will.”
Scanning the neighborhood, I noted the leaves on the maple tree behind us had begun to turn yellow. Tourist season was almost over, and the streets would return to the usual lighter tie-ups.
“So, where are we headed?” I wondered.
“We’re here.”
He walked up to a garage nestled below a newer model town house fronted in red brick and pressed some numbers on a digital entrance pad. The steel garage door rose on a squeaky chain drive. Not your standard garage door; he must want to keep whatever was behind it safe.
“Now for the finale.” Sacha abruptly gripped me by the shoulders. He turned me from the garage door as it rose and kissed me—hard, long and as if he meant it.
You know how to tell the difference between a casual kiss and one that really means something?
I do.
As far as finales went, this one bordered on brilliant.
When I rose from the gentle assault, I simply pulled him back for another. Twining my fingers up through his hair, I wasn’t about to let him break the kiss until I had gotten every last bit of breath from him. I took it into me; it was Sacha inside me, swirling about and making himself at home.
“I like you,” I murmured against his mouth.
“Me, too, getaway girl. But before we go all mushy on each other, I’ve got something to show you.”
“What? You do burlesque?”
“Something better.”
He stepped aside and splayed out a hand to display what sat inside the garage.
Forget bordering brilliant. Sacha had just smashed through the gate and released the bulls.
My heart fluttered. I walked like a zombie until I reached the sexy curve of a car. The bonnet, roof and boot were midnight black, the sides a deep velvet red.
“Be still, my furious heart. A Bugatti Veyron 16.4.”
These beauties had only recently hit the market with a limited edition of a mere three hundred cars. Sixteen cylinders, four turbochargers. Its carbon body streaked at 350 kph, and the 1001 horsepower took it from zero to sixty in three seconds. And it had low-end torque that promised to push you back in your seat.
I leaned over the hood, drawing in the incredible power that sat quietly beneath me. I could feel it, the acceleration, just waiting to take me on the ride of my life. “I love you, Sacha.”
“So now it’s love, eh? Sure it’s not the car?”
I shrugged. “Probably is.”
Yeah, it was. I couldn’t be responsible for anything I said when standing over this gorgeous beauty.
I spread my arms and embraced the bonnet. The cool, glossy paint kissed my palms, teasing coyly. This baby cost well over a million euros, and every inch of her felt like it.
“I haven’t had a chance to take her out on the road yet,” Sacha said. “Maybe you’d like to do the honor?”
Oh baby, one speed orgasm coming right up!
“Yeah,” I said dreamily. “I could thrash in this sweetie.”
I sensed Sacha lean over me to say lowly, “Despite your attraction to cold steel beasts, I still like you.”
“Mmm,” I murmured, and had to force myself to stand up.
Every part of me hummed, set to rush over the edge and fly. I was absolutely ready for the brilliant finale. Only with great reluctance did I drag my eyes from the Bugatti.
All right, so there were two bits of brilliant within my grasp. I wanted to drive them both; I’d already test drove the one. But one should never purchase until they’ve taken it around the block a time or two.
Walking around and opening the passenger door, I flashed Sacha a suggestive wink, and said, “Want to go for a ride?”
“Can I change first?”
I looked him over. Skin on skin action? Coming right up. “Don’t think so. I’m going to take you for a ride you’ll never forget.”
“Promise?”
“Have a seat and push it all the way back.”
He lifted a brow. “I am so with you right now.”
Sacha sat in the passenger seat and I, resisting the urge to linger on the car’s luscious red flash, instead unbuttoned my jeans. They’d dried during our walk and were a little crunchy, so I had to wiggle to lower them over my hips.
“So nice,” Sacha said. “Come here, getaway girl.”
I stepped out of the jeans and swung a leg inside the car, over Sacha’s lap. There wouldn’t be much head room, but I didn’t plan to go bronco riding.
“Who am I kidding?” I murmured. “This isn’t going to happen. Not like this. Come here.”
I pulled the tall bit of brilliant outside, but wouldn’t allow him to move away from the car. Bracketing my hands to either side of him, my fingers swept over the satin smooth exterior of the third party in this ménage.
A warm hand slid up my back, under the T-shirt and around to cup my breast. Sacha kissed the corner of my mouth. He flicked out his tongue, tasting me. “I thought we had plans to do spaghetti?”
“You want to eat or you want to break in this beauty?”
He tilted his head in thought. “I’m not too peckish. Breaking in, it is. You know this car does zero to sixty in three seconds?”
“Yeah, but she’s going to have to push it to the floor to catch up with me ’cause I’m already
there, lover.”
Hooking a leg up near Sacha’s hip, I kissed him the only way I knew how—hard and quick.
Drive, baby, drive.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4408-9
GETAWAY GIRL
Copyright © 2006 by Michele Hauf
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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