Learning the Ropes (39 page)

 

A
s the black F150 truck shot through the night-­darkened streets of one of Baltimore's grittiest neighborhoods, Edward Cantrell cradled the unconscious woman in his arms like she was the only thing tethering him to life. And right at this moment, she was.

Jenna Dean was bloodied and bruised after having been kidnapped by the worst sort of trash the day before, but she was still an incredibly beautiful woman. And saving her from the clutches of a known drug dealer and human trafficker was without question the most important thing he'd done in more than a year.

He should have felt happy—­or at least happier—­but those feelings were foreign countries for Easy. Had been for a long time.

Easy, for his initials: E.C. The nickname had been the brainchild years before of Shane McCallan, one of his Army Special Forces teammates, who now sat at the other end of the big back seat, wrapped so far around Jenna's older sister, Sara, that they might need the Jaws of Life to pull them apart. Not that Easy blamed them. When you walked through fire and somehow came out the other side in one piece, you gave thanks and held tight to the things that mattered.

Because too often, when shit got critical, the ones you loved didn't make it out the other side. And then you wished you'd given more thanks and held on harder before the fires ever started raging around you in the first place.

Easy would fucking know.

The pickup paused as a gate
whirr
ed out of the way, then the tires crunched over gravel and came to a rough stop. Easy lifted his gaze from Jenna's fire-­red hair and too-­pale face to find that they were home—­or, at least, where he was calling home right now. Out his window, the redbrick industrial building housing Hard Ink Tattoo loomed in the darkness, punctuated here and there by the headlights of some of the Raven Riders bikers who'd helped Easy and his teammates rescue Jenna and take down the gangbangers who'd grabbed her.

Talk about strange bedfellows.

Five former Green Berets and twenty-­odd members of an outlaw motorcycle club. Then again, maybe not so strange. Easy and his buddies had been drummed out of the Army under suspicious, other-­than-­honorable circumstances. Disgraced, dishonored, disowned. Didn't matter that his team had been seriously set up for a big fall. In the eyes of the US government and the world, the five of them weren't any better than the bikers they'd allied themselves with so that they'd have a fighting chance against the much bigger and better-­armed Church gang. And, when you cut right down to it, maybe his guys weren't any better. After all, they'd gone total vigilante in their effort to clear their names, identify and take down their enemies, and clean up the collateral damage that occurred along the way.

Like Jenna.

“Easy?
Easy?
Hey,
E
?”

 

An Excerpt from

A French Kiss Novel

by Gwen Jones

In the fun and sexy follow-­up to
Wanted: Wife
, French billionaire and CEO of Mercier Shipping Marcel Mercier puts his playboy lifestyle on hold to handle a PR nightmare in the US, but sparks fly when he meets the passionate captain of his newest ship . . .

 

Penn's Landing Pier

Philadelphia

Independence Day, 5:32
AM

“O
f course I realize he's your brother-­in-­law,” Dani said, grinning most maliciously as she dragged the chains across the deck to the mainmast. “In fact I'm counting on it as my express delivery system.” She wrapped a double length of chain around her waist. “My apologies for shamelessly exploiting you.”

“Seriously?” Julie laughed. “Trust me, I'll try not to feel compromised.”

“Like me,” Dani said, her hair as red as the bloody blister of a sun rising over the Delaware. She yanked another length of chain around the mast. “But what can
I
do. I'm just a
woman
.”

“And I'm just a media whore,” Julie said. “And a bastard is a bastard is a bastard.” She nodded to her cameraman, flexing her shoulders as she leveled her gaze into the lens. “How far would you go to save
your
job?”

Two days later

L'hôtel Croisette Beach

Cannes

P
ineapple,
Marcel Mercier deduced, drifting awake under the noonday sun. A woman's scent was always the first thing he noticed, as in the subtle fragrance of her soap, her perfumed pulse points, the lingering vestiges of her shampoo.

Mon Dieu.
How he loved women.

“Marcel,” he heard, feeling a silky leg slide against his own.

He opened his eyes to his
objet d
'affection
for the past three days. “
Bébé . . .”
he growled, brushing his lips across hers as she curled into him.

“Marcel,
mon amour
,” she cooed, fairly beaming with joy.
“Tu m'as fait tellement heureuse
.
”

“What?” he said, nuzzling her neck. Her pineapple scent was driving him insane.

She slid her hand between his legs. “I
said
you've made me very happy.” Then she smiled. No—­
beamed
.

He froze, mid-­nibble. Oh no. Oh
no
.

She kissed him, her eyes bright. “I don't care what Paris says—­I'm wearing my
grand-­mère
's Brussels lace to our wedding
.
You wouldn't mind, would you?”

He stared at her. Had he really gone and done what he swore he'd never do again? He really needed to lay off the absinthe cocktails. “Mirabel, I didn't mean to—­”

“Why did you leave me last night?” she said, falling back against the chaise, her bare breasts heaving above the tiny triangle of her string bikini bottom. “You left so fast the maids are still scrubbing scorch marks from the carpet.”

Merde.
He really ought to get his
dard
registered as a lethal weapon. He affected an immediate blitheness. “I had to take a call,” he said—­his standard alibi—­raking his gaze over her. She really was quite the babe. “I didn't want to wake you.”

All at once she went to full-­blown
en garde
, shoving her face into his. “
Really
. More like you couldn't wait to get away from me. And after last night? After what you asked me?” Her enormous breasts rose, fell, her gaze slicing into his. “You said . . . You.
Loved. Me
.”

Had he?
Christ.
He needed to diffuse this. So he switched gears, summoning all his powers of seduction. “Mirabel.
Chère.
” He smiled—­lethally, he knew—­cradling her chin as he nipped the corner of her mouth. “But that call turned into another, then three, and before you knew it . . .” He traced his finger over the bloom of her breasts and down into the sweet, sweet cavern between them, his tongue edging her lip until she shivered like an ingénue. “You know damn well there's only one way to wake a gorgeous girl like you.”

“You should've come back,” she said softly, a bit disarmed, though the edge still lingered in her voice. “You just should have.” She barely breathed it.

“How,
bébé
?” He licked the hollow behind her ear, and when she jolted, Marcel nearly snickered in triumph. Watching women falling
for
him nearly outranked falling
into
them. “Should I have slipped under the door?” he said, feathering kisses across her jawline. “Or maybe climbed up the balcony, calling ‘Juliet? Juliet?' ”

She arched her neck and sighed, a deep blush staining her overripe breasts. Marcel fought a rush of disappointment. Truly, they were all so predictable. A bit of adulatory stroking and it was like they performed on cue. She pressed against his chest as he tugged the bikini string at her hip, her mouth opening in a tiny gasp.

“Mar-­
cel
. . .” she purred.

He sighed inwardly. It was almost
too
easy
.
And that was the scary part.