Along for the Ride

Cal looked calmer, but he didn’t reply.

“Look, I seriously doubt that she’ll come to any harm. Gregory and his men are small-time con men, that’s all.”

“Yes, I know,” Cal conceded as he shrugged on his jacket. “But will she ever forgive us for this ridiculous jaunt and all the trouble it’s caused? Oh, fuck it, Jason. I’m in love, and I’m shit scared.”

Jason swallowed down the rising emotion and grasped his friend in a hug. “Get gone, Austrian. You know she wants you; you’ve just got to tell her you want it, too.”

“Hark at the expert.” Cal broke into a weary smile.

“It’s easy when the boot’s on the other foot. That’s my excuse. Now fuck off and let me make my call to Zoë. I don’t want you to see me making a fool of myself.”

Cal shook his head, but saluted and left.

When the door shut, Jason turned to the phone. As he picked up the receiver, he prayed to the heavens he wasn’t about to receive a spurn that would send them all sailing up shit creek at breakneck speed.

Chapter Twelve

Georgie’s troubled sleep brought her a dream in which she seemed to be captured inside Calvin’s painting depicting her in orgasm. She was trapped in the confined space, trussed and bound and riding an enormous vibrator, for some reason unable to reach the point of satisfaction. Cal was there, and her heart ached for him. She could see him standing outside the painting with a paintbrush in his hand, which he reached in to her and dabbed seductively at her nipples, as if coaxing her to reach her climax. She thrust her hips against the rigid thing underneath her, but she couldn’t move properly, and she knew that she was unable to climb out of the painting as a result.

It was the sound of low voices that brought her out of the depths of those troubled dreams. Her eyes slowly began to open.

She was back in the hotel room, in bed. Or was she? Her mind slowly unraveled what had happened to her before she’d been asleep. Random thoughts and images began to tumble in, slowly at first, then quicker and quicker. She’d been captured. Gregory had taken her and drugged her.

Where the hell was she? She struggled against the lethargy that held her body solid against the surface of the bed.

Her eyes became accustomed to the light, and she saw that it was indeed a hotel room, but not the one that she had begun the day in. It was another generically designed hotel room, the type that could be found in any city in the world, differing only marginally with the choice of prints on the walls and the curtain fabric. That morning she had awoken to jazzy abstract prints in bright blocks of color; now she was looking at a watercolor depiction of Edinburgh Castle.

She felt groggy and surreal, as if she were still half in a dream world. Moving her head slightly, she could make out a figure sitting on a chair at the end of the bed. Its head seemed to be very large, a big white blob sitting on a black sack. She squinted hard, trying to

bring it into focus.

“Hey, take it easy,” the blob said when she tried to sit up and failed miserably. She slumped back onto the pillows and then realized that the blob had developed a face. The movement brought him into focus, and she could see it was a huge beefcake of a man with a shaved head. He was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans and sat on a stool, leaning forward with his elbows propped on his knees. Which possibly accounted for the disproportionate image that she had first encountered. In the background she could see another figure standing near the window. She squinted and blinked. As he came into focus, she realized it was the man who had restrained her in the back of the car, the one that she had kicked in the shin. He was chomping noisily on an apple while he watched her waking up.

As her awareness increased, she realized that she was under a sheet and that she was no longer wearing her dress. She moved to clutch the sheet against her chest, wondering what the hell had gone on, and it was then that she realized her hands were tied together at the wrist. Her heart began to pound out an erratic beat. She was fast filling up with a sense of panic.

“Rest up now; don’t fret.”

She struggled to focus.

The man got up and came over to her. He looked concerned and glanced back at the other man. He shrugged but came closer, too, abandoning his apple core to the bin on the way past.

“Just chill, little lady.” It was the one from the car. He was obviously in charge. “We haven’t touched you, and you’re perfectly safe. We had to take off your dress because it was in such a state. It looked like you had been rolling around on your hands and knees in the grass.” He laughed, unaware that was exactly what she had been doing.

It set her teeth on edge.

“It wasn’t our fault that you weren’t wearing any underwear, now was it?” He gave a mocking tut-tut noise, his eyebrows lifting.

Georgie glared at him. “What do you want with me?” He had his arms folded over his chest, standing with a half-smile on his face, amused by the whole thing. The other one, the blob, looked embarrassed over the issue of undressing her. Had he done it? Had he touched her naked body?

He hung his head and looked at the floor. The other one was obviously the boss, so she glared at him again. How dare they keep her here against her will? And to top it all, she’d lost her new lingerie. Bastards!

“Just relax and you won’t get hurt. We’re just keeping you here for a while. Call it ... a bit of security.”

Georgie’s muddled mind tried to make sense of the whole thing. These men worked for Gregory; that much was obvious. She couldn’t figure out why they wanted her, though. What had she to do with it? What had happened since the morning? What had happened to Cal and Jason?

“How long are you going to keep me here?”

The one from the car looked at his watch. “Not long now. How about some lunch?” He was talking to her as if she should think it was a treat.