Club Luxe 3: Deadly Lust

By Olivia Noble

With Malcolm presumably dead after a terrible accident, Victoria finds herself in the most dangerous situation imaginable: trapped in a foreign nation with nothing except the clothes on her back. She has no idea what to do next or how to get out of this mess. The only thing keeping her going is the willpower to finish the job Malcolm gave to her, and honor his final request to find Claire.
But Malcolm Cage isn’t the type of man who will go down without a fight.
On a burning plane with only a few moments before it crashes there is only one thing on his mind: survival. No miracle is going to save him now; he only has his wits and skills to live another day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ThunderWords Press
• Release date: Nov 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310527654

Olivia Noble

Olivia Noble is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband, two beautiful children-- and a new baby on the way! The husband recently thought it was a good idea to read Olivia's books, and he blames their "extremely inappropriate" content for their little accident. (She happily takes responsibility.)Raising two rambunctious rug rats makes it nearly impossible to escape long enough to finish writing an entire book, but Olivia does her best to find "Mommy time." She likes to keep her books romantic, steamy, and filled with fun characters that get into all kinds of trouble-- the kind of trouble she wishes she could get into.Subscribe to Olivia's mailing list to receive a free book as a gift: http://eepurl.com/TRg95

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The air was so thick with moisture that Victoria felt like she was walking through soup. She couldn’t seem to breathe. She couldn’t think. She could only watch as the burning plane drifted out of view. Her feet carried her a few steps forward in the direction of the falling object, as if to chase it down. She finally had to stop, falling to her knees in hopelessness.

Malcolm was gone.

Longing and misery welled up inside her breast, creating a deep, sinking feeling. Her imagination ran wild with images of Malcolm caught in the blaze. She almost could hear his screams as he burned alive, the skin from his body dripping off his bones like wax from a candle. The horror of her thoughts caused the sting of salty tears to form in the back of her eyes. Trembling in agony, Victoria brought her palms to her face and wept inconsolably. She felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest, and she might drop dead at any moment.

After a few minutes, even the tears stopped flowing from her eyes. She had none left to shed. Only emptiness remained. Champ, she whispered in a hoarse voice. She had been screaming out his name while the plane fell to the earth and it had left her throat dry and scratchy.

She had no concept of how long she had been sitting there on her knees, numb with defeat. Time was irrelevant. Everything was gone. It was as if she was looking at herself through someone else’s eyes. How could this be happening to her? She was just a normal girl trying to make her way in the world, with dreams of winning a Pulitzer Prize for excellence in investigative reporting. Not even in her worst nightmares had she entertained the thought of losing the man she loved before she even had a chance to say the words.

She realized that she had nearly had the opportunity, and gritted her teeth in regret and anger. The words had almost slipped from her tongue before everything went wrong but she had stopped herself. Her hesitation would haunt her for the rest of her life. She should have uttered those words before it was too late.

Even if she survived this, she knew nothing was going to be the same. Tired of feeling sorry for herself, Victoria stood up. A sharp pain coursed through her leg and her eyes wandered down in confusion. She was startled to see rivulets of blood flowing down to her foot. She twisted her leg to examine the deep gash running down the back of her thigh, extending to the tender flesh behind her knee.

She sighed and looked away, ignoring the wound. She had bigger issues. The chute was still attached to her by tiny strings hanging off her pack. She gathered up the material and stuffed it back into her bag. Next, she checked for any supplies. She vaguely recalled Malcolm mentioning them to her before throwing her from the plane.

She saw a few energy bars, two large plastic canteens filled with water, and two packets of military rations. By her best estimate, the food would only last a few days, at the most. As she dug through the pack, she found a small digital compass. Common sense told her to point the device north, but she ignored this instinct. Instead, her eyes followed the smoke still hanging in the air from Malcolm’s burning plane. Something in her mind urged her to follow that trail. Malcolm was the most powerful man she had ever known. Somehow, he had to be alive. Hope wormed its way into her heart and she clung to it as she began stumbling forward in the direction of the crash.

On and on she trudged, for a countless number of miles. Her mind couldn’t seem to stop imagining horrible and grotesque fates for Malcolm, and she struggled to be positive. She was not the type of person who normally prayed, but now she found that begging a higher power for help came naturally. It was all she could do to keep from breaking down into a sobbing mess. It would take a miracle for him to survive the crash. Unfortunately, she didn’t believe in miracles.

Focusing on putting one leg in front of the other became necessary to fight the madness and grief that threatened to defeat her. Glancing up toward the sky, she made sure she was still following the path of black smoke. For Malcolm’s sake, she knew she needed to survive. The world needed to know that he hadn’t perished in some freak plane accident, but that he had been intentionally murdered by his enemies. They needed to know that he had died a hero in the end.

As the hours and miles drifted behind Victoria, the soles of her feet began killing her. The cut on her thigh was growing sore and painful with each step. There was nothing she could do about the wound, but she could try to soothe her feet. The high heels of her shoes were unbearable, but she feared taking them off and walking on the rough ground. She was running out of choices. Frowning, she reached down and peeled the shoes off. They were her best pair: stylish black and gold pumps she had bought especially for her first visit to Club Luxe. As she didn’t have many other shoes of similar quality, she had also chosen to wear them for this trip with Malcolm. The sentiment seemed rather pointless now as she held them by the straps with her fingers. It was tempting to throw them away, but considering how much they had cost, she neatly stuffed them in her pack instead.

At first, walking barefoot offered her great relief as the soft earth cushioned her feet and relieved the pain. It even took some of the stress off her cut. But once she began walking deeper into the forest, it was necessary to walk over rougher terrain. Bramble and roots and rocks cut into her already tender feet, sending pain shooting through her legs.

She stopped and sighed in frustration, reaching into her pack for her shoes. Surely the pain of the heels was better than bramble poking her.

She quickly learned that was a bad idea.

---

Alarms blared incessantly in the cockpit of the dying plane.

Come on baby, hold together, Malcolm encouraged as he pulled the fuel nozzle. He watched as the gage to measure fuel levels depleted rapidly as they were ejected into the atmosphere. His hands gripped the wheel and he attempted to lift the nose of the plane in order to level it out. You can do this.

Even while Malcolm attempted to glide the plane, his mind refused to let go of Victoria. He couldn’t allow himself to die here; not when he was so close to getting everything he had ever wanted. I will see you again, my treasure.

The plane jerked violently as it struggled to stay in one piece. Malcolm used all his strength to keep the plane from pitching into a nosedive. It was challenging to achieve a steady glide, but it was the only way to ease the pressure on the wings. After a few seconds of gliding, he exhaled, realizing that he might be getting control. He was starting to believe there was a good chance he could guide the craft to a safe landing—until another explosion threatened to rip a wing clean off the plane.

Malcolm was battered around as the plane tilted to one side uncontrollably. The nose fell sharply to the ground, and the steering column had become completely locked up. He watched in horror as the plane pointed toward the ground in an uncontrolled spin. He fought with the wheel but to no avail as the plane plunged him to his death.

He quickly flipped a few switches to activate the brake flaps on the wings and deployed the landing gear. His actions gave the plane a little more drag, and it was able to slow itself down enough for Malcolm to regain control. Just a little longer, he said soothingly to the plane, even though his own anxiousness was rising. He couldn’t afford to allow himself to give into the fear that he was feeling. He knew that one emotional mistake would be his end. Get it together, he inwardly told himself. For Claire.

With the plane under control in the moment, Malcolm reached for the communicator. He pulled the microphone and jabbed his thumb into the button on the side. Mayday, mayday. This is Malcolm Cage on private flight 664 heading to Buenos Aires. My plane has been damaged severely and my pilots are dead. After a moment of no response, Malcolm repeated his message along with his current coordinates, direction and air speed, hoping someone on the other end could hear him.

There was nothing more Malcolm could do except wait until his plane crashed. He looked out on the horizon and searched for a clear path to land on, but all he could see was forest. Fuck, he muttered as he angled the nose of his plane down. With nowhere to safely land, the best he could do was use the trees as a cushion and hope for the best. You need to get through this, Malcolm, he commanded himself. For your daughter. For Victoria. Images of Claire’s smiling face passed through his mind, but it had been so long since he had seen her that the visions were blurry and indistinct. However, the feeling of holding Victoria’s soft body in his arms only hours before was fresh in his mind, and he knew that he would do whatever it took to hold her close again.

Malcolm double checked to make sure that he was strapped in securely as the plane fell rapidly. His steely eyes watched the altitude meter closely as the numbers quickly disappeared. Ten thousand feet… five thousand feet… two thousand feet… one thousand feet. He gritted his teeth and braced for impact, pulling sharply on the steering wheel in an attempt to lift the nose of the plane at the last moment.

The metal nose crashed against the canopy of the rainforest violently. It ripped through the trees with terrible vengeance. Malcolm was thrown forward harshly, his skull cracking against the steering wheel. There was a blinding, kaleidoscopic explosion of color, before everything went black.

CHAPTER 2

Several nights and days had passed in the blistering heat of the Argentinian summer. Victoria had been miserably trying to alternate between walking with her shoes on and barefoot, and she had