I placed my hands on one of the trivia boxes that talked about how many times a year the Needle got struck by lightning, and I leaned forward. The back of my dress slid up up my long tan legs, dangerously close to paradise. I looked up at him out of the corner of my eye and smiled. His gaze was stuck in my cleavage, and I tried to work up some guilt over what I was going to do to him. But guilt and I had parted company about twenty years ago, and all I felt was a flutter in my chest and an ache between my legs. “What about you? Do you like to watch?”
“I’m more of a doer.” He reached toward me and pushed a lock of my hair out of my face. “It makes it more interesting that way.”
“I like doers, being that I like to be done in a lot of different positions.” I licked my red lips. “Does that interest you?”
His blue eyes got all sleepy as he slid his hand up my back and his fingers brushed my spine, spreading fire across my flesh. “What’s your name?”
“Honey Pie.”
“I like that,” he said as he stepped behind me. Then he slipped his hands around my stomach and spoke next to my ear. “How freaky do you get, Miss Honey Pie?”
I leaned back and pressed my round behind into what felt like at least nine inches of good wood. He moved his talented hands to my breasts and cupped me through the thin material of my halter.
I closed my eyes and arched my back. He didn‘t know it, but he was so dead. “The last man I was with hasn’t recovered.” That had been two days ago, and Lou was still in a coma after I’d left him inside the service elevator at the Four Seasons.
“What did you do to him?”
“I blew his mind… among other things.”
My nipples were hard against his hot palms and I was so turned on, a busload of Japanese tourists wouldn’t have stopped me from doing this hockey player with the big hard jock. “You’re making me crazy with your red lips and little red dress.” He bit the side of my neck, and asked in a husky whisper, “Are you cold, or turned on?”
Luc’s gaze stopped on the last line, and he backed up and read it one more time.
“Are you cold, or turned on?”
“What the hell?” he whispered as he continued.
I was hot and definitely turned on.
“You make me want to suck a bruise on you just so I can kiss it better.”
“Where?” I asked as I took his hand and slid it between my legs. “Here?” He cupped me through my dress and red lace thong.
Stunned, Luc dropped the magazine and sat back. He felt as if he’d been hit in the head with a smoking puck. This absolutely could not be happening. He was imagining things that did not exist.
“Do you know Honey Pie?” Bressler asked, letting Luc know he wasn’t imagining things.
“No.” But there was something familiar about it. Something real personal.
“You’re famous now,” the captain joked. “Read on. You’ve been put into a coma by Honey Pie.”
The rest of the guys laughed, but Luc didn’t find it at all amusing. No, he found it disturbing.
“Why’d she pick you this time?” Fish wanted to know. “She must have seen you play and wanted to get a look at your paraphernalia.”
“Maybe she’s someone who’s seen the paraphernalia,” Lynch added.
Anger welled up in his chest, but he battled it back and said, “I can guarantee she hasn’t seen the paraphernalia.” Anger would only get in the way. He knew that much from experience. He needed a clear head to think. He felt like he was looking at one of those ringer puzzles with a big picture on it-a picture of his life-but all the pieces were mixed up. And if he could just get it all in the right order, everything would become clear.
“I’d think it was cool if Honey Pie screwed me into a coma,” someone said.
“She isn’t real,” Lynch told everyone.
“She has to be real,” Scott Manchester argued. “Someone is writing the columns.”
The conversation quickly turned to speculation over where Honey Pie might have seen Luc. They all agreed she lived in Seattle, but they differed on gender. They wondered if Honey Pie had actually met Luc, and if she was actually a man. The general consensus was that if she wasn’t a man, she thought like one.
Luc didn’t give a flying fuck if Honey Pie was a man or a woman. He’d spent the last two years trying to live down that kind of shit. And here it was again. Fueling the fire he’d been trying to extinguish. Only this time it was worse than ever before.
“It’s all made up,” someone said. But it didn’t feel at all made up to Luc. It was all so eerily familiar it raised the hair on the back of his neck. The red dress. The part about hard nipples. About being cold or turned on. The red thong panties. Sucking a bruise.
A piece of the puzzle slid into place. It was Jane. Someone had been eavesdropping on him and Jane, but that was impossible. You make me want to suck a bruise on you just so I can kiss it better-Luc remembered saying that as he’d touched her soft skin. The night she’d worn the red dress, he’d wanted to leave a mark on her. His mark. Had they been followed? In his mind, he moved a few more pieces of the puzzle, but he still didn’t get a clear picture.
“Hey, boys. What are you all doing?”
Luc glanced up from the glossy pages of the magazine to Jane’s green eyes. He would have to tell her. She’d freak out.
“Sharky,” the guys greeted her.
The corners of her lips tilted up slightly as she looked at him. Then her gaze fell on the open magazine and her little smile froze.
“Have you ever heard of The Life of Honey Pie?” Sutter asked her.
Jane’s gaze locked with Luc’s. “Yes. I have.”
“Honey Pie wrote about Luc.”
Color drained from her already pale complexion. “Are you sure it’s you?”
“Positive.”
“I’m sorry, Luc.”
Luc rose from his chair. She understood what it meant. To him. She understood even what the rest of the guys didn’t. Now, when anything was written about him, the Honey Pie article would be mentioned, just one more excuse to dissect his private life. To dig into the stuff that just didn’t matter. He moved to her and looked into her eyes. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, then shook her head.
Without thinking about it, Luc took her arm and they walked from the bar. They crossed the lobby and entered the elevator. “I’m so sorry, Luc,” she said just above a whisper.
“It’s not your fault, Jane.” He punched the number to her floor, then glanced over at her. She stood in the corner of the elevator. Her eyes were huge and filling with water and she suddenly looked very small. By the time they got to her hotel room, tears were falling down her cheeks. He hadn’t even told her of his bizarre suspicions and she was already crying.
“Jane,” he began as soon the door shut behind him. “I know this will sound crazy…” He paused to sort it all out in his head. “There are some things in that Honey Pie piece-of-shit article that are just too close to be a coincidence. Things that were written about you and me that actually happened. I don’t know how she knew so much. It’s like someone was watching us and taking notes.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed and stuck her hands between her knees. She didn’t say anything, and he continued to try and explain what he didn’t understand. “Your red dress, for one. She described your red dress with the chain down the back.”
“Oh, God.”
He sat down beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. The things the writer of the article knew about him were disturbing. Jane was already so upset, he didn’t go into any more detail because he didn’t want to scare her more than necessary. “I can’t believe this is starting up again. I’ve been careful to get away from this sort of crap.” He gave her a squeeze. Thoughts tumbled in his head but made no sense “I feel crazy. Paranoid. A little insane. Maybe I should hire a PI to get to the bottom of this.”