“Five games.”
“It was a fairly cheap shot,” Fish added from his chair beside the team captain. “But I’ve seen worse.”
Daniel Holstrom and Grizzell joined them, and the conversation turned to some of the worst hits in the NHL, with the Chinooks enforcer, Rob Sutter, leading the pack. Manchester and Lynch pushed their chairs to the table and the talk turned from hockey to who would kick whose ass in a fight, Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. Luc would put his money on Bruce Lee, but he had other things on his mind and didn’t enter into the debate. His gaze drifted to the empty doorway once again.
The only time Jane wasn’t on his mind was when he was in the net. Somehow, when he’d taken her to bed, she’d crawled inside his head. Sometimes it felt as if she’d crawled into the rest of him too, and he was surprised that he liked her there.
He couldn’t say if he was in love with her. The until-death-do-you-part kind of love. The kind that lasted and settled into the comfortable sort of love he wanted. The kind his mother had never found and that his father never waited around for. He only knew that he wanted to be with her, and when he wasn’t, he thought about her. He trusted her enough to let her into his life and the life of his sister. He had faith in her that his trust wasn’t misplaced.
He liked watching her and talking to her and just being with her. He liked the twists and turns of her mind, and he liked that he could be himself around her. He liked her sense of humor, and he liked having sex with her. No, he loved having sex with her. He loved kissing her, touching her, and being inside of her, looking down into her flushed face. When he was inside of her, he was already scheming ways to get there again. She was the only woman he’d ever been with for whom that was true.
He loved to listen to her little moans, and he loved the way she touched him. He loved when she took control and he was at her mercy. Jane knew what to do with her hands and mouth, and he loved that about her.
But did he love her? The forever kind? Maybe, and he was surprised that it didn’t freak him out.
“Luc?”
He removed his gaze from the entrance and looked at the guys. Most of them stood behind the Stromster, looking at a magazine he had open on the table.
“What?”
Daniel held up a copy of Him magazine. He was learning to read English again.
“Have you seen this?” Grizzell asked.
“No.”
Daniel handed it to him, opened to the Swede’s favorite choice of educational material. “Read,” he said.
The guys were looking at him as if they expected something. So he turned his attention to the magazine and read:
The Life of Honey Pie
One of my favorite places in the world is the observation deck of the Seattle Space Needle at night. It’s like sitting on top of the world. And anyone who knows me, knows I like it on top. I’d just had dinner in the restaurant below, leaving my date, a real dud, sitting at the table awaiting my return from the ladies’ room. I was wearing my little red halter dress, with the gold clasp at the back of my neck and the little gold chain that hung halfway down my spine. I’d worn my five-inch heels, and I was in the mood for more than Pacific swordfish. The date was gorgeous, like all my men. But he’d refused to play beneath the table, and I was turned on and bored. A dangerous thing for the men of Seattle.
Luc paused in his reading to glance at the doorway as two women walked, in. He didn’t need more than a quick glance to know they were rink bunnies. Uninterested, he returned to his reading.
The elevator to my left opened, and a man wearing a black tuxedo stepped out. My gaze ran up the four buttons of his jacket to his blue eyes. His gaze slid to my perfect breasts barely covered in the red halter. The corners of his mouth rose in an appreciative smile, and suddenly my night got a lot more interesting.
I recognized him right away. He played hockey. A goalie with fast h
ands, and reportedly a very dirty mind. I liked that in a man. He starred in a million or so female fantasies across the country. A time or two, he’d starred in mine.
“Hello,” he said. “Nice night for watching the stars.”
“Watching is a favorite of mine.” His name was Lucky, which I thought appropriate since, if his smile was any indication, I was about to get lucky.
Luc stopped and looked up at the guys. “Jesus,” he said. “This can’t be me.” But he had a bad feeling that it was.
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.”