See Jane Score (25 page)

Her orgasm gripped him hard and his fingers sank into her hips as he drove into her again and again, thrusting harder until he too felt the same ecstasy he'd just given to her.

Jane collapsed on top of Luc, and he held her tight, his breathing labored. Crushed her to his moist chest as if he didn't plan to let her go anytime soon.

“My God,” he said, his harsh breath next to her ear. “It's better than the last time. And that time was pretty freaking-A fantastic!”

She agreed but was too winded to speak. Something had just happened. Something different. Something better, somehow. Something beyond physical pleasure. Some
thing
she couldn't quite put her finger on.

“Jane.”

“Hmm?”

“Nothing.” She felt him kiss her hair. “I just wanted to make sure you hadn't passed out.”

She smiled and buried her nose in his neck. The
thing
was in the way he held her, touched her. She didn't fool herself that it was love. But it was something. She'd take that something and run with it, because whatever it was, was a whole heck of a lot better than nothing at all.

Chapter 16
Lights Out: pulling an
Opponent's Jersey over His Head

T
he next evening, when Jane walked into the locker room of the Joe Louis Arena, her emotions were still in chaos. Luc had spent the night in her room, and they'd had breakfast in bed before he'd left for the game-day practice. He'd kissed her at her door and touched her hair and told her he would see her later. But would he be happy to see her later?

“Hi, guys,” she said as she moved to the center of the room.

“Hey, Sharky.”

While the players strapped on their gear, she hurried through her pants-dropping speech. She glanced at Luc, who was in deep conversation with the goalie coach and didn't seem to know she was even in the room.

She shook Bressler's hand. “Good luck with the game, Hitman.”

“Thanks.” He dropped his chin and studied her face. “You look different tonight,” he said.

She'd brushed her lashes with a little mascara, covered the dark circles beneath her eyes, and put on some pink lip gloss. She hoped that's what he noticed, and not her serious case of afterglow. “Is that a good different?”

“Yeah.”

Fish and Sutter joined the captain and complimented her too. As she moved toward Luc, all the horrid fears and the wonderful high of falling in love mixed and tumbled in her stomach. Luc stood in front of his stall still talking to the goalie coach, and as she approached, he cast a sideways glance at her. His gaze held hers for several heartbeats before returning to the coach.

“The Czech always shoots top shelf,” the coach said. “If he scores on you, that's where he'll aim.” He flipped over a page on his clipboard. “And Federov will cut across the ice and shoot at you from his sweet spot near the left face-off circle.”

“Thanks, Don,” Luc said and turned to Jane when the goalie coach walked away.

“What were Fish and Sutter saying to you?” he wanted to know.

He towered over her in his gear. “They thought I looked different tonight.” She would have told him her after-the-afterglow theory, but she didn't want to get him started down that path.

“Were they hitting on you?”

“No. You big dumb dodo.”

He looked around and waited for Daniel to move past before he said, “I've been thinking.”

“Uh-oh.”

He lowered his voice. “I think you should kiss my tattoo before every game for good luck.”

She scowled to keep from laughing. “I think I'm being sexually harassed.”

He grinned. “Absolutely. What do you say? Wanna kiss my tattoo?”

“Not a chance,” she said and turned away before anyone overheard the conversation. She headed up to the press box and took a seat by Darby. He told her that he was making some headway with management on her behalf, and he told her of a defender they hoped to acquire before the March 19 deadline four weeks away.

“Caroline said she'd go out with me when we get back into town,” he told her after they'd talked business.

“Where are you taking her?”

“Columbia Tower Club, like you suggested.”

She looked at his chili pepper tie hanging halfway down his chest and smiled. If Caroline decided to make Darby Hogue her next fixer-upper, she had her work cut out for her. Jane took out her sticky notes, wrote some reminders, and stuck them in her planner. And as soon as the puck was dropped, she pulled out her laptop.

Luc was definitely in his zone, stacking his pads or dropping to his knees and catching shots fired high. He played his angles brilliantly, and Jane had a hard time keeping her attention on the game, and not just on the Chinooks' goalie.

That night on the team jet as they headed to Toronto, she sat within the light shining overhead and wrote her column for the
Seattle Times
.
Throughout the flight, she felt Luc's gaze on her and glanced across the aisle at him. He leaned against the side of the plane, his hands behind his head, watching her work. She wondered what he was thinking and decided it was probably best not to know.

She still hadn't figured out the something that had been different with their sex the night before. She wondered if she'd imagined it, but when he came to her hotel room that night, took her by the hand, and led her to his room, she thought for sure she felt it again. She spent several hours in his bed trying to figure it out. Unsuccessful that night, she tried again in Boston, New York, and St. Louis. By the time they set down again in Seattle, she was tired of trying to figure anything out and decided not to overanalyze every word and touch. She was just going to go with it for as long as it lasted.

She'd fought falling in love with Luc, and she'd lost. Against her better judgment, she was having sex with him. Great sex. Fabulous sex that put her job at risk, but she knew she wouldn't stop no matter the consequences to her career or her heart. She was in love with him and didn't have a choice but to be with him. And over the next few weeks, her love grew and expanded until it filled every part of her. Body and soul. She was in too deep to get out.

One morning shortly after their return from St. Louis, she came home with baskets of her clean laundry to find Luc standing on her porch waiting for her. The mountain was out, and the sky was the same warm blue as his eyes. His dark blond hair was finger-combed and he looked like he should come with a warning label:
Hazardous to your health
.
He kissed her hello and helped her carry her laundry inside. Then he led her to his motorcycle parked by the curb.

“No one will see your face,” he said as he handed her a helmet. “So you don't have to worry about my bad reputation.”

If she didn't know better, she'd think his feelings were hurt. “It's not your reputation that worries me as much as people assuming I slept with you to get an interview.”

“I've been meaning to talk to you about that article.”

“What about it?”

He fixed her chin strap and his fingers brushed her throat. “You said I was aloof.”

“So?”

“I'm not aloof. I just don't give interviews.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “What did you think of the rest of the article?”

He ducked his head and kissed her. “Next time you mention my fast hands, you could say something about how big they are. And my feet too.”

She laughed. “Big feet. Big hands. Big . . . heart.”

“Exactly.”

Jane hopped on the bike behind him, and they headed for Snoqualmie Falls. It was fifty-eight degrees, and Jane wore jeans, a sweatshirt, and a pea coat for the thirty-minute ride. The falls were nothing new to Jane. She'd seen them many times, mostly on field trips in grade school, but she never got used to the awesome power and beauty of the 270-foot falls.

They were alone on the observation platform, and Luc stood behind Jane and wrapped his arms around her. The noon sun shot rainbows into the spray rising from the mist below. Beneath their feet, the platform shuddered with the force of nature. Within Luc's embrace, Jane's heart shuddered too, helpless against the natural force that drew her to him. She melted back into his chest as if she belonged there, wrapped in his arms.

He rested his chin on top of her head, and they talked about the falls and about the hockey season. The Chinooks had won forty out of sixty-one games and unless they totally unraveled before April 15, they were pretty much assured a playoff position. Luc's goals against average had risen to an impressive 1.96, the best of his career.

They talked about Marie, who seemed to be making friends and adjusting a bit to life in Seattle with a brother she hadn't known until a few months ago. They talked about boarding school, and how he still hadn't made a decision concerning that. And they talked about growing up, and to her surprise, Luc hadn't been rich and famous all his life.

“I drove a rusted-out truck,” he said. “I saved for a whole year to buy a stereo and brand-new
Playboy
mud flaps. I thought I was something. Too bad I was the only one.”

“Don't tell me you didn't get a lot of action in high school.”

“I played too much hockey to get any action. Well, not any
good
action. You probably had more dates than I did.”

She laughed. “I had bad hair, bad clothes, and a Mercury Bobcat with a wire hanger for an antenna.”

He squeezed her against his solid chest. “I would have dated you.”

She doubted it. “No way. Even I didn't go out with losers with
Playboy
mud flaps.”

They ate lunch at the Salish Lodge, made famous by the television series
Twin Peaks
.
Beneath the table he held her hand while he whispered inappropriate things just to see her blush. And on the drive home, Jane stuck her hands underneath his leather jacket and spread her fingers across his flat belly. Through his shirt, she felt his muscles, and through his Levi's, she felt his full erection.

When they reached her apartment, he helped her off the bike and practically pulled her through her front door. He tossed their helmets and his jacket on the couch. “You're going to be sorry you decided to tease me for the last half hour.”

She made her eyes go wide as she shucked her coat and tossed it by his. “What are you going to do? Feed me my lunch?”

“I already fed you lunch. What I'm going to feed you now is better than lunch.”

She laughed. “What could be better than Salish burgers?”

“Dessert.”

“Sorry, I don't eat dessert. It makes me fat.”

“Well, I'm going to have some.” He took her face in his hands. “I'm going to have your sweet spot.”

And he did. Several times. Two nights later, he invited her to his condo for dinner with him and Marie. While he cooked salmon, Jane helped his sister with her English homework. Throughout the evening, there was only one tense moment when Luc made Marie drink her milk.

“I'm sixteen,” she argued. “I don't need to drink milk.”

“Do you want to be short and stumpy?” he asked her.

Marie's eyes narrowed. “I'm not short and stumpy.”

“Not now, but look at your aunt Louise.”

Evidently, Aunt Louise must have been an osteoporosis nightmare, because without further argument Marie picked up her glass and drank her milk. Luc then turned his attention to Jane. He looked at her full glass and then at her.

“I'm already short and stumpy,” she said.

“You're not stumpy—yet. But if you get any shorter, you'll only be waist-high.” Then a beautiful smile curved his lips, and without a word, he reached for her glass and downed her milk.

He was such a bad man.

The night before they were to leave for a ten-day grind, he came to her apartment. When he knocked on her door, she was in the middle of her latest
Honey Pie
story, and not having a lot of success. Mostly because she was thinking of Luc and trying very hard not to write him into the story again. She shut her laptop and let him in.

A heavy rain had wet his hair and the shoulders of his jacket. He dug into the pocket and pulled out a white box about the size of her hand. “I saw this and thought of you,” he said.

She had no idea what to expect when she lifted the lid off the little box. She really wasn't used to men giving her gifts, except perhaps cheap lingerie. Which she'd always figured was more for them than for her.

Inside the box, nestled on white tissue paper, was a crystal shark. Neither edible nor crotchless, it was the most thoughtful present any man had ever given her. And it touched her more than he would ever know.

“I love it,” she said and held it up to the light. Multicolored prisms shot across the front of Luc's jacket and the hollow of his throat.

“It's not much.”

He was wrong. So wrong. She closed her hand around the shards of light, but she could not contain the love she felt clear down to the very center of her soul. As she watched him unzip his jacket and toss it on her sofa, she knew she should tell him about the
Honey Pie
column. She should warn him and put a good spin on it. But if she told him, she could lose him. Here. Tonight.