EIGHT
After close to twenty years of regular commuting by plane, Remy still hadn’t figured out how to fall asleep on one. All around him on the chartered flight, the rest of the team snoozed soundly, except for St. James five rows ahead. The guy had growled at anyone who came near him, covered his ears with headphones, and lost himself in the beat of something loud, violent, and possibly composed with the death of puppies in mind. Remy had to admire the guy. Piecing your life together after rehab and doing it under the full glare of the press and your team was something he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. Remy liked to think that if he was in that position, he’d also keep his head down and bury himself in work. St. James had played well tonight. They all had.
A win on the road at last.
Remy wasn’t used to acting like a win was the best thing to ever happen to him. Sure, a win was better than a kick to the head, but his whole life was about winning. Yet while tonight’s victory felt good, especially with the bonus of seeing Stroger in that penalty box, funny how it didn’t feel half as good as the two goals he’d clawed back in Philly two weeks ago. They’d lost that game, but those goals had meant something.
They were the first steps on his road to the Cup and his exit off the Rebels’ roster.
He turned back to the worn paperback in his hand. Not his usual diet, but he’d promised his niece Sophie he’d do a read-along. With her parents in the middle of a contentious divorce, he’d been checking in more frequently. The book was about five sisters who needed to get hitched and a bunch of crazy rules about who could talk to whom and in what order. Sophie had to read it for AP English, and while he’d die before admitting it to anyone, it was better than he expected. Slyly funny, despite the main dude being a complete ass, insulting everyone left and right. A real catch.
A shadow darkened his peripheral vision. Now, wasn’t that nice. Just the lady he wanted to play hide the puck with.
“You’re reading Pride and Prejudice?”
The surprise in Harper’s voice should have been an insult, but he couldn’t blame her.
“Well, I was grabbing some reading material on my way out yesterday morning and accidentally picked this up instead of my copy of Hustler.”
“Would’ve thought you’d be more a Juggs kind of guy.”
“That’s my other subscription.”
Her mouth quirked, but in a flash, it was gone. He looked around. Anyone, anyone? Surely someone could corroborate that Harper grin sighting, but alas, he was alone in this.
He took a good ol’ gander at her, unsurprised that even now she was impeccably dressed in a sleeveless dark pink dress that matched her glossy lips and high-heeled gray boots with cut-outs showing pink-varnished toenails. Sexy as hell. He’d venture to say travel-casual was not in this woman’s vocabulary. The tightly coiled image she presented turned him on and pissed him off in equal measure. He tried to imagine her unspooling. Overindulging in dessert, shimmying on a dance floor, losing herself in bed.
Screaming out his name when she came.
His cock stiffened at the notion of drawing this woman’s inner vixen to the surface, provided that there was anything to draw.
“So what’s the deal, DuPre?” She waved at the book in his hand. “Is this some elaborate ruse to conquer the nonstripper demographic? Did one of your ex-girlfriends say you weren’t sensitive enough?”
“Just a poor boy tryin’ to better myself.” He laid his accent on brick-thick. “Figured I’d start with this fascinatin’ insight into the female brain. Did you know that accordin’ to this, all women wanna do is get married?”
Another twitch of those pouty pink lips. Her Majesty was amused. “Not all women. Back when that was written, females didn’t have much control over their own financial futures. Things have changed, and now we don’t need to rely on a man for a single thing.”
She emphasized those last three words, probably so he wouldn’t make some dig about the reasons why a woman might need a man. Like that could stop him.
“What do you ladies call it? The battery-operated boyfriend? There’s only so much BOB can do for you.”
“At least it doesn’t talk back.”
“Oh, you like your men quiet. Noted.” Like the lawyer, he supposed. They probably fucked each other like very respectful mice. Was that okay, dahling? Yes, Kenneth, that was perfectly pleasant.
Best not to think about that because, one, he didn’t much enjoy thinking about people he knew having sex, and, two, he especially didn’t enjoy thinking about Harper having sex. Or, having sex with anyone who wasn’t him, which was crazy cakes, as his niece Sophie would say.
“I like them doing what I pay them to do.”
“Hell, Harper, when you get snippy about something you sure don’t let up. I said I’d play my heart out for you—”
“After you blackmailed me.”
“After I negotiated the terms of my departure.” He lowered his voice. “Now I know you don’t wanna talk about this right here.”
She leaned in at his soft tone, a proven strategy to get a woman within kissing distance. Not that he wanted to kiss her.
Remy, you wanna bang this pretty lady without laying lips on her? Now, that ain’t nice.
Okay, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her so badly the only thing keeping him from doing it was the damn seat belt strapped across his hips. He glanced down. No seat belt.
Shit.
Looking up, he found something close to concern in her eyes. “How are you? After your run-in with . . . Stroger?”
That hesitancy before she said Stroger’s name set off a four-alarm in his head. His best guess? Ms. Chase didn’t quite have the stomach for the violence inherent in the game.
He rubbed his jaw where Stroger had gotten him good and pondered how he’d allowed a punk like that to get the jump on him. Gettin’ old, DuPre. Remy supposed that could be it, but bad blood between them notwithstanding, there was still the fact that Stroger had come at him all night with no provocation whatsoever.
“I’m all right. Just boys bein’ boys.”
Her look pronounced that to be bullshit, so he tried again.
“Billy and I weren’t exactly bosom buddies when we played on the same side.”
“That right?”
“He’s one mean fils de putain—that’s Cajun for sonovabitch—and while I could put up with that if he had a streak of decency in him on occasion, he’s never shown any evidence that he’s worth my time. Kind of guy who aims at puddles and pisses in front of you in the team shower, y’know? One day I came across him hazing a rookie, making him down hot sauce until he puked. Not sure what set him off tonight, though.”
She bit down on her lip, a supercute lip snag that got him more than a little hot and bothered. Jesus, he had seen women looking nervous before and it hadn’t turned him on faster than a lamp. So why did the sight of Harper Chase running her orthodontist-bought teeth along her plump bottom lip, and leaving that same lip looking wet and luscious and ready for his mouth to taste—
Where was I again?
Oh yeah. Why would this relatively common sight get him hotter than a short-order cook in a Lafayette diner in July? Looking to divert his brain and other interested parts of his anatomy away from how she was making him positively swoon (fucking Pride and Prejudice), he went on the offensive.
“Got somethin’ to say, Harper?”
There it was again, another lip bite. Another nervous dart of her tongue. What the hell was going on here?
“Do you mind if we . . . ?” She gestured toward the galley behind them.
He stood and followed her, not trying all that hard to ignore the switch of those trim little hips and that cute little ass in that tight little skirt. Hadn’t he already decided she was too skinny for him? Yes, he had. Yet somehow his cock had gone rogue and was staging a coup to overthrow the governing faction.
He passed Burnett, snoring his head off and sounding like a damn buzz saw. Jorgenson had his mouth dropped open, a touch of drool dripping from the corner. The youngsters had done well tonight. They deserved their rest.
Back in the relative privacy of the galley area, Harper reached for a bottle of Dewar’s and splashed a couple of fingers into a glass. He could have sworn her hand shook a little.
She didn’t drink, but she was definitely working up to saying something. Seconds passed, then close to a minute. He leaned in, a move he usually used to get answers from his sisters or nieces. It rarely worked because he was pretty much whipped when it came to his female relatives, but he was confident that one day he might strike gold with this particular strategy.
“Harper?”
Still nothing. Instinctively, he cupped her upper arms. She trembled under his touch, and that just made him grip harder and pull her closer.
“Minou, you’re scarin’ me.”
Those green eyes seemed to implore him. Soothe her. Keep her warm. Make it better. Unbidden, one of his hands coasted up to the beautiful rounded shoulder he’d brushed his lips over a couple of nights ago.
Stop me, Harper. He curled a hand around her neck and noted with satisfaction how she seemed to relax into his touch.
Shut me down, baby. Holding her at the nape, he let his thumb wander to her jaw. Was it his imagination or did she fold into him ever so slightly?
“Tell me what’s goin’ on.” Really, he meant why she’d invited him back here for the private tête-à-tête, but her breathing had picked up, and her moist lips were parted, and it was all he could do not to push her to her knees and demand she put that tart mouth to better use.
“Remy, I—” She let loose a breathy moan, likely because his thumb had glanced across that pouting bottom lip. He couldn’t help it. His hands didn’t care about her motives for bringing him here because his body couldn’t survive another second without knowing how that mouth tasted.
With his palm anchoring her head, he angled her up and sucked on that fleshy lip. She gave a little squeak, but she didn’t back off, so he took that as invitation and covered her mouth with his.
Dumbass hands, running the show, because now he was fucked. No woman should taste this incredible. Harper Chase’s mouth could tempt a man to forget everything that was good for him.
Her hands pressed against his chest, holding him at bay, yet somehow pulling him deeper into this madness. She kissed him back with all that passion he’d seen her put into their contract negotiations. A little angry, a whole lot desperate, both of them winners. Their tongues touched, then tangled in a manner that might be considered workplace inappropriate.
He was happily drowning in the hottest kiss of his life.
She broke away, eyes wild and blaring her confusion. “That—that’s not why I asked to speak with you.”
He licked his lips, needing one last taste of this Class A drug that was Harper. His heartbeat would take longer than his erection to subside. “No worries. I won’t tell anyone the real reason you acquired me.”
Her lust-dazed eyes focused in annoyance, and she slipped his grasp.
“I might have had something to do with it.”
“With what?”
“Stroger going off on you.”
Not expecting that. “And you know this because?”
She took a slug of the whiskey she’d poured earlier. “Before the game, I ran into him near the locker rooms. He was talking to Isobel, and I told him to leave her alone.”
“What was he saying to Isobel?”
“I don’t know. Apparently they worked on some charity thing during the Olympics, but seeing them together—well, he’s bad news. And I don’t want my sister to have anything to do with him.”
With any other woman, Remy might have suspected a distinct case of the green-eyed monster. Add the innately tricky relationship between sisters, and that female jealousy theory went for double. But Harper didn’t strike him as the jealous type, so seeing her all bent out of shape because of Stroger made him hella curious.
“Stroger used to play for the Rebels,” Remy said, accessing his memory bank for the details. “Five years ago?”
“Six. One and a half seasons, and then we traded him to LA.”
Recollection kicked in hard. “Not a great trade if I recall. Kind of unexpected.”
“Do you remember the details of every transaction in the league?”
“Just the ones that look funny.” Aw. Shit. He got it now. “Something happened with you and Stroger?” Tonight. Six years ago.
“I told him to stay away from Isobel, and then we traded the usual smack talk. He mentioned something about how the Rebels were down so bad there was no getting up and not even a . . .” Her voice petered out.
“Not even a what?”
“Not even an old has-been could bring us out of our slump.”
He’d heard worse. “And?”
“I might have mentioned that you were ten times the man he was.”
Remy’s heart reared like a wild beast in his chest. Not ten times the skater. Not ten times the player. Ten times the man. That could be interpreted in any number of ways, but if he were Stroger, he would have read it one way, and one way only.
Harper had used Remy to win points against a man she’d once been involved with.
“When you traded him out six years ago, you did that because you were . . .” His pulse had skyrocketed while his brain hurtled toward the shittiest conclusion imaginable. “Dating him?”
She darted a tongue over those luscious lips he’d just tasted. “Dating is a stretch.”
Oh, so much better. She’d been . . . fucking Stroger. Neither did she see fit to contradict this as the reason for Stroger getting canned.
Remy wasn’t given to emotional outbursts either on or off the ice. He was known for his laid-back, suthin’ way of approaching everything, even hockey. Some people thought he was too laid back and blamed his easy temperament for his failings in the final stretch. But the thought of Stroger touching Harper had him ready to do considerable violence.
“So you told your daddy to banish your ex. Must be nice to have that power, princess.”
She bristled, and cool ice-queen Harper returned, but not before a flash of something in her eyes alerted him that he might not understand fully what had happened between her and Stroger. Whatever occurred, it ended badly, with Harper hurting.
But this woman fixed her pain by screwing with a guy’s career. Never in his life would he have thought he’d feel a smidgeon of pity for a shithead like Billy Stroger. The message was clear: do not get in Harper Chase’s emotional crosshairs.
For a moment, her cool facade cracked, and she looked as vulnerable as she had in that split second before he kissed her. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay and apologize for setting him off. I never expected he’d go that far.”
“Don’t worry, Ms. Chase. All’s fair in love and hockey, right? But next time you want to use me in some grudge match you have with Stroger, give me a heads-up so I can protect my oh-so-pretty, Juggs-readin’, stripper-lovin’ face.”
Furious, and not just because he felt like an idiot for thinking his boss might have his back, he stalked to his seat.