by Snow, Wylie
She didn’t think he’d be amenable to an “I heart Bean” tattoo on his forearm and branding seemed rather extreme, so she would have to come up with something better.
She listened in the dark to his breathing, steady and calm.
Despite being stricken by something akin to panic over the brief time they had left, overall she hadn’t felt this sunshiny-happy-to-be-aliveness for ages, since before her Roman mishap, probably since before her father died. Everything just felt right in her world when he was beside her, and Clara wanted to be that to Luc, wanted to be his cozy, safe corner in which to escape, even if it was only the memory of her.
She worried for him, for his anxiety attacks, for his love/hate relationship with hockey. It could not be psychologically healthy for him to be imbedded in a world he didn’t feel comfortable being part of. If she could, she would fix him. If only she had magical powers, she’d give him his knee back—the old one that could skate and propel him across the ice toward the crease. At the very least, she would take away his broken dreams, the inky well of distrust and damage that came after his attack.
She couldn’t wave a wand and fix his physical damage, but maybe she could address the psychological ones? The seed of a crazy idea took root, nurtured by the quiet darkness of night. By morning, it had grown into a full-fledged plan.
Nobody could put Luc Biquet back on the ice, but maybe she could be the one to bring him to the ice.
Chapter 31
“What’s with the trench coat?” Luc asked as he approached the car. He looked up into the cloudless blue sky over the city of Philadelphia. “No rain in the local forecast as far as I know.”
Clara hadn’t thought he’d notice her attire, but as calf-length trenches aren’t everyday wardrobe choices outside of soggy old London, she had to come up with a quick excuse.
“I like to be prepared for all weather.”
“Uh-huh. In other words, it’s all part of the surprise, something to do with those secret telephone conversations you didn’t think I knew about,” he said as he waited for her to get into the car.
“Something like that.” Crap. How much had he heard? Obviously not enough or he’d not be so willing to accompany her.
As the driver pulled into traffic, Clara produced a black scarf from her pocket. “Turn around so I can tie this behind your head.”
“What for?”
“I don’t want you to see where we’re going, obviously.”
“No one is going to see me like this, right? We’re not going… We’re not going where people are?”
“No, Luc,” she reassured in a low, calm manner. “No crowds.”
He complied, but not before giving her the side eye. “This better involve spanking.”
Clara’s knee nervously bounced up and down when the driver pulled up at the Broad Street entrance to the Wachovia Center.
“This way,” she said, helping Luc out of the car in front of the massive sports arena. She linked her arm with his, stopping as he cocked his head sideways as if trying to listen for something.
“Why is it so quiet?” he asked.
“Because we’re the only two people standing here. Now, come on.”
Luc took a hesitant step, but she could feel him resisting forward motion.
“Don’t you trust me?” she asked.
“Color me uncooperative, but I don’t trust anyone who blindfolds me.”
“Just a bit further,” she said, coaxing him forward.
“You’d better be wearing a leather corset under that coat,” he mumbled.
Clara ignored him. “You’re going to hear two more voices. One you know, the other I’m not sure if you know or not. But it’s perfectly safe.”
“You know, you’re off by three months.”
“Sorry?”
“My birthday. It’s not for three more months. So if you and Sutter did cook up a surprise party, you’re way off.”
“About five more steps,” she said, pretending not to hear. “Now we’re going through a doorway.”
They were waiting, Sutter and the venue manager. They were going in through the administration area so Luc wouldn’t be tipped off by the arena acoustics. “Gentlemen,” she said.
“Clara,” Luc said, stiffening. “Now would be a good time to tell me what’s going on.”
“Please, darling, just trust me,” she whispered, rubbing his back.
“Hey frogman. Getting led around blindly by your balls as usual, eh?”
“I’m only blindfolded, mon ami, not cuffed.”
“Your point?”
“I can still clock you.”
“Now boys,” Clara said. “You’re embarrassing us in front of our host. Luc, say hello to Peter, our representative from Comcast Spectacor.”
Luc stopped dead at the mention the company that managed the hockey arena. He reached up to yank the blindfold off, but Clara and Riley grabbed his arms. “I am officially not enjoying this, Clara,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Luc,” she whispered close to his ear so the others couldn’t hear. She intertwined her fingers with his and squeezed. “I’d never do anything to embarrass you. No crowds, no strangers. You are perfectly safe. This entire building is empty but for the four of us. And I’d die before I let anything happen to you.” She waited until he relaxed a bit and led him forward onto the elevator.
“Sure am enjoying your commentaries, Luc,” Peter said, seeing an opportunity to fill a bit of silence.
“Thanks,” Luc replied. His voice sounded dry. She wished she’d brought a bottle of water.
Holding his arm was like hanging on to a coiled spring. Clara bit her bottom lip, second-guessing her careful planning. Maybe she should call the whole thing off.
Riley said something in rapid French. The corner of Luc’s lips quirked and his shoulders dropped.
“Thank you,” she mouthed at Riley for whatever reassuring words he’d said.
“Don’t thank him,” Luc said intuitively. “He just told me you’re leading me into a surprise shotgun wedding and your irate mother is standing behind me with a piñata bat if I try to run.”
A few more twists and turns later, Peter said, “I’ll leave you here. Clara, you have my number and the other numbers I gave you just in case.”
“Yes, I’m all set,” she said, taking his hand for a grateful shake. “I owe you one.”
“No ma’am. We owe him one.”
A nerve in Luc’s jaw twitched. Clara’s heart pounded with doubt. Would he understand or would he hate her for this? She opened the door and pulled him in. Luc froze, paled beneath his blindfold. Could he smell the ice? Could he smell what she couldn’t the other night?
“You okay from here, Clara?” Riley muttered.
“You can’t leave!”
“I won’t be far. But you guys need to do this alone.”
Riley pecked Clara’s cheek and said to Luc. “Don’t be an ass or I’ll shoot your other leg.”
“Riley!” Clara said, shocked he’d say something so insensitive, but Luc laughed. Nervously, but it was still a laugh.
The door swung shut and latched.
“Do you know where you are?”
“Yes,” he said, pushing the blindfold from his eyes. He sank into a seat in the last row of the skybox. She watched him take it in, watched his Adam’s apple bob once, twice. It was dark-ish way up here in the stands, so that everything appeared gray and shadowy. With only a few overhead lights on, the gem-like ice appeared to glow an eerie bluish-white.
He leaned over, dropped his head into his hands, and drove his fingers into his hair.
“Why?”
It was only one simple word, but Clara could hear the anguish, see the tremor in his big confident body, and her sto
mach churned and twisted.
“Because I thought…I thought, if you could see it again, empty and benign, you wouldn’t feel so—”
“Chickenshit?” he spat. The pain in his voice cut her heart.
“Threatened,” she whispered.
She sunk into the molded seat next to him, put her hand on his back, took it away again, cleared her throat, and prepared to explain.
“I’ve—” It was her turn to swallow once, twice, but her tongue felt swollen, her saliva evaporated.
Daftest idea she’d ever had, she decided. The psychologist warned her it could backfire, but she hadn’t wanted to listen to that part. She was convinced that behaviour modification, of which she’d researched madly the past few days, could be his answer. The idea was to sit here until the panic subsided, until he took back the power. Running away would only reinforce his anxiety; waiting it out until it lost its negative energy was the goal.
She cleared her throat and tried again. “I’ve arranged it so we can sit here as long as you like. Or we can leave now, but that could ruin everything. The team has their morning skate in awhile—but it’s closed to press, I checked. And nobody from down there can see us up here—I checked about that, too. There’s a game later tonight. But of course you knew that.”
Every word that came from her mouth sounded desperate. She was babbling, trying to save herself, his pride, their relationship.
“You can stay here. Right the whole way through. No one knows you’re here, and they’ll keep this box dark. The venue management, the Comcast Spectacor people, they helped me set it up. For you. The president of the company himself said they’ll let us stay until everyone has cleared out, there’s even a security detail standing by to escort you. If you need…”
Shut up, shut up, shut up!
But she couldn’t. “Riley told me you never lost a game in this particular arena, not once, even though you were the visiting team. Did you know that this place used to be called the First Union Center and people called it the F.U. for short? I thought that was funny.” She tried to laugh, but all that came out was a forced squeak.
Luc wasn’t speaking, wasn’t moving, wasn’t responding to any of her palavering. So she sat. Quiet. Heart hammering, stomach twisting into masochistic knots.
As the minutes crawled forward, Clara’s worry grew exponentially. The practice was about to begin, and she was scared Luc wouldn’t be able to handle it, seeing guys he probably knew, doing the thing he loved best but couldn’t.
Clara chewed off every fingernail on her right hand, polish and all, while she watched him. Why did she do this? It was foolish, stupid, and incredibly irresponsible. Who did she think she was? Oh sure, she’d fixed a few things before, even had a reputation for it amongst her friends. She suggested that Lydia use her knitting skills to help deal with stress, she’d suggested to Charlie that he romance spinster Sue, and that ended in wedding bells. And when Aunt Jude’s companion passed away, Clara pretended she needed someplace to live so Aunt Jude wouldn’t feel so desolate and lonely. But those weren’t on par with Luc’s post-traumatic stress issues. He needed a proper doctor, not someone who Googled PTSDs.
What if she made him worse? He needed someone to understand, not push. She’d been so proud of herself for coming up with this imbecilic scheme, and now she just wanted to cry for having been so bloody daft. No wonder Lydia called her a silly cow. She was an entire herd of silly cows.
“D-do you want to leave?”
His head, still down as if he’d fallen asleep staring at the step between the rows, shook a negative response.
“Okay. Well, if you want to talk or anything…”
Clara chewed every nail on her left hand when the team came out to practice. She could hear the coaches calling players by name, shouting drills, swearing—a lot—but through it all, Luc remained frozen. Not even the crack of the puck as it hit the protective Plexiglas walls jarred him to attention, but it sure made Clara jump. She thought it explosively loud in a crowded venue; empty, it reverberated like a shotgun blast.
She exhaled when the team left the ice. It had been such a tense hour, she hadn’t taken a full breath once.
Her phone rang, loud and echoey in the empty arena. “Yes?” she blurted, biting back tears.
“It’s me,” Riley said. “You guys okay?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m just down the road grabbing a coffee.”
“Please come now.” Clara tried to whisper but her voice broke with emotion. “I think he’s catatonic.”
Chapter 32
“That Riley?” Luc asked, his voice giving her a start.
He spoke. Thank you God, he spoke. “Yes, yes, it’s Riley. He’ll come and take you out of here,” she said in the calmest voice she could muster. “We’ll go back to the hotel and have a nice cup of tea and you’ll feel loads better.”
Luc grabbed the phone from her. “Ry,” he scowled. “How could you leave me here without food?”
Clara didn’t hear Riley’s exact response, but she did hear what sounded like a lot of cussing. In two languages.
“Mange de la merde, to you, too.” More unintelligible words from Riley’s end, but this time, she heard a chuckle.
“So, uh… are you alright?” she said tentatively, reaching for her phone.
“I will be when you get on my lap and make me forget where I am.”
Clara threw herself into his arms. Shaking with relief, she searched his face for some clue to his state of mind. She expected his mouth to be tight or scowling, his eyes to be liquid or fiery. There was nothing but weariness. “You’re not horribly angry with me, are you?”
“I don’t know if angry is the right word. Blindsided, maybe.”
“But you’re alright now? Now that you’ve acclimated?”
“Still a bit off balance.”
Clara swallowed the disappointment rising in her throat. “I just tried…I just thought…I just wanted you…I spoke to some doctors, did research on post-traumatic stress disorders, I even called some therapists, off the record, of course, and they suggested a method called behaviour modif—”
He kissed her. Right in the middle of her explanation. He kissed her, and she stopped talking and kissed him back.
“I know what you were trying to do, ma belle.” He cupped her face, kissed her nose, her cheeks, her chin. “And I appreciate it.”
“So you’re all better then?” she asked, taming his mussed hair.
He closed his eyes and gave his head a shake. “No, love,” he said sadly. “Not now. Maybe not ever. I’m sorry.”
Clara’s heart thumped to the bottom of her gut. She’d failed, let him down. “No, don’t be sorry. I thought I could fix you,” she whispered and rested her forehead against his. “But you don’t need to be fixed, do you? You’re perfect, just the way you are.”
“That’s a matter of opinion, I guess, but this is progress. I liked this, liked hearing the practice. But I can’t be here. This isn’t my place anymore.”
She nodded against him.
“One thing I can’t figure out,” he whispered. “How did the trench coat play into this scheme?”
“Oh, never mind,” she said with a sigh of defeat. “That was just me trying too hard.”
“How do you mean?”
“Behaviour modification.” Clara got off his knee and unknotted the belt, feeling ridiculous but resigned to confess all. “It was to make you forget your negative feelings about hockey arenas.” She pulled the jacket open, revealing her wardrobe beneath: a lacy red thong, a matching corset with demi-cups that pushed her assets to unnatural heights, and black thigh-high boots. “And replace them with positive ones.”
“Mon dieu! You should have opened with that.”
Clara shrugged and star
ted to close her coat.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Luc said, yanking it back open. “And to think I’d avoided therapy all these years.” He pulled her down on top of him. Clara straddled his lap and nuzzled his neck while he slid his hands under her coat, touched her, explored every inch of bare skin with deft fingers.
He showered hungry kisses down the side of her face, her neck, and ran his tongue along the blade of her collarbone, then buried his face in her cleavage. “You taste like kettle corn,” he murmured. “Do you remember what that tastes like? A little sweet, a little salty, buttery smooth, and leaves you wanting more.”
Emotionally on edge, Clara’s mind and body reacted instantly. She reached down and sought the heat between his legs, felt an urgency to connect with him, to make the un-comfortableness of the past couple hours disappear. “Seems we have a high-sticking situation, Monsieur Bisquet.” She flicked the snap on his jeans and slid the zipper down with teasing deliberation, his erection swelling under her touch.
“Do I get a penalty?”
“I might send you to the box,” she purred suggestively. Who knew hockey terms could be so deliciously dirty?
“Oh fuck, yeah,” he groaned.
“Riley’s coming in a few minutes.”
“I only need a few minutes.”
“Then let’s get this game on,” she said, sliding off his knee.
Clara stood and slid her thumbs along the waistband of her thong. She played, pulling one side down to reveal a naked hip, then the other, before sliding them off, slowly, over her long black boots.
“Are you trying to kill me?” There it was, that low, gravelly sex voice that made her insides melt and her pussy fill with cream.
“Just make you suffer a bit.” Hell, in for a pence, in for a pound, she decided and propped one stiletto-heeled foot on the chair back, next to his head. “Penalty time. Two minutes for high sticking.”