HONEYTRAPPED
Justine Elyot
A Total-E-Bound Publication
www.total-e-bound.com
Honeytrapped
ISBN # 978-0-85715-493-4
©Copyright Justine Elyot 2011
Cover Art by April Martinez ©Copyright March 2011
Edited by S. F. Swift
Total-E-Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Total-E-Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2011 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, United Kingdom.
Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has been rated Total-e-burning.
Dedication
To all my friends and colleagues at Total E-Bound. Thank you for all the support you have given me.
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Arctic Monkeys: James Cook, Andrew Nicholson, Matthew Helders, Alex Turner and Nick O’Malley.
Starbucks: Starbucks Corporation
Abercrombie & Fitch: Abercrombie & Fitch Trading Co.
Cagney & Lacey: Orion TV Productions Inc.
Frasier: Paramount Pictures Corporation
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
About the Author
Chapter One
Tilly Turner was not sure wearing a wire was such a good look. The strip of duct tape securing it just beneath her left breast pulled uncomfortably every time she moved—and this evening, she was moving a lot. But if the mini-microphone was uncomfortable, the wretched three-inch sparkly heels were ten times worse. True, they gave her much-needed height and stature, and they made her booty sway inside its thin covering of glitzy nylon like animated peaches, but a peachy butt was not acceptable compensation for a broken ankle.
“Oh God, sorry,” she muttered once more to the suave elderly gent guiding her around the sprung floor of the Colliton community centre.
“Take it easy,” he said again. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know. It takes time to master the tango.”
He had that right. Who would believe that Tilly ‘Two Left Feet’ Turner would ever be spotted at an evening class devoted to the Argentine tango? Certainly not her old school friends, who couldn’t even prevail upon her to do some freestyle flailing to the Arctic Monkeys at Indie Night in the local nightclub.
“I don’t do dancing,” she always told them. “Dancing is for people who sway. I lurch. Lurchers should never dance.”
“Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow,” dictated the teacher from the front of the hall, directing the crumpled hordes of would-be passionate lovers of all ages, sexes, heights, weights and social profiles. Tilly’s gent was one of the more fragrant members of the group; her first partner had been a sweaty man in a soaked football shirt. It had come as a massive relief to find that partners were swapped every ten minutes or so, to give each dancer the opportunity to shimmy with an expert.
“I’m okay with the slow, it’s the quick that floors me,” Tilly said.
“Just concentrate.” His smile was polite but frosty.
Tilly tried to concentrate, tried to match the movement of her feet with the heated tempos issuing from the CD player, but stray thoughts kept distracting her from her mission. Would this tragic dress and these killer shoes be tax deductible? Would the wire stay in place when her skin was becoming increasingly, dangerously slippery? And how the hell had her client managed to snag a man as jaw-droppingly handsome as the tango teacher?
At the set-up meeting, over lattes in Starbucks, Melinda hadn’t mentioned her fiancé’s stunning resemblance to a cross between Heathcliff and somebody out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad. Tilly had to wonder why. It would make Melinda’s insecurities a little more understandable, a little less ragingly paranoid. Tilly herself thought that she would hate to be involved with such a handsome man. Trying to be worthy of his arm would be too exhausting.
She had smiled and fidgeted with the crackly wrapping of her biscuit while Melinda outlined her requirements.
“I love him, of course I do, I love him to death,” the woman had insisted in nasal tones. “He’s my soul mate, my rock. He completes me, know what I mean?”
“Yeah. That’s great. So…”
“I just have a little problem with trust, Tilly. You know how it is. When something good comes into our lives, we can’t just sit back and enjoy it, can we?”
Speak for yourself, thought Tilly, who hated being lumped in with some half-arsed concept of ‘we women’ and instantly disrespected Melinda for subjecting her to it.
“It’s like, men are more rational, women are more emotional, yeah?”
“Oh, sometimes maybe, but I think that’s just a cultural—”
“So I just need to put my mind at rest. I’m sure you know what I mean.” Melinda dabbed the side of her pink-frosted mouth with her napkin, the delicate movement tinkling from the excess of gold jewellery about her wrist.
“You’d like me to investigate Norman? Maybe follow him? Check out his background, previous track record in relationships?”
“Oh, no, love, I don’t think he’s having an affair. Not yet anyway.”
Tilly was bemused. What on earth did Melinda want from her, if not to find some proof of infidelity, or otherwise?
“Before I walk up the aisle, I need to be sure of him. I don’t trust those bitches at his tango class any further than I could throw them.”
“Maybe you could go to the tango class yourself?” Tilly probably shouldn’t be offering Melinda ways out of hiring her services, she reflected, but it did seem rather an obvious point.
“Oh no. I work in the evenings, you see. Besides, I’m not much of a dancer.”
Tilly smiled, heartened to find a point of similarity with her brittle, overly-perfumed client. “So could you be clear about what it is you want me to do?”
“Don’t you know? I’ve read about it in the magazines. Honey traps. I want you to go to his class and try to chat him up.”
“You want me to entrap him?”
“No! I don’t want you to succeed! But I want you to try.”
The biscuit crumbled inside its wrapper as Tilly pinched it a fraction too hard. “Right.”
She could say no. She could refuse to, well, prostitute herself, in a way. It didn’t seem very ethical. Or, actually, very safe. But then images of overdue bills, her landlord banging on the door for his rent, those tickets for that concert, all floated into her head in a tempting trio, luring her to an unethical, unsafe doom.
“Right. Got it. So when and where does he teach this class?”
And now, here she was, on a wet Wednesday night at the community centre, trying to throw back her neck and make her body sing in sync with twenty other ill-assorted women and a h
andful of men.
“Okay, time to change partners again,” Norman said.
He really doesn’t look like a Norman. Tilly had pictured Anthony Perkins in Psycho, but this man couldn’t be more different. She hobbled over to her next partner, who happened to be a woman, taking, as was necessary in this female-heavy class, the male role for the night.
“Don’t forget, gentlemen.” Norman smiled devilishly. “Smoulder!”
“Wow.” Tilly watched Norman demonstrate with his helpless, captivated partner. “That’s one thing he knows how to do.”
“Oh yes.” Her ‘man’ chuckled gently as she manoeuvred Tilly into the correct stance. “Fit as a butcher’s dog, that man. The class has quadrupled in size since he started. Word gets around.”
“So do you think some of the girls would like to sleep with him?”
The partner blinked and Tilly held her breath, worrying that she had gone too far.
“Many have tried. He lets them down gently though.”
Oh! That sounds like personal experience talking!
Tilly had the grace to blush and apologise for her digging, throwing herself instead into mastering the fiendishly complicated set of steps. So he wasn’t sleeping around with the tango girls. But…hang on! Perhaps he was gay! Perhaps it was the men he wanted.
She cast her eye around the room. Suave elderly gent. Sweaty football guy. Three other men, obviously here, under sufferance, with their wives. No, couldn’t be that.
She let her eyes wander from the woman’s uncomfortably intense stare over to her quarry. His hips slid sinuously, dictating the motion of his feet in their highly polished shoes and long, strong legs, moving across the floor with arrogant, innate grace. His silk shirt seemed to flow about his body like liquid, highlighting its broadness and flatness, open at the neck to reveal a long, stubbled throat and an inverse triangle of tanned skin beneath, skin that would feel like heated satin…oh!
“Fuck!” exclaimed Tilly before she could self-censor, landing in an inelegant heap of sequins and stiffly-sprayed hair at her partner’s feet. “Ow! Sorry!”
Norman stopped the music and offered her a rueful, indulgent smile. “Not easy, is it? It’s especially difficult if you don’t watch your own partner.”
Tilly clutched her burning cheeks, mortified to have been caught ogling the handsome beast.
He chuckled, sounding forgiving. “It’s okay. Everyone’s been there. Why don’t you stand back up and try again…” He paused, obviously waiting for her to supply her name.
“Tilly,” she muttered.
“Thank you, Tilly. Help her up, Jean. Make sure nothing’s broken.”
Nothing was damaged except Tilly’s dignity, and the dance class sizzled on to its ultimate conclusion at nine o’clock.
The dancing throng dispersed in its various directions, mostly back home, some to the pub. Tilly hung back, waiting for the last clients to exchange thanks and goodbyes with Norman before sidling up to him, coat in hand.
She coughed. He turned from removing the CD from its player and smiled politely down from his deliciously high height.
“Look, I know I’m new, so it’s probably no surprise that I’m not very good yet, but I’d really like to get better as quickly as I can because, because, um, my sister wants us to dance the tango at her wedding and, well, it’s only in a couple of weeks and I’m a bit concerned that I won’t be able to learn in time and I don’t want to make a fool of myself and ruin her big day into the bargain so…” She stopped to draw breath.
Norman, eyebrows raised, simply waited for her next sentence. Oh God, he must know what I mean. Why can’t he finish this for me? Why can’t he make me an offer? I’m on the wrong track here. Melinda’s suspicions are totally unfounded.
“So?” he prompted eventually.
“I’d be willing to pay for private lessons.”
“Private lessons?”
Tilly wondered if this sounded as much like ‘a private fuck’ to him as it did to her. He must think she was shameless. Maybe she was. “If you…don’t mind, I mean.”
His serious expression lightened into a relaxed grin. “I don’t usually, but if time is really that tight…”
“It would help me so much! You know what people are like about weddings.” Don’t you? Since you’re marrying Melinda. For some reason.
“Oh yes.” He laughed. “Well, no time like the present. Why don’t you hang up your coat and we’ll fit an hour in right now. Unless you have to rush off?”
Bingo! Hallelujah! Now I just have to pray that the wire doesn’t fall out of my boobs.
Tilly put her coat back on the peg, did a quick surreptitious fluff-up of her artful curls and returned to Norman, smiling expectantly.
“Okay then,” he said, all businesslike and brisk. And hot. And masterful. And suggestive. And the sexiest thing in the whole world, no, no, no. “Let’s start at the very beginning. By the way, ten pounds should cover it.”
“Bargain!”
“Glad you think so. Good. What we start with, Tilly, is the frame.”
Her spine tingled at the way he spoke her name. The tingle sparked into a full frisson once he took her right hand in his and lifted it to his shoulder level, bringing it out to the side of their bodies.
Norman’s left arm enclosed her upper back and pulled their bodies close.
More than a frisson now, more like a full-scale shiver, as their chests met and their abdomens pressed together, as far as they could given the height differential.
“It’s called the abrazo, the embrace,” he said, his voice filtering down from somewhere above Tilly’s head, which was less than an inch from his firm shoulder and the glorious scent of aftershave that clung to his neck. “In Argentine tango, the hips don’t meet. The man has to give his partner the freedom to follow his every step. Perhaps freedom isn’t quite the word, because I’m afraid that you, as the woman, have no say in how the dance goes. It’s a macho dance from a macho culture. You may need to leave any politically correct baggage at the door. At least until the dance is over.”
She could hear the smile in his voice, but the weight of his hand at her back, and his tight grip on her gave her the strange feeling that he revelled in being able to exhibit his unashamedly masculine side. And who could begrudge him that, when it was such an attractive spectacle?
“I can see that you’re about a foot shorter than me,” he murmured, using his body to make subtle adjustments to her stance so that she felt like a doll. “But that needn’t be a problem. Now really, what you have to do first of all is familiarise yourself with the rhythm. I’ll take you through it.”
Without warning, his hips launched them into a series of steps, deceptively simple at first, but then mutating into unexpected complications that meant Tilly got her toes stepped on rather heavily.
“Ouch! It’s because you’re making me go backwards! I hate not being able to see where I’m going.”
“I’m steering. You don’t have to see. You just have to feel. Later, when we get to the stage of locking eyes, you will have no choice.”
“I don’t have that kind of…soul. I don’t feel stuff. I have to see it.”
“Ohhh, nonsense.” His tone was so shockingly seductive that she had to close her fists, clinging on to him tighter than ever in order not to lose footing. “I think you have the pulse in you. I mean, you do have a pulse.” He moved one thumb down to that point in her wrist that jumped and raced. “Rather a quick one. The dance is exciting you. So that means you do have that kind of soul.”
It’s not the dance, it’s you, you great lummox!
“I wish I had your confidence,” said Tilly, wondering how the words were coming out at all, and hoping they didn’t sound as wobbly to him as they did to her.
“You’ll pick it up. Trust me.”
Like Melinda doesn’t?
But as the class proceeded, Tilly found that her feet came to miraculous life. After a few trips and missteps and one near-sprain, h
er legs began to do what Norman wanted. His hold was so firm that she began to feel safe, began to allow her lower body to follow his, and after forty minutes, she was almost gliding. His arms now seemed like a second home, and his distracting handsomeness became something to embrace rather than try to ignore.
You’re being held and made dance floor love to by a beautiful man. Enjoy it, Tilly. It might never happen again.
“You see, you see!” He whirled her over to the CD player to add music to their headspinning mix. “I was right. You can do this. Keep going, Tilly, let’s make this really interesting.”
He began to vary his steps a little more, picking up pace so that it seemed she was being stalked around the dance floor by a predator intent on capturing her. She couldn’t fight it, couldn’t escape. All she could do was surrender, becoming looser in his arms, flowing along with his every move.
Her senses were dazzled and nothing existed but the heat of him and the ferocious rhythm, taking over her mind, seeping into her bloodstream.
“Now look at me!”
She couldn’t focus at first, seeing a blur of loveliness framed by unruly dark hair, but slowly the mist cleared and his eyes, black as night, were fixed on hers in a way that screamed ‘Come to bed, now!’ Suddenly she was scared, embarrassed, mortified, and she jerked back, trying to wriggle free from his iron grasp with a whimper of shame.
“What are you doing?” He pulled her back. “No, no, no, don’t be silly, no.”
One hand came up to the back of her head, then lowered to her neck, holding it levered upwards so he could search her face. “What did I do to spook you?”
Tilly, lips parted, breathing rapidly, trembling in his arms, simply shook her head. “This is too much,” she gasped. “It’s too intense…oh God. You are too much. You scare me. You make me feel things. I’m sorry, I’m not making sense, I’m babbling, I’ll shut up in a minute if you just—”
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