Honeyed Words Read Online Free PDF Page A

but she was out there, sleeping. Soon, she whispered in my dreams. Soon we hunt again.
    I leaned against the wall for a minute, rubbing my leg and trying to breathe.
    I pushed off the wall and turned the corner. Katie stood leaning against the silver push bar of a small door, impatiently waiting.
    I walked up to her and placed the lanyard over her neck, and then I bent in and kissed her. “You ready?” I asked.
    “You bet your ass,” she said, pushing her hip into the bar. A cacophony of party sounds blasted outward.
    She slid her arm in mine as we waded into the debauchery.
    There were people everywhere. Most were drinking tall glasses of some blue concoction and smoking. The room hung heavy with the mixed odors of sweat, cloves, pot, and alcohol.
    Women lay around on beanbag chairs, couches, and long divans, while topless waiters and waitresses carried drinks around. No checking IDs here. I’d say half the patrons didn’t have the telltale wristbands that allowed them to drink during the show.
    I grabbed a beer from one of the many coolers that lined one wall, and Katie snagged a glass of wine from one of the buxom lasses. We walked around, Katie sipping her wine and obviously searching for Ari, me drinking my longneck and watching.
    The place felt like a trap. I was on edge and couldn’t pinpoint a threat. There was a lot of groping going on. No one paid any attention to the raunch going on around us, and I tried not to be judgmental. The room was a lot bigger than I thought it would be, because as we neared the end, we could see it turned to the left and continued back on itself, a larger room divided down the middle with huge rolling walls.
    The party on the other side was a lot less Caligula. Ari held court on the far end, surrounded by girls ranging in age from high school to college. The folks from The Harpers sat in two clumps along the left wall, and other small groups stood around talking. Katie, brazen as you please, cut through the crowded room like a shark. I could barely keep up with her as she made a beeline toward Ari.
    He noticed her approach but feigned disinterest. It was obvious he was deliberately looking away. I caught his brief wide-eyed stare. Didn’t blame him, really. She was hella cute, but a little conservatively dressed compared to most of the women in the room.
    “Ari Sveinsson,” she snapped in her best schoolteacher voice.
    Ari’s head jerked around, his mouth agape.
    “I see you haven’t learned anything in the last few years?”
    I was puzzled; hell, everyone was puzzled. I sidled up to Katie and whispered, “Hey, babe. What are you doing exactly?”
    Ari rose, shedding girls like Poseidon climbing out of the surf. “Well, well. If it isn’t the Sheriff of Not-Getting-Any.”
    The crowd oohed and aahed as Ari stood in front of Katie with his hands on his hips.
    “Droll,” Katie said. “Got a fine set of pipes on you, I’ll grant you that,” she said. She stepped forward and poked him in the chest. “But there’s a young woman out in the club who thinks you promised to marry her.”
    Ari flushed, and the people in the inner circle there tittered behind their hands. “Oh, dear lord, not again.” He slapped his left palm against his forehead. “I’ve never spoken to her directly.”
    “So you know her?”
    One of the roadies in the back called out, “Not as well as she’d like him to.”
    The crowd laughed again.
    “I was singing at a club in Cleveland, and I talk to the audience about the songs. You saw it tonight.”
    I stood back, not wanting to interrupt whatever this was turning into.
    “I sang one of the ballads, and she thought I was singing to her.”
    Katie walked around him, eyeing him up and down. “She seemed pretty insistent.”
    “I swear. It’s like she was mesmerized, but I never touched her.”
    Katie looked at me over his shoulder and winked. “Okay, I’ll let it go this time.” She walked around to the front of him, her arms crossed and