Seducing The Matchmaker: One Man Rush / Taking Him Down / The Personal Touch

The relief that coursed through him was about more than preempting the inevitable media attention with a public date. He realized he was also just glad as hell to know they’d be together again. When had a woman ever affected him like that?

“But I don’t think it’s fair to accept money for my mother’s treatment from you when you’re only asking me to state the truth about … being with you.”

He noticed the careful way she didn’t acknowledge that they were a couple.

“You’re doing more than stating it. You’re giving up valuable time with your mom to be with me in high visibility places.”

“Still—”

“Think of it as a gift if you want.” The need to help her went deeper than any attraction. “With the kind of money pro athletes make, we practically have a social obligation to do some good with it. Let me help your mom.”

“Thank you.” She blinked up at him, her gratitude apparent in her eyes. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“My pleasure.” He kissed her cheek, wishing he’d done more to earn that kind of thanks. She was a sweet, selfless person, taking care of her mom. All he was doing was writing a check. But her dedication made him all the more determined to do more than win a Stanley Cup. He’d contribute something good to society through that hockey camp.

“I’ll have to make some arrangements for my mother before I can go. One of her nurses should be able to take an extra shift.”

“That’s fine. The team flight leaves at seven. I’ll see if I can find you a flight that leaves a little later than that.” Checking his watch, he realized he’d need to floor it to get home and pack some things before he went to the airport.

She nodded. “Any ideas where we can go tonight to be seen? Or would you like me to do some research on that?”

“I wouldn’t have any idea where to begin.”

“My mom has had concerts in Pittsburgh before. I’ll check my notes to see where we ate or if she went to any media events there.”

“Great.” He found it hard to walk out the door. “But I have to admit, I’m looking forward to what comes after our date.”

“You think you’ll get lucky twice in one day?” She looked skeptical but he could see the hint of a smile lurking.

He leaned in for one more kiss, needing a taste of her.

“I’m a very lucky guy.”

9

AS A MATCHMAKER, Marissa would have never chosen herself as a candidate match for a superstar athlete.

But maybe she wasn’t such a bad choice, after all. She’d chosen to meet Kyle in a popular Pittsburgh nightclub where a local radio station was broadcasting live. As she sat alone at the bar, she admitted to herself that she would never make much of a trophy wife with her average looks and habit of shunning the spotlight. Yet she was skilled at calling in the media, something she’d done often when her mom had wanted to spread the word about an appearance or a new project. It had been simple to round up some well-placed reporters with the promise of a scoop on hockey sensation Kyle Murphy.

Drumming her fingernails on the clear Lucite bar in a club coated with neon signs and pink spotlights, Marissa ordered a ginger ale and waited for Kyle to put in his appearance. She’d only been in Pittsburgh for about an hour. She’d checked into a hotel near where the team was staying and then changed into a more traditional “date night” outfit. As much as she liked her vintage clothes and retro glasses, she didn’t want to attract attention to herself with anything too quirky.

Besides, Kyle deserved to be photographed with someone marginally attractive, and Marissa had the costume skills necessary to foster that illusion. Her mother had given her a lifetime’s worth of advice about making the most of her dark hair and high cheekbones, as if correctly applied blush could detract from the fact that she had a flat chest and a face that was too square. But tonight wasn’t about her.

Kyle had left a blank check for her before he left Philly and she’d simply written it to the drug company for the one-month supply the doctor had recommended. The treatment would begin three days from now, assuming the postal service could hold up its end of the deal.

She’d have to find a way to pay Kyle back at a later date. For now, she could only help him out to the best of her ability.

Where was Kyle?

Paying for her ginger ale, Marissa rose from her seat at the bar to wander the perimeter and look for him. Dance music pulsed through the floor and vibrated her toes, reminding her how long it had been since she’d had a night out. Sure, she’d attended plenty of social functions as part of her matchmaking responsibilities or in helping her mother manage her career. But she regarded those events as work. Now, she walked past a packed dance floor as a guest. Instead of assessing the scantily dressed men and women eyeing for signs of potential chemistry, she would be generating some public chemistry of her own.

With Kyle Murphy.

The idea intrigued her. Maybe it was the way her knee-length skirt skimmed her thighs when she walked, the silk lining teasing her bare legs. Her body still felt sexy and desirable after Kyle’s touch back at the guest cottage. She felt as though she still had a visible after-sex glow and she was ready to bask in the warmth.

No amount of cosmetic blush could put color in a woman’s face like sensual fulfillment.

“Hey beautiful. Want to dance?” A sweaty, mostly drunk dude wearing cargo shorts and a black silk dress shirt breathed down her neck.

Where was her decoy wedding ring when she needed it?

“No. Thank you.” She took another drink of her ginger ale and hoped Kyle would arrive soon. He’d needed to check in with his team and have some kind of group dinner before he met her.

And then suddenly, there he was.

Her very own match. Kyle wore a dark T-shirt under a black jacket. Faded jeans.

His eyes met hers across the bar. Held.

Just looking at him made her heart beat faster. It was a strange sensation winding her way through the crowd of the two-story club while staring at him, feeling his gaze on her. Usually when she trolled places like this, she was purposely conservative, keeping herself out of the mix for professional reasons. But tonight, she felt the electricity of the lights and music, the titillation of a man’s hot gaze. Mere hours ago, she’d been beneath him, her fingernails digging into his shoulders as he took her body to never-before-scaled heights.

Sidling through the cloud of perfume and cologne that hung thickest near the bar, Marissa finally reached him.

“Who are you and what have you done with my librarian?” he whispered into her hair, pulling her against his side.

She shivered at his touch, wishing they were all alone.

“I wasn’t sure if we might be photographed and eyeglasses can reflect the light.” She shrugged. “I thought I’d glam it up a little.”

“You look gorgeous either way.” His hand palmed her waist. “But too many men notice you like this. I’ll have to keep you close.”

KYLE MEANT EVERY WORD. He couldn’t believe how many guys followed her with their eyes when she wasn’t wearing conservative clothes or sporting the twist in her hair. Obviously, some men had no imagination if they hadn’t been able to see how hot she was either way. Tonight, her hair fell to her shoulders in a dark, sultry wave. A light silk dress skimmed her slight curves and wrapped at her waist, the skirt swishing against his leg now and then in a teasing caress.

She rolled her eyes. “Everyone looks hot through beer goggles. How about we find my reporter friends and then we can blow this joint?”

“Not a fan of club life?” Thank God. He’d never been much of a party guy. Even in college, he’d been focused on his sport.

“I’ve seen too many victims of excess in the pop music business to be impressed by the club scene.” She took his hand and stepped toward the VIP room in back. “Come on.”

Heads turned as she walked through the haze of purple neon lights as if she owned the place. She might not be Cover Girl pretty, but she had a strength of purpose and a comfort in her own skin that commanded attention. Hell, it seized his like a magnet.

Their path cleared except for a few unwise males who tried to lean into her view to claim her attention. Kyle flexed his muscles like a caveman and moved closer, clamping his hands around her waist on their way to the VIP room.

Every guy in the place needed to know Marissa was going home with him.

Strobe lights flashed, and from the DJ booth, some sort of siren sounded. Like a cue to the crowd, the ringing got everyone screaming.

Ignoring the racket, Marissa spoke to the muscleman guarding the rope at the VIP booth and had the guy lifting the velvet barrier in no time.

“Your reporter friends hang out in the VIP section?” Kyle peered around the smaller room where the music was quieter and champagne buckets sat on every table.

A few of the guys on his old teams would haunt places like this in the summer when their training program wasn’t as rigorous. But Kyle always preferred to have his friends over to shoot pool or throw darts. Something a little more competitive than who could toss back more shots.

“I told them to meet us here.” She turned around with an apologetic smile. “The tab is on you. I hope that was okay.”

“Sure.” Didn’t matter to him. It was worth far more than a few bottles of Dom to make this matchmaker frenzy go away.

His brothers would give him hell when they found out. Bad enough Ax already knew. Danny—the second youngest and the one who’d broken Kyle’s nose once upon a time—would love giving him a hard time about that.

“Hello, Shawna,” she said, greeting a young woman at a table full of females in the center of the room.

For the next twenty minutes, Kyle basically watched Marissa do her thing—convincing two reporters for the social pages that she and Kyle were an item—while the reporters’ noisy friends drank the champagne he’d provided and took pictures of them. It seemed obvious to him that the members of the media she’d chosen didn’t have a huge amount of journalistic integrity to be wooed by a night out and expensive bubbly, but who was he to complain?

She was getting the job done in short order and impressing him even more. No wonder she’d been her mother’s manager. She was efficient and charming, but utterly professional. He only had to nod at the appropriate moments while Marissa spoon-fed her contacts some stock quotes about Kyle’s goals for the hockey season as an aside to their new romance.

“Anything else?” she asked him suddenly, making him remember he wasn’t just here to watch her work. Or to count down the minutes until they’d be alone together.

He straightened, already thinking about kissing her senseless in the limo he had waiting outside.

“Not that I can think of. I still owe you a date tonight.” He figured it was okay to flirt with her since they were trying to sell the relationship that he’d always told himself he’d never have during the play-offs.

While the women oohed and aahed about how romantic he was, Marissa turned to him and lowered her voice.

“Did you want to talk about your youth hockey camp with her?” she prompted, like a born promoter. “You might generate some more sponsorships if it’s mentioned in the paper.”

“I’ve already got some interest.” Kyle had spoken to the owner of the Phantoms’ hockey arena about using the space already. “Phil Goodwell is donating the ice time and some funding.”

Marissa frowned.

“But if that falls through, don’t you think it would be wise to make sure you have some backups?”

Before he’d made up his mind, Marissa was already relating his plan to Shawna, who took notes on a cocktail napkin now that her PDA battery had died.

Kyle didn’t interrupt, letting her call the shots with the media since she seemed comfortable with the role. Still, he was surprised about her strong support of the hockey camp. He’d only mentioned it briefly to her.

“Thank you.” He spoke into her ear as they rose to leave the meeting.

“No problem.” She peered back over her shoulder, having no idea how much she’d helped him.

“I mean it.” He tugged gently on her arm, wanting to be sure she knew how damn grateful he was. “You were amazing back there.”

“I got good at keeping my mom’s interviews on schedule. Otherwise, she’d chat everyone’s ear off.”

Not until that moment did he realize how much she deflected attention from herself. He’d seen it in the way she dressed before, but now he understood it went deeper than that. She didn’t even take credit for work that she was very, very good at.

“It was more than that.” His chest warmed at how easily she’d solved a whole world of problems for him. “I never would have thought of mentioning the hockey camp. I really want to make that happen this year.”

He couldn’t read the expression that crossed her face, but it vanished a moment later.

“I hope that it helps.” She edged closer, her skirt teasing along his leg again in a silken swish. “But right now, Kyle, you owe me a date and I intend to collect.”

“I CAN’T FOLLOW THIS woman anymore.”

Isaac Reynolds frowned at the frustrated voice coming through his phone in his home office. He’d called his head of security for an update on Stacy Goodwell, not a resignation.

“Can’t or won’t?” Isaac switched open the Skype window on his computer so he could see the guy he’d tasked to keep tabs on Stacy for the next forty-eight hours.

Although preliminary checks into her background suggested she was a privileged local girl who wrote a column for a Philly paper, Isaac wasn’t taking chances. His high-tech business full of corporate espionage taught him to trust no one.

“Can’t,” the head of his security team answered flatly, turning his phone’s camera so Isaac could see his face. Bob Wyatt had twenty years of experience and normally appeared well-groomed and competent. Right now, he looked sweaty, disheveled and pissed off. “Take a look at where we are.”

He swung the camera for a jerky view of his whereabouts. Passengers stared straight ahead, packed in tight while the steady hum of a motor made white noise in the background.

“On a bus? To where?” Isaac clicked the window to enlarge the picture. “And where the hell is she?’’

He hadn’t seen her in the pan of the swaying motor coach.

“We’re headed to Pittsburgh and she’s in the back,” he hissed into the phone, drawing attention from the guy next to him, who made a face in the frame beside him. “I can’t very well videotape her for you since she’s taping the whole damn ride herself.”

“That makes no sense.” Isaac didn’t want to be intrigued. At least not until he was one hundred percent sure she wasn’t out to sell his secrets. “Why would she film a bus trip?”

Let alone take a bus to Pittsburgh in the first place. It would be one thing if she was making contact with a buyer interested in having her spy on him. In that case, maybe a bus would have been discreet. But anyone who traded in expensive secrets did so anonymously, not on film.

“She made an announcement to the other passengers that she’s filming this for a new video blog.” Wyatt rolled his eyes, clearly unimpressed with digital media. With his tie askew and one jacket lapel flipped over to show the felt lining beneath, he seethed into the camera while the knucklehead next to him kept leaning into the shot. “She passed around waivers for us to sign, so I had to come up with an excuse.”

“Why didn’t you sign, man?” the joker in the seat next to Bob asked him, as if he’d been part of the conversation. “The blog sounds cool. I’ll bet it gets a million hits.”

“What kind of blog?” Isaac had thought about the mystery woman all day. First, he’d had to research her. But also because she’d said they made the perfect couple.

A sex goddess swathed in silver had asked him out but he’d been too busy worrying she was a spy to notice, let alone say yes.

Dumb. Ass.

“It’s called Diva No More.” This from the helpful Joe in the seat next to his so-called head of security. The guy leaned all the way into the camera frame so that his face was superimposed sideways on top of Bob’s. “She’s leaving behind the hoity-toity life to become a regular girl.”

A scuffle ensued around the camera as Bob told the guy to mind his own business. For a few minutes, Isaac couldn’t see anything and he suspected Bob had changed seats.

Diva No More? Isaac remembered their conversation about Stacy’s father trying to buy her a man. Her insistence that she needed to make her own mistakes. Could she have gone a step further today? Cut the ties to the domineering dad?

Her life didn’t sound like a cover for a corporate spy. Future video blog queen Stacy Goodwell seemed like a sweet, sexy dream girl he’d been too blind to appreciate last night. Now that he’d researched her background, he wasn’t going to let anything stop him from seeing her again.

“Sorry about that—” Bob began.

“I need to know what she’s doing in Pittsburgh,” Isaac interrupted, wondering how to meet up with her without it being too coincidental. His home office in Philly was three hundred miles away. He could call for a plane and beat her there, but he didn’t want to look like a stalker.

“I can tell you it doesn’t have anything to do with our competitor.” Bob kept his voice low even though he’d changed seats and didn’t seem to have an eavesdropper. “She’s already announced to the whole bus that she’s going to the Phantoms game to write a column on fan style for the newspaper.”

The style column was her regular job. Isaac wondered how the video blog would fit in with it, but he agreed with Bob’s former seatmate—the blog would be a hit. Stacy’s whole dazzling personality was camera-ready. She’d be sought after by ten times the number of guys who probably already wanted her.

And that was assuming the damn matchmakers her father hired didn’t try to snag her first.

“Make sure she gets to her hotel safely.” He didn’t like the idea of thirty-odd strangers on a random bus knowing her whereabouts. “I’ll take over for you in a couple of hours. I’m on my way to Pittsburgh.”

10

MARISSA WAS IN SUCH a hurry to be with Kyle that she bolted out the back door into the alley behind the nightclub.

“Wait up.” Kyle practically tripped her in his hurry to get in front of her.

He put his big, muscular body between her and the outside world. She didn’t mind that she stumbled into his back. He was fun to hold on to, for one thing. And for another, she thought it was kind of charming that he wanted to protect her.

“It’s okay.” She grabbed a railing on the landing outside the door where two steps led to street level. “I was just in a hurry to get to the hotel.”

“Me, too, but this is still a dangerous neighborhood.” He tucked her under his arm, keeping her body glued to his as he hurried her toward the limo. “You can’t just prance out into some dark alley alone.”

She might have protested the idea that she’d pranced anywhere. Except that she heard the worry in his voice. Felt his heartbeat racing under one ear where he held her against him.

Her chest squeezed with unexpected warmth. The driver opened the door for her and Kyle ushered her into a vehicle that could have held at least ten more people.

Kyle exchanged words with the chauffeur that were beyond her hearing. Probably instructing him to take them to the team hotel. Or hers. It didn’t matter to her where they went, as long as they excised this raucous heat that had been building inside her since the last time they were together. She just hoped being with Kyle eased the ache for him. The attraction that had started out so physical and out of control was starting to take on a new dimension.

He’d urged her to take this trip with him, insisting she’d be helping him out. But she knew darn well he could have hired a publicist to place an article in the paper a whole lot more inexpensively than what he’d paid toward her mother’s medicine. She would repay him one day. But it helped her so much right now. It touched her that he’d given her a way to accept his help without feeling too guilty. Obviously, Kyle had a giving nature, a trait that was apparent in the way he volunteered time to charity, sought ways to help underprivileged kids and even helped her mother. The warmth she was starting to feel for him didn’t have anything to do with garden variety lust.

“I told him to take us to my hotel,” Kyle explained as he slid into the seat beside her. “I’m on a floor away from the rest of the team.”

A smoky blues tune played on invisible speakers while white lights ringed the roof, dimming slightly once the driver closed the door. Shut behind blackout glass, Marissa felt her heart hammering wildly, and her skin tingled with the memory of how he’d made her feel earlier today at the carriage house. She’d been so busy since then—making plans for the trip, arranging care for her mother and contacting reporters—that she hadn’t had time to think about what this new shift in their relationship meant. But he’d been so good to her. So considerate and incredibly thorough when he’d touched her.

Kyle leaned forward and for a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. But he reached past her for a remote control on the seat beside her.

“Privacy window,” he said aloud before thumbing a button. “Locked.” The device clicked into place with an audible hitch. “Doors, locked.” Another electronic snap.

He’d sealed them into complete seclusion.

There were no club-hopping voyeurs here. No competition for his attention. But she felt a little embarrassed about the way she’d sprinted out to the street, so eager to be with him. All her barriers were falling away and she wasn’t doing a thing to stop them. She tried to steady her breathing.

“A story will make it into the social pages tomorrow, for sure,” she informed him, tugging absently at the silk wrap dress that skimmed her knees. “Shawna owes me from a long-ago private interview with my mother.”

The stretch limo eased away from the curb, crawling slowly through the dark streets. One blues song faded into another, but the sound Marissa was most aware of was her pulse pounding in her ears. Being alone with Kyle—heading to a hotel—made her light-headed with awareness.

Part of her wanted to act on the sensual rush, while the other part of her feared the emotions winding around the attraction, intertwining with them, making her feel too much.

“Thank you. But right now, I don’t want to think about tomorrow.” Kyle’s voice turned rough with a hunger she understood all too well.

His green eyes roamed over her freely, heightening the awareness she already felt.

“No?” She didn’t want to, either. She’d sent a text to Stacy to prepare her for the story that would run linking Kyle to Marissa, but she wasn’t sure how her former client would react.

“No. I’m just so damn glad I talked you into being here with me.”

His hand rested on the seat between them. Close but not touching. She swallowed hard.

When he lifted his hand, he smoothed a strand of her hair where it rested on one shoulder.

“Did I mention how fantastic you look?” He tugged gently on the strand, extending it toward a shaft of light from one of the overhead “stars” on the limo ceiling.

“I don’t usually go all out—”

“You don’t need to. You have no idea how attractive you are.”

She hitched at the skirt again, oddly self-conscious.

“It’s okay. I don’t need you to feed my ego. I know my attributes are more … understated. After standing in my mother’s shadow all my life, I understand that I didn’t win the genetic lottery or anything, but I’m comfortable with who I am.”

Kyle was already shaking his head.

“I don’t know where you got the idea that you ever stand in anyone’s shadow. You command attention, Marissa. You’re charismatic. Captivating.” He lifted a hand to cup her face and smooth over her jaw. “It’s the force of your personality, whether you know it or not. I think you have some of that famous Brandy Collins stage presence. People can’t take their eyes off you.”