One Man Rush

Marissa headed toward the line at a freestanding bar in the corner of the room. With some more perspective on the party, she could see a few Phantoms players seated at signing tables against a back wall. No doubt that’s where they’d stationed Kyle Murphy.

Could she outlast the line and corner him after he’d dispensed with the fan meet-and-greet? When he didn’t have twenty people around?

Racking her brain for a plan to get him alone without crossing into stalker territory, Marissa was suddenly next up at the bar.

Still with no strategy in sight.

“Can I have a Diet Coke?” she asked the bartender as the women who’d been in front of her finally giggled their way back to the dance floor. The high-octave girly laughter raked along Marissa’s already tense nerves, cranking up the ache behind her left eyeball. “Actually, could you add a Macallan over ice to that order?”

She’d be stuck here for a couple of hours if she wanted to wait out the crowds. A little whiskey might take some of the meanness out of the headache, at least.

“I don’t know,” the bartender shot back with a deep bass, drawing her attention from the mob around the hockey players. “Can I see some ID?”

Frowning, Marissa knew she didn’t look remotely close to the minimum drinking age. If anything, she dressed like someone a couple of decades older than her twenty-seven years in an effort to keep herself out of the fray when it came to discussing dates. Still, she reached for her purse to retrieve her license, her gaze moving toward the guy behind the bar who was dressed incongruously in a crisp white tuxedo shirt and a baseball cap.

Forest-green eyes glittered back at her in the icy fluorescent glow from a lamp on the bar. A crooked nose hovered above full, sculpted lips. Even with a Phantoms cap pulled low over his forehead, the shape of the bartender’s face remained familiar, perhaps because she’d studied it in a newspaper clipping so recently.

The Phantoms’ playmaker stood right in front of her.

She’d wanted a one-on-one with power forward Kyle Murphy. Unfortunately, the sudden appearance of so much potent sex appeal robbed her of speech, thought and good sense.

Silence stretched while her heartbeat thundered.

As professional first impressions went, she couldn’t imagine making a worse one.

NO WORDS WERE NECESSARY when sexual attraction spoke a language all its own.

Kyle Murphy enjoyed the moment as he assessed the reed-thin female on the other side of the bar who’d been struck speechless ever since he’d asked for her ID. The old-fashioned tortoiseshell cat’s-eye frames that perched on her nose were vintage 1960s. In fact, she looked as though she could have stepped off the set of Mad Men with her vintage dress and perfectly applied lipstick. Her dark hair was yanked back in an unforgiving twist rarely worn by young women.

Her style seemed purposely quirky. But if she intended to hide behind the glasses and the severe hairstyle, she’d failed miserably. Dressing twenty years older than she was didn’t disguise her subtle curves. If anything, the clothes accentuated her hips and her narrow waist. Sometimes the more a woman covered up, the more a guy noticed. Especially when the rest of the women in the room were dressed in spaghetti straps and short skirts. Besides, this female had pretty features. High, arched brows topped off eyes so blue they were practically violet. A slightly upturned nose gave her a patrician look. Creamy, pale skin contrasted sharply with inky dark hair.

Sexy. Unusual. And the first woman who hadn’t ordered an appletini or a cosmo in the half hour he’d manned the bar.

She was the kind of woman that appealed to him—the kind who didn’t look as if she was trying too hard. But he reminded himself that he was done with casual hookups. First of all because it was deep into the hockey season and he needed to be focused on his game. He hadn’t been with anyone since last autumn, when he’d convinced one of the nurses on an opponent’s medical staff to come home with him. Turned out she’d only been in the market to see how many pro athlete conquests she could make and she was gone before dawn. So he planned to be more careful with dating when he got back around to it—after he took home the Stanley Cup this spring.

After a long deer-in-the-headlights look, the woman at the bar finally spoke.

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “On second thought, I definitely don’t need the alcohol. Diet Coke will be fine.”

“I was only messing with you about the ID,” he confided, taking his time with the ice cubes so he could keep her there longer. Figure out what it was that drew his attention like a magnet. “Anyone who rakes in enough dough to warrant a plate at this party deserves a drink.”

He wasn’t the kind to flirt, so he didn’t understand why he found himself sliding closer than necessary to speak to her. Her whole bookworm vibe was an intriguing change from the women who threw themselves at him because of his job. But he had no business getting attached to anyone when he was on the road for most of the year and could be traded at any time. He’d been in Philly for less than a month after playing in Boston for most of the season. For all he knew, he could be on the roster in Edmonton this time next year. The Phantoms had wanted the scoring magic he offered in tandem with his foster brother, Axel Rankin. The two of them had been reunited on the ice at the start of the season when Kyle had started the year with Axel’s former team, the Boston Bears. They’d each posted record-breaking stats with the club, but had been picked up by the Phantoms at the trade deadline when the Bears showed no signs of making a play-off run.

“Anyone talented enough to make an NHL roster deserves to enjoy a team soirée rather than work the bar.”

“Shh.” He put a finger over his lips, wanting her to keep a lid on his secret, and cracked open a soda from a nearby cooler. “Not many people have spotted me over here yet.”

“You like downplaying your role?” Her eyebrows knitted, as if she found that hard to believe.

“I prefer to let my stickhandling do my talking.” He cut a fresh lemon and tossed a slice in the glass, still stalling and determined to make the most of this little moment. “I’m not much on the dog-and-pony-show promo events, but this is different since it’s for a group of the Phantoms’ charities. Still, I’d rather offer up manpower behind the bar than sign hats or total strangers’ breasts.”

He couldn’t imagine this woman digging under a T-shirt to offer up her wares at a public autographing event, and that made him all the more interested in earning the privilege to see them privately.

A ghost of a smile played along her lips so quickly he wasn’t sure it had even been there. She leaned over the bar just enough to lower her voice.

“Aren’t you a little young for the thrill of strange breasts to have worn off already?” She eyeballed him above the rim of those librarian glasses, and he felt latent naughty-teacher fantasies spring to life.

“In my experience, the best things in life don’t come easy.” He topped off the soda she’d ordered, unable to stall any longer with a scowling, red-faced guy in a tux in line behind her. “I’d rather invest the time necessary to do the undressing myself.”

She eased back, nodding her approval. “Very commendable. You are a welcome surprise, Mr. Murphy.”

“Kyle,” he corrected her, feeling as though she’d just pasted a gold star to his forehead in front of the whole class. He couldn’t recall the last time anyone had called his actions commendable. “Here you go, Ms.—”

He passed her drink to her.

“Marissa Collins. And thank you.” She reached for the glass, her fingers grazing his for one electric moment before she drew back.

He had the urge to ditch the barkeeping duties and pull Marissa Collins into a dark corner.

“Marissa, I finish up here in an hour. Can I interest you in that glass of scotch at around ten?” He hardly ever drank during the season and never on a game night. But he had tomorrow off, and he’d take any excuse to spend a little longer with the unusual beauty who made him think about something besides hockey for the first time in a long time. Not to take her home. Just to talk.

Before she could answer, his gaze fell on her left hand as she reached into an evening bag for a few bills to pay for her soda. A shiny gold band winked at him from her ring finger.

He shouldn’t be surprised. She’d struck him as more aloof than the women he usually met. But he’d assumed she was just self-assured.

“Never mind,” he corrected himself, right about the same time she said, “Sounds great.”

He guessed his expression must be a mirror of her frown. Damn it. Didn’t she see anything wrong in having a drink with him when she was already taken?

Shutting down thoughts of Marissa Collins as fast as possible, he ignored the money she slid across the bar, turning instead to the sweaty and cranky-looking customer who’d been fidgeting impatiently behind her.

“May I help you, sir?” he asked, realizing the guy didn’t recognize him as a player and therefore didn’t appreciate having to wait so long for a drink.

Right now, Kyle was just another working stiff whose flirtation with a pretty girl hadn’t amounted to anything. He shouldn’t feel any different from when he left the hat signings and the female fans who hoped for hookups he’d rarely indulged.

But regret burned now in a way it never had before. With an effort, he kept his eyes off Marissa as she disappeared into the crowd. The last thing he wanted to see was her with some guy who had the right to call her his.

2

NO MATTER THAT MARISSA had always worked hard to take herself out of the equation when it came to arranging dates, she had been sucked in by Kyle Murphy with just one look.

What had happened back there?

Chugging her cola as if it were some magic elixir that could bring her back to sanity, she felt as though she was shaking from the aftershocks of a cataclysmic event. No wait, that was her phone vibrating away in her purse. She ducked into a corner of the room to check her messages, telling herself all the while to forget her strange reaction to the hockey star. She was a healthy, red-blooded female with little to no love life to speak of. Was it any wonder she occasionally got tripped up by the sight of an appealing man?

Although tripped up wasn’t exactly accurate. More like knocked stupid by a two by four to the head.

Cursing herself and hormones that only got in the way of her job, she yanked her phone free from her purse and saw a terse text: