Power Play

“No.” She was so sexy he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. A woman walking toward him with a bottle of massage oil and he’d announced he wasn’t going to touch her? He must be a mental case. “I said I wouldn’t hit on you.”

She settled beside him on the bed, shifting his leg so she could spread the towel underneath him. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Not at all.” When she was this close he could smell her skin and see that her eyes weren’t completely brown as he’d thought. There were flecks of gold and tiny slivers of green in them, as well. As she settled her hands above his knee and began to gently probe the muscle, he said, “I’m giving you an open invitation to hit on me.”

Her fingers stalled and her eyes widened.

He grinned up at her. “Anytime.”

5

DAY THREE OF LEANNE AND DEREK’S Wedding Week Extravaganza was almost done, Emily thought with relief as she sat quietly at the desk in her hotel room, blessedly alone, writing out place cards for the wedding.

Today she’d had lunch with her mom. She loved her mom, but the “nice, long lunch, just the two of us,” had been somewhat marred by her mother’s enthusiastic comments about Cousin Buddy and her wistful excitement about Leanne’s wedding.

Emily successfully navigated the conversation around dangerous spots, like how lucky Leanne and Derek were to have found each other when they were both so young, interspersed with hints about how it got more and more difficult to find a mate as you got older and more set in your ways.

Naturally, this led to the story of crazy Aunt Hilda who never married and ended up living on a rotting houseboat with nothing but seven cats for company. “All she ever bought was cat food. I’m not saying Hilda was eating it, but you have to wonder.” She shook her head. Did she really think Emily had never heard this story before? “At least she didn’t have to worry about mice.”

They made it all the way to coffee, when her carefully steered conversation hit a Titanic iceberg. Her mother’s eyes filled and she said, “You know I love Leanne and I’m truly happy for her, and for Irene. But if my sister gets to be a grandmother first, I’ll just die.”

She’d spent the rest of the day feeling guilty somehow and that she had to make it up to her mom, which meant she’d ended up volunteering to do the place cards. Maybe her mom couldn’t boast of a happily married, eagerly breeding daughter, but she could damn well be proud of having such a helpful one.

Her silence was rudely interrupted by the door opening followed by a series of crashes.

“What are you doing?” The unholy racket caused her to turn her head and see Jonah stumble in with a whole lot of hockey equipment hanging off him.

“Sorry, I was trying to be quiet.” He banged the door behind him and some sort of pad tumbled to the floor. When he bent to reach it, two hockey sticks banged on the wall.

“It’s like Marley’s ghost entering the room.”

“Looks like rain. I didn’t want to leave anything in the truck to get damp.”

“Great. This hotel room isn’t nearly crowded enough. What it needed was more hockey equipment.”

As one, they both glanced at the big orange pouf of a dress hanging from the outside of the closet because, just as in her first room, there simply wasn’t room to cram all that dress inside.

The dress cast a faintly orange glow over everything, she was convinced. It definitely affected her mood.

He looked doubtfully beyond his bed. “I could put the stuff behind that curtain, but it’s probably damper there than in my truck.”

“Don’t mind me. I’m feeling bitchy. No idea why.”

He hefted the sticks, bag, padding, two pairs of skates and a uniform over to his bed and settled it in an untidy pile. He grunted as he yanked the liners out of his skates and placed them in front of the radiator as he had the night before.

She turned back to her task. No wonder she was thinking of Marley’s ghost; her current task was positively Dickensian.

She tried to ignore the unmistakable sounds of a man undressing by focusing all her attention on the nib of her pen.

“Okay if I take a shower now?” the deep voice asked.

“Yes. Fine.”

He passed behind and she felt him pause. “What are you doing?”

“Calligraphy.”

“I know what it is,” he said, surprising her. “What I meant is, why are you doing it now?”

“I’m writing out the place cards for the wedding,” she said, carefully finishing the Y on Cathy and double-checking the spelling of Cathy’s last name from the list beside the neat stack of cards.

“They had to get an out-of-town guest to do those? A couple days before the wedding?”

She put down her pen and turned. “Obviously, you’ve never been a bridesmaid.” She wished she hadn’t turned. She found herself at eye level with his scrumptious abs and the waistband of his gray sweatpants. She could smell him. He smelled athletic, of clean sweat and hard work. If she ran her hands over his body his muscles would still be warm and pliable from exertion.

“Good guess.” He sounded amused. Again.

“It’s part of my responsibility to help with all the little details that may have been overlooked.” She glanced at the stack of cards waiting to be painstakingly written, and lied through her teeth, “I really don’t mind.”

“I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”

“Honestly? I’m missing another potluck dinner. And the choosing of the embarrassing baby and child photos to be shown on the projector at the reception. Frankly, I prefer this job.”

“As soon as I’m cleaned up, I’m meeting a few of the guys for a pizza. You want to join us?”

She was genuinely surprised by the offer. And she smiled her thanks at him. “Thank you. But if I don’t keep going, I’ll never get these done. Besides, I’ve got a yogurt and a couple of granola bars if I get hungry. I’ll be fine.”

“Suit yourself.” Then he ambled into the bathroom and soon she heard the shower running.

Three place cards later, he was out again, freshly shaved and smelling of soap and shampoo. In her peripheral vision she noted he was wearing nothing but a towel, and that the hair of his lower legs was dark and his big feet were leaving damp prints on the carpet.

When he was past her, she allowed herself a quick glance at his back view, on the grounds that a hardworking calligrapher needed a little treat now and then. She was happy to note that his hairiness didn’t go as far as his back. That was smooth of skin and heavy with muscle. This guy did more than play hockey to stay in shape. Her professional eye noted that his right deltoid was more developed than his left. He was definitely right-handed.