Читать книгу Her Man Advantage - Joanne Rock - Страница 9

AS THEY PASSED a wall of life-size photos of current Phantoms’ players, Jennifer hurried to keep up with her reluctant tour guide. He seemed determined to complete the excursion around the training facility in record time. He’d shown her the state-of-the-art exercise and weight rooms with little commentary, occasionally flipping light switches and nodding to the last few personnel in the building as they went home for the day. Could he make it any clearer that he didn’t want to be around her?

His behavior was a puzzle since she knew damn well he was attracted. The heat between them when he’d plucked her from the steel girders had sent her into a full-on meltdown, and she wasn’t a woman whose head turned easily. He’d even said he needed a chance to cool down when he finally released her. So he must have been overheated, too.

And resenting it, apparently.

Frustrated with him, with herself and with the way the day was going, she stopped in front of a poster of the team’s playmaker, Kyle Murphy. She needed to get to the bottom of this before she moved on. She couldn’t scout filming locations for the documentary series until she resolved the Axel dilemma.

“Axel?”

He’d outpaced her by about four miles down the long corridor. Well, at least twenty feet. He turned now, and peered back at her in the semidark vacated part of the building.

“Did I miss something?” His voice echoed a bit in the wide hall with decorative concrete floors polished to a high shine.

“Yes.”

She stared him down, willing him to come closer and not be so difficult. For some reason, she felt that if she could win him over to her cause, she could make this film project a success.

“Care to clue me in?” he said finally, not budging.

“Why are you trying to get rid of me?”

Even from twenty feet away, she could see the moment of guilt in his expression. And, while it wasn’t necessarily pleasant to have her suspicion confirmed, she appreciated that he had the grace to appear abashed over the fact.

“Am I going too fast?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t answer the question. Why are you trying to set a new land speed record?” She wished she had her Nikon in hand now, partially because it felt awkward to ask tough questions with no barrier between her and her subject.

Also because the camera would love this man.

She wanted to linger over the harsh angles of his face with her naked eye. Zoom in on the unusual scar that had to be the outline of a hockey puck under one cheek. Pan out for a long shot of his body to appreciate the way he dwarfed everything around him.

He really did clean up well. His brown hair was shorter than his Viking ancestors’, but he had the strong bone structure, which highlighted his magnetic blue eyes. Even without the hockey pads, his physique was extraordinary, a testament to the hours of work in the gym and on the ice. Constant skating, apparently, yielded a truly spectacular butt. She’d been following him around long enough to become familiar with the way the man filled out a pair of jeans.

Now he came toward her slowly, his feet erasing the space between them.

“Maybe I don’t like your idea for this movie.”

“TV documentary series,” she corrected automatically. “I gathered as much when you said that private lives don’t belong in a film about a sport.”

He paused a foot away from her. Looming.

“So focus on the training. The year-round preparation that goes into playing at this level. Why do you need to manufacture personal lives for athletes who dedicate all their time to hockey?” He leaned closer, as if he could impose his wishes on her through sheer will.

She sucked in a steadying breath and could almost taste the soap he’d used, the warm, clean scent of him filling her lungs and giving her nerve endings a private thrill. Her heart rate tripped into a staccato beat.

“Are you trying to intimidate me?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper given his proximity and her breathlessness.

“Of course not.” He stepped back a bit, though. “Just giving you my opinion. You asked, you know.”

“Yes, but when you proclaim it while hovering over me like that, I feel like you’re trying to eclipse me with your bigger presence.”

“I am the team enforcer,” he informed her, lowering his brows in a semiconvincing menace while flexing his arms. His chest. Actually, everything seemed to tighten and bulge at once.

“Which means … what? You’re going to duke it out with me over this film?” She couldn’t help a shiver of awareness at the he-man muscle show, perhaps a leftover genetic reflex from the days when women were driven to seek out strong men for protection’s sake.

Because surely she wasn’t the kind of woman to be swayed by something so earthy?

“Probably not,” he admitted, his expression clearing as his gaze did a slow sweep of her. “But as the Phantoms’ newly imported enforcer, my role is to be on the alert for threats to my teammates.”

“And you’ve decided I’m the threat?”

“Definitely.” His eyes zeroed in on her lips and her mouth went dry.

She shook her head, trying to deny it, but the movement felt slow. Leaden. Almost as if she didn’t want to say no to whatever it was they were talking about—she’d forgotten in the hypnotic lure of his proximity.

“Say what you want,” Axel said, coming closer again, within easy touching distance. “That look in your eyes right now is threatening the hell out of me. You might not know it, but I’m in big-time fight-or-flight mode this very minute standing next to you.”

Any possibility of breathing was gone. She’d probably start hyperventilating at any moment. Beside her, his chest rose and fell as if he was engaged in battle.

“That’s ironic,” she managed finally, her voice sounding far away and not like her own. “Because I can’t seem to move.”

His eyes widened a fraction before he narrowed his gaze. That battle he’d been waging? She suspected he’d decided the outcome.

“I tried to outrun you,” he reminded her, his voice a soft, minty breath. “You saw me try to avoid this.”

The gentle words chipped away at her defenses, surprising her with the note of stark honesty. She hadn’t seen where this was headed, but apparently he had.

The thought evaporated along with the rest of her brain waves when Axel stepped even closer, crowding her.

“I … um …” She wrestled with a sudden urge to fling her arms around his neck and kiss him until he was as breathless as she felt. “Maybe avoidance was a smarter policy than I gave it credit for.”

“You called. I came.” His last step backed her neatly into the wall.

Her heart beat faster. She swallowed hard.

“Sometimes I don’t know what’s best for me,” she managed, her throat dry as she became intensely aware of his chest mere inches from hers.

“That became apparent when you climbed the rafters.” He lifted a hand and she held her breath, wondering if he would hold her steady for the kiss she foolishly craved.

Instead, his fingers skimmed beneath her hair to encircle the back of her neck, one thumb resting on the pulse point at the base of her throat. Her neck had never been much of an erogenous zone, but the feel of his thumb softly stroking there struck her as more erotic than full-blown intimate encounters she’d had before.

She wasn’t sure if that spoke to how lacking her previous sensual experiences were or what talented hands Axel possessed. Either way, she soaked up the sensation and tried not to arch into him for more.

“Axel,” she murmured against the glide of his fingertips along her throat, her sensitive skin registering every callus.

“Mmm?” He never paused the seductive caress.

The rhythm of the touch hypnotized her, making her long to feel it all over her body. How could a simple stroke feel so mind-numbingly good?

Steeling herself, she tried to remember all the reasons she shouldn’t be fraternizing with someone she’d be filming. She was a professional, damn it.

“This may be a bad idea,” she warned, her fingers twisting in the fabric of his soft cotton button-down.

Sweet, merciful heaven, when had she allowed herself to touch him back?

“There’s no maybe about it,” he told her, lowering his head and inhaling a deep breath. “This will only lead to complications.”

BREATHING IN HER SUBTLE floral scent, Axel told himself to let go of Jennifer.

He needed to pry his fingers off, one by one, and walk away from the insanity. He had her pinned between the wall and the most insistent hard-on of his life, for Chris-sakes. This was totally out of line. Unacceptable.

And why the hell couldn’t some stray maintenance worker show up right about now to startle them apart? He didn’t think anything else—besides a cattle prod—would do the trick.

“I didn’t see this coming,” she confided, her voice kind of soft and wonder-filled in a way that only wound him up more. “Not for a second.”

He kept his head down, eyes on the floor, not ready to see her lips all soft and ready for his kiss. Not ready to see her eyes filled with that hazy, unfocused gaze that meant she was thinking about sex as much as he was.

“No? That’s funny because I felt it like a damn freight train headed my way the moment you asked me to show you around.”

She stiffened slightly, the subtle shift of her body a movement that inflicted a unique brand of torment on him when he knew this little interlude was going nowhere. At least not today.

“I hope you didn’t think I was coming on to you.” She managed to sound honest-to-God uptight about it even though her fingers still clutched the placket of his shirt.

“Of course not.” He gritted out a semblance of a polite smile as he backed up a step and her hands fell away. “I can see you’re not attracted to me in the least.”

“Well!” she huffed, crossing her arms in such a way that drew the fabric of her blouse tight across her breasts. “I don’t mean that I’m not attracted now. I just meant I wasn’t thinking about any such thing back when I asked for the tour.”

Following the line of his gaze, she uncrossed her arms. Straightened her blouse. Lifted her chin.

Damn, but he wanted to take her home and tease her some more. Undress her slowly and put that note of awe and wonder back in her voice. But that was not in the plan. He should be chasing her away from the team and most particularly him, not lingering in darkened hallways with her.

“Fine. But now you see where this is headed and that it’s a bad idea. Can we agree it would be best for all parties if the tour ends here?” He needed to regroup someplace else, somewhere far from the scent of lilies of the valley.

He hadn’t even seen those damn flowers in over ten years, let alone smelled them. How strange that meeting her called up the few rare good memories he had of his childhood home, especially since her project had the potential to bring all the worst ones back to life.

“Agreed.” She gave a tight nod. “Thank you for showing me around.”

“You’re welcome.”

He waited for her to storm off in a display of feminine outrage. Stomp down the hall in a huff, maybe. Or sashay away with a little extra hip swing to remind him of what he was missing.

He should have remembered she wasn’t a conventional female. She simply frowned, her lips pursed and her brow furrowed. She appeared deep in thought, her gaze focused somewhere above his head.

“Would you like me to walk you to your car?” he prompted in what he considered an inspired moment of chivalrous manners.

His foster mom, Mrs. Murphy, would be proud.

“No, thank you.” Her face cleared and she pointed to the wall behind him, where the life-size posters of Phantoms players loomed. “As long as the tour is over, maybe you can tell me a little about your teammates.”

And he fought the urge to roll his eyes—he couldn’t believe she’d changed gears so quickly when he was still wrestling a massive case of sexual frustration.

“No.” He shook his head, needing to be very clear with her. “I can’t. Spending time with you is not a good idea for me, whether it’s giving you a tour or telling you about the guys. I’m having a career season, Jennifer—”

“Jen. Call me Jen.” Not even looking at him, she moved closer to the posters of the players, eyes narrowing to read the text beside Kyle’s picture.

“Jen.” He angled his body between her and the write-up, needing to make sure she got the message. “It’s important to me to maintain the momentum I’ve got going while we finish up the regular season. Routine is everything when you’re maintaining a streak. I just can’t—”

“Am I interfering with your routine?” She peered around as if mystified about what else he’d be doing if not talking to her.

“This whole TV circus is messing up my routine and I only just found out about it.” He realized he’d maneuvered close to her again when his body started humming as if he had metal under his skin and she was an industrial-strength magnet.

“Okay, I get it. You want nothing to do with me.” Searching around in her purse, she fished out a piece of paper and a pencil. “Can you at least tell me who you would recommend I talk to? Is there anyone on the team who might have a few minutes to spare to give me some insights on the Phantoms?”

Pencil poised, she looked at him expectantly. Here was his out. He could simply give her the name of one of the other guys and someone else could escort her around the rest of the training facility. Their game arena downtown. Someone else could talk to her and catch her when she jumped down from swinging on the girders.

Thinking about how much one of the other guys might like that—and how much he would hate every second of witnessing it—he found he couldn’t come up with a name for her.

“How about I call Leandre Archambault?” she prompted, pointing to his teammate’s photo on the wall.

Her pencil flew across the paper until he caught it. Halted it. Gripped the damn thing so hard he accidentally snapped it in two. Leandre was the worst ladies’ man on the team and he had no intention of letting him anywhere near Jennifer.

“No.” He couldn’t walk away. Besides, he was better off talking to her behind the scenes, steering her away from him and toward other guys for filming purposes. If she had to film them, Axel would make sure her camera was focused on anyone but him. “I have time to talk to you.”

“What about your routine?” One eyebrow quirked, but she didn’t seem to be gloating over his inability to cut her loose. If anything, she appeared genuinely interested.

“I’ll find a way to make it work.” That way he could keep an eye on her. Damn it, he’d known that would be best all along. But the encounter in the hall had rocked him so much he’d second-guessed the plan. “Let’s start tomorrow, though. Give us time to regroup.”

She nodded.

“Great. And because I appreciate it so much, I’m going to promise you that I will keep my hands to myself at all times.” She held up her hands for him to see and wiggled the fingers for good measure. “See? You’re safe with me.”

His skin reacted as surely as if she’d skimmed that touch along his bare back. His naked abs.

Desire slammed him like a body check to the boards.

“Right.” He waved her away from the display toward the conference room so she could gather her stuff. “Too bad it’s not you I’m worried about.”