Game On Box Set: Time Out\Her Man Advantage\Face-Off\Body Check Read online

  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.”

  4

  “IS IT TRUE YOU’RE MAKING a movie about the Phantoms?”

  The speaker squatted into Jennifer’s vision as she sat in the practice rink’s viewing seats at 10:00 a.m. the next morning. While the players ran a slapshot drill out on the ice, Jennifer worked at her laptop, making notes to ask Axel. Well, she tried to work on her laptop.

  The hopeful young face blinking up at her from the row of seats below prevented her from concentrating. The lithe brunette in a knit beret clutched a paper coffee cup in both hands, hovering over the steam drifting up like a nebulizer while the players lofted puck after puck at their backup goalie.

  “Not a movie. A documentary series.” Jennifer tried to smile politely, wishing she’d known that today’s morning skate was open to the public.

  She would have given her cameraman the day off. Bryce’s equipment attracted attention and questions.

  “I’m Chelsea, groupie extraordinaire.” The young woman thrust out a hand. “Let me know if I can be of any help.”

  Taking the woman’s hand, Jennifer shook it briefly, reassessing.

  “A fan?” Her gaze went from Chelsea to the guys on the ice—mainly Axel, whose number she found immediately through the glass boards.

  He stood on a blue line—she had discerned the significance of that location last night in a mega cram-session on hockey. Apparently the blue lines marked the offensive zones and as a defenseman, he was often called a “blue liner” since he frequently played there.

  Jennifer’s interest in and admiration for his role on the ice had increased the more she read until she found herself enthused to return to the rink today. But part of that enthusiasm died at the notion of groupies. Did he have female fans who shadowed his movements? The idea rankled. What if caressing strange women in deserted halls was all in a day’s work for a national league hockey player?

  “Yes. There are four of us who follow the team whenever possible.” Chelsea gestured to a threesome of coffee-clutching young women two rows down. They appeared to be twenty to twenty-five years old. Unlike the stereotype of attention-seeking groupies who dressed to get noticed, this crowd wore appropriate clothes for a hockey rink—jackets and scarves with the blue-and-white team logo. They squealed as two of the players skated their way, giving them a grin and a nod.

  “Do you attend a lot of these practices?” Jennifer wondered what kinds of jobs the young supporters had if they could afford to tailor their schedules around a hockey team.

  “We come to these all the time, sometimes even when they’re not open to the public.” Chelsea flipped a long brown curl from one eye, a hint of a tattoo on her wrist visible under her jacket sleeve. “After this, we’re headed to Montreal for tomorrow’s game. The team flies, but we have to leave earlier since we drive and we want to be there when they touch down.”

  To do what, exactly? Warm their beds?

  Jennifer bit her tongue on the questions, knowing her role here wasn’t to judge, or even to get involved. It was simply to document. She had to admit that “not getting involved” part had always been tough for her. When she’d documented poverty, she’d helped educate young moms on wise consumer choices at the grocery store. When she’d made a film on the public school system, she’d found herself volunteering for bake sales. But if the woman in front of her wanted to follow a team of athletes around the country, it certainly wasn’t Jen’s job to tell her she could do better than that. Although the temptation lingered.

  “How interesting.” She waved over her cameraman. The stands weren’t full for the practice session, so he climbed over the seats to introduce himself to Chelsea before Jennif