The kiss.
Levering open a back door that led directly out onto the hotel’s grounds, Kyle welcomed the night air in his lungs to cool the heat in his chest. He was frustrated with his teammates, sure. No guy wanted to see a ladies’ man like Leandre Archambault salivate over a woman they were remotely interested in. But the greater fire in his veins came from the thwarted move he’d made on Marissa.
Just because he wasn’t interested in pursuing a full-blown relationship didn’t mean he wasn’t plenty interested in pursuing … something simpler.
Taking the long way around to the parking lot gave him time to cool off and prevented him from having to deal with anyone else from the team. On his right, he noticed the low wall of the terrace where he’d spoken privately with Marissa an hour ago. Slowing his step, he saw the lights from the sconces still burned, but the patio was vacant now.
Had he really expected to see her?
He picked up his pace and jogged toward the valet stand to retrieve his car. He’d make a few discreet inquiries tomorrow to see what he could unearth about Marissa. As the regular season came to an end, his days in Philly could be numbered if the Phantoms didn’t make the play-offs. That sucked for all the usual reasons since he wanted to make his mark on this team and take them to the next level. But now he had a new reason for wanting to stick around Philadelphia, at least long enough to …
His feet skidded to a stop.
Because there, at the valet stand, stood Marissa. She still wore her sexy glasses and her silk wrap, her dark hair tucked in a neat twist. Only now, she was chatting away with Leandre Archambault, the teammate who’d thought she was so damn hot he’d catalogued everything about her in his description to the team less than ten minutes earlier.
A fierce wave of possessiveness rose up out of nowhere. He could totally appreciate why cavemen brandished a club to ward off their competition. In hockey, he could battle for what he wanted, but out here, he couldn’t bodycheck his teammate into the boards or throw down gloves in the parking lot of a fancy hotel.
“Marissa.” He hadn’t meant to announce himself until he had a plan, but her name rolled off his lips unconsciously, a primal need to stake his claim.
Both heads turned. Marissa gave him a distant, polite smile that was a far cry from the fireworks he’d seen in her eyes earlier. Leandre presented a Cheshire cat grin that told him he’d been making a play for the sizzling-hot matchmaker.
“Can I give you a lift?” Kyle offered, urging her silently with his eyes. Didn’t she recognize a player when she saw one?
“I have my car, thank you.” She kept her chin high, no doubt enjoying her opportunity to rub his nose in the fact that he’d walked away from her before.
An awkward pause followed where Leandre seemed to be waiting for him to get lost and Kyle fought the urge to haul Marissa away to address the unfinished business between them.
Finally, Leandre spoke up. “Marissa is a professional matchmaker. I thought I might test out a new way of dating.”
Kyle nearly choked on the guy’s gall.
“You’re kidding, right? Have you told her that your idea of a first date involves a hotel room? Or that you have about as much intention of committing as—”
“Okay.” Marissa slid her hand around his forearm, her fingers spread wide like the talons on a bird of prey. “Enough. Did you have something to discuss with me, Mr. Murphy?”
“Damn right, I do.”
“Hey, I was here first,” Leandre whined until Marissa smiled serenely at him.
“And I’m so grateful that you’re considering my offer, Mr. Archambault. May I give you a call tomorrow to follow up on our conversation?”
Leandre grinned like a kid playing teacher’s pet, his smile so ingratiating and fake it was all Kyle could do not to snarl.
“I look forward to hearing from you.” He acted as if he wanted to say more, but the valet rolled up with the guy’s flashy black-on-black BMW X5. “I’m very interested.”
As he slid into his car like a snake into its den, Marissa released her hold on Kyle’s arm.
“What business did you want to discuss?” She turned on him, arms folded, her manner decidedly less pleasant under the harsh exterior lights surrounding the valet’s key rack.
“I was trying to save you from that low-life.”
“The only thing you accomplished was scaring off business and potentially harming my bottom line.” Her violet-blue eyes gave no quarter, the unusual color vivid even through the glasses. “In a night when you’ve already cost me a bundle, how can you honestly deny me the chance to sign on some potential candidates for my services?”
“Is that what dating is all about these days?” He snagged his keys and handed them to one of the kids retrieving cars. “Fattening up your bottom line?”
MARISSA FELT AS THOUGH a pin had been stuck in the balloon of her frustration. All her righteous indignation at Kyle’s he-man tactics hissed away as she deflated right there in the parking lot.
Kyle’s words exposed a weakness she wasn’t proud of, the fact that she might be selling out to help her mother. But, oh, God, what choice did she have?
“What’s the matter?” he continued to rant, oblivious to the raw nerve he’d struck. “Cat got your tongue? Truth hurt?”
A snappy comeback was really called for right about now. She needed to deflect and march away. But she’d failed on every level tonight and she didn’t have it in her to argue with a man who hadn’t let her off the hook for her shortcomings.
“Actually, yes.” She shoved her glasses higher on her nose, wishing she had a plastic barrier to shield the rest of her body from this man’s appeal. “Perhaps you have struck too close to the truth for my liking.” She cleared her throat to get rid of the frog that lurked there. “I will take your complaint under advisement.”
Blindly, she reached for her keys on the valet stand, but they all looked alike to her, and for some reason, the display appeared blurry.
“Oh, crap.” Suddenly, Kyle was right beside her, tilting her chin up in his big, broad palm, angling her face under the hideous fluorescent lights. “I made you cry.”
The utter horror in his voice snapped her out of the momentary self-pity. Thankfully, her voice was steady.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she chided, mustering all the cool disdain possible. “Spring is hay fever season. Something on the grounds has been making my eyes water all night.”
“Do I look like I was born yesterday?” He held his hands away from his body and stepped back, as if to give her an unimpeded view.
She wanted to laugh, her emotions boiling over after a day from hell. No, a year from hell. But no matter that he was being irreverent, her gaze raked over him from head to toe, lingering in the middle. Heat flared inside her as she responded the way any red-blooded woman might to an invitation to ogle a man who looked like him.
“Um. No.” Her grip tightened on her shawl, her arms hiding her body’s reaction to him. “You look full grown to me.”
The throaty hitch in her voice couldn’t have sounded more sexually aggressive if she tried. But damn it, she hadn’t tried. She just felt inexplicably attracted to him and that scared her.
“Your car’s ready, sir,” a young valet informed them from behind Kyle. She hadn’t heard Kyle request his car—the kid must have just recognized him and brought the automobile around.
The teen must have been there for a while as he’d already vacated the driver’s seat of the midnight-blue Audi coupe. Now he held the passenger side door open, as if