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“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.”
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 Jennifer explained why she wanted them to meet. “Bryce will be recording a lot of raw footage on this project while we figure out our primary angles for this week’s installment. Would you mind if he tagged along on your road trip? Maybe took some footage of your conversations about the team?”
“Really?” Hopping out of her seat, Chelsea sloshed a little coffee out the top of the cup as she waved over her friends. “Almost like we were in the movie, too?”
A whistle blew on the ice and Jennifer noticed the players congregated around the coach.
“You would be.” Her attention went back to the woman’s wrist where she could have sworn she’d spotted numbers in Phantom blue. An ode to a player? “I’d have to ask you to sign waivers giving us permission to film you and use any footage we obtain, but only a small percentage ever sees the final print.”
There was a brief huddled conversation among the women, but it didn’t take long for Chelsea to pop out of the cluster.
“We’d love to.”
“Great.” Jennifer pulled up the waiver page on her laptop and handed Chelsea the stylus so she could sign it electronically while the players seemed to finish up their practice. “Just make sure Bryce knows where to be and at what time to meet you.”
While the fans thronged the tunnels off the ice for a chance at slapping hands with the exiting players, Chelsea handed the laptop around to her friends so they could each sign the waiver. When she turned back to Jennifer, her expression had clouded, the initial excitement dimmed.
Second thoughts already?
“Is everything okay?” Jennifer asked, not wanting her documentary stars to be second-guessing themselves yet. Any misgivings had to wait until the series was edited and printed.
Although she knew Axel would have reservations every moment of filming until she returned to New York. She respected his privacy, in theory, even if her assignment here proved at odds with his personal preferences. But was there a deeper reason behind how fiercely he protected his privacy? Most athletes saw the benefit of media attention on their careers, and it turned out Axel Rankin was having a banner year on the ice.
Why so camera shy?
“Sure.” Chelsea still held Jennifer’s laptop, her eyes fixed on the ice where Axel and Kyle Murphy—his foster brother, she’d learned in her reading—were laughing with the goalie. “I’m glad the documentary will help the team. Maybe boost ticket sales.”
“It probably will,” Jennifer agreed, trying to see which one of the guys Chelsea had her eye on since all the others had headed to the locker room by now.
She turned back to Jennifer. “But the guys are so great, I almost hate to share them, you know? Kind of like when the newspaper reviews your favorite dive restaurant. Soon everyone’s showing up to try the grub and it’s not the same anymore.”
While Jennifer tried to puzzle through Chelsea’s concerns—lack of access to the players, maybe—she reached for her laptop.
And, as Chelsea extended it, her sleeve lifted higher on her wrist. Revealing #68, Axel Rankin’s jersey number, tattooed on her skin.
THE CAMERAS WERE OUT in full force today.
Axel had noticed as soon as he’d arrived at the practice facility early that morning. Even now, as he waited for Jen to meet him after the team skate, he had to contend with the bright light of a fill flash in his eyes. He’d taken refuge in a practice room to tweak his shot on one of the shooting tarps, but the camera guy had followed him in.
There were three camera operators—all male—who would roam the Phantoms’ facilities over the next month. The team had been introduced to the group at the morning meeting. They would attend games and road trips in addition to occasionally following the players home or around town on errands, nights out or anywhere that might be relevant to the larger story. Besides the film crew with handhelds, there were stationary cameras in the rafters above the ice, in the box where players sat between shifts and in a couple of other common areas.
He’d called his foster parents last night to warn them about the documentary. They didn’t know the extent of his connections to the motorcycle club back in Finland—ties that hadn’t been easily severed. He’d never hidden from the old crew, exactly. He’d known an NHL career gave him a certain amount of visibility, so he’d always been accessible to his enemies. But there’d been a tacit peace these past nine years, with everyone moving on.
Axel wasn’t all that sure the peace would hold if this documentary series found a global audience. What would the old gang think of his high-end lifestyle if they saw pictures up close and personal? Would they be able to forgive what they considered the debt of letting him leave if they could see the evidence of his success from the comfort of their living rooms overseas? He didn’t want to push his luck.
So he’d told the Murphys to be on their toes if anyone called looking for more information on him. The wealthy Murphy family had resources to increase security at their Cape Cod compound and he’d advised them to do so, claiming a rise in public interest could bring out the occasional nut job. Better to be safe.
