Seducing The Matchmaker. Joanne Rock

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СКАЧАТЬ bathing in a fragrance he knew he’d never forget.

      If not for the constraints of the car, he would have been all over her. No. He would have pulled her on top of him, pressed her against him. He didn’t know whether to curse the damn console or be grateful for the restraint it imposed.

      “What are we doing?” she whispered helplessly against his ear, her fingers clutching his shoulders as if she was hanging on for dear life.

      The image pleased the hell out of him. “Being impulsive.” He licked his way into the curve of her shoulder and felt her shiver. “Isn’t it the best?”

      Liking her reaction, he ran his tongue along that same spot over and over again until she trembled again.

      “I’m not impulsive.” She said it even as she arched her neck to give him more room to work.

      “You are now.” He wanted to press her back into the leather seat and see if he could make her whole body shudder. But he wouldn’t taint that victory with the knowledge that he’d pushed his luck on a night that had been tough on her.

      A night where he’d made her cry.

      His conscience kicked in then, reminding him that he needed to play fair.

      With more than a little regret, he eased back, breaking away in slow degrees since he didn’t think he could quit touching her completely. She blinked up at him, passion-dazed and breathing fast.

      Exactly what he wanted and yet precisely why he needed to take a break. He’d be willing to bet that, under normal circumstances, she would have battled the attraction more.

      But something upset her tonight and he had the feeling there was more to it than just him.

      “You’re realizing we made a huge mistake.” She released her hold on his shoulders, her hands sliding away to fold neatly in her lap. “I agree.”

      “No. Hell, no.” He took in the sight of her with her hair down and tousled around her shoulders, liking the idea that he’d been the only one to see her this way tonight. “I just didn’t want to push my luck, and I knew if I didn’t quit soon … there would have been no stopping.”

      As it stood—and wasn’t that an apt expression considering his current condition?—Marissa would be a fixture in his dreams, most certainly at the cost of sleep.

      All of which would be a detriment to his practice tomorrow, but he couldn’t bring himself to care right now.

      “That was thoughtful of you.” She picked up a pen from the change tray in the console. “May I borrow this?”

      “Sure.” He shrugged, wondering what she could want to write at a time like this. “I don’t have any paper.”

      “That’s okay.” Gathering her hair, she twisted and rolled the dark strands and then jammed the pen down into the center of the roll, magically keeping the whole thing in place. “I should be getting back to my car.”

      She studied him in the dim light of the half-moon and a streetlamp behind his car. Then, like a lady warrior who hadn’t finished putting on her armor, she retrieved her glasses from her purse and slid them into place on her nose.

      Kyle ran a finger along the top of the frames.

      “You might as well put a tissue between us for all the good those do.”

      “The more barriers the better.” She dug into her handbag again.

      “What else do you have in there? A false nose? A burka?” How much more could she distance herself from him? Would he ever have a shot at being with her again or had he already seen as much impulsiveness as she possessed?

      She withdrew a folded sheet of paper and handed it to him.

      “No. Something else guaranteed to send you running.”

      Frowning, he unfolded the heavy stock and saw the fine print of a detailed questionnaire about his dating preferences. It was a matchmaking form, probably standard issue for her clients.

      “After what just happened, you’re giving me this?” He’d taken shots to the jaw that had had less impact. “You can’t be serious.”

      All traces of the violet-eyed temptress were gone. She straightened in her seat and smoothed her skirt.

      “Just in case you change your mind.”

       5

      MARISSA RETURNED HOME after midnight, her headache now outweighed by a heartache so complex she couldn’t quite put a name to it. Regret, guilt, sexual frustration … a mixed bag of negative emotions she wished she could lock down and forget about.

      Quietly, she opened the back door to her mother’s house in west Philly, not all that far from where Kyle had driven her around Chestnut Hill. She had liked being with him. Even before the kissing, she’d enjoyed sitting beside him in his car. He’d taken her for a ride because he’d upset her, a small gesture she’d found endearing.

      Then, the kissing had been transporting. There was no other word for the way his touches had inflamed her until she’d been ready to leap across the console and straddle him. She’d been out of her mind for him while he’d been controlled and composed, pulling away so that he wouldn’t take advantage of her mindlessness, apparently.

      How mortifying. It had been all she could do to restore order to her hair, let alone resurrect any semblance of pride. Shoving that damn dating questionnaire in his face had been a last-minute attempt to resurrect some boundaries. Self-respect.

      Maybe she ought to be dating, after all. Who knew she was so affection-starved that she’d wrap herself around Kyle like a boa constrictor in search of a meal? Perhaps she should try to be objective about making a match for herself. Look for a candidate on paper where all the attractive intangibles didn’t get in the way and cloud her judgment….

      “Marissa?” a frail voice called from the dining room, which they’d converted into a bedroom after her mother’s accident. “What are you doing out of bed, young lady?”

      Regretting whatever noise she’d made to disturb her mother, Marissa set her keys on a kitchen counter and stepped out of her shoes before pushing open the swinging door to the dining area in the turn-of-the-century mansion. She nodded to her mother’s caregiver, relieving her from duty.

      Surrounded by glossy mahogany paneling that rose three-quarters of the way up the walls, a queen-size bed sat illuminated by a reading light clipped to the headboard. Marissa had lined the walls with guitars and sequined stage costumes in an effort to help her mother remember who she was on a daily basis; a décor built on remnants of a life fragmented by the traumatic brain injury resulting from the late-night car crash when Brandy’s agent had flipped her convertible. Those reminders were one reason Marissa had worked so hard to keep the house for her mother, selling off anything and everything else to maintain consistency in Brandy’s life so that nothing would upset her while she healed.

      At the center of all the memorabilia sat Brandy Collins, her glossy dark hair missing patches СКАЧАТЬ