Scoring a Holiday Match (Mr. Match), Delancey Stewart [classic novels TXT] 📗

other side of the room where the dance floor was set up, and we both looked over to see one of the Sharks players—Trace Johnson, I thought—doing the worm on the dance floor, his white tux shirt picking up every mote of dirt and dust as he flailed from one side of the hardwood to the other. A beautiful woman in a silver dress with dark hair was standing at one side of the space, her arms crossed. She looked pissed, and when he finally got up, a wide grin on his face, she said loudly, “You promised!” There was murder in her expression, and for a split second, I felt sorry for the guy—she was clearly wearing the pants in that relationship, and she was not pleased.

The other players were standing around watching the spectacle, and I recalled Max telling me that Johnson was sometimes hard to handle in the off season. The guy was huge—the Sharks keeper, I recalled—and he was laughing like a maniac.

“I hear he was even more rambunctious before he got engaged,” Rose said, watching the players.

That was hard to believe. I turned back to Rose, glad for the break so I could move conversation away from my family. “Rose, I’ll be honest. You don’t seem like you’d need Mr. Match to find you a guy.”

She laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in her face. “You’d be surprised.” She squinted for a moment, as if looking deep inside her mind for the next words she wanted to say. “I don’t have a lot of time to date,” she said. “And when I meet men out, at bars or at the beach, or whatever, they never seem to be quite the right type.”

“What’s the right type?” I found myself on the edge of my seat, hoping it was me. Which was ridiculous. I didn’t have time to date, either.

“I need someone who understands commitment to a goal, someone driven and focused who won’t resent me for being that way. I need a partner.” She delivered this last line, gazing squarely into my eyes again, and a thrill went through me.

Despite my complete inability to commit to anything right now, I found myself wanting Rose to ask me to commit to her. Maybe not forever, maybe just for tonight. “I get it,” I said honestly.

“But what I’m wondering,” she said. “Is why you would use a matchmaking service.”

The answer was pretty simple. “Max Winchell made me.”

“The Sharks forward?”

“Yeah.”

“Why does he care?”

I shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure. But we’ve been friends since elementary school, and a couple years ago he was on some kind of rampage to get everyone he knew to fill out a profile for this thing. Honestly? I think he’s got stock in the company or something.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. Exactly. But I did it, and then I forgot about it. And I’ve never heard another word. Except for this thing tonight, which Max said was a Mr. Match event.”

“And you’re my match,” Rose said simply.

Except that Max had set this up, not Mr. Match. “I guess so,” I said, not too worried about the details now that Rose was here in front of me.

“I guess it just took a while for us to find a match,” she said, and my body thrilled at her words, even though I didn’t think I could be anyone’s match. Maybe we could be perfect for each other, but it could only be for tonight.

Chapter 5

This Tree Looks Comfy

ROSE

If you had asked me even five minutes before showing up at the ball tonight if a crab boat captain could possibly be my perfect match, I would have told you no. And I would have laughed.

But now?

A wispy thread of magic had blown in on the breeze tonight, twined itself around me, around Ash, and pulled us together. And though I didn’t believe in magic, I could feel it on my skin, in my body. The man next to me emanated a sexy confidence, along with a certain reassuring warmth. I had no doubt that he could handle anything that came across his path. I was also pretty sure there was something important in his life that he wasn’t telling me about.

But with his onyx eyes on me and a flush of hot anticipation rolling through me, I found I didn’t really care.

I’d always said I was too busy for a relationship, and that had not changed. But for the first time in a while, I found that I very much wanted to spend more time with a man. Even if it was only a few hours or a few days. It didn’t have to be forever, but I wanted to know everything there was to know about Ash. And I wanted to know every inch of his skin, too—and that was a feeling I definitely hadn’t had in a long time.

The Sharks had calmed down across the room, and Ash’s gaze was back on me. The party had filled up around us, and there were hundreds of people in formalwear glittering and sparkling beneath the glowing lights. The DJ was beginning to play, and I could feel the energy in the room ramping up.

Ash was watching me as I looked around the space. I could fee his gaze on my skin like a light shawl tracing over my shoulders, tickling my chin, and for maybe the first time in my life, I felt shy as I lifted my eyes back to his.

As soon as our eyes met, something in me locked into place, and Ash’s sexy smile lifted at the corners again.

“Do you want to dance, Rose?”

The DJ had begun to play “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” The idea of being in Ash’s arms, pressed close to that hard broad chest was irresistible.

“Sure,” I said, slipping off the stool where I sat.

He held a hand out and I took it, warmth climbing through me the second our skin touched. As I walked with him toward the