Making Him Sweat. Meg Maguire

that’s just mean.”

      “Nah, it’s just true. You’re distracting. With all your worrying and your phone calls and your…shapely parts.” He shook his head as if trying to clear it of a feminine mind-control spell, and the flirtation seed officially put down roots.

      “Guess I won’t be signing you on as a client.”

      “Save that nonsense for the reformed frat boys cluttering up State Street. If you’re too busy or lazy to go out and find a woman for yourself, you’re probably too busy or lazy to keep her happy.”

      Jenna took a deep breath and asked a question that had been irking her since she’d snooped through his folder. “What do you think you’ll do, when the gym closes?”

      “Not even going to soften that with an ‘if,’ huh? Well, I’ll probably go to work for another place, as a trainer.”

      “That doesn’t sound too bad. And it might be better for your career, working somewhere a bit more reputable. Somewhere with more Google hits for its fighters’ accomplishments than its criminal scandals.”

      Mercer made a face, looking as though he were smelling something far more pungent than ginger. “Doesn’t sit right, working someplace else. Guys like me are loyal, sometimes to a fault, and it’d feel like I was spitting on everything your dad ever did for me.”

      She let one of his words bounce around in her head—loyal. Territorial. Protective. A strong man, capable of fighting to the death for his family. Her cavewoman libido stirred anew, a pleasurable, ill-advised warmth blooming in her body.

      She glanced at Mercer’s arms as he picked strands of ginger from the grater. One of his forearms bore a bruise as big as a coaster, and she fixated on those knuckles again—pronounced and scarred. A phrase flashed across her mind—the human animal. She swallowed, wishing she could blame these thoughts on the wine. It didn’t bode well for a matchmaker to let lust trick her into an infatuation with a self-proclaimed commitmentphobe. Oh yes, very good instincts at work.

      Jenna got the wok heating. “Tell me about Brazil.”

      “What do you want to know?”

      “Oh, anything. I’m a romantic. Did you have any steamy love affairs down there?”

      “I trained and competed for thirteen months straight, two hours’ bumpy drive from the nearest real town. The only thing steamy for me in Brazil was the climate. Even if I’d had the chance, I’d have passed out from exhaustion on top of the poor woman.”

      “Aw, such a waste.”

      “Oh yeah. Cruel of me to deny the ladies of the world that famous Boston suaveness.”

      Jenna tossed the chicken and vegetables into the pan. A tad buzzed, she turned to scrutinize her roommate for a long moment, eyes narrowed.

      “What?”

      “You know, you’d be handsome if you hadn’t been hit in the face so many times.”

      A slow, wicked smile answered her, and something flared between them, something hot and mutual, tangible as the heat rising from the stove. “Is that your idea of a seduction?”

      She shook her head.

      “Just as well. You should’ve seen me before the fighting. Way uglier than this. All the broken bones have done me good. Quite the face-lift.”

      She laughed.

      “You know,” Mercer said, “you’d be cute yourself, if you weren’t hell-bent on wrecking my life.”

      Her face went warm from both aspects of his comment, and she hid her blush by tending to the sizzling stir-fry.

      “So, Miss Matchmaker. You leave some poor guy crying back in California?”

      “I was exiled on a ship for six years, remember?”

      “And you never bothered hooking yourself up while you were helping all those lonely tourists?”

      She shrugged. “I dated a few guys, sure. Coworkers, of course.”

      “Of course?”

      “Well, there’s no point getting involved with the guests, when they’re only going to be around for a week. Which is fine for a fling, I guess, if unprofessional…”

      “But you’re not a fling-y kind of girl?”

      “No, I’m not. And cruise ships are really incestuous places. You blink, and everyone’s hooked up with everyone else—the lifeguard with the lounge singer, the nanny with the tango instructor. Sort of complicates a guy’s appeal, knowing he’s kissed half your friends by the time he gets to you.”

      “I can see how that might wreck the mystique.”

      “Plus the gossip on those ships is shameless. And I like that sort of stuff to stay private.”

      “Bit traditional, then?”

      “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” She offered a mysterious little grin and turned back to the stove. It was a curious sensation, knowing he was standing there, just on the other side of the counter. That life, that weird set of experiences and skills. And holy hell, that body. Jenna usually caught herself falling for tall, slender men. Mercer was tall enough, but slender…no. Not burly, either, but…cut. Yes, that was the adjective. If he ever wound up in her Boston bachelor database, she’d be stuck with the inadequate drop-down menu designation of athletic to qualify that build. And if Mercer was athletic, then Bill Gates was well-off.

      “So, you won’t be competing in that tournament next month?” she asked over her shoulder.