Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 41634 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41634 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
The season is over, and for these Seattle Knights’ players, the summer is just starting to heat up.
Meet the ultimate kings of the rink. They’re professional hockey players who are used to scoring on and off the ice. Spoiled, wealthy, and with egos as massive as their fan base, these athletes think they have the world on a silver platter. But when the season ends, three of Seattle’s finest players are about to meet their matches in the form of three sassy, fiercely independent, and unapologetically curvy women who aren't impressed by a fancy jersey or a hefty paycheck.
These women know exactly what they want, and they are determined to give these pampered playboys a serious run for their money. Pucks will fly, tempers will flare, and hearts will definitely get checked against the boards.
Lace up your skates and get ready to fall in love. The Seattle Knights are about to learn that when it comes to curvy women with a sharp tongues coming in second just isn’t an option
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
JAXSON
That buzzer slices through eighteen thousand screaming fans, abrupt and final, ending the siege. I don’t launch myself into the dogpile at center ice, not right away. I just lean back, helmet tapping the crossbar, chest pounding so hard it rattles in my sweat-soaked gear. The air in here tastes cold and sharp, like ozone, like victory, but it barely cuts the heat burning under my skin.
Forty-two saves. Another shutout. The cameras? They get the same old statue: focused granite, unmoving, the infamous “Ice Wall” keeping the Seattle Knights perched at the very top. That’s what they see. Inside, I’m trying to suck in air, lungs crushed flat by the weight of the game, praying my legs will hold when I finally stand up straight.
“Ice Wall! You beautiful, frozen bastard!” Mick McLinden, our captain, barrels into me, his glove slamming so hard against my shoulder pads my teeth rattle. He’s grinning already, wild and red-faced, the kind of smile that says he’s picturing the liquid gold of a post-game beer and the easy warmth of a win.
I tip up my goalie mask, and cold air sweeps over my drenched face like a bright knife to the nerves. I give Mick a sharp nod. My knees complain, dull ache pulsing with every heartbeat, but finally, I shove up out of the crease, skates biting deep into the scar-cut ice for the last time tonight.
You’d think shutting them out, again, might mean something. Maybe even make the bruises, the sweat, worth it. Instead, all it does is hollow me out. I’m counting the seconds until I can strip this gear, slip away from the noise, and vanish into my penthouse’s cold quiet. A couple of months into it, and it feels like this season’s been a steel trap with my bones caught inside. Every game blurs forward, white-hot spotlights, fans howling, that edge of need crawling along my heart, every win leaving me hungrier.
The handshake line waits, and I move toward it without really feeling a thing. I’m a machine running hot and dead inside. Gloved hands thump my shoulders, somebody slaps my helmet, and “hell yeah, Ice Wall!” echoes behind me, but it’s all just noise blurring into the background. Mick’s still eating it up, fist-pumping, grinning like a maniac, basking in the cheers. I watch him for a heartbeat, then drop my eyes to the ice and the fresh white track my skate just split down its face. I’m hollowed out, already over it, itching to get the fuck off the rink.
The tunnel is chaos, a wall of fans slamming up against the glass, hands reaching, voices going wild. Emerald and white everywhere I look. I keep my focus set on the dark open mouth of the locker room. People say I keep my distance to stoke the legend, make myself seem like more than human, but the truth is so much simpler. If I look up, look too long at a face, the act might shatter. The mask slips; I can’t let that happen.
Inside the locker room, it’s a shouting match, gear hitting benches, sweat-soaked everything, and the sharp snap of wintergreen riding on top of the stale funk of adrenaline and old effort. Teammates everywhere you look, a whole army of them, yelling, pounding each other on the back. But pulling off my jersey, I just get that yawning pit in my gut. A hunger and a heaviness that has nothing to do with being lonely. It’s the kind of ache that hits when you realize you’re the only guy out there with nobody waiting in the stands. No messages coming. Only the silence waiting.
Pull up your big boy panties and get your shit done so you can get your ass home, I tell myself.
I sit on the wooden bench, the steam from the showers beginning to cloud the air. My hands are still vibrating from the sting of a third-period slap shot that nearly took my thumb off. I stare at the calluses on my palms, tracing the map of a career built on staying very still while the world moves past.
“Hey, man,” Mick says, dropping onto the bench beside me, smelling of sweat and expensive cologne. “We’re hitting The Blue Line after this. You’re coming. No excuses tonight, Jax. It was a shutout. You earned a drink that isn't green healthy junk juice.”
“I have shit to do in the morning,” I spit out, and the lie comes out so easily. They always do. I’m not sticking around for the noise, the drunk pricks with their fists full of shots, or the rink bunnies, stick-thin girls prowling for a chance at a pro. I want none of it. I want the big, echoing silence of my penthouse, the kind that wraps around me and lets me breathe.