Hot on Ice: A Hockey Romance Anthology

by Avery Flynn

  She grinned and leaned in close again. “When are you going to see him again?”

  “I’m not.” I thought about the trip I’d have to make back to NOLA to pack my shit and the inevitable night of drunken goodbyes I’d have with the guys on the team. I’d invite Etienne but I wasn’t sure if he’d come. After our morning conversation that seemed like a recipe for unnecessary emo moments. “We both agreed that it’s a one-and-done.”

  She scowled, not liking where this was going. Join the club.“Wait. That’s nuts. I saw more than just chemistry between the two of you. You didn’t click outside of the boning?”

  “We were good. Everything was good.” I paused to think it through, to get the explanation right. “I got the offer I wanted. I’m moving back here.”

  “Fuck, yes!” She jumped up, hugging me tight and spilling water from her opened bottle down my back. I laughed, enjoying my happiness over the deal fly free and unshadowed by my situation with Etienne. “You can stay with me until you find your own place. I cannot believe we are finally going to be living in the same town.”

  “I can’t promise that I won’t drink out of the orange juice carton.”

  She pulled back and waved her fist at me, looking way too cute to be scary. “I’ll cut you.”

  I shoved her away and settled back on the bench, reluctant to get back to the real conversation. “So, long distance is hard.”

  “And long distance is hard,” she said, nodding in understanding. She took a drink and then flung the open bottle at me, wetting down my front so that it would match the back. I threw my hands up, giving her a “WTF” look as I grabbed the bottle from her. “It’s hard you idiot. Not impossible.”

  She was smarter than me. I knew it. She knew it. But I attempted to argue anyway. “Why would I do that to myself? I like him. I could really like him. But I know that shit isn’t going to work and it’s all going to blow up in my face down the line. Why fucking bother?”

  She stared me down for a few seconds, her eyes sending the signal that she thought I was a dumbass. “I’m going to assume the you’ve taken so many hits to head on the ice that it’s made you stupid.” I opened my mouth to protest but she slapped her hand over it to keep me quiet. “I make a fuck ton of money off people who are looking ways to get over regret. Regret over things they didn’t say or do, the job they didn’t take, the people they didn’t take a chance on loving. It fucking breaks my heart every time. Don’t live your life like that. Just don’t.”

  Her hand slid off my face and down to her lap with a thud. She tucked a curl back into her ponytail and squared her shoulders like she dared me to blow her off with some kind of dumb joke. She didn’t need to worry. I didn’t have any.

  I wanted Etienne. This weekend had not been enough. I didn’t know what would be enough. Two weekends. Ten. Twenty. A lifetime of weekends. Jesus. My stomach clenched at the thought that I was missing something. That I was on the verge of missing something.

  “It could all go to shit,” I said.

  “Yep.” She agreed, her smile just a little too smug. “Or not.”

  Or. Not.

  Of course the airport was busy.

  Sunday was a big travel day and I cursed the crowds as I tried to quickly maneuver my big body past luggage and kids and old people. On the ice I would’ve just plowed through them all, sending them spinning like tops out of my way. Here it would only get me a rectal cavity search from a TSA agent so I moved through the crowds as politely as I could.

  There were two flights to NOLA leaving at the time of Etienne’s flight. I couldn’t get down to the gate without a ticket so I had to grab him before he got beyond the security check point. I scanned the crowd, straining to see his tall frame above all the other people. It should have been easy but all it was frustrating. Maybe I should fly down to New Orleans?

  I hadn’t thought this through. Inspired by Carla’s speech and the bone deep fear that I might end up on her fucking couch one day with this regret.

  I’d taken off from the boat house, driven by a need to talk to Etienne and see if he was willing to take a risk too. Hoping that I would catch him before it was too late. It looked like I was too late.

  “You going back to New Orleans to pack up your stuff?”

  I closed my eyes. His voice was sticky with the dark, deep secrets of the bayou. Sexy as hell with a hint of humor that made me smile as I turned to face him. His hair was loose today, the afro eye-catching and his cheeks scruffier around his normally, neatly trimmed goatee.

  And he was still wearing my t-shirt.

  “Goddam. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of looking at you,” I said, grabbing the material and pulling him to me in a kiss that he returned immediately. I sighed in relief, letting my tongue taste him as his hand snaked around the back of my neck. The kiss lingered and I let it go on. What the fuck did I care if he missed his plane?

  The sound of murmurs and clapping broke through the moment and I groaned when he pulled away from me. I blinked, looking around at the crowd, waving at the guy taking my picture on his cellphone. He waved back and Etienne snorted with laughter as I turned back to face him.

  “Want to tell me why you’re here?” He asked, his fingers stroking my belly just above my waistline. His proximity to my cock was not helping my concentration. “Not that I minded having your tongue down my throat just before boarding. It was better than Starbucks.”

  I ignored his joke, diving in before I lost my nerve.

  “I didn’t come out to the whole world to play it safe. I spent years in the closet, passing up chances because I couldn’t risk everything I’d worked so hard to get.” I fisted my t-shirt again, pulling him close to look him in the eye as I took a leap and tried to keep my ass off somebody’s couch one day. “But I got tired of living a half-life, of worrying about someone else controlling me because of the secrets I wrapped around my me. I was alone and afraid and sick and tired of living that way. When I stepped out on that stage at the press conference, I promised myself that I wouldn’t live like that again.”

  He stared at me, his gaze kind but wary. “And what does that have to do with me?”

  “It has everything to do with you,” I said, grinning when his own face broke into a smile at my words. “I want to try this with you. Long distance sucks but I think I’d be very good at phone sex or Skype-sex. Whatever kind of sex.” He wasn’t stopping me so I just kept going, hoping that something would convince him to say yes. “And I can fly to NOLA all the time. Hockey season will be tricky but I don’t play year-round and we can coordinate our schedules to make it work.” I took a deep breath and went for it. “I don’t want to be old and gray with old balls, lying in some home regretting the fact that I never figured out if what we have is real. I don’t want to miss seeing you first thing in the morning, or missing you so damn much and being pissed because I can’t see you every night. I just don’t want to miss out on ‘us’.”

  Etienne didn’t say anything, just stared at me. I gave him his time, knowing he’d need to process everything I’d just said. It was a lot. It was fast.

  He leaned into me, pressing our foreheads together and spoke just loudly enough for me to hear.

  “I don’t want to miss out on ‘us’ either.” He laughed, pulling me into a tight hug and kissing along my jaw, my neck, ending right at my ear. “I want you, cher.”

  I closed my eyes, wrapping arms around his body and squeezing him tight to me. I was shaking. The big, mean professional hockey player was shaking. A bit of it was fear. A lot of it was excitement. Most of it was happiness.

  Etienne pushed me back a step and I took advantage and kissed him again. This time it was full of heat but also something more. Nothing I could name but something I was looking forward to figuring out.

  We broke apart and I glanced up at the clock. “I think you’re going to miss your flight.”

  He grabbed my face and turned me back to look at him. Etienne gave me the crooked smile that I reall
y hoped was just for me. “There’s another one tomorrow morning at the ass-crack of dawn.” He took my hand and pulled me towards the exit and a cab with our names on it. “We need to celebrate. You’re not a free agent anymore.”

  I looked down at our hands, linked together. “No. I’m not.”

  Epilogue

  DC

  Three months later.

  Verizon Center, Washington DC.

  Game day against the Cajun Rage

  Game day was always exciting.

  No matter what my intentions, I woke at the ass crack of dawn and the hours passed by at warp-speed and my skin got tighter and tighter on my frame with each passing hour. I relaxed, ate right, did some light exercise to warm up my muscles and tried to get into the right headspace to kick some ass for my team, my teammates, my city, and my fans. It’s always a challenge, trying to temporarily cage the hulking beast rattling the prison bars and dying to bash some heads on the ice. Game day was always a long-ass day.

  But everything slowed down the minute I got to the Verizon Center and started the long walk down the hall to the locker room. It’s never quiet, but with my earbuds in and Metallica assaulting my ears, my world finally slowed down. I usually got laser-focused on what needed to happen, how I would execute plays that I’d practiced over and over in my head and on the ice. No matter what happened outside this stadium, once I was there I knew this was what I was meant to do. I had tunnel vision.

  But not today. Today my focus was on the man walking down the hall towards me.

  Etienne. Looking sexy as shit, wearing the other team’s jersey and a shit-eating grin that grew wider and sexier when I let out a low growl of disapproval.

  Etienne’s smile faltered when I grabbed his arm and dragged him into an empty office just to my right. I closed the door behind us, flipped the lock and turned on him with another feral growl. I crowded him, smiling a little when he hit the wall and I trapped him there with the weight of my body. He pressed back, moving against me as he parted his legs just wide enough for me to fill the spot reserved just for me. Nobody else. Just me.

  “I know you work for them but I like it better when you wear my jersey,” I said, nipping his earlobe before continuing across his jaw with kisses, relishing the rough-stubble rasp of it against my lips.

  “I thought you liked it better when I wore nothing.”

  “No,” I answered, pulling back to look at him. “I fucking love it.”

  Etienne’s eyes did that thing where they morph into a molten, sexy, whiskey-colored pool that makes me hard and needy for him. This time was no different and I opened to him when he pressed his mouth on mine and wasted no time sweeping inside with his hot, wet tongue. I moaned and he wrapped is hand around my neck and held me in place, devouring my mouth. I dug my fingers into his hips, dragging our cocks together before sliding my hands to the front where I could cup his long, thick meat.

  Two weeks. That’s how long it had been since I’d seen him and we were both starving for it. For each other. It hadn’t been easy but we’d made it work so far and we were both committed to seeing where it would go.

  I stroked him through the fabric of his pants, loving the groan that forced him to break our kiss and bang his head against the wall behind him in frustration.

  “We can’t do this now,” he forced out between panting breaths. He reached up to run his thumb along my lower lip and I licked it, tasting the salty sweet of his skin.

  “I could suck you,” I said.

  He shook is head. “After two weeks all I want is to be buried inside your tight ass, baby. Nothing else is going to do it.” His hand drifted down to my crotch and gave it a squeeze. “I could blow you. Take the edge off.”

  Etienne coated all of his words with the sexy-burr of his bayou upbringing and it almost broke my will. Almost.

  “I don’t get off before a game. It fucks with my mojo,”

  “You still holding on to that superstition? You know that my Mamere will make the gris-gris for you.”

  I grinned, pressing a lazy kiss to his mouth. “I don’t need your grandma’s voodoo to keep my game-shit together. I got this.” I kissed him again, happy to finally be in the same room with my man. I grinned and pulled our hips together in a final long, slow grind and owned the groan that pushed out from between his full lips. “I got you.”

  “Yeah, you do.” His eyes turned hot and tender, his smile sweet. “I love you, Jamie.”

  I’d been the first one to say it and I never got tired of hearing him repeat those words to me. We were all in and it felt damn good.

  “I love you too, baby,” I said, giving my piss-poor imitation of his accent while I tugged on his jersey and gave it the most evil side-eye I could muster. “I don’t like you wearing the uniform of the enemy even if they do give you a paycheck with a job which fulfills all your dreams and shit.”

  He grinned, raising an eyebrow as he unfastened his belt, the top button and slid down the zipper on his fly.

  “I thought we just covered that we weren’t going to polish our knobs right now.”

  “Just shut up,” he smirked as he pulled down his pants and turned showing off his fine ass in boxer briefs in my team colors. They had the team logo sitting on the juiciest part of his left cheek.

  And my jersey number emblazoned on the right.

  “You bought a pair?” I laughed. The marketing arm of the team had cashed in on the gay fans who showed up at our games with my number on their jerseys and offered up the men’s underwear for them. My teammates had given me never-ending shit about it every time a fan asked me to autograph a pair after a game. I did it with a grin on my face and a well-aimed middle finger aimed in their direction.

  But they looked fucking amazing on Etienne.

  “I did,” he said, pulling up and zipping his pants. “No matter what happens on the ice tonight. You’re my man and I’m rooting for you every time. That being said, the Rage is going to wipe the ice with ya’ll.” Once he was all tucked in, he leaned in to give me a kiss full of humor and a little heat when his tongue swiped along my lower lip. “Winner’s choice in bed tonight.”

  Another kiss, this one from me, fiercer with a hint of teeth and a growl. “We’re going to kick your ass.”

  “Really? You want to get lucky and that’s what you say to me?” He smiled, the one that’s just for me that says he’s got it as bad for me as I do for him.

  He slid past me and I let him because I needed to get to the locker room to actually do my job. But I got in the parting shot.

  “I’m already lucky.”

  About the Author

  A USAToday bestseller, Robin Covington loves to explore the theme of fooling around and falling in love in her books. A 2016 RITA® Award finalist, Robin’s books have won the National Reader’s Choice and Golden Leaf Awards and finaled in the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice, and the Book Seller’s Best.

  She lives in Maryland with her handsome husband, her two brilliant children (they get it from her, of course!), and her beloved furbabies, Dutch and Dixie Joan Wilder (Yes – THE Joan Wilder)

  Drop her a line at robin@robincovingtonromance.com - she always writes back.

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  RUSH

  THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN SERIES:

&nbs
p; A NIGHT OF SOUTHERN COMFORT

  HIS SOUTHERN TEMPTATION

  SWEET SOUTHERN BETRAYAL

  SOUTHERN NIGHTS AND SECRETS

  Blade

  by

  Avery Flynn

  blade

  blād/

  noun: a thin, flat metal runner on an ice skate.

  a dashing or energetic young man.

  “Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.”

  - James Russell Lowell

  A huge thank you to the Flynnbots who had such a great time proposing names for Blade’s hero. Y’all are amazing. Dina Bushrod and Brittany Shivers, thank you both for coming up with the name Flynn. It’s the perfect name for this guy. :) xoxo

  Another huge thank you to all of the suckers *ahem* authors who agreed to be a part of Hot on Ice: A Hockey Romance Anthology. I loved being on the same fictional hockey team as each one of you. Y’all rock. xoxoxo

  1

  Flynn

  On The Ice, Right After Game Seven

  It weighed thirty-four point five pounds.

  It stood thirty-five and a quarter inches high.

  It was made with a silver-nickel alloy and engraved with the names of Flynn Kazakov's heroes, hockey's villains, and—soon—his name.

  The Cajun Rage's fans cheered so loud in the arena and pounded so hard against the glass surrounding the rink that it almost drowned out the blood pounding in his ears when the team captain, Aleks Lazar, handed him the Cup. He dropped his gloves and lifted hockey's holy grail high as he began his victory skate around the rink.