by RJ Scott
Drago skated back to the crease and took up position. Simba skated at Ryan and Rafferty as a pair, and together they stopped him from getting a shot on the net.
Ryan didn’t even want to think why he couldn’t stop Loki.
“It’s because you’re fucking his sister,” Rafferty sniped as they crossed.
Ryan slid to a halt, spraying ice, and turned on a dime, straight up in Rafferty’s face. “If you say that one more time….”
“What?” Rafferty snapped, right up in Ryan’s face too. “You wanna drop gloves?”
And Ryan did. He had enough tension in him to have every muscle vibrating with the need to exact punishment on someone. With speed he dropped his gloves, and so did Rafferty. The man was grinning as if he wanted this, and fuck, Ryan was ready. He let his fists fly. With every hit his temper lessened, and only when they fell to the ice and he was sprawled over Rafferty did he realize Rafferty hadn’t really fought back.
“Better?” Rafferty asked innocently, his words slurred because he was swallowing blood.
“What the hell?”
“Now, sort out Loki, and we can play properly.” Rafferty shoved him off.
When Ryan looked up, he saw the proffered hand. Not one other skater had gotten involved. Rafferty helped him stand and then skated away, and was that whistling? Was he fucking whistling? Clearly, Ryan hadn’t hit him hard enough.
He turned to spot Loki skating lazy circles at the other end of the rink, evidently willing to let the two D-men work it out for themselves, but that didn’t sort the main issue. Loki was avoiding him, and Ryan was dodging Loki.
Drago looked really confused; Coach just looked pissed. In a flurry of movement, Ryan picked up his gloves, pulled them on, and booked it up the other end of the rink. In a smooth move, he stole the puck from Loki and took it behind the net, stopping by the boards.
“Lame,” he shouted at Loki.
Loki stared and then turned his back, skating away.
Ryan wasn’t having that. He turned on the speed, knocking into Loki and edging him toward the boards. “Come on!” he shouted, but Loki wouldn’t engage. If anything, he was moving away, skating backward, and Ryan saw red. He headed straight for Loki, pushing him to one side and taking his best friend by surprise.
Loki pinwheeled, only getting his balance at the last minute.
“You don’t like it that I’m with your sister,” Ryan snapped, shoving hard, pushing Loki right into the boards and sandwiching him there. The feel of it was familiar: Ryan in control. “You don’t like me touching her? Huh?”
“Get off me,” Loki snapped.
“No!” Ryan pressed harder, knocking his stick against the boards, dislodging the puck. “Come at me.”
Rafferty was right. This careful way that Loki was treating him, this reaction Ryan was having while not wanting another confrontation, it all had to stop, right now.
Finally, Loki pushed back at him. Ryan felt strong, and abruptly he needed to play. He got the puck, skating it away, hoping to hell Loki was following. Then knowing he was, because Loki was the fastest skater, and he passed Ryan, stick-handling the puck away from him—Loki’s skills were still sharp. They continued like that, the puck changing hands, shoving and cursing and just being them.
Being Loki and Ryan.
And it felt so perfect.
When they were gassed, when there was nothing left to give, they leaned on the net at the opposite end to everyone.
“I know you think I’m not good enough for her,” Ryan began. His breathing was heavy and he was talking between sharp inhalations to drag oxygen into his body.
Loki was the same; he’d taken his helmet off and sweat ran down his face. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“We’re hockey players. We fuck and leave, Ryan. It’s who we are. I don’t want that for Kat.”
Pain knifed him—hurt that his best friend thought he would do that. “Not Kat. I love her. I want to marry her.”
Loki blinked as though Ryan had just announced he was going to go out, grab Kat, and drag her off to a Vegas chapel. “What?”
“She wants you to give her away.”
“Wait, you asked her already?” Loki smacked the pipes with a gloved hand. “How many more secrets?”
“I haven’t asked her. I kind of wanted you to give it your blessing, trust me to cherish her.”
Loki still stared. “Did you just use the word cherish in a sentence?” He snorted a laugh of disbelief and wiped sweat from his face with the sleeve of his jersey.
Ryan swiped a hand at Loki’s arm. “Fucker.”
“Look after her, you asshole. She’s all I have, okay?”
It seemed utterly appropriate that Ryan undertook one of the most important conversations of his life on the ice, in uniform, with his best friend. “Always,” he said.
Snow rose up in a small cloud as Rafferty skated to a stop next to them. A butterfly bandage sat just next to his eye and his lips were swollen. “Done talking, fuckers?” he asked, with a single raised eyebrow. Then he stole the puck and skated away.
“Do we have him to thank for this?” Ryan hoped not.
“He’s still an asshole,” Loki muttered.
And together they headed right for Rafferty. But this time they were on the same side.
Their first three games of the new season were away games, the first a 3–2 win in overtime. The Senators were good, but the Dragons were better. Loki scored one and assisted on another. Of course, that got skewed with two losses, the Wings and Sabers handing them their asses in back-to-back shutouts.
But Coach was happy—well, in the moments he wasn’t pissed off and shouting at them.
Their next game was at home, the opener of the season, and as they flew home from the Sabers’ stadium, Ryan felt strong. Not to mention he was seeing Kat as soon as they landed. Phone sex had been unsatisfying, nothing like making love. It was wrong and sexy at the same time, and all he wanted to do was kiss his girl.
She’d hate that he thought of her like that, so he never told her.
At her place, she was in his arms as soon as the door shut behind him and they were alone. He lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He kissed her as if he needed the taste of her to breathe.
“Missed you.” He muttered into the kiss.
“Missed you too.”
“Marry me,” he blurted as she moved in for more kisses.
She didn’t even hesitate, twisting her hands in his hair. “Yes.”
“Vegas?”
“Nicky would kill us if he didn’t get to give me away.”
“We’ll take him with us.”
“And Simba? Your best man, remember him?”
“Shit.”
“And the rest of the team? They’d be pissed if we had a party and didn’t ask them. And the guys at the station, and my friends, and Ally.”
They stopped in the middle of the front room. Or rather, he stopped because she was clinging to him hard.
“Will you marry me, right in front of everyone, and kiss me, and eat cake, and wear a beautiful dress, and make me wear a tux?”
She appeared to consider the question, tilting her head and then smiling. “You’d need to get a custom tux,” she murmured.
He laughed and they kissed again, and this time he carried her through the front room, only half looking where he was going. Somehow they ended up in the bedroom, and he had most of her clothes off, and all his own, when he abruptly stopped.
“You know this is my last year on the contract I have with the Dragons,” he said. Hell knows where this had come from, why it seemed so important all of a sudden, but she had to know what she was getting into. “I don’t know if I’ll get a qualifying offer from them after that.”
“You will.” She sounded so confident. “They won’t let you go.”
“And injuries?”
“I’m a trained paramedic.”
“And if I get tra
ded to the West Coast, or hell, down to Florida?”
“We’ll make it work even if you become a Phantom down in Miami.”
“What about Loki? If he’s here and we’re… somewhere else.”
“One, I don’t think he’ll want you gone, anyway, so he’ll make sure they keep you, and two, you heard of those things called planes?”
Ryan stared down at her laid across the bed, every inch on display. “You’ll be my WAG,” he said with a grin.
She frowned, and then a smile spread across her face. “Yep. I’ll need lots of diamonds and cars.”
He leaned over, holding both of her hands in one of his, marveling at how this tiny woman could bring him to his knees, both literally and figuratively. “I can do that,” he said. “I have savings.”
“All I want is you.”
Ryan kissed her. “You already have me.”
They kissed again, and everything was right in Ryan’s world.
The first home game of the season was against the Lightning, a team that seemed to have their act together early on in the season. Another loss, which this time had Coach pacing the locker room in utter silence, his normal way of launching a shitfest at his players.
But there was no shouting.
Instead he talked about speed and purpose, in a quiet, resolute tone.
“You have to be better,” he concluded.
The after-match interviews were subdued. Simba seemed to be feeling it the most. Even though he went to each member of the team and gave words of encouragement, no one went to him to say the same thing.
When Simba walked past him, Loki said, “We’ll do better.”
Simba stopped and nodded his agreement. “Yes, we will.”
Loki glanced over at Ryan, who raised an eyebrow. They needed to pull this together.
Winning the next game was exactly what the Dragons needed, and they did it. So yes, they were down in wins overall, but the four-zero score in their favor today was motivating.
Even Simba smiled at the way the team had worked: passes accurate, fast skating, no stupid penalties, the four goals all things of beauty—no messy scrambling around the net. Drago managed a shutout, which had the taciturn goalie smiling in the locker room.
But the game that he loved the best so far was the next one, another win, this time against the Leafs at home. Because Kat was off duty and was against the glass, right behind the bench.
The team she’d supported as a kid—the local team to the three of them, and Ryan had done his work, gotten the three stars for unstoppable defending and scoring one of the goals, a gorgeous pass from Simba while he was trapped against the boards.
Once the puck went in the net, Ryan skated right up to her and tapped on the glass. She might hate that the team she’d supported as a kid had lost. But she was wearing Ryan’s jersey, and she didn’t look disappointed.
Instead she made a heart with her hands and placed it over her chest, then blew him a kiss.
Ryan only snapped out of his sappy grin when Rafferty smacked him on the ass with his stick.
Yep. Best game ever.
EPILOGUE
Kat had a way of compartmentalizing work and life; the same as most first responders, but today had been a bad day.
Dennison found her sitting in the changing rooms, still in her uniform, quietly staring into the distance. He would know she wouldn’t want to talk; he’d been at the call as well.
“Bad day” was all he said.
“Yeah.”
A couple more of the guys came in.
The rookie—Josephine “call me Jo or I will murder you in your sleep” Glievens—slumped onto the bench next to Kat. “She’s conscious,” Jo said softly.
Kat knew what she meant, that the woman the guys had cut from the car was alive, which meant the kids in the back still had a mother. “Good news.”
“And the kids’ dad had turned up at the scene when we got the kids out.”
That was all Kat needed to know. The family was intact.
“Beer?” Dennison asked.
Once their shift was over, some would release tension in a bar, sharing a beer and some gallows humor before heading home. Some, like Kat, wanted a different kind of space.
Ryan was back today after one of the longest road trips, one loss and two wins. The Dragons were maybe only three points from the top of the Atlantic Division at this point, and when they spoke last night postgame, Ryan had been on a high.
She kind of needed that right now. Car accidents with children were her personal tipping point and she drove home carefully, only more aware of the dangers that could rip a family apart; she was always jittery after calls like today.
But her heart lifted when she saw Ryan at the door, leaning as he always did—his arms over his chest and his expression serious. She’d called him to say she’d be late, that the call they’d been on wasn’t good. And he’d waited for her, as he always did if he could. Her big strong guy with arms that held her and a heart as open as hers was waiting for her to help her through anything that had happened.
She locked the car and hurried up the steps, falling into his open arms and holding tight. “It’s all okay,” she said against his skin.
And it was. The family was safe, Ryan was home, and she was here with him. He looked bruised. The Dragons’ last game had been brutal, but she kissed each bruise she could see, murmuring her discontent with them, and all he did was chuckle.
Ryan closed the door and lifted her off her feet, and she would never get tired of that. He set her down and examined her face. “You look tired. Is everything okay?”
“Bad call today,” she said.
He didn’t press for more. He never did—just listened when she wanted to talk, and he accepted her need to work things out in her head. He held her tight and she gripped hard to him.
Hugging became kissing, which turned into a trail of clothes to the bedroom. Only lying on his back did she catalog each mark left by the hard games.
“Did you ice this one?” she asked and prodded the worst of them on right arm.
“Yes ma’am,” he whispered, and pulled her down for another kiss. “You probably need to kiss it better though.”
“I’ll kiss them all better,” she said, and sucked a new bruise just below his collarbone.
“I have bruises all over me,” he teased.
She laughed and kissed him so thoroughly they parted just to get a breath.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll find them all.”
And that was a promise she intended to keep.
THE END
THE HEART, ICE DRAGONS #2
Coming Spring 2017
Simba’s story
www.rjscott.co.uk | www.rozennscott.co.uk
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THE LEGACY, ICE DRAGONS #3
Coming Summer 2017
www.rjscott.co.uk | www.rozennscott.co.uk
Sign up for RJ’s newsletter to keep up to date with news & releases
Table of Contents
The Code
All Rights Reserved
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
The Heart, Ice Dragons #2
The Legacy, Ice Dragons #3
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