by Raine Miller
Max lets out a big belly laugh. “So, you’re his Miss March.”
“In the flesh,” I say, grinning.
“That’s really clever. And cute.”
“And embarrassing to be seen in that ridiculous getup in front of a gazillion people. But…that was how I needed to do it, so c’est la vie.”
“Indeed,” he says. “Well, cheers to you both.”
The game is surprisingly normal for the first two periods. Each team scores in each period, so the game is tied at two-two going into the third.
I can see the concentration on the first-string line’s faces as they huddle on the ice prior to the start of the period. Evan is talking a lot with his hands. Holly is literally bouncing up and down in one corner of the suite, biting her nails.
The period kicks off with Evan in control of the puck right off the bat, making it close enough to shoot before getting checked at the boards. DC seems to be resorting to a lot more physicality in this period than in the previous two.
Mikhail gets tripped on a breakaway, resulting in him on his face and an opposing player in the penalty box. Ready to fight back, Viktor levels one of their offensive players, sending him to the bench on concussion protocol. Ouch.
The minutes tick down, with no more goals, but several hard hits. The game gets to the last two minutes and it looks like we’ll go to overtime, but then I see Georg stop a goal and wing the puck right over to Mikhail. The opposing team would have expected him to send it to Evan, so they’re not in position to stop Mikhail as he nears the goal. The goalie looks ready, though, and someone skates fast to get to him, to provide just a little extra support. Just as Mikhail gets sent to the glass, he pushes the puck backward. Doesn’t take the shot. No, he sends it to Georg, who is right behind Evan. Evan moves to the left, closer to the net, and just when I think Georg will pass it to Evan, he doesn’t. Instead, he takes a shot.
And he scores!
My Georg. My fiancé. A defenseman. He just scored what is likely the game-winning goal in a game the Crush had to win to push this series to a seventh game.
The energy in the arena is electric. The sound in the owner’s suite is overwhelming, with cheers and crying and all kinds of emotional outbursts, including my own. Weeping. That’s me right now, full-on weeping, exposed out in the open where people can see the tears streaming down my face. But I don’t care about either. It’s not something I’m used to feeling, but then none of this is familiar because I’ve never been in love before. I didn’t know love like this was even possible for someone like me.
But with Georg Kolochev it is. It so is.
A million hours between his goal and the moment I’ll finally get to be with him again are passing at a snail’s pace. I realize he had to do the post-game press with some of the other players and shower, but I’m terribly impatient waiting in the hallway for him to finish up. I pull out my phone for what easily could be the tenth time, when I feel familiar strong arms wrap around me from behind. A sigh of pure relief comes out of me as he presses his body flush with mine. His spicy cologne fills my nose as his damp hair falls forward to brush against my cheek. I close my eyes and just take him in. Finally.
“I’m looking for my smokin’ hot fiancée. Blonde. Legs for days. Rocks a bunny suit like a Playboy model. Wears it better, actually. Seen her?”
All is right in my world again.
I’m in Georg’s arms and he’s kissing me. I’m pretty sure we’re both crying. It’s the best feeling in the world. “What do you want to do tonight?” I ask once he lets me come up for air.
“You.” He’s not even joking. His eyes take on a serious note as they move over me intently.
“Well, that’s a given, but were you planning to go out if you guys won? I know I was a surprise for you tonight showing up like I did, and maybe you had plans for after the game with—“
I don’t get a chance to say more because Georg shuts off my babbling with his beautiful lips. Beautiful lips I’ve missed so, so much. Showing me how much he’s missed me too. Kissing me senseless, until I don’t remember the question I even asked.
Doesn’t matter.
Don’t care.
Pretty sure Georg doesn’t care either.
We end up doing the most mundane thing ever. Pizza and salads while watching the post-game cuddled on my couch. His physical exhaustion pretty much matches my emotional exhaustion right now, so when he told me he wanted to go home with me, where we could be alone, I offered my very enthusiastic approval to his “plan.”
I ordered our dinner from my phone as he drove. To my place. I wonder if he wants our reunion to be back at my condo because that’s where we left things, and he needs to cancel that other sad memory out. I sense he’s deep in thought from the intense expression on his face. Every few moments he looks over at me and smiles. He holds my left hand in his right until he needs it to drive, but then it comes right back to find mine again. Now that I think about it, his hands have been all over me since we met up in the tunnel. It feels to me as if he’s worried. Like if he lets go of me, I’ll slip away or leave him. That thought gives my heart a sharp pang for hurting him., but I tell myself he’ll never have to worry about me leaving ever again.
“How long until the food gets here?” he asks the minute we’re inside.
“Forty-five minutes to an hour,” I whisper, barely able to get the words out. I’m nervous, and the predatory gleam in his eyes as he backs me against the wall ratchets up the tension another notch.
“Perfect. Just enough time to take the edge off, because that’s all it’ll be. I need you over and over again until this ache I’ve been carrying around for too fucking long is totally obliterated.”
His words cause tears to spring to my eyes as I nod up at him. “Whatever you need, I want to give you.”
That gets me a smile.
It’s not long before his fingers are up my skirt and he’s sliding his palm over my thigh, covering as much skin as he possibly can. I return the favor by unbuttoning his shirt and tugging it free of his pants. The defined planes of his pectoral muscles, as always, look good enough to lick. When I do exactly that with a wet kiss over a peaked nipple, he shudders into my neck. “I love you so much, and I hated every day that I couldn’t be with you.”
“I hate that I caused all of those days apart for us. I’m so sorry.”
“You were scared, I get it. But we can get over our pasts. We can move forward together. Right?”
“Together,” I say, dipping my hand down into his pants to find his cock. After releasing him from the confines of his boxers, I stroke the silky length to full, erect hardness. It doesn’t take long. “I want that very much, Georg. In fact, that’s all I want.”
He groans, pushing himself hard into my hand. “Feels so good…Pamela, more like that.”
His palm grinds between my legs as I stroke him, his lips kissing down my neck to find my mouth periodically, our tongues mingling before retreating again.
“I don’t want to come like this,” he says pulling me over to the couch. “I want to be inside you when I come.”
Happy to oblige, I straddle him after he sits. With zero hesitation, his fingers push my panties aside for quick access. Thank God, because there isn’t time to take them off. Roughly, he plunges inside me at the same time his mouth claims mine in a blistering kiss. I’m full of him. He’s everywhere. So deep, so big, so penetrating. I can’t help the sound that comes out of me—a cry of pleasure and pain in equal measures. He swallows that too. The pleasure is because he’s inside me once more, but the pain because I was the one who caused us to be apart in the first place. I don’t have long to ponder though, because he begins to move. Hands at my back, in my hair, at my neck, working my body to fit his need of me. I’m lost in the sensation of being claimed by my man. Totally and irrefutably claimed. His mouth skims along my jaw, moving down into my cleavage where a nipple peeks out from the low neckline of my dress. He nips at it, shooting heat straight to my
core as his cock spears into me.
His palm finds my clit and grinds at it, the pressure intense as we pick up the pace. I can’t get close enough, can’t move fast enough. The pressure builds and builds, and I can hear myself moaning. Over and over he slams into me, melding our bodies into something fucking wonderful. Wonderful fucking for sure. Georg knows what I need, because his free hand pushes at my ass, pushing me forward so his other hand is a constant pressure against my clit.
I see stars when the climax hits. Literally, my vision goes fuzzy. My breathing halts. I’m in outer space, for all I know. All I feel is the pulsating vibration of being thoroughly and truly loved tingling through my whole body.
When I come back to reality, I’m sagged against Georg, barely coherent, but enough to see that his eyes are closed, his chest is heaving, and his cock is still shuddering inside me as he works out the end of his own orgasm.
“We came together,” he finally breathes. “Like it should be.”
* * *
Georg
Game seven remains at home, and the streets of the Vegas Strip are lined in Crush colors. People, flags, lights…it’s all for us. We are at a pre-game signing party, and I’ve probably had four women tell me they should be my fiancée instead of Pamela Jenson.
Of course, they’re completely wrong. After a long night of reconnecting—in about every position possible—I woke up early to a text from Scott, congratulating me on the engagement and the big bonus he just scored for me based on my goal in game six.
I promptly kissed my sleeping fiancée’s head and snuck out to meet a jeweler I know so I could blow that bonus on a ring. I’ve now had forty-eight hours to soak her in, and think I’m leveled out back to normal again.
When the conversation got around to talking about our wedding, I was the one to bring it up. Would we have a long engagement? Live together for a while first? Pam rushed in saying that we didn’t have to get married right away, and if I wanted to wait indefinitely it was okay with her. I put a stop to that noise immediately. I took her face in my hands, looked her right in the eyes and said, “I’ve just gotten you back and I’m not interested in waiting to make it official. I’m marrying the fuck out of you just as soon as we can arrange it.”
That earned me some happy smiles. I think she really had worries that she’d pushed me with the proposal at the game, but I assured her she was wrong. I have ways of convincing my woman that I love her. In the end, we both agreed a Vegas wedding was totally for us, but lying on a beach somewhere was what our honeymoon needed to be about.
I need to get through this game tonight, because while I love hockey, I love my woman, too. And I just got her back, so I have some time to make up in the bedroom.
After our fan experience event, we all head to the arena to suit up. The whole therapy and conditioning team is on hand, offering stretching, massages, and warm-up support. Pam’s supervising therapist, Andy, tells me with a wink that if Pam gives me a massage today, we need to keep it PG. I decide to let it go, though part of me wants to clock him since he was obviously the one who shared that audio file with management. Dickhead.
In pre-game, Evan and the offensive coaches decide that our play at the end of game six will be considered a fluke, so we devise a plan to get me to scoring range once more. We can only make it work once, and if we fail, we won’t be able to get away with it again.
When we skate out onto the ice, among on the pre-game excitement, the league’s executives are on hand with the cup, which is on the display during the National Anthem. Max Terry is there, too, and as he welcomes everyone to game seven, he also says that it is his pleasure to award this year’s Norris Defensive Trophy to one of his own.
“This player has demonstrated a resolve this year that I haven’t seen in a long time. Personal resolve, physical resolve, and team resolve. We would not be where we are tonight without him. I give you Georg Kolochev.”
I’m stunned. The Norris Trophy? Seriously? I swear I’ve died and gone to heaven.
I go up and hoist the trophy, giving Max a hug and posing for pictures. And then it’s time to play. The starting music plays and Coach Brown gives a few last-minute instructions as the ice is cleared.
When the first period starts, there is literally nothing that can bring me down. Nothing that can stop me. I have my team. My career. A new trophy. And Pamela. I have her, and I couldn’t be happier.
So, when Evan gives the signal, the stars are aligned and I know I can’t be stopped.
Goal!
Epilogue
Two weeks later.
Fripp Island, South Carolina
So Pam found this destination wedding package to Fripp Island that is fucking amazing. We invited my parents and sisters to join us on our honeymoon for a beach holiday, after we’d had a few days to ourselves first. Well, not exactly with us, but nearby in their own cottage. We see them at the restaurants sometimes or when we feel like being social. They all absolutely love Pam, and she’s fit right in with my sisters like they’ve known each other for years. I think with her in my life, Irina and Zoya might finally be able to convince my father to allow them to come to Vegas for university. We’ll see how it goes, but the possibility is not as remote as it once was.
Fripp Island is all about privacy and fun activities like kayaking and windsurfing, anything beach related, really. I’m improving at windsurfing every time I go out. I also like that the privacy means I can have time with my woman in a beautiful place and not have to worry about someone spying on us and spreading shit. We are one-hundred percent legal now regardless. Our wedding was a fun Vegas party with all our friends and families joining in the craziness. Pam’s mom couldn’t take two weeks away to vacation with us, but at least she was able to spend a few days here on the island with her daughter before she had to head back to work. I like her. She’s a tough lady, and I can totally see where Pam gets her independent streak.
We’re kayaking over to an adjacent smaller island to check it out a little later with couple we met at dinner the other night. James and Winter Blakney, also on their honeymoon, same as us. He’s a lawyer and she’s a social worker in Boston. I didn’t tell them what I did at first, but then again, I didn’t need to. Turns out they hold season tickets in Boston and already knew who I was long before we all ended up honeymooning on the same island. James came up to me, stuck out a hand and said, “My wife is a huge fan.” Those were the first words out of his mouth. To which Pam replied, “His wife is a huge fan too,” while tucked into my side and winking at them. Winter’s expression turned immediately to horrified as she scolded, “Yeah right, that wasn’t stalkery at all, James!” It was funny, and we all had a good laugh before introducing ourselves properly. They are a really cool couple, and we plan to connect whenever we’re in Boston for a game.
This morning while we were eating breakfast on the deck, we saw dolphins body surfing, shredding waves, having a blast. A few minutes later a mother deer and her two babies wandered into the grassy yard below our cottage. This place is a full-on nature nest. Pam has taken so many pictures that it’ll take a year to go through them all.
We’ve chosen to post some on social media. Nothing too invasive of our privacy, or of our families here on the island, but some fun pics of the two of us to appease the fans. After the proposal on the ice in game six, Crush social media followers became super-crazed, desperate for an official update on what happened with us. It was all over sports news around the world. We knew we had to give them something before things went sideways with the stalker-fans. Yeah, unfortunately they’re out there, and pretty much every player has dealt with one or two getting far too close for comfort at least once. There’s a whole slew of stans trolling Crush players daily anyway. Realizing there was a wedding happening somewhere in the world with the hockey couple of the moment? We needed some professional help in dealing with all the attention.
Lucky for us we know the right people—or more accurately, the right person. Holly came up w
ith a brilliant plan to solve the issue. We picked out a bunch of pictures of the wedding and included my teammates in some of the shots, which Holly then made into a fun photo series for the official Crush media accounts. We also send her pictures from Fripp Island and answer one fan question each day, (rated PG of course) and she takes care of the rest.
The team is off for the summer until the season starts up again in the fall. We spent the week after game seven of the finals moving Pam into my place and speed-planning our wedding so we could have a long honeymoon lounging on the beach. So far, so good. I have another ten days to make love to my wife with only the sounds of the wind and the waves around us.
Every. Chance. I. Get.
I still love the fact I am her first. I fucking love that I was the guy who lucked out being the one to deliver her sin-shot. I ask her all the time if the wait was worth it. She just laughs and tells me I need to demonstrate my technique again so she can make an informed decision.
When I’m not doing filthy things to my wife—in every position imaginable, in every room of our beach cottage—I coax her outside to enjoy the great outdoors with me.
In her orange and pink bikini.
Hot. Off-the-fucking-chain-hot is my wife on the beach in a bathing suit. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time drooling over my spectacular view. I also make sure she has plenty of sunblock on all that skin, so she doesn’t get sunburned. I love taking care of her, but mostly I just love her and count my lucky fuckin’ stars. There are a lot of them to count.
Because loving Pamela Kolochev is my most important job of all.
She needed me as much as I needed her.
This is our truth. Eto nasha pravda.
Sneak Peek of RED ROCKET
