Chapter 1
ELLIE
“All right team, I need you to dig.” I clap my gloved hands together and try to summon whatever remains of my coach voice after two grueling NHL matches in packed stadiums. “They’re a tough opponent, but we can kick their butts. This is the most important game of your holiday season.”
Twelve little faces stare back at me from beneath crooked helmets and oversized pads, most of them beneath Christmas-themed jerseys decorated to look like Santa’s elf costumes.
One tiny hand shoots up. “Coach Ellie!” says Maya, the team’s most enthusiastic skater—and definitely the one least in control of her limbs. “Coach Ellie, I have to use the bathroom!”
I sigh. “I told everyone to go to the bathroom before they got their gear on.”
“But I didn’t have to then.”
“Go,” I say, already waving her toward the tunnel before the rest of the girls suddenly decide that they, too, actually need to use the bathroom even though they were reminded repeatedly earlier.
She slips and slides away like a baby deer on a frozen pond, arms flailing, helmet slightly askew. A couple of the NHL players pause to watch her with mild concern.
The other little girls bounce on their skates, excited to be in the Rhode Islanders stadium. The jumbotron is playing “Frosty the Snowman” while I try to get the team organized.
It’s the Elves vs. Santas hockey game for my U6 girls. Their opponents? The NHL Rhode Islanders team, all wearing Santa hats.
I straighten up and turn to my other team—the one that requires far more supervision.
It’s a fun PR event. The media’s here, ready to eat up every frame of towering hockey players “accidentally” losing to tiny kids.
Parents are in the stands, kids from local schools are cheering, and I am about five minutes away from stress-eating an entire sleeve of candy canes because while I love kid stuff, I do have a big NHL game at night that we need to prep for…
“When are we getting snacks?” Jovi raises his hand as next to him, Carlsson ping-pongs a hockey puck on his stick.
Off on the sidelines, Harlowe is waiting with covered trays of freshly baked treats.
“It’s only two fifteen-minute periods. We will survive. Somehow.”
Fletcher, smirking beneath his crooked Santa hat, skates over to me. “You doing okay, Coach?” he asks, glancing behind me at my squad of glittery little demons spinning around in circles or looking excitedly in the crowd for their parents or asking when, in fact, is snack time.
“Just trying to keep them facing the same direction.”
He grins. “Good thing you’ve had us working on evasive maneuvers.”
“Hey!” I call to my team. “Elves! Get ready! It’s almost game time!”
“Should we go easy on them?” one of the girls stage-whispers to me. “They’re old.”
“Sure,” I say. “But only a little.”
And with that, the buzzer sounds, the ref—one of the NHL refs, grinning because everyone likes this event—drops the puck, the crowd roars, and the sparkly little girls charge the ice like it’s Christmas Eve and someone just opened the doors to the North Pole candy vault.
Game on.
Fletcher is gentle with the little girls. He lets them win the face-off and lets them whiz around the huge men, taking the puck to goal.
The girls start off focused, but after about ten minutes, it devolves into them wanting to be swung around by the huge NHL players or race them over the ice or pass pucks back and forth.
“Girls, focus!” I blow the whistle, but I’m ignored. Ziggy is letting one of the girls tie tinsel around his elbow pads, while Bramms teaches two more how to dangle pucks. A few girls doggedly keep playing. Ren, in goal, is trying to figure out how to guard the net without stepping on anyone.
I look over at Fletcher, who’s flopped on the ice while several girls crawl over him, giggling as they try to move him.
He’s so good with children. I sigh as I watch Fletcher play with the mini hockey players. I need to do something nice for him for Christmas.
“You know your mom made you that new dress,” Harlowe bounces on her feet.
“I know, but I need to shave my legs, and I’m in the middle of hockey season.”
“Or there’s that lingerie you got last Christmas that you haven’t worn. You could spice things up, give him an extra-special Christmas present. Maybe a spa day, clean up those nails, maybe a wax…”
“Thankfully,” I tell her, “it’s winter, and I can wear gloves.”
Harlowe sighs loudly.
“Look,” I protest, “I haven’t been the greatest friend, but I’m just really busy with all this NHL stuff, and I had to hire a strength trainer—”
“Look, I’m going to be real with you here because you’re really not getting this, are you? Your boy there is proposing tomorrow.”
“But tomorrow is Christmas Eve!”
“Yes, so you have less than twenty-four hours to make yourself look Instagram presentable or forever be shamed at family gatherings and held up as a cautionary tale of how not to prepare for your engagement,” she says flatly.
“I’m getting proposed to!” I shriek.
Harlowe claps a hand over my mouth. “Shhh! It’s a secret.
It’s supposed to be a surprise, so you have to act surprised, but friends don’t let friends look like homeless people when a man is giving them a really expensive diamond ring.
So tomorrow morning, I have you booked for all the waxing, all the nail treatments, and you’re going to wash your hair, for God’s sake.
Just because these NHL guys have questionable cleanliness habits doesn’t mean you need to as well. ”
I can’t contain my happiness through the rest of the event. I, Ellie Clarke, am going to be Mrs. Fletcher Sullivan. I practically float as I drift around greeting parents, telling the girls what a great job they did, and handing out the little snack bags my mom and I made.
All the while, I’m dreaming of my wedding—not just the wedding; it’s going to be a whole year: engagement party, bridal shower.
They’re going to be nicer than my cousin Jenny’s wedding events, because I got a pay raise as a coach and I can buy the nice plastic plates with the little flowery designs stamped on them.
It is the ultimate crafting experience—what a girl trains for! Ooh, I bet I could get custom monogrammed plates. I might need to get a new Cricut. I hum.
I’ll need to bring hockey into it, making it a tasteful nod. Definitely the invitations and the cake—can I work it into the flower arrangement?
Fletcher’s the last one in the locker room. He stayed late to pose for photos and sign autographs with all the fans.
I’m carefully taking down the cards and drawings the girls made for the guys, wishing them good luck on their next game, so that the cleaning crew can come through in a few hours and get the locker room ready for tonight’s game.
“Candy Cane.” The deep voice echoes around the empty locker room. The voice of my future husband.
I can’t help it. I jump him.
Wrapping my legs around his waist so I can kiss him, I peel off the layers of protective gear. “I’m so in love with you,” I whisper as I kiss his face, his neck, his collarbone. “Super in love.”
“God, Ellie,” he growls against my mouth, his hands gripping my waist possessively as he spins us around to press my back against the cool metal of his locker. The contrast of the cold metal against my heated skin makes me gasp. “You’re incredible.”
I can feel the raw energy still pulsing through him from the event, that dangerous electricity that always makes him so intense after being on the ice. His Santa hat has fallen somewhere on the floor, and his dark hair is disheveled from where I’ve been fisting my hands in it, pulling him closer.
“You were so good with them today,” I murmur breathlessly, nipping at his jaw before soothing it with my tongue. “Maya’s never going to stop talking about how Fletcher Sullivan let her score three goals.”
He chuckles and pulls back, the sound vibrating through his chest and straight through me. “She’s got a wicked slap shot for a six-year-old. Reminds me of you… all that fire.” He smiles. “I want a little you.”
My heart soars. He wants kids too!
“We could make one right now,” he says with a grin. His hands slide up my sides, deliberate and claiming, thumbs brushing just under the curve of my breasts through my team jacket. The touch is light, but it sets me on fire.
“Maybe a wedding first,” I tease, grinding against him just enough to feel how hard he already is. His eyes go dark, pupils blown wide, and there’s that predatory look—the one that makes me feel like I’m about to be devoured.
“Maybe.” His voice drops to that gravelly tone that goes straight to my core. “You’re going to be such an incredible mom someday… but right now, I need you to be mine.”
The words hit me like a body check, especially knowing what I know about tomorrow. About the ring. About how this man is going to be mine forever. The thought makes me bold, reckless.
“Fletcher…” I breathe out, but he’s already moving, his hands spanning my waist as he lifts me effortlessly, pressing me harder against the lockers. I wrap my legs around him, feeling the solid muscle of his thighs, the way he fits perfectly between my legs.
“I know we’ve got the game tonight,” he says, his voice rough with want as he carries me toward the training room, his mouth never leaving my throat. “But I need you right now. Need to be inside you.”
“The cleaning crew—”
“Won’t be here for hours.” He kicks the door shut behind us, the sound echoing in the empty space. His mouth crashes against mine, all teeth and tongue and desperate need. “You drive me crazy, you know that? Watching you today, being so perfect…”
I should protest. But then his hands are under my jacket, palming my breasts through my bra, and I’m arching into his touch like I’m starving for it.
“I love you,” I gasp as he sets me on the edge of the massage table, his body pressing between my thighs. “I love you so much it makes me want to do reckless things.”
He pulls back to look at me, his eyes burning. “Like what?”
“Like let you fuck me right here where anyone could walk in.” The words tumble out, bold and shameless, and I watch his control snap.
“Christ, Ellie,” he groans, his hands fisting in my hair as he captures my mouth in a kiss that’s all-consuming. “You can’t say things like that to me.”
“Why not?” I challenge, reaching for the hem of his practice jersey, desperate to feel his skin. “Because you might lose control?”
“Because I already have.” His voice is strained as he helps me pull the jersey over his head, revealing the hard planes of his chest and the tattoo that curves along his ribs. “God, look at you. So fucking beautiful.”
His hands are everywhere—sliding my jacket off my shoulders, working at the buttons of my shirt with an urgency that makes my pulse race. When the cool air hits my skin, I shiver, but then his mouth is there, trailing hot kisses down my throat, across my collarbone.
“Fletcher, please,” I whisper, my fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders.
“Please what?” He looks up at me, his eyes dark with desire and something else—love so intense it takes my breath away. “Tell me what you want.”
“You,” I breathe. “All of you. Right here, right now.”
Something shifts in his expression, becomes almost reverent as he reaches up to cup my face.
If only he knew I already know. If only he knew I’m already planning our entire life together, dreaming of the moment he gets down on one knee. But for now, I lose myself in the heat of his touch, the way he makes me feel like I’m the center of his universe.
His mouth is hot on my breast. My hips jerk up, and I strain into his touch.
For a brief moment, I think, shit, I really should have taken Harlowe up on that spa offer sooner. But Fletcher doesn’t seem to care as he tugs my leggings off, strokes my clit, curls his fingers in my pussy until I’m coming, gushing all over the table.
He tugs my hips down. Starbursts in my eyes.
I pant as I hear a condom rip, then he’s thrusting that huge length in my throbbing pussy, silencing my moans with his mouth.
His hair is a little longer, and I tangle my fingers in it as he fucks me.
I can’t wait to do this on our wedding day.
Thankfully, I don’t say that and let it slip that I know about the big proposal!
Because he slides out then whips me on my front so he can fuck my pussy hard from behind, my teeth clacking from the force of those inhumanly large thighs pumping that rock-hard cock up my cunt, his huge hands spreading my legs out so his balls smack against them with every thrust. I arch up into the force of him every time his cock takes me, buries into my pussy, until finally I feel him speed up and his hand tangle in my hair, pulling my head back while giving me three deep thrusts, and then he explodes in the condom, and I’m coming around him while he bites my shoulder, his hand cupping my tit, squeezing, pinching the nipple as he wrings the orgasm out of me.
“Damn, Candy Cane. I’d say you should take on a new career as a puck bunny, except I’d kill any other hockey player who comes near you.”
“Win tonight,” I manage to gasp, my nails raking down his back.
He grins that cocky smile. “Don’t I always?”
“I don’t know. That was a real shameful loss to the Ice Bears last week.”
He snorts and slaps my ass.
The game that night is intense. We’re playing the Calgary Stormriders, and those fans are nuts. They bused down to our stadium, and it’s a sea of blue in the crowd.
They boo their star player when he loses the puck to Zayne. He’s checked by the team’s big, burly Latvian defenseman, and the crowd cheers.
They fight for the puck, Bramms trying to get it to Zayne, Cookie zigzagging across the ice.
Speaking of ice… should we have an ice rink at the wedding? Is it tacky to have an ice rink? Maybe an ice sculpture, or is that overdone?
No, stop thinking about the wedding, watch the game. Be a professional, Ellie. Gosh, you’re giving female coaches a bad name.
“Ellie, watch out!” Harlowe shouts.
“What?” I focus back on the game just in time to see a black flying saucer hurtling right toward me.