Chapter 1 #3
“My family disowned me. They chose to beat and abandon me, sending me to that Discipline School just because they found me kissing a boy. From that moment, I was dead to them because I wasn’t the perfect child that they’d imagined in their heads.
You know, my family had a Sunday ritual too: Church, followed by traditional family Italian Sunday lunch together.
I would help to fetch the vegetables from the garden for the meal.
I never felt unloved, until the moment that my brother…
” He breaks off, taking a steadying breath.
“It’s hard to hold those two realities together at the same time.
But I’ve realized it’s possible to think you love someone, only it’s conditional.
The moment that someone doesn’t behave within your morals, you reveal how little you truly loved them.
It wouldn’t be like that if I was a dad.
We could give a kid a home who needs it — someone who needs to be unconditionally loved because they weren’t the first time around just like me or the twins. Or do you want a child with one of us?”
My heart aches.
I take a deep breath. “I am happy just as we are. Our relationship works. I’m not…
I don’t need a child right now to fix anything, you know?
But if you, Shay, or Eden want to discuss that in the future, then I’m open to it.
I love that we have the type of relationship where we can talk about things and explore them.
I didn’t have that before in my marriage.
In fact, I didn’t know relationships could work like that.
Wilder just did what he wanted, and I had to accept it or be gaslit into feeling guilty. I never had a voice.”
“Wilder is an abusive asshole. You’re always going to have a voice in this family.” D’Angelo tightens his hold around me. “How about we start with rescuing a cat together at the end of the season?”
“Eden will think that is his baby.”
D’Angelo chuckles. “At our last home, he already adopted a squirrel.”
This time, Eden scores and celebrates with some kind of complicated knee slide.
My gaze lands on the Guide, which has fallen open on the rug.
I surprise D’Angelo by throwing myself off his lap to grab the book, before he can stop me.
I swing the Guide above my head like a sport trophy. “Ah ha! What do we have here? What great work of art have you been working on?”
“Crook,” D’Angelo grumbles.
I waggle my eyebrows. “Your PR Director. Surprisingly, this season I’ve found that the line between the two isn’t as firm as I thought it’d be.”
He crosses his arms. “That’s because I’m a bad man.”
“Well, then I’m a woman who is brave enough to steal from bad men. What is…?”
I blink at the drawings in sparkly pink of gangs of stickmen…and women… in wildly confusing positions.
I suspect, smutty ones.
After all, this is Jude fucking D’Angelo.
He slowly unrolls his shirtsleeve. “Turn back a page and read the new section that I added.”
A Guide to Pucking Hockey Players
D’Angelo’s Number One Rule: Win on the ice. Earn the night off it. We play hard, and we puck even harder.
Top three reasons:
Every big game is a chance to test new positions and see just how much fun we can handle…under the sheets.
Hockey is thrilling, but our nights together? Life-changing.
The Prince twins turn every victory into pure mischief.
But never forget it all began with D’Angelo…
“Are you ever going to stop using hockey puns?” I ask.
“Unlikely,” D’Angelo unrolls his second sleeve, “as I’m honing my skills as a romance author. I need something to back up my hockey career. I could be the first hockey player with a bestseller.”
“Not with writing like this,” I mutter.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” I tap the book. “What does it mean? Every hockey game you win, wins us a fantasy night as a reward?”
D’Angelo’s expression becomes wicked. “More than that. A new position. Turn the page.”
I flick through over the page, staring at the pictures.
Oh, they are kinky stick people.
Except, in one of the positions, it looks like the female stick version of me is being impaled, in another I’m upside down with legs everywhere, while another just looks like a centipede.
I wrinkle my nose.
“I call this Pucking Them Positions,” D’Angelo explains. “They’re new, exciting positions that we haven’t tried together yet, which are more on the adventurous side.”
“Don’t you mean possibly deadly?”
“You may feel like you’ve died and flown to heaven by the time that I’ve finished with you.” D’Angelo’s expression becomes sultry. He does up his diamond cuff links, adjusting them three times. “Of course, I’ll add an extra twist from your fantasy list as well.”
My pulse quickens.
Each of us wrote down a list of our fantasies and dream roleplays, which then D’Angelo sealed and kept secret.
He’s a control freak like that.
Okay, I admit that I love it.
“Which ones?” Excitement rushes through me.
“You’ll have to guess.” D’Angelo’s voice is deep and dangerous. “Not knowing which of your dark desires you’ll earn if we win a game will only add to the anticipation. Delayed pleasure is the best kind, don’t you agree, cara mia?”
“Can I say no, when we both know that the answer is yes?”
Before he can answer (no doubt smugly by the curve of his unfairly sensual lips), a high-pitched voice begs from my pocket: “Help, I’m trapped.”
“There appears to be a tiny man trapped in your pocket,” D’Angelo points out, dryly. “Have you been going around kidnapping pixies because they’re cute?”
“It’s fae romance that I’m reading right now, and even their dicks wouldn’t fit in my pocket.
” I pull out my phone. “That’s my notification sound.
Shay keeps recording different ones to cheer me up with Eden aiding and abetting him.
I’ve been receiving so many from the press over the last month that it’s been exhausting.
They wanted to help me smile, while I’ve been working such long hours… and barely being off this damn phone.”
I look up to catch Shay grinning at me. He salutes, then he launches the ball at the back of the net, before nonchalantly walking back to the middle of the pitch with a cocky smirk.
“Are you okay?” D’Angelo grips my chin, pulling my attention back onto him. “This is meant to be our weekend together away from work.”
I pull my chin out of his hold. “Unfortunately, I still have a job to do. And after you decided to come out so dramatically as being in a poly relationship with me in the middle of the arena on game night…”
“I remember you being part of it too, along with Shay and Eden.”
“How could I forget that? It was the best night of my life. It felt amazing to finally be open like that. It’s been fucking liberating not to have to hide and keep our relationship secret anymore.
On the other hand, what has been a PR triumph with the staff, team, and certain fans, has also been a disaster with the board, superfans, and press.
Well, most of them.” My knuckles whiten around my phone.
“I’ve been fighting fires with my charm, offers for interviews, and Eden’s photography skills.
Admittedly, Eden’s skills work much better than my charms.”
“Only because they don’t know the same charms as I do.” D’Angelo thumbs along my cheek, and I flush.
“Sorry, I have to check this.” I pale, however, when I open the message on my phone.
“What is it?” D’Angelo’s voice is threaded with concern.
“Just a link to another press headline.” I thrust the phone violently back into my pocket. “They’ve been rough this month, but we knew that they would be. You focus on the games, and I’ll focus on the press. It’s my job to shield you.”
“Principessa, it’s my job to shield you too. We swore that we weren’t going to hide anything from each other anymore. You better tell me or…” He dives to the glass bowl of strawberries, shoving them behind his back. “No more treats.”
My mouth tightens.
Well played.
“The headline read: Pucking Them: The Problem with the NHL Polycule.”
D’Angelo’s eyes flash with anger. “So, we have a nickname, the NHL Polycule…? What’s our problem, precisely?”
“Who knows? Even though they know nothing about us or poly relationships, we’ve been accused by the media of cheating, jealousy, and immorality.
They blame me for corrupting you players and probably fucking your careers.
” I try not to let it show that I share that fear but I’m not sure that I’m successful.
“At best they seem to think that this is a type of kinky set up for us.”
“They’re right on the kinky.” D’Angelo is fiddling with his cuffs compulsively.
Shocked, I realize that his hands are shaking.
“The prejudiced assholes can write whatever they like about me. After all, I’ve given them material for years with my wild partying.
But I won’t let them write that bullshit about Shay, Eden, or you. What do we do?”
Suddenly, I realize that his hands are shaking from rage.
Gently, I scoot closer to him, until our thighs are touching. “I’ll arrange an interview with a friendly journalist who I trust not to twist what I say and present our side. Don’t worry, I’ve got this. I mean it, your head needs to be in the games next week.”
D’Angelo’s heavy, assessing gaze settles on me.
I squirm.
It’s almost like D’Angelo knows me well enough that I am hiding something else.
To be fair, Eden and I both are.
As D’Angelo’s PA, Eden has been screening his social media since our announcement, and we have both been blocking the tirade of hate.
And the death threats.