Pucking Longing (Savage Skaters #11)

Chapter 1

Vanessa

The problem with revenge wasn’t the moral ambiguity or the potential criminal record. It was the footwear.

Revenge was not designed for four-inch Louboutin boots with a heel specifically engineered to shatter hearts, not navigate the icy slush of a Vermont February.

I shivered, the wind cutting right through my bubblegum-pink cashmere coat like it was made of gauze. The cold here at Sterling University was a physical assault. It was a heavy, wet cold that settled in the marrow of your bones and whispered that summer was a lie you’d told yourself to survive.

I hated it. I hated the Gothic architecture that loomed over me like judgmental gargoyles. I hated the smell of woodsmoke that everyone else found "charming" but just made me think of things burning. And right now, more than anything, I hated Chad.

Chad. Even his name sounded like a popped collar.

My breath plumed in the air, a ragged cloud of white in the darkness behind the Sterling Sentinels’ ice arena.

The service door was supposed to be propped open.

I knew this because Chad, in his infinite wisdom and lack of operational security, had bragged three weeks ago about how the equipment manager always left it unlatched for late-night pizza deliveries.

He had told me that while his hand was up my skirt in the back of his Jeep. Back when I thought his stupidity was charming. Back before I found out he was sleeping with his Anatomy TA, a girl whose eyebrows were terrified of each other and whose defining personality trait was "gymnastics."

I tugged at the heavy steel handle. It groaned, the metal biting into my gloved palm, and then gave way.

Jackpot.

I slipped inside, the sudden silence of the building pressing against my eardrums. The air changed instantly. The biting wind was replaced by the industrial hum of electricity and the overwhelming, distinct scent of an ice rink.

It smelled like chemicals, rubber, and unwashed men. It smelled like testosterone bottled and left to ferment.

I wrinkled my nose, my pulse thrumming a frantic rhythm against my throat. You shouldn’t be here, Vanessa. The voice in my head sounded suspiciously like my father, President Sterling. Be a good girl. Be a ghost. Don’t make waves. Don’t ruin the brand.

Being the "Campus Princess" meant living in a glass box. Everyone watched you, waiting for a crack. If I got caught breaking into the holy sanctuary of the hockey team, my father wouldn’t just expel me; he’d probably lock me in a tower until I was thirty.

But the anger in my chest was a living thing, hot and coiling. It demanded blood. Or, at the very least, vandalism.

I adjusted the strap of my oversized Chanel bag, feeling the weight of the spray paint can and the tube of industrial-strength lipstick I’d swiped from the drama department.

I wasn’t going to destroy anything expensive—I wasn’t a monster, just a woman scorned—but I was going to make sure Chad’s locker required a hazardous waste team to clean.

I crept down the concrete hallway, the sound of my heels clicking echoing too loudly. I paused, wincing, and moved to the balls of my feet. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, flickering with a sickly yellow hue.

The locker room double doors were ahead. The Wolf’s Den.

I pushed through, expecting darkness. instead, the room was dim, lit only by the emergency track lighting running along the floor.

It was massive. A shrine to athletic arrogance.

Wooden stalls lined the walls, each one wide enough to house a small family, filled with pads, helmets, and jerseys hanging like ghosts.

The smell was worse in here. Sweat. Deep Heat. The sharp, copper tang of skate blades.

I scanned the names on the brass plates above the stalls. Miller. Kowalski. Banks.

Where was Henderson?

I moved deeper into the room, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I felt ridiculous. I looked ridiculous—a explosion of pink fashion design in a dungeon of grey masculinity.

Finally, I found it. Second from the end.

But the nameplate didn't say Henderson. It was blank. The brass rectangle had been unscrewed, leaving two empty holes.

I frowned. Typical Chad. Probably stole it as a souvenir for himself. But the gear inside—the stick taped with blue grip, the disastrously disorganized pile of pads—that had to be him.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the lipstick. Rouge Noir. A dark, blood-red shade.

"You called me a trophy," I whispered to the empty air, uncapping the tube. "Let's see how you like being decorated."

My hand shook as I reached for the polished wood of the locker door. I wasn’t a vandal. I was a Marketing major. I was a Sterling. I organized my closet by pantone shade. I didn’t destroy; I curated.

But the image of him laughing at me, telling his friends I was "fun to look at but a headache to listen to," flashed behind my eyelids. The heat flared again, burning away the hesitation.

I pressed the lipstick to the wood and dragged it down in a violent slash.

C.

The wax crumbled, leaving a thick, jagged red line. It felt good. It felt like popping a blister.

H.

I was breathing hard now, the sound loud in the empty room.

E.

I was going to write CHEATER. Simple. Effective. Impossible to scrub off without stripping the varnish.

I was halfway through the A when the sound of running water stopped.

My hand froze. The lipstick hovered over the wood.

I hadn’t noticed the sound before—the hiss of a shower in the adjacent wet room. I had been so focused on my own heartbeat I hadn’t realized I wasn’t alone.

Run.

The instinct was primal. But my feet were lead.

Heavy, wet footsteps slapped against the tile floor. They were slow. Deliberate. Not the hurried steps of someone rushing to catch a bus, but the prowling gait of something that owned the territory.

I spun around, clutching the lipstick like a shiv.

The figure emerged from the steam of the shower room like a nightmare rising from the sea.

He was huge. That was my first thought. Not just tall—though he had to be at least six-four—but wide. Shoulders that spanned the width of a doorframe, tapering down to a waist that was pure, corded muscle.

He was wet. Water dripped from hair that was blacker than the bottom of a well, hanging shaggy over his forehead. It ran in rivets down a chest defined by slabs of pectoral muscle, tangling in the dark hair that trailed down his stomach.

And he was naked.

Well, mostly. A small, white towel was knotted precariously low on his hips, clinging to him by the grace of God and friction alone.

He stopped ten feet away from me. He didn’t jump. He didn’t cover himself. He didn’t yell.

He just... looked.

His eyes were a terrifying shade of blue. Ice blue. Wolf blue. They were dead calm, devoid of the panic that was currently disintegrating my nervous system. He looked at my boots. He looked at my coat. He looked at the lipstick in my hand.

Then, he looked at the locker behind me.

Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"You have five seconds," he said.

His voice was a low rumble, like gravel grinding together deep underground. It vibrated in the floorboards. It wasn’t a question. It wasn't a shout. It was a command that bypassed my brain and went straight to my spine.

"I..." My voice squeaked. I cleared my throat, trying to summon the Sterling arrogance that was my only armor. "I was just leaving."

"Five seconds," he repeated, taking a slow step toward me. "To explain why you are defacing my property before I call campus security and have you arrested."

My brain stuttered. My property?

I glanced back at the locker. The partially written word CHEA glared back at me in blood red.

"This is Chad's locker," I said, though my voice lacked conviction.

The giant took another step. The water dripping from his hair hit the floor with a rhythmic plip, plip. He was close enough now that I could smell him. He didn’t smell like the rest of the locker room. He smelled like cedarwood, expensive clove soap, and the ozone scent of a storm about to break.

"Chad Henderson was cut from the roster three days ago," the stranger said. His eyes narrowed, focusing on my face with a laser intensity that made me want to check if my makeup was smeared. "He plays for JV now. That is my locker."

Oh.

Oh God.

The blood drained from my face so fast I felt dizzy. I looked at the locker again. I looked at the blank space where the nameplate should be.

"I..." I swallowed hard. "I didn't know."

"Ignorance is not a defense for vandalism," he said. He crossed the remaining distance between us.

Up close, the sheer size of him was overwhelming. I had to crane my neck back to look him in the eye. He blocked out the light. He blocked out the exit. He was a wall of wet, angry muscle.

I noticed a scar then—a jagged, silvery line that disappeared into the waistband of his towel. It looked violent. Painful.

"Who are you?" I whispered, clutching my Chanel bag like a shield.

He stared down at me, his expression unreadable. He looked bored, almost. As if finding a girl in a pink coat vandalizing his locker was a mild inconvenience, like a fly he needed to swat.

"Roman Volkov," he said.

My stomach dropped through the floor.

Roman Volkov. The Tsar. The Captain. The guy who was practically a religion on this campus. The NHL prospect who was rumored to have ice water in his veins and a father who owned half of Russia—or maybe it was shipping containers, the rumors varied.

I had just vandalized The Tsar’s locker.

"Volkov," I breathed. "I... look, I can pay for it. My father is—"

"I know who your father is," he interrupted, his voice dropping an octave, turning darker. "Vanessa Sterling. The Princess."

He said the nickname with a curl of his lip, like he was tasting something spoiled.

"Don't call me that," I snapped. The reflex was automatic. I hated that name. It reduced me to a doll. A prop.