Hooked: A Hockey Romance Read online

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Hooked

  June Winters

  Copyright 2017 June Winters

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter 1:

  Ice Girl

  Honor Bennett

  Screeching guitars wailed over the arena's booming speakers, revving up the rowdy Saturday night crowd all around us. But even over the noise, I still managed to hear my boyfriend Todd's lustful mumble:

  “Oh, God damn.”

  His hungry, beady eyes were zeroed-in on the ice girls' wiggling butts as they pushed shovels from one end of the rink to the other. Their short and frilly mini-skirts flounced as they skated, treating the crowd to the occasional glimpse of their toned bottoms.

  Todd grunted as if something was lodged in his throat. “Now who are they?”

  “Those are the ice girls I told you about earlier.”

  “Ice girls? The heck are those? I don't remember hearing anything about ice girls.”

  “I guess you weren't listening.” I sighed. “Anyway, while I was scouring the job ads, I came across a listing for open auditions.”

  “Open auditions for what?”

  “For ice girls!”

  “Wait. You mean you want to be one of those?” Todd asked, pointing at the team of girls as they skated up and down the ice.

  “Sure, why not?”

  Todd looked at me, and then at the ice girls, and then back at me again. And then his shoulders started to shake with silent laughter.

  “No reason,” he said at last. He must've seen the fire rising in my eyes, because he quickly changed gears. “Um—I mean—it just doesn't seem like you. You're more of a quiet, artsy chick than you are the rah-rah cheerleader type.”

  “I guess. But isn't that why we moved out here to Denver? To try new things, and reinvent ourselves? And I have an ice skating background, after all, so it's not that big of a stretch … is it?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Todd shrugged. “So, uh, what are the ice girls for, anyway? And what's with the shovels?”

  “They're pushing all the ice chips and snow shavings away, so the ice is better for the players to skate on.”

  Todd didn't answer—he just stared at the girls. And I realized he was staring at one girl in particular: blonde, long-legged, and lean. I tried not to take it personally or anything like that—because this was what the ice girls were for, after all. To look pretty and raise the fans' spirits and get everyone all loud and worked up. And they were cute, and yes, their flirty little outfits were super sexy. I knew that. It'd be crazy to get mad at Todd over it. But at the same time, seeing him ogle those girls struck at a weakness inside me.

  Because maybe, deep down, I wanted Todd to look at me like that for once. I didn't want to be that 'quiet, artsy chick' forever.

  So I laughed and tried to play it cool. “Did you just become a hockey fan, Todd?”

  Todd couldn't peel his eyes off that blonde. “God. I mean … maybe.”

  “She's got a great butt, huh?” I asked. And I meant it, because she did, and I wanted Todd to know that I wasn't this psycho girlfriend who became furious when he noticed an attractive woman.

  “God. She sure does,” Todd croaked without breaking his gaze—but then he took it too far. “The things I'd do to her, Honor.”

  Thankfully, he knew enough to spare me what things, exactly, he'd do to her.

  But still my stomach sank like a heavy rock dropped into the ocean—plunk! And bubbling up in its place was a realization that made me sad: after a year of dating, Todd never looked at me like that anymore—like he couldn't wait to take me home and rip me out of my clothes and have his way with me.

  Maybe, truthfully, he never had? He was always in a bigger rush to get home and fire up his videogames.

  The ice girls skated back towards our seats, their long, beautiful hair flowing behind them. They all looked so happy, with bright gleaming smiles and enthusiastic hand-waves at the crowd. I wished I could be there on the ice with those girls. All eyes on us. I never realized how much I missed that feeling until now.

  Todd's focus stayed trained on the same girl. Her round breasts jiggled in her tiny crop-top, and a silver chain studded with diamonds dangled from her navel.

  “You think she's cold in that outfit?” I asked jokingly, still pretending that the crummy churning in my guts wasn't real.

  “By the looks of it?” Todd asked with a wiggle of his eyebrows. “Oh yeah.”

  Ah, yes. Her nipples are hard.

  I laughed softly, sucking air through gritted teeth, as the ice girls finished their job and left the ice. I was almost ashamed to be relieved, but—finally—their spell over Todd was broken, and the threat had passed.

  Whew.

  I hooked my arm around Todd's elbow, claiming my boyfriend back. “It's too bad you never saw me during my figure skating days. I wore some pretty cute dresses myself, you know.”

  Todd tilted his head, his face pinched with confusion. “Huh? When were you a figure skater?”

  “Todd! I've told you about it so many times already. I competed for five years as a teen.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sounds kinda familiar. But, it's not really the same. Figure skaters don't dress like those girls.”

  Without another word, I leaned into the far side of my seat, away from Todd. Some days, it can sure seem like your man is possessed by some brain-dead drive to say the absolute wrong thing. This was apparently one of those days.

  The hockey game resumed. Our hometown tea
m, the Colorado Blizzard, were in a battle with the visiting Florida Cats. The two teams traded chances, rushing up and down the ice, until play stopped again.

  Todd spoke when play halted. “Listen, Honor. I'm not really comfortable with you trying out for that ice girl thing.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one, it's really objectifying. I don't want all these people looking at you while you bop around, barely wearing any clothes.”

  I stifled a laugh. “You didn't seem all that bothered to objectify those girls yourself.”

  “Well—yeah, that's my point!”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “For two …” The words died in his throat as the ice girls pranced out to the ice again, smiling, waving, cute butts bouncing all over. Tongue-tied, Todd could only helplessly wet his lips as he watched the ice girls' routine. All of it. Until they disappeared from the ice once more.

  I stared at him, waiting. “You were saying?”

  “I … forgot.” Todd scratched his head. “Jesus, those girls are hot.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What? Are you mad now?” Todd asked, although he didn't sound very concerned.

  “No, it's just—funny, that's all.”

  “What's funny?”

  “For as much as you drool over other women in front of me? You sure get bent out of shape whenever I have the gall to tell you which movie stars I think are cute.”

  “That is so not true.”

  Ha! Yeah, right, I thought. We'll see.

  I searched the ice for the first hunk I could find. And that's when I found him. Truth was? I couldn't see his face at all. But he was big and tall, and—most importantly—he had the 'C' stitched on the front of his jersey.

  Hey there, captain. You'll do just fine.

  After a few minutes had passed, I elbowed Todd in the side and pointed at the player. “Wow-ee. Look at him, #37.”

  “What—him?”

  “Yeah. The captain. He's hot. Really hot.”

  Todd huffed and shot me a nasty look. “Hey, what the hell, Honor?”

  “What? I can say that, can't I? You said the ice girls were hot.”

  “You said she had a great ass first! I thought that meant I had the green light to talk about her like that. But this is completely different.” Todd folded his arms and threw his back against his seat. “Ugh, you know what? Whatever. Forget it.”

  I snickered and watched the Colorado captain glide around the ice. His body moved with the purpose, power and stealth of a shark—and maybe the cold, apathetic loneliness of a shark, too.

  “Oh, don't get all hurt over it, Todd. I was just proving a point.”

  “You know something, Honor? You're so antagonistic because of those damned brothers of yours. If they didn't pick on you so much when you were younger, and actually treated you like . . .”

  While Todd ranted about what a mean girl I was because of my brothers, I tuned him out and followed the action on the ice.

  The Colorado captain skated fast, in hot pursuit of the puck carrier. He was so fast and strong, he caught up to the guy like a cheetah after wounded prey. And all the captain had to do was barely lean into his opponent and give him a little shove, and the Florida player went flying through the air. His body smashed into the glass, and he toppled over ass-first, spilling to the ice like a bag of wet cement. The hometown crowd went wild, and the captain raced up the ice with the puck.

  Wow. He's fast.

  The captain took a shot on goal, but the Florida goalie made a great save, and the ref blew the whistle to stop play.

  And who happened to stop right by our seats, but the captain himself. With his helmet on, I couldn't quite see what he looked like. But a rugged jawline and chiseled chin, shadowed with dark stubble, suggested he'd sure be a babe with his helmet off.

  The captain stared intently at the ice as he waited for the faceoff. Beads of sweat rolled from under his helmet, down his temples, and dripped from his jaw. Wisps of steam rose from his muscular and glistening neck.

  Wish I could see your face, I thought, holding my cell phone at the ready to snap his picture. With those features, I bet you're devastatingly handsome.

  But the key word there was devastating—because I couldn't help but sense something dark and mysterious about the captain, as if he were stewing in some miserable hell that no one could possibly know.

  Todd clucked his tongue at me. “Really? Taking his picture? So I guess I'll be allowed to do that with the ice girls, then.”

  “Shush.”

  I snapped the captain's picture and texted it to my brother Derek.

  “Hey bro, random Q. Who is this dreamboat?”

  Always happy to talk hockey with his little sister, Derek's reply came in quick.

  “That's Hunter Rockwell. You think he's hot? Better get in line, Honor, the girls go nuts for that guy. Voted hottest player in the league—but not for his play, that's for sure.”

  “I see. So he's not any good?” I texted back.

  “He's alright. He was traded to Colorado three years ago, from Boston. He was good—really good—in Boston. But in Colorado, he hasn't really lived up to expectations. He's just not the same player he was before. It's like his heart isn't in it anymore. Who knows what his deal is.”

  That seemed to fit—it sure explained the darkness I'd sensed in him, anyway.

  “Thank you for the scouting report, Derek!”

  Hunter Rockwell lowered himself into his faceoff stance. When the ref dropped the puck, he swiped at it and easily won the draw.

  And then Rockwell was off. His powerful legs unspooled beneath him, and he raced into open ice.

  He looks better than 'alright' to me …

  Chapter 2:

  Fuckin' Suck

  Hunter Rockwell

  With eight games left in our season, we were running out of time. Our team, the Blizzard, sat in 9th place in the West—one spot shy of a playoff berth. From this point on, we need to win the rest of our games if we want to sneak into the playoffs.

  Florida, our opponent for the night, was on the tail-end of a long road trip. We knew they'd be tired and likely wear out half-way through the game. All we had to do was work hard and grind them down. This was exactly the kind of game we couldn't afford to lose.

  But for whatever reason, like way too many nights this year, we lacked something. Some spark. Some missing ingredient. Some chemistry, or grit, or jam. Whatever the fuck you wanna call it—we didn't have it. We were letting a team with tired legs out work us.

  Sitting on the bench and waiting for my next shift, I took a look up at the scoreboard: Florida 3, Colorado 2. A minute and a half left in the game.

  I shook my head in disgust. Fuckin' sad.

  “C'mon, boys! Just need one,” I roared, banging my stick into the bench, hoping to fire my teammates up. But all I got back from them was an ominous silence and defeated expressions.

  Ugh.

  Get a hockey fan to take a look at the names on this roster, and they'd agree: we should be a good team. But take a look at our record, and you'd see that we are not a good team. We're not bad, either. We're mediocre, which might be worse than being bad.

  A mediocre team will win two, three games in a row. You feel like you've finally worked out your problems. Your team's got all the pieces in place and you're making progress. But then the pendulum swings back the other way, and you drop three, four games in a row. And you're back at square one: realizing you suck, and you don't know why.

  Something was wrong with this team. Something was wrong here and nobody knew what it was. Not me, not any of my teammates, not the fans or the coach or the general manager, either.

  Nobody.

  And if we didn't figure out what the fuck it was real fast, we knew that we'd miss the playoffs. And then heads were going to roll. Starting with mine: the captain that couldn't lead his team to glory.

  With less than a minute left in the game, I jumped off the bench and joined the play on th
e ice. Our defense managed to trap Florida along the boards and worked the puck free. Seeing my opportunity, I bolted for Florida's end, yelling for the puck the whole way.

  “Middle middle middle!” I hollered, letting my defense know exactly where I wanted the puck.

  The Colorado fans saw me streaking down center ice and knew, knew, that this was going to be it: the game tying goal with seconds left on the clock. The arena thundered as thousands of fans jumped to their feet with an eager roar.

  Over my shoulder, I saw the puck come flying up-ice towards me.

  There's my pass.

  It was a hard pass—but I caught it on my backhand, cradled it, slowed it, controlled it.

  The crowd's roar grew louder. They knew I was off for a break away.

  Skating harder, pushing the puck ahead of me, I took one last peek at the scoreboard: 3.4 seconds left.

  Shit. Gotta hurry.

  Florida's goalie came out to the top of his crease. I slowed as I neared, working the puck left and right, trying to make him move, knowing I didn't have much time left.

  I faked to the left—and the goalie bit, sliding in direction he thought I'd go.

  But I pulled the puck to the right, on my backhand, instead.

  Desperate, the goalie kicked a leg across his crease. His leg was the only thing that stood between me and the twine. All I had to do was lift the puck six inches over his leg.

  I shoveled the puck backhand, trying to raise the puck …

  … and watched in horror, as our nightmare season continued.

  Thump. The dull thud of hard rubber thumping against leg-pads.

  The buzzer sounded, only somewhat covering the disappointed groans of the hometown crowd.

  Game over.

  Another L.

  And our playoff hopes just got dimmer.

  ***

  Hours later.

  I pulled my car to the front of the Denver Regents—the hotel I called home. I opened the door and a valet was already outside my window, waiting for me.

  I opened my door and, with a grunt, stood on shaky legs. Coach wasn't happy about our game—and after the loss, he bag-skated us for an hour as punishment. My legs might as well have been filled with cement.