Maxim (Carolina Reapers 10)

My brain reconnected with my body, and I jolted up off the drop cloths, gaping at Maxim. “Omigod!” I snapped. “Maxim, you have to get the hell out of here!”

Maxim was immediately on his feet, worry flashing over his eyes as he slipped into his pants. “Wait, what? Don’t tell me you just gave me breakup sex, Evie, because I can’t—”

“No!” I hurried into my clothes, and he mimicked my movements. “The game! There has to be a flight. Call one of those billionaires at the gala. Something! You can still make it.” He’d be fined for sure, maybe even benched the first part of next season depending on what Coach McPherson and Asher Silas decided, but he could still make this game.

“I told you I don’t care about the game,” he said, fully dressed. “I care about you.”

“I know you do,” I said. “And I know you love your team just as much. Go!” I practically shoved him toward the door. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”

“Babe,” he said, stopping us where I’d shoved him toward the door. “There is no making this game. It’s okay. I promise. I’m right where I want to be.”

I gaped up at him, shaking my head.

“Now, if there is a game seven, then I’ll only go on one condition.” He reached down, grabbing my hand.

“What’s the condition?” I asked.

“You come with me,” he said. “And not because you’re my lucky charm, not because I need to use you to win a game, but because I want to play while the love of my life is watching me.”

Happy tears coated my eyes, the words in my throat tangling to an incomprehensible mess.

So I nodded, and he scooped me up into his arms so fast I flung my arms around his neck.

And I didn’t dare let go.

21

MAXIM

I rocked back on my skates from my position on the bench, my gaze jumping between the forward charging down the ice at Sawyer and the clock on the jumbotron that told me there were less than two minutes left in the third period.

We were up by one.

My breath held as he shot.

He scored.

Fuck.

We were tied.

The crowd around us roared. We may have been on home ice for game seven, but it only took a glance to see that there were equal parts Reaper and Anaheim fans in the stands. But only one of those fans mattered to me.

Evie shot me a soft, supportive smile from her seat next to Mila, with David on her other side, and my heart rate dipped just enough for me to suck in a deep, calming breath and drive back the panic.

And the one fan who wasn’t in the stands? Dad. Apparently he’d gotten the message in Anaheim. A message I was paying dearly for with a ten-thousand-dollar fine, but I had the woman I loved and that was everything.

“Goddamn it!” McKittrick snapped.

“Sterling, you’re in!” Coach yelled down the bench before turning toward us. “Line change!”

I bolted over the boards, followed by Cannon, McKittrick, and the fresh defensive line. I fist bumped Sawyer on his way in. The guy was playing a hell of a game, but Anaheim had come out swinging and hadn’t let up.

This game could go either way.

“You ready for this?” I asked Sterling as we skated out.

“One shift, man.” He nodded, but the same adrenaline-laced tension that coursed through my body was evident in his eyes.

“One shift to rule them all,” I agreed, smacking him on the shoulder. “Let’s do this!”

He skated off to the goal, and I took my position at center, lowering my body for the face-off.

“One more and it’s ours,” Evans said from the opposite side of the red line. He was the best center Anaheim had to offer, but he had nothing on me as long as my head was in the game, and it was so fucking in.

“You’re never going to touch it,” I promised him with a grin.

The ref held the puck up, and the rest of the world fell silent around me. There was no crowd. No coaches. No television crews. It was just me and the guys on the ice, playing the game we’d been practicing for our entire lives.

Every mite scrimmage. Every squirt practice, peewee game, bantam tournament…it all led to this. Every five a.m. practice and blistered foot from new skates, every drill, and even the late-night training in the backyard had brought me here. I was a machine, honed and sharpened by one of the greatest hockey players in the history of the game, and I hadn’t just exceeded him as a player, but as a man. Nothing about the next minute would change that.

But everything about the next minute would determine the future for the players around me. I was surrounded by chosen family, had my brother at my back, defending our goal, another in the stands with my sister, and the woman I loved ready to hold me no matter what happened.