“And?” Sawyer nudged.
“It’s not as brutal as I thought it would be.” Most of the videos I’d researched online showed some of the harshest hits I’d ever seen between players. Blood on the ice. Players carted away on stretchers. Those early days when Faith had told me about her brother, Eric, about his profession…I’d watched as many videos as I could before my mind was quickly sidetracked, a new problem and project forming in my mind. One I’d been working tirelessly on these past weeks and couldn’t wait to initiate.
Watching the game now, my eyes naturally tracking Noble, I noticed a certain grace in the way he moved. A beauty in the fluid push of his skates. The way they became an extension of his body, so in sync it was like he’d learned to skate before he’d learned to walk. The effortless way he propelled his body forward, his considerable muscles working together to increase speed, stamina, and strength. A well-formed machine, one I’d had the privilege of seeing as he kept it in shape. There was a sharp brutality in the tenacity in which he defended his team and yet, he flew across the ice with the lightness of a feather.
A human lightning strike, beautiful and deadly.
A simmering tickled beneath my skin—that same heat I couldn’t deny or explain.
Him.
Seems like you could use an anchor to the real world, his words echoed in my head.
He was the source of the reaction, the conduit. And as I watched him skate, observed him in his natural environment, it seemed that blasted heat now tripled.
A lightning strike.
And a puzzle.
A beyond infuriating, completely aggravating, beautiful puzzle.
Chapter 3
Noble
“Gentry, definitely,” Porter said, stretching his feet out in front of him on the pool lounger.
A murmur of agreement sounded in our little circle.
“But do you go for seven forwards and three defensemen? Or the eight skaters, any position?” Lukas asked, leaning forward on my other side.
A shriek caught everyone’s attention, and we all looked to the pool, where Gage had just tossed Scarlett into the water. She came up sputtering and laughing.
The pre-season barbecue was Shark tradition. One last chance to enjoy the day with all of our families before the season began in earnest. We’d won the majority of our preseason games, and now it was time to start building the wins that would get us to the Cup.
“I say eight skaters, any position,” I answered Lukas, leaning back against my lounger with an ice cold bottle of water.
“Of course you do. You’re a defenseman,” Connor laughed.
“Someone has to save your asses.” I shrugged.
“Are you guys still talking about the expansion draft?” Ivy asked with a round-cheeked Daniel cradled in her arms.
“Well, who’d we protect,” Connor answered, reaching out to take his young son. “Because we like living in Seattle, don’t we, Daniel?” he asked his baby in a voice that was easily the sappiest thing I’d ever heard.
“It’s not until the summer,” Ivy chastised, folding her arms over her chest. “You guys really know how to bring the energy down at a party, don’t you?”
“Oh come on, Ivy. You know if we chose who to protect based on wives, Connor would absolutely stay,” Gentry said.
His wife, Pepper, smacked his chest. “You’d better keep my twin here!”
“If only it was up to me, honey.” He kissed the top of her head. This week her hair was a lilac color, which was the only way I could tell her apart from Ivy.
“Well, it’s up to Paulson, so who knows what he’ll do,” Porter growled.
Our group fell silent. The new owner of the Sharks was anything but friendly, and he was making decisions that were no doubt going to rip this team apart at any moment. Gage was already quitting because of the asshole.
“Okay, now that is really bringing the energy down,” Lukas joked, and we all laughed.
The draft would no doubt be lingering in all of our minds this season. Charleston had won the bid and was getting an NHL team. But with that new team came a draft of existing NHL players they could choose from, and Seattle could only protect the players with no movement clauses in their contracts, rookies with under two years on NHL ice, or one of the previously mentioned scenarios. Everyone else was up for grabs.
I, for one, had zero intention of leaving Seattle. I’d worked my ass off to get a Shark jersey, and I wasn’t trading it in if I had anything to say about it.
“Oh! She made it!” Faith scrambled off Lukas’s lounge chair and headed for the door that separated Connor’s atrium-housed pool to the rest of his house.
Harper was here.
Faith took her by the arm, and they ducked, barely escaping the water gun fight Warren and Rory were currently engaged in.
Two of the rookies followed her ass with their eyes, and I made a mental note to check the shit out of them at the next practice. So what if they were only a year older than she was. Harper was way out of their frat-boy league.