Chapter 1

Chapter One

Knox

“Clean and jerk.”

I feel my dick twitch, never able to hear the name of the exercise without my mind going somewhere dirty.

Especially when uttered by such a beautiful woman.

But since I’m currently hefting one hundred and fifty pounds over my head—the jerk part of the clean and jerk—I force myself to focus.

“Again,” Ivy says, when I release the hold, allow the barbell to drop forward and settle onto the floor. “Smoother.”

“You know,” I mutter, exhaling and adjusting my grip, engaging my core, preparing myself to go again, “you can pair more than one word together and it forms something called sentences.”

“Did that.”

I glance over at her and raise a brow.

“Clean and jerk.”

Watching her lush lips form those words, seeing the hint of humor in her deep brown eyes isn’t helping my dick-twitching, but this is work—for me and her. And as a strength coach for the NHL team, the Sierra (her) and a player for that same team (me), it’s important work.

“That’s three words,” she says. Then jerks her chin toward the barbell. “Again.”

Christ.

She’s beautiful and smart and hardworking.

And diligent .

I grind my teeth together, but I exhale and heft the bar up to my shoulders then grunt as I extend it fully overhead and end up in a split stance.

My quads are screaming, along with my hamstrings and glutes, my core and biceps and triceps.

So yeah, pretty much my entire body is on fire.

That’s what happens with Ivy’s training. It’s not even that the weight is all that heavy or that the reps—three sets of eight—are overwhelming. It’s that she curates a careful list of exercises to target exactly where we need strengthening.

It’s the middle of the season, a time that’s normally reserved for maintaining strength and nursing the injuries that come from playing such a physical and brutal sport as hockey, but we have almost a week off and…

Ivy’s decided that we need targeting.

Fun. Fun.

And normally, it is . I enjoy working out, am proud of my body and the strength I’ve worked so hard for. But lately…

It began as an itch between my shoulder blades, a restlessness in my hands, in my feet and fingers and toes. It crept into my sleep and stole my rest. Sucked the joy out of shit that I normally love and?—

Two of my closest friends fell in love—one of them with my sister, and the other with her best friend, who may as well be my surrogate sister.

My agitation isn’t typical male bullshit, my protective instincts triggered by them being old enough to have sex with someone.

Okay, so that’s not my favorite.

But…I pushed them together, Lake and Nova, Ella and Riggs. Leo and Jolie, I can’t take responsibility for, but they’re in just as deep as the other two couples.

So, it’s not protectiveness or even that our nights out carousing or picking up chicks don’t happen any longer. They don’t, of course—the guys are far more likely to want to hang out with their women than without them and, swear to fuck, I haven’t seen either of them look at another member of the opposite sex since they fell in love. But I still hang with them, and not just at hockey. We have dinners and Game Nights and spend many an evening at the local watering hole, drinking beer and the occasional honey rosemary Moscow mule.

So, I still see my friends regularly. And I see my sister, Ella, and the woman I consider one, Nova, just as often.

Plus, the season is going well—I’m putting up points, making good plays.

My life is great.

Except for the fucking itch between my shoulder blades.

“Again,” Ivy orders.

“Yup,” I grunt.

“Three more.”

“Yup.” Another grunt.

“To eight.”

“Yup,” I grit out, lowering the bar and repeating the movement with, yup, another grunt. “Of that I am aware.”

“Great,” she mutters, watching me complete another rep before she turns and moves to Riggs, correcting the angle of his wrists in his overhead press.

By the time I finish my last reps and she’s made a circle of the room, checking in with all of us who are here, putting in our hours in the weight room, I’ve finished my set as well as the last exercise on my list (fucking Bulgarian split squats).

“Time to stretch and hydrate,” she orders.

“A full sentence?” I feign shock. “Wow.”

She rolls her eyes and picks up one of the shakes the team nutritionist makes for us—taking our particular needs and preferences into account—passing it over. “Hydrate,” she says again. “Stretch.”

And then she’s off, moving over to Lake, who’s nursing a sore shoulder, helping him through a series of stretches and some special one-on-one time with a tiny ball that’s great at targeting knots in muscles, but also terrible…because it’s great at targeting those knots.

Better him than me, I know, chugging down my shake and making quick work of my assigned stretches.

I leave our captain sweating—not from the workout so much as the targeting of that little ball—and head to the showers, determined to scrub at the space between my shoulders until the itch goes away.

Or maybe blast it off with scorching hot water.

Unfortunately, the shower doesn’t erase the sensation and by the time I’m driving home, I’m exhausted but still squirmy. I know I won’t be able to sleep.

A-fucking-gain.

I still go through the motions anyway.

Healthy dinner with lots of lean protein, complex carbs, and plenty of veggies.

Turning off screens an hour before bed.

Reading a dry, historical non-fiction, hoping that I’ll pass out before I reach the next chapter.

Alas…it’s not to be.

I trudge through one chapter. Then another. And another. And?—

Sighing, I toss my book to the side, throw back the blankets, and get dressed.

If reading isn’t going to do the trick then I’ll run myself into exhaustion and hope that my brain finally gets the memo.

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. My brain won’t quiet all through the first mile and my body perks up, a rush of adrenaline and endorphins from the exercise filling my system. I’m more awake. And that doesn’t change through the second mile.

Or the third.

By the time I’m on my fourth, I’m still not tiring, but I slow my pace anyway because…

“What the?—?”

I skid to a halt, heart skipping a beat when I catch the soft whimper at the edge of my hearing. Cursing quietly, I hurry to the edge of the quiet road, the hillside still covered with snow. It’s far too cold for anyone to be out here and I search the shadows for the source of the sound.

When I find it, I curse again.

A tiny dog is wrapped in a dirty blanket, its hair plastered to its head, its eyes filled with pain…

And it doesn’t take long to recognize why?—

The poor thing’s leg isn’t pointed the right direction.

“Fuck,” I mutter, quickly stooping down.

The pup growls at me, and I slow my movements.

“Easy, buddy,” I murmur, carefully shifting closer. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Another growl, but with less enthusiasm this time around, so I take it as my cue to move a little closer.

“Damn,” I whisper, mentally weighing my options. I don’t want to move him, but I also can’t leave him here, out in the cold. And I’m not all that far from home. “Okay, bud,” I say in a gentle tone, careful to keep my movements slow and easy, my voice calm, “I’m going to get you some help, but that means I need to pick you up.” I slip one hand beneath his good leg. “Unfortunately, that means this may hurt a little.” Using my forearm, I do my best to support the injury as I slide my other hand beneath him and lift.

Slowly.

Easily.

He growls, but he doesn’t bite me as I cradle him against my chest.

“There,” I whisper, “that’s not so bad, right?”

A soft whimper has me feeling like shit, but I don’t stop. He’s shivering and hurting, and I need to get him help.

When I get to my house, I earn another growl and cause another whimper and feel like shit again, but I manage to get the garage door open and the pup into the back of my car. It only takes a moment to snag my keys and wallet from the house, to look up the address for the emergency vet on my phone.

Then I’m carefully navigating down my driveway and turning out onto the dark road.