Page 188 of Cold As Ice

Crazy, mad things.

Screw the game. I wanted to burst through the glass, throw Madison over my shoulder, and take her back to my hotel room and fuck her in nothing but that shirt.

Why the fuck hadn’t I thought to put my jersey on her yet?

“I fucking love you.” I grinned, slowly skating backward at the bellow of Coach’s orders.

“We love you too.” Madison smiled and I knew at that moment that whatever happened on the ice tonight didn’t matter.

I had everything I needed sitting right there.

The woman I loved.

And the little girl who had me wrapped around her pinky finger.

Win or lose, I was the luckiest guy here.

MADISON

“Oh my God, I can’t watch.”

“You gots to watch it, Mommy.” Imogen pried my fingers away from my face. “Wooks. Wooks.”

A player in black and yellow hurtled toward Austin in a last-ditch attempt to close their one-point deficit.

“Come on, come on,” I murmured, watching as the man I loved track the puck.

If he conceded this, the Stingrays would equalize and have a shot at stealing the win right out from under them.

The player lined up the shot and sent the puck sailing through the air. The entire arena seemed to take a collective breath as Austin moved and stuck his glove in its trajectory.

“Did he get it?” Did he get it?” I yelled right as Austin flipped the puck and dropped it on the ice, sending the crowd into chaos.

“Let’s go Lakers,” Dayna shouted.

“This is so intense.” Rory buried herself into my side as we watched the teams face-off again.

“Ninety seconds left on the clock,” I said, certain my heart was going to burst out my chest at any moment.

“Go, go,” the crowd behind us roared as Aiden won the puck, taking off toward the Stingrays goal. But their defense covered him, forcing him to try and get the puck to Noah.

“Oh God.” Rory grabbed my arm, trembling as Noah broke away with the puck only to be slammed into the boards.

“Noah!”

“He’s fine. He’s fine,” Dayna reassured her. “It’s done. It’s theirs.”

Frenetic energy built in our section of the arena, the realization that unless something went very wrong in the next thirty seconds, the Lakers had done it.

They were champions.

“Twenty seconds,” I muttered, jostling Imogen on my hip. “Ten… five…”

The whistle sounded and the Lakers fans blew the roof off the place.

Players pulled off their helmets, throwing them in the air as they all raced toward our section.

But my world narrowed to the goalkeeper skating toward us.

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