The Nanny Goal
Keep scrolling to read the first three chapters of this story!!! Shhh, this page is top-secret…
Full Blurb:
When I first met her, I was just her brother’s best friend and a hockey player. Then I was the secret fling who broke her heart. Now I’m a single dad … and her new boss.
On the best and worst night of my life, I left the perfect girl alone in a hotel room, confused and angry. Since then, Emery Granger has ignored me, despite the fact that our families are friends and I would do anything to have a second chance with her.
When we're thrown together again, it's in the worst way possible—with me needing an emergency nanny, and my daughter immediately attaching herself to the last woman I got to third base with, making Emery the reluctant best candidate for the job.
No matter what happened in the past, I will always put being a good father first. My feelings for the nanny? Irrelevant. Impossible.
Which is a challenge, because the nanny herself? Irresistible.
Coming to Kindle Unlimited May 13, 2025
The ebook is pre-orderable at Kobo, Apple Books, Nook, and Google Play, but will not be available for sale on those platforms after May 13 due to Kindle Unlimited’s exclusivity requirement. If you collect this series on those platforms, preorder now!
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A secondary character has a heart attack and receives medical care, on and off the page. They recover during the story.
Parenthood on the page (2 year old toddler is a primary character).
High spice level.
Themes of parental expectation and different standards for boys and girls in hockey are threaded throughout.
Chapter One: Alexei
At the top of the list of key lessons I’ve learned about being a single father is that the safest time to stroke one out is really fucking early in the morning.
File that under “things nobody tells you”.
Of course, nobody knew I was going to be a father before I was suddenly thrust into the experience with an hour’s notice.
Two years later, I’m still figuring out how to balance my pro hockey career and raising a toddler—and finding reliable personal time remains a struggle.
You might think it would be late at night, but half the time I’m too fucking wiped, either from a game, or pushing myself too hard through workouts, or simply managing the complicated mess that is my new life. And the rest of the time, there’s a solid chance my parents will barge in because they’re night owls with zero sense of personal space.
Middle-aged Russian parents do not understand that a guy needs his privacy because he’s not getting laid, he might never get laid ever again, and the only thing that would get him off anyway is a memory he feels fucking guilty for indulging in.
Another reason I take care of business at dawn… this is when I’m weakest. This is the time of day I can’t stop myself from getting hard for an off-limits woman.
My best friend’s younger sister.
The woman I was with when—
I don’t think about that part of it, the part that means it will never happen again.
In hindsight, it should never have happened in the first place.
I’m not proud of how much I enjoyed the way she looked at me, like I could build sandcastles in the sky for her.
And when I give in, like I am right now, and shove my shorts down to wrap my fist around my erection, I desperately reach for any fantasy but that one.
I imagine her fingers on my cock, something that never happened. Her breath, warm and sweet, against my most sensitive flesh. Licking at my tip with her pointy pink tongue.
Something else she never had a chance to do.
Most of my fantasies are basically alternate endings to that night. What if I hadn’t checked my phone? What if she’d gotten my zipper undone and her slim fingers into my boxers?
She’d been so fucking willing. So eager.
I stroke myself harder than she would have, punishing myself, jerking roughly. I never pretend my hand is hers, probably couldn’t even if I tried. But in my head, I see it play out. She climbs on top of me, curious fingers exploring my length. Teasing me. Making me buck into her touch, needing more. Needing so much more.
I would make her hold my gaze as she brought us together, replacing her hand with her entire body, her sweet pussy, that tight, wet—
Fuck.
It’s a good thing it’s just a fantasy, because I just prematurely jizzed at her entrance like a teenage boy.
Chest heaving, I pump the last of my seed into the pooling puddle on my abs and shut my eyes.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” my fantasy of Emery says. “I’m so hot you couldn’t hold it.”
Real life Emery wasn’t that cocky. She was sweet and innocent, and the adoration in her eyes as I took that innocence was headier than any drug.
I put us both in a terrible position that night.
And right on cue, as the blood pounds fast and heavy in my ears, a rustling sound comes across the baby monitor on my bedside table.
The fantasy dissolves as quickly as that night did.
From now until late tonight, my time belongs to others.
I take a deep breath and remind myself of the daily goals: getting through the day without snapping at anyone, and being grateful for what I have.
The nearest thing I can find to clean myself off with is the t-shirt I took off last night. After wiping myself off, I dump that in the hamper in my bathroom—laundry I’ve made it clear to my mother I can do myself—and quickly wash up before pulling on a fresh shirt.
Then I head to the nursery at the opposite end of the hall, across from the spare bedroom where my parents sleep. A shared bathroom is in between the two rooms, and often my mother beats me to the task of getting Inessa out of my bed, but not today.
My tiny tyrant of a daughter is sitting up in her toddler bed, rubbing sleep from her eyes. I just built the white princess frame a week ago, after I found her climbing out of her crib. But she’s still not sure what to make of it, and when she wakes up in the morning, she waits for someone to come and get her.
A princess with tyrannical tendencies.
Silently, she holds up her arms, wanting to be picked up.
“Good morning, little one,” I say in Russian.
She presses her face into my neck.
“Can you say, good morning, Papa?”
A slow little sigh warms my skin before she mumbles a half-hearted Dobroye utro, papochka that runs together.
“How about some breakfast?”
That gets a silent nod.
“How did you sleep?”
No answer.
Inessa is not a morning person.
I change her diaper, but she whines at the idea of getting dressed, so I leave her in her PJs for breakfast.
As we step into the hallway, my father opens the bedroom door. His hair is standing on end. “Dobroye utro.”
And then he mumbles something about coffee.
None of us are morning people.
If I didn’t have some basic adult needs that couldn’t be met any other time of the day, I’d probably be as silent as the two of them, but orgasms have a way of kickstarting me better than caffeine.
My dad opens the baby gate at the top of the stairs, and we file down to the kitchen. Inessa doesn’t let go of my neck until I get her a sippy cup of milk. Then I find some blueberries for us to share. Yesterday, raspberries caused a meltdown for being wrong, so I don’t want to risk those again.
“She needs bacon,” my father mutters as I put three blueberries on Inessa’s tray.
I love my parents.
I am grateful to my parents.
I am tired of explaining toddler food preferences to them when they spend as much or more time with her as I do, especially to my dad. My mom at least can read my body language and tries to keep the peace.
Also, she has the magic ability to talk Inessa into trying new things, or having a bite of something she doesn’t enjoy, like bacon. I do not have that ability and neither does my father. And a day that starts with a tantrum is twice as long as one that starts with a quiet, peaceful breakfast.
Tension crawls up my back as the coffee maker hisses its way through an espresso.
But when my father goes to the fridge and pulls out the bacon and eggs, I need to say something. “Maybe wait for Mama, yeah?”
“She’s sleeping.”
I frown. My mom never sleeps in. “What’s wrong? Is she sick?”
This is terrible timing if she is. I have a home game tonight, and then tomorrow we get on the team plane and fly out to St. Louis and then Detroit for two road games.
He shrugs. “Indigestion,” he replies in Russian. “She was up all night. I can cook.”
He can, but in his own way.
Not to my nutritional needs and not to my daughter’s preferences.
“I’ll make eggs,” I offer. “If you want some bacon, go ahead, but none for us.”
Hopefully my mother is feeling better by the time I need to leave for morning skate at the arena. My dad is a doting grandfather, but he doesn’t know how to care for a toddler the same way my mother does.
So, we’ll let her sleep in and hope for the best, but plan for the worst. Like tiring out my tiny tyrant girl. “Maybe I’ll take Inessa out for a walk this morning, hmm?”
My daughter’s eyes light up. “Walk?”
My dad mutters something else in Russian under his breath, and again I restrain myself from engaging.
He doesn’t think I should speak English to Inessa. But she gets enough Russian from them, and I want her to be fully bilingual.
I want them to speak more English as well, but that’s a harder fight.
They’ve been in Canada for two years, and they don’t believe me that this is the hardest part. I’ve been here for ten years, since I was eighteen, and to them, my English is beyond reach. I know it’s not, because I remember just how much my vocabulary has grown in the last two years by being really conscious about using it more and no longer relying on teammates to translate for me.
And in the last year, it’s been supercharged because I don’t have a Russian teammate, unlike in Calgary. The team does have a Russian-speaking trainer on staff, but the only conversations where I’ve allowed myself to rely on her to translate have been very technical discussions with medical jargon.
My dad puts an espresso in front of me, then makes one for himself. I sip at it as we eat blueberries, then Inessa finally starts talking. “Papa make toast?”
“Of course.” I pick her up out of her highchair and set her down. “Do you want to help?”
When she nods, I prompt her.
“Get the bread you want.”
She opens the bread drawer and swings a bag of sandwich loaf at me with the enthusiastic aggression of a rookie D-man, whacking me on the leg. “This one.”
“Gentle,” I remind her.
She laughs, an out loud cackle.
We definitely need to go to the park. As soon as she has toast in her little belly, she’ll be zooming upstairs looking for her babushka.
I sweep her into my arms and spin around before depositing her back in the highchair.
“Papa,” she chastises.
I grunt at her, unswayed. I need her confined while I cook.
That gets another laugh, and I distract her with more grumpy dad noises until there’s buttered toast on her tray.
I’ve also managed to cook some scrambled eggs in the same time. They’re basic but good enough. I’ll eat again when I get to the arena for morning skate.
Once we’re both fed, I get Inessa changed into warm clothes. They don’t match, and she keeps her unicorn nightgown on underneath, but nobody at the park will care about fashion choices.
Outside, it’s brighter than it has been maybe all winter, and Inessa throws her hands up at the sky in delight.
“It’s sunny,” I say in English.
She doesn’t repeat it, and I don’t prompt her. I’ll save my Dad voice for when she needs to listen to me for safety reasons on our walk.
Learning to pick my battles has been another frustrating curve as a single parent—especially when the people who parented me are actively watching and judging.
And getting traded at the same time as Inessa discovered her attitude was a challenge.
After spending almost ten years in the Calgary organization, from getting drafted to slowly developing in their farm teams, I honestly thought I might spend my entire career there.
The trade calls blindsided me.
“We appreciate everything you have done here in Calgary…”
“Welcome to Hamilton, son. We understand you have a young child and your parents live with you? We have people in the organization who can help them get settled. We need you to fly out today…”
The next three weeks were the longest stretch of Inessa’s life without me. She was used to seeing me on a video call on Baba’s phone, but road trips are rarely longer than a week, and the team would keep me at home if they knew I wasn’t going to play.
From the second I landed in Hamilton, I was playing, and playing a lot. Plus, I needed to find a vacant house we could buy immediately, and I had a laundry list of requirements. Walking distance to a park, a separate suite for my parents, and a space that could be customized for a gym.
I had help from the team, but by the time we found it, the season was well under way. I only had one free day to pick them up from the airport and bring them to our new home before I had to get on the team plane again for a few days.
When I finally returned, Inessa clung to me and refused to sleep in her own bed for the next three nights. My parents abandoned their plan to live in the separate suite, and moved into the spare room across from the nursery instead.
It was a long, dark winter of trying to find a new normal like the one we’d had in Calgary. My parents, too, are struggling.
Inessa stops and squats down, looking at a patch of frozen ice on the sidewalk. In ten minutes, we’ve gone about two hundred metres. I shove my hands deeper into my pockets and my thoughts about my family into the back of my mind.
We have a game at home tonight, and I’m the starting goalie.
After a rollercoaster of a season, the Hamilton Highlanders are on the cusp of making the playoffs again for the second straight year, only their second year in the league.
Last year, though, they bombed out in the first round.
Everyone in the locker room is painfully aware of the internal pressure to be better this time. To make the playoffs handily, and excel once we get there.
And our biggest acquisition at the trade deadline—veteran defenceman Luca Carter—was injured in his second game with the Highlanders. He’s now on long-term injured reserve, and we’ll be lucky if we get him back for the second round of the playoffs, if we make it that far.
“Papa, come on,” Inessa urges, as if I’m the slow one.
Taking off at a terrifyingly unstable run, ignoring my stern reminders to be careful, she laughs and leads me the last fifty metres to the park, then immediately climbs to the top of the slide and waves down.
Fearless little girl.
I sigh in secretly proud defeat. “Show me how you slide down. But be—”
She flings herself into the plastic mouth of the slide and catapults down it, somehow landing on her feet.
Bouncy is in her genes, I suppose. “Careful,” I finish saying, laughing with her.
She climbs up and goes down again, and then again, until her cheeks are pink and she’s out of breath. While she recovers with the speed of a professional athlete, I do some pull ups on the climber.
“Me do it, too, Papa.”
I pick her up and she holds on to the bar, mimicking me and giggling.
When I suggest it’s time to go home, she protests and runs back to the slide.
I hear my mom’s voice in my head. You can’t ask her, Alexei. You must tell her. Or better yet, let her think it is her idea.
I scoop up a handful of wood chips from the edge of the playground and start juggling them, a habit I picked up from a coach in the minors. It’s good for my hand-to-eye coordination, and also for tricking my daughter into coming closer.
“Me juggle, Papa.”
“Sure thing, little one.” I put her on my shoulders and hand her a couple of the wood chips, stashing the others in my pocket. They’re light enough that when they fall on my head, it’s not a problem, but I don’t need them all raining down on me at once.
She tosses the ones I gave her up, and I catch them, my hands snatching them mid-air…one, two, three.
“More juggles.”
I give her those three back, and we repeat it as I walk back home.
We’re halfway there when she realizes she’s been tricked.
“Papa!”
“I know, I know.”
She kicks her feet, protesting. I just hold on tight and put up with the complaining, because when we’re not going at her speed, it’s a pretty short walk.
And then she sees a bunny rabbit on the edge of our lawn, and all is forgiven.
We look at the rabbit until it darts away, then climb the stairs and head inside.
As we take off our coats and boots, I hear my parents talking in the kitchen, so I hope that means my mom is feeling better.
“…Granger road trip,” my dad says, laughing.
My pulse turns sluggish at the heavily accented way he says Emery’s last name. But it’s not about Emery, of course. My parents don’t know Forrest’s sister. They know of her, of course, but they’ve never met because Emery Granger won’t come within a hundred miles of an Artyomov.
My fault.
“Baba!” Inessa calls out.
“We’re…in the kitchen.”
I frown, not liking how tired my mom sounds. But when we find them, she has a bright smile for my daughter. “Why are you still wearing your nightgown?” She clucks as she quickly, deftly works the pyjamas out from under Inessa’s sweatshirt. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
“No,” Inessa says, scowling.
I close my eyes and count backwards from five.
When I open them again, I see my mother rubbing her chest.
“Papa says you aren’t feeling well,” I murmur after kissing her forehead.
“I’m fine, don’t fuss. It’s just heartburn.”
“Do you want me to take Inessa with me to the rink?” It wouldn’t be ideal, but I don’t need to skate this morning, and she can come with me to the team meeting and to get the scouting reports.
But my mother shakes her head. “No, of course not. My sweet girl is no trouble.”
“She’s an Artyomov. She’s nothing but trouble.”
“Shush.” She laughs, though. “I’ll be careful about what I eat today. And I won’t let your father talk me into drinks with our friends tonight.”
“The Grangers?” I ask, as casually as I can, pretending I’m barely interested.
I’ve already put the pieces together. My buddy Forrest, a former teammate in Calgary, is one of five kids. Emery is his younger sister, but he has three older brothers, who also all play in the NHL.
Out of the 82 games a year I play, at least ten percent are played against a Granger. Tonight is no exception—Minnesota is in town to face us, and the oldest Granger, Camden, is their captain—and Forrest’s parents love to watch their kids play hockey.
“They asked about tickets,” my father explains.
Discomfort squeezes my chest like a fist. “How many do you need?”
He shakes his head. “Our regular seats are fine.”
Someone from the team helped arrange four season tickets for my family. Sometimes it’s just my parents who come to the games, sometimes they invite Russian speakers they have met through local community groups. Last week it was a Ukrainian professor from the university and his daughter.
Tonight, it will be Emery’s parents. Two people only, to fill the two empty seats. But nobody else in their extended family.
The discomfort fades to something that feels like irrational frustration.
I like the Grangers. They stayed in Calgary when I discovered I was a new dad, and they helped me through the initial shell shock, taking me shopping for a baby car seat and then a house.
Emery didn’t stay, of course. I didn’t see her again after that night. She went back to her college team in Boston. Her parents, though, became de facto grandparents until my own parents could get visas and plane tickets. And once the Artyomovs landed, the Granger-Artyomov Hockey Parent Bond was officially forged. Despite the language barrier, our families have stayed fast friends ever since.
A friendship Emery Granger has pointedly kept herself removed from.
I deserve that.
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking hurt, but I did that to myself when I followed her to her hotel room and took something that wasn’t mine to take.
Chapter Two: Alexei
two years earlier
Alexei: Leaving for the restaurant now
Forrest: Why are you always so fucking early?
Alexei: I don’t like to be late
Forrest: Not the Granger way, bud… Have a drink in the bar and we’ll be there ASAP
Normally I wouldn’t leap at the opportunity to have dinner with a teammate’s family, because my conversational English isn’t great and loud restaurants make my listening comprehension even weaker.
And we don’t get very many nights off during the hockey season.
It is the depth of Canadian winter, and the last time I got laid it was the end of summer in the South of France.
That is the longest dry spell of my entire adult life.
But my New Year’s Resolution this year was to make smarter choices when it comes to women.
The smartest choice of all would be to take a break from them, because they are more trouble than they are worth.
On the other hand…I like trouble.
I especially like trouble with a wet, eager mouth.
So, I’m probably not going to keep my dick from getting into some trouble, but at a minimum, I can promise myself there will be no more high-maintenance supermodels.
No more international divas who like to tag NHL players on their Instagram posts but have no interest in moving to Calgary, Alberta. Who will dangle promises for years that it might happen.
In other words, no more Tatyana.
I may have only dated one woman who fits that profile, off and on over the last three years, but she’s been enough of a handful for a lifetime.
Which is why I’m arriving fifteen minutes early at the address Forrest texted me. I can’t get into trouble at a Granger family dinner.
I give my name to the hostess, and she gestures for me to wait in the small bar to the side.
The only other customer in that space is a compact little blonde woman who has exploded out of an oversized puffy jacket, a thick wool toque, and a bright purple pair of fuzzy mittens, all of which are scattered over the barstools around her.
She’s on the phone, nodding with an aggressive level of agreement as she listens to whoever she’s talking to, so I take a seat at the far end to give her space.
“What’ll you have?” The bartender asks.
“Lime and soda,” I say.
No drinking the night before a game where I’m getting a rare start. As the third-string goalie, I sit on the bench more often than not, so knowing I’m in net tomorrow is a big deal.
The woman on the phone tips her head back to stare at the ceiling, a dramatic reaction to whatever is being said to her, and her black turtleneck slides down, revealing the delicate curve of her throat and jaw. Her hair is a wild but short mane of sunshine rays.
It would look incredible spread across my pillow.
Alexei Artyomov, at the very least find out if she is local before you jump straight to picturing her naked.
Not that I need her naked for what I could do with her.
That turtleneck is no match for my hands.
And her loose-fitting, high-waisted jeans could be unzipped in a flash.
It’s not the sexiest outfit ever invented, but I find myself cataloguing every little piece of it.
As if she can feel me looking at her, she rolls her neck and glances sideways, bringing her bright gaze to lock on my face. Her brows jump in surprise when I don’t look away.
And her eyes spark with undeniable interest.
“K, well, I have to go. No, they aren’t here yet, but— Why do you think I’d get into trouble?” She laughs, and it rolls through me like thick honey. “Cecilia, go practice. Love you.”
She sets her phone down as the bartender slides an Old Fashioned in front of her. She lifts her drink in the air to me. “To anxious friends.”
Friends. Not lovers.
I gratefully take the soda the bartender hands me, and salute her back.
“Cheers to that,” I murmur, watching her mouth work.
Trouble, I’m sure.
I still get up and circle around the bar.
She holds my gaze again, and holy fuck I like the way she looks at me.
Her lips are wet from her drink, soft and wet and curling up at the edges—
“There’s my little sister,” Forrest says from out of nowhere.
“Come here, Em Bear,” says a matching voice.
Those voices are the reason for the family dinner.
I halt in my tracks, just a few feet away from the serious trouble I was about to hit on, as my teammate Forrest and his older brother Connor, two of the four Granger brothers who all play in the NHL, who will be playing against each other tomorrow night in our barn, squish the little blonde between them in a double bear hug.
“Get off me!” Laughing, she pushes them away and brushes a few chaotic strands of hair off her face, all breathless and giggly. “This is why I never visit you idiots. It’s dangerous to my health.”
Forrest clasps at his chest. “Hurtful.”
“Literally,” she mutters, but her gaze quickly slides back to me. She shrugs in a universal apology motion, as if to say, Sorry my brothers interrupted our moment.
I wince back in my own apologetic way, sorry it’s about to get so much more awkward, as Forrest pulls me into the conversation. “Emery, this is my teammate Alexei Artyomov. We call him Arty. Don’t let his scowl fool you, deep down he’s a softie.”
Am I scowling? I frown and rub my jaw.
He gestures from me back to her. “And this is my bratty little sister, Emery. We call her Buzz.”
“Or Em Bear,” Connor adds, grinning as he sticks his hand out. “And I’m the handsome older brother.”
“Second oldest,” Emery says, rolling her eyes. “First in ego, though.”
He shrugs shamelessly.
But I’m still focused on her.
I knew she is a college student in Boston…and that’s about it.
She doesn’t look anything like Forrest described. Emery? She’s a tomboy. Plays hockey. Gives as good as she gets in a fight.
All of those things could be true and I could have used a head’s up warning that his sister is wildly hot, too.
Maybe he doesn’t know that yet. Maybe when he looks at her, she’s still his pipsqueak little sister.
She’s young, after all. But there’s something there, under the surface. A hot little thing just ready to burst free.
Fuck me.
Because even knowing she’s off-limits, the way Emery Granger is still looking at me, I know she’s exactly the kind of trouble I will want to get into at the first opportunity.
Chapter Three: Emery
I love hockey. It’s been in my blood since the day I was born, the first daughter to an NHL star after four boys—who all grew up to play in the big game, too. Grangers love hockey.
But I’ve never, ever wanted to bang a hockey player.
Especially not a grumpy one, because life is way too short for that—although Alexei Artyomov’s frown didn’t appear until my brothers showed up.
Come to Calgary, my mom said. It’ll be fun, she said. We’ll get to see Forrest play against Connor, and have a family dinner with three of the five Granger kids.
Never mind that I’m in my final term at college, and since I don’t have a lucrative pro hockey career to look forward to, maybe I should actually give that my full attention.
Never mind that nobody in the family came to see my team play this season. And sure, yeah, we had a shit season that’s already over, but Forrest is having a brutal season, too, and here we are in Calgary anyway.
At least my parents always get me my own really nice hotel room. I might be neglected, but I’m still spoiled in my own way.
And they let me pick the restaurant for dinner.
Which is good, because it turns out that our family dinner the night before the game isn’t just family.
Mom forgot to mention that Forrest has an intensely hot new best friend who doesn’t speak a lot of English, but is fluent in eye-fucking.
The hot goalie is off-limits, Emery Granger. He is not sex on a stick for you to lick.
Would my family notice if I snuck off to the bathroom and gave my V-card to my brother’s teammate?
Coming from a family of pro-hockey players and playing at an elite level myself, I have to say that athletic bodies don’t usually impress me.
But the Calgary backup goalie is stunning. Taller than everyone in my family, and broad but not thick. His wingspan is incredible, like his arms go on forever, and his shoulders…
A girl could sit on those shoulders with ease. Maybe rub myself against his face…
I look up at the ceiling, my cheeks heating up. I have never in my entire life had an explicit face-sitting fantasy about anyone, let alone a stranger sitting across from me while my family discusses the wild card spots for the playoffs.
Our food arrives, which helps me re-centre myself and regain control over my body. In the hierarchy of things I care about, hockey is at the top, followed by food, family, school, music, working out in general, fashion, and way at the bottom, sex. So it should be easier than it is to ignore my reaction to Alexei.
I threw a bit of a tantrum until my mom let me pick the restaurant, which is more foodie than my brothers usually like, but the steak here is well-rated. They got their steaks, and I have a really amazing scallop dish with asparagus done four ways—foamed, gelled, pickled…and frozen in an unexpected sorbet, which I’m instructed to eat first, to set the stage for the rest of this course.
If the hockey thing doesn’t work out for me, and women’s hockey has a way of not working out, I might go to culinary school so I can learn how to make asparagus ice cream that delights on the palette.
“Mmmm,” I say, savouring the bright, grassy flavour. “Oh, wow.”
“It’s good?” From across the table, Alexei is staring at my mouth intently. A ghost of a smile tugs at the corners of his lush, elegant mouth. “It sounds good.”
I lick my lips and wink at him. “It’s delicious. You have to like asparagus, probably, but it’s fun.”
“Fun?” He waves down the waiter and points at my plate. “I want that, too.”
Beside him, Forrest chokes on his first bite of steak. “Man, no,” he tries to intervene. “It’s asparagus.” He gestures at the pickled slices draped perfectly over my scallops. “Look. Green shit. You don’t like green shit.”
Alexei frowns. “I don’t like salad. She says it’s good. You heard her.”
Forrest narrows his eyes at me. “Oh, I heard her. She’s a shit disturber.”
“What does shit disturber mean?”
“She’s tricking you.” My brother changes his voice to sound like Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars. “It's a trap.”
“Oooh.” Alexei looks back at me. “You try to trick me?”
“No trick,” I say with a straight face. “But yes, vegetable.”
He shrugs. “I still try. I like the way you sound when you eat it.”
Someone really should tell him it’s indecent to say things like that out loud. But I’m not going to, because I’m enjoying how uncomfortable my brothers are right now. When you’re the youngest of five and your four older brothers are all pro hockey players, it’s not that often you get to shock them.
I let my gaze linger on Alexei’s interestingly stoic face as I lazily say, “Yeah, Forrest. He likes the way I sound when I eat it.”
“Emery Granger,” my mother says.
Connor coughs and changes the subject to the hotel his team is staying in ahead of tomorrow’s game. Not the same place we’re staying at, and he’s wondering how the amenities compare. Mindless bullshit I couldn’t care less about.
Alexei watches me lick a bit of asparagus foam off my spoon, something flickering deep in his otherwise serious gaze, and I smile.
* * *
“Emery! Wait!”
I turn around just short of the entrance to the hotel I’m staying at with my parents.
Alexei jogs across the street, an unexpected grin on his face. “You are alone.”
It sounds like a statement, rather than a question, and he has no idea just how accurate that observation is.
Baby Granger has always, will always, be alone. Even when I fly to a whole other country to see my family.
“Where are your family?” His breath puffs out between us, reminding me just how effing cold it is here in Calgary tonight.
“My parents went to Forrest’s apartment.” I rock back on my heels as recognition glints in Alexei’s eyes. “But you knew that.”
His nod is bold and unashamed. “I knew that.” He gestures at the hotel. “I could…buy you a coffee?”
“We just had coffee after dinner.”
His smile broadens. “Black espresso, one sugar cube. Yes.”
The fact that he noticed how I took my coffee does funny things to me, leaving me speechless. And judging by the way his expression shifts, it’s no secret. I’m pretty sure my pleasure at being seen is written all over my face.
He steps closer, and suddenly he’s all I can see. Thick black hair falling forward over slashing eyebrows. His skin is paler than my hearty Midwest pink-cheeked aesthetic, and his jawline is impeccable. If his hockey career ends too soon, he could pivot to playing an elegant vampire on the big screen no problemo. “Then I wish I could walk you home. But I am too late.”
“Too late for what?” My question is breathless and silly. He’s already said it, but I don’t want this conversation to end. I like the way he’s curved over me way too much for my own good. I lick my lips. “I’m not home yet. You could walk me to my room?”
His mouth curves into a beautiful smile. “Yes. I will.”
His hand ghosts in the small of my back as he guides me through the lobby to the elevator.
We have to wait a minute, watching the floor indicator count down, and neither of us say anything.
My heart is pounding. I know what I’m doing here. I’m inviting my brother’s teammate to my room. Not just to walk me to the door, but inside.
And once he’s in my room, we’ll do things that I haven’t done with anyone else yet, and tomorrow when I see him play hockey in the net behind my brother, I’ll pretend this never happened.
I’ve been around hockey players my entire life, and for the last four years, I’ve shared an arena with an entire team of college-aged boys.
I know what this is and what it isn’t. I’ve just never wanted this before tonight.
The elevator dings, and the doors slide open.
We have the lift to ourselves, and as the doors begin to close, we turn to face each other.
“My brother can’t find out about this,” I start to say.
Alexei’s already looking at my mouth. “You will be my secret.”
“Yeah, I get it—” The rest of that thought dies on my tongue as he takes my face in his hands and tips my head up to meet his confident mouth.
I will be his secret.
My brain goes fuzzy at the first lush, experienced press of his lips. It’s a take charge, confident kind of kiss, which is exactly what I need.
For all the surface similarities Alexei might have with the annoying, immature hockey players that surround me, this kiss promises he’s a different type of man. Cosmopolitan and mature.
A guaranteed good time, worth pausing my preferences on for a single night. Fantasy material for the foreseeable future.
And maybe, just maybe, reason to visit Calgary again.
“Kiss me back, solnishko.” He chuckles as he strokes his thumb along my jaw, guiding my mouth to open wider for him.
I blink in surprise, then lunge up at him just as the elevator dings, arriving at my floor. He’s laughing, too, as he lets me kiss him for a hot second before slickly putting distance between us in time for the doors to open.
When my tummy does a nervous free fall, though, he catches my hand and squeezes. “It’s okay?”
The way he says it is different than in English, more of a question that I interpret as Are you okay?
I nod. I’m fine. Breathless and on the precipice of something I haven’t done before, but very eager.
Too eager?
Screw it. If he doesn’t like my too eager energy, then that’s for him to sort out.
I drag him off the elevator and around the corner, down the hall to my hotel room. My parents are on the same floor, but in the other direction, and they aren’t here right now. That’s a problem for later, when I’m going to have to sneak the hot Russian goalie out. But there’s a stairwell right next to my door.
This is happening.
My fingers shake as I pull out my room key. He takes it from me and turns me around, pressing my back to the door, leaning over me, fisting the key just above my head. A slick, smooth move he’s done a hundred times before, I’m sure. He takes my cheek in his other hand, his fingertips leaving electric pathways on my skin as he angles us together for another, deeper kiss.
This time, there’s no ding to interrupt us.
His fingers sink into my hair, burrowing under my wool beanie, and I wind my arms around his neck, closing the gap between our bodies.
“I want you,” I whisper between kisses.
“Yes,” he pants back.
And then he’s opening the door and we stumble into my room, winter clothes unzipping and falling here and there.
By the time we get to the bed, he’s pulled my shirt out of my jeans and is squeezing my bare waist in his hand, a hot, electric touch that puts the kisses to shame.
I unbutton his shirt as fast as possible, wanting to see the hard, muscled body I can already feel through his clothes. His shoulders are ridiculously wide, the rest of him narrowing down in an exaggerated vee to tight hips that feel as if they were built for wrapping thighs around.
My legs move restlessly against his, already thinking about doing just that.
He settles his weight beside me and tucks me in against him, cocooning me into a warm, delicious kiss-filled space. Up close, he smells faintly tropical, like coconut and something else. It’s unexpected, and I breathe him in as I work at his shirt. When I get his last button free, my fingers brush the erection straining beneath his fly, and my breath hitches.
His, too.
“Touch me again,” he grinds out.
I turn my hand and cover the bulge pressing against his dress pants. Even through fabric, I know his cock is long, proportionate to the rest of his oversized body, and thick enough around that the thought of him being inside me makes my head spin.
“Fuck.” His breath catches, and that’s so unexpectedly beautiful I have to take a second.
I made Alexei Artyomov make that sound. I did that. Tomboy, little sister, virgin-at-twenty-two-not-that-there’s-anything-wrong-with-that Emery Granger.
I grin and squeeze him.
“Oh,” he says, a less flattering sound for sure.
“Is that too hard? I’m not sure…”
He searches my face, his expression confused at first, then softening. “It’s perfect.”
It isn’t, but when I ease up, he rocks his hips forward. His eyes burn, and that feels perfect. We find a stroking rhythm quickly, and his hands work their way up under my turtleneck.
I haven’t been this aware of my breasts since puberty. Each inch of lazy progress he makes adds another throb of heaviness to my smaller-than-average-and-kind-of-pointy tits.
By the time his thumbs stroke the underside of my sports bra, I’m arching my back and practically preening for his touch.
“This is okay?” There’s a rich, cocky edge to the question, though. He knows it is. He’s teasing me, making me wait and want more than I ever knew I could.
“Yes,” I whimper. “Very okay.”
“Very okay,” he parrots. “I like that. Can you say, touch me, Alexei?”
I laugh weakly. “Touch my breasts, Alexei.”
“Good girl.” He sweeps his thumbs up, just barely glancing my nipples with the fleshy part of his palms.
I want so much more.
“Touch my nipples, Alexei.”
He catches my mouth with his as he strokes me again, this time more firmly. He drags his thumbs across my nipples, back and forth, back and forth, and then his fingers hook into the top of my bra and tug it down.
I sob into his mouth.
“My sexy secret,” he rumbles against my lips. “I need to taste.”
The surreal sight of his dark hair disappearing under my turtleneck—and then the feel of his mouth latching on to my bare breast—is a new core memory.
This is what it feels like to be intimate with someone. Literally like being licked by fire.
He sucks at both breasts until I’m panting, then grazes my nipple with his teeth before he rears up and hitches my hips up in his hands. “Get naked. I taste you now.”
I stare up at him.
He grins. “Please?”
I laugh. “Are you for real? You don’t have to beg for that, I promise.”
“You promise what?” He looks confused.
I wonder just how much English he speaks. He’s got the dirty talk cornered.
As I’m trying to figure out the simplest way to tell him he’s way sexier than anyone at college, he misreads my pause as nervousness. “Don’t be shy, solnishko.”
I repeat the endearment. “What does that mean?”
“Little sun.” He leans forward and twirls his fingers through my short blonde bob. “Are you like the sun everywhere?”
“What…” Then understanding dawns, and my face turns hot. “Yes. I’m blonde everywhere.”
He mutters something in Russian as he unzips my jeans. The urgency is a universal language that I understand, though.
I may not be experienced, but I’m not exactly shy about my body. I know what it can do, and I know I’m physically fit. Cute, even. A solid eight, maybe a nine to the average guy. A seven to jerks, but Alexei doesn’t feel like a jerk. I would wear a bikini in front of him and feel pretty confident.
But he’s going to get me naked naked.
Satisfying his curiosity about my pubes kind of naked.
That’s…so naked.
My belly quivers as he peels me down to my panties, my jeans scraping down my thighs, then his hands skimming back up them. His gaze drags all over my body on its way to my face, and when his attention settles there again, it’s magnetic.
I can’t break the connection.
There’s a distant vibration of a phone, and that doesn’t break the connection.
Don’t read more into this than simple sex, Emery Granger.
I’m really trying not to, but he’s staring at me like I’m a wonder. How is a girl not supposed to fall head over heels in love with this kind of attention? I’ve never in my life had this much attention.
He finally ducks his head and kisses me right below my belly button, his lips just as sure and confident here as they were everywhere else. As he inhales deeply—try not to think too hard about what that means—he shifts his whole body, levering down a bit. His hips unmistakably grind into the mattress—focus on that, that’s fucking hot—and then his mouth is on the cotton covering my mound, kissing me through my panties.
“Solnishko,” he murmurs. “Smells like summer.”
I cover my mouth to keep from screaming something silly like I love you or marry me, and it’s good because the next thing he does is tug my panties to the side and lick up the seam of my pussy, and that makes me actually scream.
“Fuck yeah,” he growls. “Be loud, Emery.”
Can’t. This room is booked in my parents’ name. Oh god, oh god…
His tongue goes everywhere. Deep and up and down again, then up, all the way up, licking between my pussy lips until he finds my clit, and there he stays, tongue kissing my virgin pussy in a way that makes me plant my heels on the bed and press my hips up into his face. Shamelessly. Needfully. Desperately.
“Alexei,” I groan around my fingers.
He mumbles something back. I close my legs around his head, and he pushes them wide open. My panties get in the way and he rips them off, sending them flying through the air.
I forget about muffling the sounds I’m making and I reach for him, my hands grabbing his head and holding him… there.
His long, capable fingers wrap around my hips and lift me to his mouth.
Thighs shaking, I try not to wrap myself around his head again, but he’s turning me inside out, his suction on my clit is so perfect. My thighs curl in, my legs sliding over his broad, strong shoulders, and then I’m coming so hard I see stars.
Deep, incredible pulses start at my clit and rocket through my belly, out to my limbs, leaving nothing tingling pleasure in their wake. I drift in the thick wonder of it, my breath hitching and my ears buzzing, until Alexei peels my thighs off his ears and presses his mouth to the inside of one leg.
“Good, yes?”
I laugh and nod. “Um…yes. Incredible. I didn’t know mouths could do all of that, but now that I do know, I feel very, very special.”
“Yes, incredible. Special.” He laughs with me, kissing my mound and then my bare belly, before crawling up beside me. He’s still wearing clothes, his dress shirt merely undone.
He looks elegantly debauched.
I am…
I glance down.
My turtleneck is shoved up into my armpits. My sports bra is yanked down below my breasts. And beneath that…I’m totally naked.
We need some balance here.
“Your turn,” I whisper.
He leans in and kisses me, tasting like me, his mouth still wet. “In a minute. First you enjoy.”
“I’m enjoying.” I tug at his belt. “I want—”
From somewhere near the door, a phone vibrates again.
I sigh. “I should get that. If it’s my parents, and they come here next.”
He groans and rolls onto his back, waving me off. “Yes. Okay.”
I peel off my turtleneck and bra first. If I’m going to roll off the bed naked, it might as well be all the way naked.
He watches me, his attention wolfish.
I twirl at the end of the bed, then point to his erection. “Unzip, mister. I want to taste you next.”
As I search my coat for phone, I hear the unmistakable sound of his zipper, then a sexy string of Russian words. My phone’s not there, so I turn back to see if it’s in my jeans, when I feel the vibration again next to my foot.
Not my phone.
His.
I hold up his coat. “Your phone, Alexei.”
“Don’t care,” he says, his eyelids hooding his gaze, his attention locked on my face. “I want you. Need your mouth.”
I set the coat down again, and his phone tumbles out of the pocket, screen up.
Tatyana calling
It’s none of my business, of course. We’re just… Whatever we’re doing.
But then the call ends, and on the Lock Screen there’s a notification that he’s missed three calls and a bunch of messages, too.
“Who’s Tatyana?” I ask lightly. Picking up the phone, I lob it in his direction. “She keeps calling. It might be important.”
He swears under his breath in Russian. I mean, I don’t know that it’s a swear word, but it sounds like one. “I turn it off. Come here.”
Against my better judgment, I crawl onto the bed as he fiddles with his phone, and wind my arms around his neck.
But as I kiss his jaw, his body goes from hot and needy to rigid and cold.
Definitely don’t fall in love with this one, Emery Granger.
Hockey players are all the same.
“Is it, umm…?”
He peels me off his body with a heavy sigh. Closes his eyes for a beat, then opens them again, and the expression there…it’s not the man who was just between my legs.
Without saying a word, he disappears into the bathroom. There’s running water, and I use that as cover to race to my suitcase to find something that’s easier to pull on than a turtleneck and jeans.
When he returns, holding a glass of water, I’m in an oversized t-shirt and underwear. The flimsiest of armour, but it’ll have to do.
“Drink,” he says, pressing the glass into my hand. “I have to go.”
I stare as he heads for the hotel room door.
Then I find my voice. “No goodbye?”
He turns around and shoves his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. “I am trouble for you.”
“Why, was that your drug dealer?” It’s a joke, and a bad one. I hope it’s a joke, anyway.
“It is my ex-girlfriend.” His mouth pinches. “She is having a baby.”
Is that worse than a drug dealer? It feels like it is. I barely hear my voice over the ringing in my ears. “What do you mean?”
“In labour, yes? You know the thing? She is having a baby.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. Now.”
I huff a shocked breath. “How ex are we talking here?”
He doesn’t answer that, which makes me feel great. “You will find better than me, Emery. And then you will forget me. It is for the best.”
Keep reading on Tuesday, May 13, 2025!!! Pre-order at Kobo, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, and Amazon. After May 13, this book will be exclusively available on Amazon and in KindleUnlimited.
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