Pucking Around with Fate
They were supposed to be on the same team.
Santos Khyle arrived in Seattle as the Soul Reapers' most anticipated rookie in years, a natural-born scorer with something to prove and a chip on his shoulder the size of a regulation puck. Gunner Jäger had been tearing up the ice as the team's feared enforcer for two seasons, and he had zero interest in sharing his spotlight with some orange-haired twenty-one year old who looked at him like he was a problem to be managed.
From the moment they met, it was war.
On the ice, they were a disaster. Off it, they were worse. Screaming matches in corridors. Fists through locker room walls. A live on-air brawl that made every highlight reel in North America and earned them both a suspension, a lecture from their furious coach, and the undivided attention of the entire hockey world.
Nobody could stand to watch them together.
Nobody could look away either.
Because underneath the fury and the bruises and the months of spectacular mutual destruction, something else was building. Something neither of them had language for yet. Something that felt uncomfortably like the only fight either of them was actually afraid to lose.
The Soul Reapers are one playoff run away from everything. Gunner and Khyle are one honest conversation away from falling apart completely.
Or maybe, just maybe, from finally figuring out what they are to each other.
Pucking Up the Ice is a slow burn MM romance set in the brutal and beautiful world of professional hockey. It contains explicit language, on-ice violence, emotional gut punches, two men who are absolutely terrible at feelings, and a love story that had to break everything before it could build something worth keeping.
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Chapter: Old Stomping GroundPOV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerLost in thoughts of his own, Khyle noticed it more. The space was usually full of hustle and bustle, young would-be stars striving to make it to the next level, to get noticed, pushed by their will and their parents. But this year's crop were long gone. The morning's practice had already cleared out, leaving Gunner and Khyle free to do their own thing in the home team's dressing room, the very room in which Khyle had spent the last four years of his life suiting up and listening to speeches under his old coach's close supervision before he was called up to the Reapers.Khyle slowed as he entered the dressing room, ghosts of conversations past lighting up like pale silhouettes in motion as his eyes traced a path around the room, along wood benches, across the floor.Gunner caught the shift in him, subtle as it was, the way Khyle's usual sharp edges had gone soft and unguarded for just a moment, the way his eyes moved across the room like he was reading somet
Last Updated: 2026-06-30
Chapter: Ghost TownPOV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerThey thought the arena seemed a bit quiet when they finally arrived, the car, and in it, the latest incarnation of their ongoing argument, coasting in a lazy slide around the corner before finding purchase again and winding into the parking lot under the cold and distant eye of the mid-afternoon sun.But when they rolled to a stop right in front of the main entrance, the two men inside the vehicle came to a lurch in their argument and finally took in their surroundings.All of about five cars littered the space around the doors. The building was almost a husk.Gunner's grumbling tenor hacked into their momentary peace first, breaching the lull in their jaded back and forth, the enforcer making zero effort to hide the considerable contempt in his voice."You sure he said to meet him here?" he frowned.Khyle studied the building for a moment."Yesss," he ground out, though he seemed hardly convinced of it himself."It's a ghost town," Gunner complained loudly
Last Updated: 2026-06-29
Chapter: Karma CleansePOV: KhyleThankfully, Khyle's music was quickly retired, and something less irritating was slid into the CD player.Apparently, Gunner had seen fit to change out the offending CD before Khyle blew a circuit and threw him out of the car. He had sense when he needed to. But it didn't escape Khyle's attention that mixed-X was popped into the passenger door's side panel. For later. The bastard was keeping good on his word, and taking his CD. And that was just weird, because Khyle couldn't figure out why in hell Gunner would actually want to listen to anything that Khyle found erotic.They pulled out of the parking lot and headed to their next destination. The food bank. It was a quick and uneventful stop. Gunner tagged beside him as Khyle carried a box full of dried and canned food, the enforcer lugging the heavier one. They stopped just long enough to give a few autographs once they were recognized, which was pretty much after Khyle had one foot in the door. Then they headed over to the
Last Updated: 2026-06-27
Chapter: Half Trying To ImpressPOV: GunnerGunner swallowed back a real grunt of pain.Somewhere in between shifting gears and checking his mirror and changing lanes, Khyle's bony little elbow had whipped out and drilled into Gunner's shoulder like he was breaking cement. He didn't pull his punches. The pain was bright and sharp, but it was funny. With Khyle on his side now, Gunner found he respected that about him even more.Gunner feigned injury as he was driven off of his prey with a very effective push. Hell, Khyle had practically drilled a hole in his shoulder. He knew the little prick had power, but sometimes he forgot just how much sting he could pack into a hit. He could ignore the fact that the pain he felt in his shoulder gave him a strange sense of excitement. But he couldn't help but chuckle at the twist of discomfort on Khyle's face and those reddened cheeks. And the eyes he gave Gunner, they were almost enough to rip a person to shreds. It gave him a pleasant shiver, but still. It was just a bit of fu
Last Updated: 2026-06-26
Chapter: Moves Like JägerPOV: KhyleAfter wading through twenty very technical minutes of mandatory new car talk, Gunner firing question upon question at Khyle until he directed him to the manual that was in the glove compartment, the atmosphere mellowed and thoughts turned to idle conversation.About the cold. And the car."Heated seats are the best, eh?""Yeah, pretty sweet.""My old car, she didn't have that. And you fucking miss it on a day like today. Get in your car, and the seat's like a park bench."Khyle chuckled. He'd never thought of it like that, but that was true. Khyle looked over when Gunner didn't say anything else for a full ten seconds, worried that he might be into or up to something Khyle wouldn't want to know about.He was casually flipping through Khyle's pack of CDs, ones he'd had for years but hadn't had the luxury of listening to for a few months in his old beater with its broken CD player.Khyle let the enforcer occupy himself for a few moments, enjoying just being. He found himself
Last Updated: 2026-06-23
Chapter: New RidePOV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerHe lifted the key fob and hit the button, and his car chirped back at them, the sound echoing off the cement walls of the structure around them, confusing the senses. Gunner, though, turned his head toward the sound. But his expression quickly became annoyed, like he was thoroughly stuck on a crossword puzzle."Where's your jalopy?" he frowned. Khyle felt his eye twitch, but the typical slight against his car was forgotten in the next instant, and he nodded toward the space ahead, feeling a small upward pull on the side of his sore lip."You're standing in front of it."Gunner seemed to take a moment to process where he was supposed to be looking. Khyle pressed another button, and an engine fired up. Blue eyes widened, first in surprise, then amazement. Not that the car in front of him was the most expensive thing on the road. But it was admittedly as nice as his own. Better maybe. Except that this one apparently belonged to Santos."Get outta here!" he bar
Last Updated: 2026-06-21
Toxic & Tainted: The Billionaire's Cursed Obsession
He proposed the morning of graduation. She called him a nobody and walked away.
By midnight, the whole world knew his name.
Chase Sterling is the heir to an empire she never knew existed, and Vivian Ashford is the actress who rejected him before the fortune ever came. Now she is building her career under the bright lights of Hollywood, and he is dismantling everything in his path from a New York boardroom. They should be strangers. They should be over.
But something is pulling them back together, and it is darker than desire.
Chase is not the man Vivian fell for in college. He is colder now, crueler, and every time he gets close to her, something inside him turns. He does not understand why he needs to hurt what he loves. She does not understand why she keeps coming back. Neither of them knows about the curse written into the Sterling bloodline, or that the stronger their love grows, the more violently he will be driven to destroy her.
His mother is watching from the shadows. Her best friend is seeing visions drenched in blood. And the man offering Vivian the career of her dreams has his own reasons for keeping her close.
Some curses cannot be broken. Some loves refuse to die. And some obsessions were never meant to end.
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Chapter: The Charity ProjectPOV: Vivian AshfordThe first time I see Chase Sterling sit on a floor, I almost drop the purple crayons.We are three weeks into the collaboration and the pediatric oncology ward has become, against every expectation I had going in, the part of my week I look forward to most. The children here have the specific quality of people who have been through enough that they stopped performing for adults, and there is something in that directness that I find genuinely restoring after nine months of performing everything for everyone.Maya is seven and has opinions about color that she presents as facts, which they basically are. Theo is five and has Chase.That is how I think of it by the third visit. The way children in hospitals claim the adults who show up and keep showing up, and the claiming is complete and non-negotiable and Theo executed it on the first Tuesday without asking anyone's permission.What I did not anticipate is that Chase would let himself be claimed.I look up from the
Last Updated: 2026-06-30
Chapter: Alliance of NecessityPOV: Vivian AshfordThe email from the Hartwell Foundation arrives on a Wednesday, addressed to both me and to Sterling Industries, which I know because Diana forwards it to me with a note that reads: This is either an opportunity or a disaster. Possibly both.The Hartwell Foundation, which hosted the gala where the coatroom happened, which I do not think about, is launching a children's hospital fundraising campaign and wants two faces for it. Specifically they want two faces that the public is currently extremely interested in, which is a polite way of saying they want to capitalize on the fact that #SterlingAshford is still generating engagement three weeks after the underground club video.They want Chase and me to co-chair the campaign.Jointly.For six weeks.I read the email twice.I call Diana."Tell me the numbers," I say."The campaign would generate significant profile for you at a moment when your profile is already high but the valence is complicated," she says. "Charity
Last Updated: 2026-06-30
Chapter: Sterling Industries ScandalPOV: Chase SterlingThe files drop on a Monday morning at eight-fifteen, which is the time that people who want maximum market impact choose, early enough to hit the pre-market trading window, late enough that the financial press has begun their day and is ready to receive and amplify.My assistant sends me the alert at eight-seventeen with the subject line: Urgent. Call me.I call her.She tells me about the files in the precise, efficient way she has developed for delivering bad news, which is all information and no editorial, which is what I need at eight-seventeen on a Monday morning when the pre-market futures are already moving in directions I don't want them moving.The files are internal Sterling Industries documents from the Dominic era, specifically the period between 2004 and 2012, which is the period when Sterling Industries was making its most aggressive acquisitions and when Dominic was at the peak of his operational ruthlessness. The documents show a pattern of selectiv
Last Updated: 2026-06-29
Chapter: Sienna Reveals the CursePOV: Sienna RhodesI have been waiting for this call.Not with dread, the way I wait for the bad visions. With the specific quality of someone who has been holding a heavy thing for a long time and has been told they will be able to put it down soon and is watching the moment approach."Come over," I say. "I'll show you."She arrives forty minutes later in jeans and a jacket and the expression of someone who has made a decision to be open to something and is not entirely comfortable with the openness but is committed to it anyway.I have Helena's notes on the table. Not the grimoire, Helena has not authorized that, but the written summary she gave me after our second meeting, the specific documented mechanics of the curse in Helena's own handwriting, which is precise and academic and reads like a case study.I also have the copies from the Ashworth archive. Beatrice Ashworth's journal entries, the ones I photographed on my phone during the library visit, which document the Moreau work
Last Updated: 2026-06-29
Chapter: SATURDAYPOV: Vivian AshfordI spend Saturday morning watching him.Not in person. On my laptop, in the Silver Lake apartment, with my coffee going cold beside me, pulling up every piece of footage I can find from the past ten months. Press interviews, red carpet moments, the Forbes interview, the clip from the board meeting hallway, the #SterlingBrothersWar footage from the office.I watch them in order.I watch them the way I watch footage of my own performances, which is analytically, the specific skill of someone who has been trained to read bodies and faces and the gap between what a person says and what a person means, and what I see when I apply that skill to Chase Sterling across ten months of public footage is something I have been too close to see before.He hurts after.Every single time.The Forbes interview, the pull quote moment, he is smooth and pleasant and the interviewer is charmed, and then there is a cut to him standing outside the building afterward and his face in the two
Last Updated: 2026-06-28
Chapter: Vivian's RealizationPOV: Vivian AshfordI watch the hospital footage three times.Not the public footage, there is no public footage from inside the room, but the footage that exists in my memory, which I have been replaying since I got home last night with the specific quality of something you know you are going to be replaying for a long time.He said: I have loved you since the second semester of sophomore year.He said: I have not stopped for a single day since.He said: I don't know how to be this without hurting you.He said all of it with the flinch following each true thing, the physical cost of the spell making every honest sentence visible in his body, and I sat beside his bed and I held his hand and I watched it happen and I cried when he was asleep and I left before he woke up.And now I am on my couch in Silver Lake with my coffee and the ring on my finger and the footage playing in my head, and I am trying to figure out what to do with what I know.The problem is the following: he won't rem
Last Updated: 2026-06-28
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