Sergei was checking email on his phone as he waited for the elevator doors to open, so he didn’t notice her right away. He was immersed in a note from his mother in Russia as he stepped inside, and it wasn’t until he heard his name that he looked up. He froze when he found big green eyes intently focused on him. Jesus, had Danielle been this pretty yesterday? How had he missed those eyes? It was like staring into a pool of the shiniest, most sparkling emeralds he’d ever seen, and for a moment he couldn’t remember why he didn’t particularly like her.

“Are you going up to the owner’s box?” she asked, cocking her head when he didn’t respond right away.

“Er, yes. Mr. Finch invited me to watch the game from there.”

“I get off on the floor before,” she said, pushing a button on the panel.

“Do you have seats?” he asked.

“I sit with the WAGs,” she responded, referring to the wives and girlfriends of the players.

Damn, he needed to stop staring, so he cleared his throat. “I wanted to apologize,” he said hesitantly. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did yesterday. It caught me off guard since I don’t even know you, but I’m genuinely sorry for raising my voice.”

“Is it Toli or Zakk who’s forcing you to apologize?” she asked, those green eyes still burning into his.

“What?” He made a face. “No one forced me to do anything. But Toli explained how much time you’ve spent with Niko and how helpful you’ve been to Tessa, so I thought—”

“You thought you’d make peace since I’m the sister and you’re the brother.” She made an impatient gesture. “No worries, it’s all good.” The elevator came to a stop and she took a step towards the doors as they slid open.

“No. Wait.” Sergei wasn’t sure why everything was so difficult with this woman. He was trying to be polite and she wasn’t making it easy. “Will you please come up to the box with me so we can talk?”

“I’m meeting friends.” She stepped out and turned to look at him. “But if you’d like to talk tomorrow, meet me at the practice rink on Hellman Street. Ten o’clock. You have equipment you can borrow?”

He blinked. “Hockey equipment?”

“No, rugby equipment.” She rolled her eyes. “Yes, of course hockey equipment. A group of us play several times a week. You want to talk, be there. If not, I understand.” The elevator doors closed and left Sergei staring blankly at where she’d been. What the hell had just happened? And where was he going to get hockey equipment that fit by tomorrow morning?

---

He’d had to scramble, but with Toli and Zakk’s help, Sergei managed to put enough equipment together for an informal hockey game. From what Toli had told him, Danielle played with a group of mostly male players from the local university team and a few retired NHL players who lived in the area now. She was one of only two women who played, and there was no checking allowed, but they played hard and fast. It kept her in shape since she’d made the Olympic team—which he hadn’t known—and Sergei had looked her up online last night to get a feel for how good she was.

To his chagrin, he’d discovered she was fantastic. Watching video of her during last year’s Frozen Four championship game had been mind-boggling to him. He’d had no idea Zakk’s sister was so skilled and couldn’t help but wonder why she wasn’t playing professional hockey. There was a woman’s league now, though he admittedly didn’t know much about it. Zakk had said they didn’t offer much in the way of salaries, and when he’d looked it up, he’d been surprised at the pay scale. Ranging from ten to twenty-six thousand dollars a year, none of those women could make a living wage playing full-time, especially in cities like New York and Boston. The more he read, the less sense it made, especially if they played anywhere near as well as Danielle did. These women were athletes just like him and anyone he’d ever played with, yet the salaries were unbelievably low. How could anyone work as hard as they did in hockey and still have to work another job to have money for rent? He had no idea what that was like and made a mental note to be a little more grateful for the career he had.

He got to the arena early, wanting to get a feel for the place and see who his teammates were. His gut told him Danielle wanted him to apologize somewhere she felt comfortable and he was okay with that; he honestly hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. Maybe if they played on the same team he could make it up to her by helping them win. She was good, but he didn’t know what the others were like, so he wasn’t expecting much in the way of competition.

“Good morning.” She came out of the locker room in form-fitting bike shorts, a sports bra and sandals, her blond hair pulled up in a ponytail.

“Good morning.” Sergei had to catch himself so he didn’t do an obvious double take, but he’d never seen a woman with a body like hers. She had six-pack abs, with a torso so sculpted he wanted to reach out and run his hands over it. Then there were her legs, long and lean, but with muscular thighs and perfect calves. She didn’t have much in the way of breasts, but that was okay since the rest of her was essentially perfect. Holy shit, who was this woman?

“The guys change in there.” She motioned to a door down the hall. “We’ll start warming up in about twenty minutes.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sure Toli told you, but there’s no checking. We play three twenty-minute periods but we only take five-minute breaks in between. There’s a ref, but it’s hit or miss on whether or not whoever we get will actually call much.”

Sergei snickered. “Sounds about right.”

“You’ll play for the Wolves, so light jerseys.”

“Who do you play for?”

“The Glaciers.” She flashed a smile as she turned to go back into the locker room. “See you on the ice.”

“I’ll be there.” He watched her go and had to snap his mouth shut to keep from gaping at her ass. It was about as perfect as a woman’s ass could be, and if it was anything like the rest of her, he’d be willing to bet it was rock solid, too. Round, toned and probably muscular—he didn’t know when he’d last wanted to take a bite out of a woman’s backside.

“Hey, you must be Sergei.” A tall, skinny man with glasses and a friendly smile held out his hand. “Kincaid Lawrence.”

“Nice to meet you.” Sergei shook his hand and fell into step beside him as they headed towards the other locker room.

“It’s an honor to play with you today,” Kincaid said, letting Sergei walk into the room in front of him. “We play a pretty high-level game, but I’m sure you’ll up the intensity.”

“I’m always happy to play, but mostly I’m here as a favor to Danielle,” Sergei hedged, suddenly unsure what he was actually doing here. It had almost been as if she’d dared him to come and now he was questioning whether or not he’d made the right decision. He did owe her an apology, though, and this seemed to be the way she wanted it even though it didn’t make much sense.

“Well, you’d better tap into your NHL skills because Dani and Sara don’t mess around, and now that Dani’s going to be on the Olympic team, she needs us to push her limits.”

Okay, maybe it did make sense. What better way to push her limits as a hockey player than by practicing with an elite player from the NHL? It was a little odd to think of himself from what might be her perspective, but it’s not like he said that kind of thing out loud, even though it was technically true.

“Who’s Sara?” he asked as they started changing.

“She and Dani are good friends. They played in college together.”

“So she’s pretty good?”

“Sara? Yeah. Not like Dani, but she can hold her own, for sure.”

“Sounds like a good time. You play anywhere?”

“In college,” he nodded, “but never professionally. I’m an attorney—went straight to law school, and I wasn’t that good. I still enjoy it, though.”

A few other men arrived and once Sergei was introduced, conversation drifted to his team in Alaska and other random hockey topics. By the time they got onto the ice to warm up, Sergei felt comfortable with his teammates, confident it would be a fun morning doing the one thing he still enjoyed. If it somehow bought him some brownie points with his brother and sister-in-law, that would be a nice bonus since Tessa was still annoyed with him about the whole thing.

Stepping out on the ice, Sergei didn’t think about skates that were half a size too small, equipment that was unfamiliar, and a stick someone else had taped. These were minor annoyances, nothing he couldn’t play through, and he focused on watching the other team as he circled the ice.

Danielle was slender but strong and fast, moving smoothly as she shot puck after puck into the net as she warmed up. She was accurate as hell and he was briefly distracted by how great her shot was. He was momentarily annoyed they were on opposing teams; it would be a lot of fun to play on a line with her, watch her move the puck and see what kinds of plays she made. Some people were more fun to play with than others, and from what he’d seen so far, Danielle would be one of them.

“She’s hard to ignore, eh?” Kincaid skated up beside Sergei and followed his gaze.

“Our brothers are friends and I’d heard of her, of course,” Sergei admitted. “But I had no idea she was so good.”

“Yeah, we’ve gone from playing once a week to three times to help her get ready for the Olympics. She’s having a hard time making a decision on whether or not she’s going to go in September.”

“Why?” Sergei cocked his head.

Kincaid hesitated. “That’s her story. I shouldn’t have said anything.” He skated off and Sergei followed thoughtfully. Why would she have doubts about playing in the Olympics? Who wouldn’t want to win a gold medal? He had one and so did Toli. There was probably more to the story, but he didn’t know her well enough to be able to come up with a reason to ask.

---

It had been a long time since Dani had been nervous on the ice, but Sergei had her so self-conscious she barely remembered warming up. Now that she was sitting on the bench, waiting for the game to start, her heart was still racing a little and it wasn’t because she was out of breath. Why did someone as good-looking as Sergei have to be such a jerk? He hadn’t done anything since their initial awkward encounter yesterday but she still had a bad taste in her mouth from the way he’d shouted at her. She probably shouldn’t have responded the way she had, but she’d been caught off guard as well, since they’d all tried to get Niko to call her something other than Mama D. It didn’t seem fair for Sergei to assume she was trying to replace Niko’s mother.

“He’s soooo hot,” her best friend, Sara Chandler, nudged her. “I can’t believe you got Sergei Petrov to come play with us!”

“He owed me after being such a jerk the other day,” Dani muttered.

“That right there is the guy you need to punch your V-card!” Sara giggled.

“Shh!” Dani’s cheeks reddened and she looked around quickly to make sure no one had heard. The last thing she needed was to advertise the fact that she was an almost-twenty-three-year-old virgin.

“Don’t worry, no one can hear me.” Sara shook her head, her brown eyes sparkling. “Look, you said you just want it gone, so he’s perfect. Really hot, so it’ll be fun to make out and stuff. A lot older, so experienced enough to make it bearable even though the first time is probably gonna suck no matter what. And, for the icing on the cake, he’s still a wreck over his dead wife, so he’s not going to get hung up on you or get clingy. Exactly what you need.”

Dani gave her friend a look. “At this point, I might as well go to the doctor and have my cherry surgically removed.”

“Oh, stop!” Sara laughed. “That’s not nearly as fun.”

“You just said the first time is gonna suck no matter what—how is that fun?”

“It might not be awful, but I don’t know anyone who said it didn’t hurt. Besides, that’s not the point… Sergei Petrov is the point. I mean, holy shit, look at him move.”

Dani had to concede the point; he was beautiful both on and off the ice. Unlike his quirky older brother who had a crooked smile and a bump on his nose, Sergei was magazine cover material. Deep-set, wide blue eyes, a strong chin with a cleft in it, light blond hair that was usually swept back off his forehead, and cheekbones for miles. Not to mention the body of a god. He was an inch or so shorter than Toli, but more muscular, with broad shoulders and thick thighs from spending his life skating. She couldn’t see it now, but when she’d seen him in jeans yesterday, his backside looked good enough to want to take a bite of and—

“Snap out of it!” Sara nudged her again. “Let’s go.”

Together, they swung their legs over the boards and onto the ice. Dani skated to the face-off circle while Sara moved off to the right. Out of the corner of her eye, Dani saw Sergei move to a defensive position to her left, close to the blue line. Sara was set up to cover Sergei, which made Dani snicker since her friend appeared somewhat starstruck. His record was impressive on paper but even more so in person. He was good-looking, talented and strong—what more could you want from a guy who played hockey?

Dani won the opening face-off easily, passing the puck to the defenseman behind her. She followed the play, taking the pass back to her and scoring the first goal of the day. A small smile played on her lips as she watched the surprise register on Sergei’s face; he obviously hadn’t been expecting her to come out ready to play, but that was one of the things she was known for. As soon as she had the chance, she’d show him what else she’d come to be known for on the ice.