Gloves Off: a marriage of convenience hockey romance (Vancouver Storm Book 4)

When the ceremony ends, I lean toward my wife, inhaling the scent I’ve been clinging to this entire evening. Whenever the panic about retiring started to gnaw at me, I’d pull her closer, take a deep breath, and shove the feelings away.

“Come with me to the bar,” I murmur.

She arches an eyebrow.

“I’m going to get mauled. You’re a good deterrent.”

She rolls her eyes, smirking, but stands, and doesn’t even say anything when my hand comes to her lower back. Gazes follow her, sweeping up and down her dress, until they spot my hand on her and look away with respect.

I’m not surprised guys are staring. She’s a fucking knockout. She’s always beautiful, but tonight, in that dress, I just—the second I saw her in the lobby, walking toward me like some kind of siren, some dream, my heart stopped.

Doesn’t mean I like them looking at her, though. Possessive feelings course through my veins. She’s my wife.

She hasn’t said a word about what I put in her suitcase, which makes me think she hasn’t seen it. My pulse picks up with anticipation.

And then there’s what I found in her bag. An old book from my mom’s flower shop, with the meanings of flowers. As a teenager helping her out after school, I read it a hundred times.

How did she get it? She must have found it in the library at home. An odd, playful feeling pulses in my chest, cutting through all the weird tension and worry about tonight. The flowers started as a private joke with myself, but now that she’s in on it, I don’t mind nearly as much as I thought I would.

At the bar, I order her another drink and a water for myself before I step in front of her, backing her against the bar. I’m not hiding her from the room, I tell myself, I’m closing myself off from everyone. I need a fucking break, is all. One hand leans on the bar counter, the other comes around her waist and I pull her close. Close enough so that her hair brushes my shoulder, and her ear is inches from my mouth. Close enough to feel her warmth against my side.

“Feeling possessive tonight, Volkov?”

Yes. More than ever. “If we look like we’re busy, no one will interrupt us.” No more fucking handshakes. No more fucking congratulations on the end of my fucking career.

Our drinks arrive, and we sip in silence, me inhaling her perfume and her staring off into space. I count seventeen freckles across her nose and cheekbones before I interrupt her daydream.

“What are you thinking about, Hellfire?”

“Why aren’t your parents here?”

My gut tightens. “I told you. They give this to retired guys.”

She studies me. I don’t know how to feel, under her scrutiny like this.

“They worked to the bone so I could play hockey,” I tell her, not looking into those fascinating eyes. “If they weren’t working, they were driving me to hockey at the crack of dawn.” Finally, I force myself to meet her gaze. “Playing in the NHL showed them it was worth it.”

“Alexei.” Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, a little frown pulling between her brows. “They’re proud of you. That’s not going to go away when you retire.”

“I know. I just—” I shake my head. “They didn’t flee Russia so I could retire and spend all day cooking and watering my plants.”

“They’re proud of you,” she says with conviction, like back at the benefit when she told me about loving her work at the hospital. “No matter what.”

A beat of silence passes. When she held my hand, my entire world anchored to her, all the panic and worry subsiding for a brief moment. I don’t know what’s going on anymore.

“I’m sorry I recommended you for retirement.” Her eyes are wide with an unreadable emotion. Regret, maybe. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Pain twists in my chest at the memory, but I keep my voice steady, my gaze across the room, and my expression neutral. “You called me a lost cause.”

Silence. She’s chewing that tempting bottom lip again. “I may not enjoy watching you get hurt, but you’re definitely not a lost cause.” She shakes her head, gesturing around the room. “All these people are here for you, Alexei. The applause for you was ten times the other guys’. Everyone thinks you’re incredible, not just me.”

Under my hand on her waist, she tenses, eyes flaring with surprise like she didn’t mean to say that.

“You think I’m incredible?” I arch an eyebrow, holding tight to my cold, undeterred expression, even as warmth and pride spread through me.

She gives me a tiny nod. “Sure. Yes. You’re clearly a great hockey player.”

“Are you sorry you transferred me to another doctor?”

Wordless, she shakes her head. I want to pry that head open and read every thought. I want to know her and understand her. If she didn’t think I was on my career deathbed, why’d she shove me onto another doctor?

“So.” Her eyebrows lift, eyes curious. “You’re going to Rory and Hazel’s wedding now.”

I’m about to press on the previous subject, but I want her to trust me enough to tell me herself. “Yeah. I’m going.”

My mind flips to that incredible fuck at her work benefit, and my groin tightens. I probably should ditch Miller’s wedding, or I should find another place to stay for the week, but I’m not going to do either.

“I thought you didn’t go to weddings,” she says lightly.

“I don’t.” A pause. “I was engaged,” I admit. Telling her this makes me feel like I’m balancing on a tightwire. I scan her face, gauging her reaction, but she just nods.

“Emma.”

An ugly spike of alarm shoots through me, both at the name I haven’t said out loud in years, and that Georgia knows.

“Your mom brought that photo album of you as an ugly baby.” Her eyes tease me before she sobers. “Your wedding invitation was tucked in the back.”

Right. She texted me a bunch of pictures. Jesus, that was a month ago. “I wasn’t an ugly baby.”

My mom sent me a flurry of rabbit photos that night, and it hits me: she didn’t like Emma. She tried to, and she never said a word against her, but she didn’t connect with her like she has with Georgia.

“What happened?”

I sigh, rolling my bad shoulder, but stop when Georgia’s eyes flick to it. “I was young and stupid.”

“I was engaged, too.”

“You were?” Another spike of alarm. She didn’t want to get married. What kind of guy would she actually say yes to? Is it that Liam guy she didn’t want to talk about? Does she still think about him? I hate the idea of another guy’s ring on her finger. “What happened?”

“I was young and stupid.”

Curiosity has me by the throat. “They might ask this in the citizenship interview.”

Her eyes turn wary. “You first.”

I hesitate. I never talk about what happened. I want to know her side, though. I want her to trust me like she did the night she bandaged my broken finger. “She didn’t show up to our wedding.”

Her back muscles tense, and she turns to face me. I can feel her body heat in the inch between us.

“What?” she asks in a cold, deadly voice that I kind of like. “She left you at the altar?”

I snort, shaking my head. “No. The morning of.”

Her nostrils flare. “Was she stupid?”

“Now who’s feeling possessive, Hellfire?”

“I hate that stupid nickname.” Her eyes flash.

“No, you don’t.” I stare down into her eyes, counting every color in her irises. “Her family didn’t like me. They were wealthy. Old money.” I give her a significant look. “Very close with the Greenes.”

She makes a face. “Not this Greene.”

“I know that. Now.”

I watch realization dawn on her face before guilt stabs me in the gut. “You thought I was like her.”

“Yeah.” A tight nod. More regret pinching behind my sternum. “You reminded me of her.” I gesture at her hair. “Well-dressed, beautiful, charming. Outgoing. Charismatic.”

She blinks, stunned.

“They didn’t think I was from a suitable family.” I can’t believe how many cards I’m showing her tonight.

Her jaw drops. “What?”

I grunt, nodding again.

“If I ever meet that bitch, I will kill her.”

In an instant, all the weird feelings evaporate, replaced with the urge to laugh. My head drops to her neck, and I smile into it so she won’t see. “Easy there, Hellfire.” I take a deep breath, inhaling her.

“Do you miss her?” she asks quietly.noveldrama

My relationship with Emma was nothing like what I see between my teammates and their partners. I never looked at her the way Streicher looks at Pippa, I didn’t joke around with her the way Owens and Darcy do, and I didn’t tease her like Miller does to Hazel.

“No.” Easy answer.

I barely saw her during the season. Weeks would pass without seeing her. None of those guys could do that. All I cared about was hockey, though.

When we were apart, I never thought about her. I can barely go five minutes without thinking about the woman next to me.

I frown. That’s not good.

Georgia pulls back to study me. “I’m still sorry.”

“I’m not cut out for marriage. Maybe that’s why this is working so well. We’re a good pair.” I give her a look, gripping the bar counter. “Your turn.”

She looks away, shrugs like it doesn’t matter. “He wanted a pretty little thing on his arm, taking care of his home, raising his kids. And being engaged to Hugo Greene’s granddaughter opens a lot of doors for a new doctor.”

“Was this Liam?”

She nods, and her mouth tips. “Thanks for not treating me like a piece of arm candy tonight, by the way.”

“How’d it end?”

“He unenrolled me from medical school.”

I stiffen. “What?” She’s still not looking at me, and my hand comes beneath her chin, tipping her face up. “Georgia.”

At the sharp edge to my voice, her eyes flare.

“Now who’s jealous?” she whispers, but I ignore it. I’m not jealous, I’m furious. No wonder she lost it when I got rid of her car.

“Explain.”

The delicate line of her throat works, and I feel the urge to kiss it. Kiss her better. Make her forget this asshole ever existed. I’m still holding her chin.

“We were here in Toronto, where his residency was, and I was about to start medical school back at UBC. He wanted me here, with him. He said he was doing me a favor. That it was for my own good, because medical school would be hard. I don’t have the right personality, I think he said.” She studies her nails. “He said we could get married, and I was so stupidly in love, which I now realize was infatuation, not love, that I almost let him convince me.”

I want to find this guy and kill him. I want to ruin his life for hurting her. Off the ice, I never fight, but I would knock this guy’s teeth out.

For your own good, I said when I bought her the car. Shit. “I’m sorry again about the car. I should have talked to you about it. We could have made the decision together.”

Her mouth curves into a humorless smile, and she shakes her head. “Forget it, Alexei. I have. I let old wounds get the best of me. You’re nothing like Liam.”

Hearing her say that does something to me, hooks my attention on her even harder. My fascination with my wife triples.

This isn’t supposed to happen. The more I learn about her, the less I’m supposed to think about her.

“That’s why you don’t want to get married.”

She shrugs like she doesn’t care. “I thought I wanted to marry him, but he just wanted to control me. Marriage doesn’t always mean the same thing to people.”

Emma viewed marriage as a way to move up in the world. What I now realize was infatuation, Georgia said about her ex. I never loved Emma, either. I was hurt and humiliated and protective of my family. I was angry I didn’t see it coming and ignored every red flag. Not heartbroken, though.

“Has there been anyone since?” I ask. “Since him? For the citizenship interview.”

“No one serious.” She looks away before her gaze darts to mine. “You?”

“Nope.”

We stand there in silence, every nerve ending aware of her so close to me. Before our agreement, I’d never admit those things to her. And I don’t know what I would have done with the information she told me about her past.

Used it against her, probably. Now I just want to know more. My attention catches on her mouth. That pretty, perfect mouth. Arousal trickles into my blood.

Standing next to her isn’t enough. My mind slides to the library, being buried deep inside her while I lost my mind.

I want her. It’s as simple as that. I can’t stop thinking about her, and I want more.

“You want to get out of here?” I ask.

She glances around the event space. “Are we allowed to leave?”

“Sure. Dinner’s over. We can do what we want.”

“Okay.” She holds my gaze, and I can’t read her expression. “Let’s get out of here.”