Meet Your Match (Kings of the Ice, #1)

by Kandi Steiner

“This is how you’ve stained me. You’re everywhere. Do you know how terrifying it is that you have that much power over me, that without you, not even hockey makes me feel alive?” “I do. I do know what that feels like. That’s the whole reason I ran.” She swallowed. “What if we fuck it all up?” “We won’t.” “What if we do?”

“Give me your heart.” “It’s already yours,” she said, climbing me, crushing me to her. “Please, don’t break it.” “Never,” I promised.

“NOW, FORTY-ONE,” Coach said, and the sternness in his voice told me that — hat trick or not — my ass was going to be grass if I didn’t comply. “Go,” Maven told me, pushing against my chest. “That was for you, by the way,”

And that was it. We won. I swept Maven back into my arms the moment the final buzzer sounded.

can’t believe what you’ve done to me.” His hands gripped me harder, and I gasped, writhing under his touch. “Everything before you was black and white, a monochromatic existence.” “And now?” “Now, it’s a kaleidoscope of color,” he said with a kiss. “Dizzying and maddening and beautiful.”

“And very empty.” “Well, that’s because I thought we should pick out furniture together.”

“I bought this house,” he said. “For us.” “You… what?” “Move in with me,”

“Let’s make a home together. Let’s make a life together. Right here, on the beach where you love to be, in a house where we make the rules.” He smoothed his thumb over my jaw, smiling. “No more driving back and forth. No more half of my stuff at your place and half of yours at mine. I want to wake

up next to you every morning, Maven. I want to listen to you snore when you fall asleep.” I swatted at his chest, but my eyes still glossed with tears, my cheeks burning from how big my smile was. “Whatever plants you want, whatever garden you want to create — it’s yours.” “Is there a space for your pottery wheel?” He chuckled. “Yes. It’s ours, Maven. We can make it whatever we want.” “Oh, does that mean we can have a kinky sex room?” His eyebrows...

does have a nice ring to it.” “Woman,” he growled, nipping at my bottom lip. “Yes,” I breathed, and I barely got the word out before he was hauling me inside, pressing me against the sliding glass door as soon as we shut it behind us.

“This perfect pussy was made for me,” he groaned, flexing in deep with a slap of his hips against my ass. “You were made for me.” “Yes,” I breathed, moaning as he pulled on my wrists until I had no choice but to bow off the island. Then, something cool and hard was slipped over a very specific finger of mine.

“Vince,” I said, more of a question than anything as he flexed inside me.

“It’s a ring, Maven,” he said, answering what I hadn’t yet asked. His lips were right by my ear, his breath warm against my skin. “A big, expensive, shiny fucking ring.” “You didn’t properly ask me.” “You want me on my knee for you?”

“Marry me,” he rasped, his throat bobbing with the words — as if he was actually nervous, as if I could ever say anything but yes. “That’s not a question.” “And I didn’t stutter, did I?”

“What’s got you smiling like that?” he asked, kissing behind my ear. I turned in his arms, framing his face as he wrangled my hair in his hands. “You know how much I hate to say this, but I think you were right.” He bit his lip on a moan. “God, that is such a turn on. Say it again.”

chin. “I really did meet my match.”

The laugh that barreled out of him was my favorite sound in the world. And he was my favorite person.