Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Summary: in which the world reacts to San Jose’s favorite velcro couple
Series Masterlist
@sharksstan: okay but has anyone else noticed that macklin celebrini is NEVER without his girlfriend??? like ever???
@tealdreamer: LITERALLY. i saw them at whole foods yesterday and he was following her around like a puppy. she’d move to look at something and he’d just. follow. it was the cutest thing i’ve ever seen
@celebrinidefender: you guys are weird for stalking them at whole foods
@tealdreamer: I WASN’T STALKING i was buying groceries and they were there!! and they were ADORABLE
***
It starts small.
The first time fans really notice is at a Sharks home game in November. You’re sitting in the section reserved for family and friends, wearing Macklin’s jersey (a game-worn one he gave you, number 71 on the back). The game ends — Sharks win 4-2, Macklin with two assists — and while most players head straight to the tunnel, Macklin skates over to the glass where you’re standing.
He can’t get to you, obviously. There’s literal glass between you. But he presses his glove against it, and you press your hand against the other side, and he’s grinning at you like you’re the only person in the entire arena.
Someone takes a photo. It’s on Twitter within minutes.
@sharkterritory: macklin celebrini after tonight’s W ... absolutely SMITTEN 😭💙
The photo shows him, sweaty and flushed from the game, looking up at you like you hung the moon. You’re smiling back, and the tenderness in the image is almost tangible.
The replies come fast.
@hockey_gf_goals: STOP I’M CRYING
@tealforever: the way he skated over to her before going to the locker room... 😭
@celebrini71: guys this is so pure i can’t
@sharkscommentary: my man played 23 minutes and his first thought was still “gotta see my girl”
***
TikTok POV: You’re at a Sharks game
The video is shot from a few rows behind the family section. You can see you sitting with Cat, both of you chatting and laughing. The game is playing, but the person filming is clearly more interested in capturing you.
Then Macklin gets checked hard into the boards. Not dirty, just hockey, but hard enough that he goes down for a second.
The video catches your reaction in real-time. You’re on your feet immediately, leaning forward, tense. Cat puts a hand on your arm. Macklin gets up, shakes it off, skates away fine.
You sit back down, but your eyes don’t leave him for the rest of his shift.
The video has 2.3 million views.
Comments:
@hockeygirlie: the way she JUMPED up when he went down 😭
@celebriniedits: she said “that’s MY MAN and you better not have hurt him”
@nhlfan2026: the fact that she’s tracking his every move even after he gets up ... this is love your honor
@y/n_macklin_updates: cat having to steady her 🥺 she was ready to fight someone
***
Twitter Thread by @celebrini_archive
okay i’ve been documenting macklin & y/n sightings and i need you all to understand: they are ATTACHED. a thread 🧵
1) spotted at blue bottle coffee in san jose. macklin was sitting across from her but had his chair pulled around so he was basically sitting NEXT to her. they were sharing headphones watching something on her laptop
2) saw them at target. Y/N had the cart, macklin was walking next to her with his hand on the small of her back. the ENTIRE time. produce section? hand on back. household goods? hand on back.
3) they were at the farmers market last sunday. holding hands the whole time. she’d stop to look at vegetables and he’d just stand there, still holding her hand, waiting patiently. then she’d move and he’d follow.
4) SAP center before a game. she was heading to her seat and he literally WALKED HER THERE before going to the locker room. walked her all the way to her seat, kissed her, then left.
5) i work at a restaurant downtown and they came in for dinner. they sat on the SAME SIDE of the booth. there was a whole other side. they chose to squish together on one side.
6) my friend saw them at the movies and said macklin had his arm around her the entire time. like even when he was eating popcorn, he was doing it one-handed so he didn’t have to let go of her
conclusion: they are OBSESSED with each other and i’m here for it
Replies:
@sharksfan02: THE SAME SIDE OF THE BOOTH?? i’m unwell
@macklindefensesquad: “hand on the small of her back THE ENTIRE TIME” somebody sedate me
@hockeyromance: walked her to her seat ... WALKED HER TO HER SEAT ... i need to sit down
***
You’re at a coffee shop near campus, studying for your Evidence final. Your laptop is open, three textbooks spread around you, highlighters everywhere. It’s organized chaos.
Macklin is sitting next to you, not across, with his own laptop. He’s supposed to be watching game tape, but you can feel him looking at you every few minutes.
“What?” You ask without looking up from your case book.
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“I’m not staring. I’m observing.”
“Creepy.”
“You love it.”
You do. You hide your smile behind your coffee cup.
He goes back to his tape for maybe five minutes before his hand finds your thigh under the table. Just resting there, warm and solid.
“Macklin, I need to focus.”
“I’m not doing anything. My hand is just existing.”
“Your hand is existing on my thigh.”
“Is that a problem?”
“It’s distracting.”
“Want me to move it?”
“No.”
He grins. You can hear it in his voice. “Didn’t think so.”
What you don’t see is the girl at the table across from you, trying very hard to look like she’s not filming this entire interaction on her phone.
***
TikTok: “POV: you’re trying to study at a coffee shop but the couple next to you is too cute”
The video is a series of quick clips, filmed sneakily over the course of an hour.
Clip 1: You reading, Macklin watching game tape. His hand is on your thigh.
Clip 2: You reaching for a highlighter. Macklin immediately hands it to you before you can grab it. You don’t even look at him, just take it and keep working.
Clip 3: Macklin’s phone buzzing. He glances at it, then shows you something. You laugh, shake your head, and push his phone away. Back to work.
Clip 4: You stretching your neck, clearly tense. Macklin’s hand immediately goes to your shoulder, massaging. You lean into it without stopping reading.
Clip 5: Both of you packing up to leave. Macklin takes your bag before you can grab it, slinging it over his shoulder with his own. You roll your eyes but you’re smiling.
The caption: been watching them for an hour and he hasn’t stopped touching her once. not once. also he just carries her stuff like it’s automatic. i’m SICK 😭
Comments:
@studywithme: the way he handed her the highlighter before she could grab it ... he was WATCHING
@hockeyedits4u: “his hand hasn’t left her thigh” RESPECTFULLY I’M LOSING IT
@relationshipgoalsfr: him massaging her neck without being asked ... WHERE DO I FIND THIS
@y/n_is_goals: the bag thing is what got me. she didn’t even protest. that’s just how they ARE
***
Tumblr Post by celebrini-updates
okay so i was at the sharks practice facility today (i work in the building) and i saw THE most adorable thing
y/n came to pick macklin up after practice. she was waiting in the family lounge and when he came out, he literally RAN to her. this grown man. professional athlete. RAN.
and then he just wrapped himself around her. full koala mode. arms around her waist, face in her neck, the works. and she’s so much shorter than him so she was basically holding him up while he clung to her
will smith walked by and said “you saw her three hours ago” and macklin just said “yeah and?” WITHOUT LETTING GO
they stood there for like five minutes. just hugging. in the middle of the hallway.
i’m not okay
Replies:
macklinsgf: “YEAH AND?” I’M SCREAMING
sharksinthebay: the visual of 6’0” macklin celebrini doing full koala mode ... i can’t breathe
y/n-macklin-forever: three hours. he couldn’t be away from her for three hours without needing a full embrace when he saw her again. THIS IS INSANE
hockey-romantic: will calling him out and macklin not even caring ... peak velcro couple behavior
***
The Sharks are on a five-game road trip. You’re back in San Jose, drowning in law school finals.
Macklin FaceTimes you between the morning skate and the afternoon game.
“Hi,” he says when you answer. He’s in his hotel room, hair wet from the shower.
“Hi. How was skate?”
“Good. Fine. I miss you.”
“You saw me yesterday morning.”
“Yeah, and that was too long ago.” He’s pouting. Actually pouting. “I don’t like road trips.”
“You’re literally playing professional hockey.”
“I don’t like road trips without you,” he corrects. “Big difference.”
“I have finals, babe. I can’t fly to every away game.”
“I know. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” He shifts, getting comfortable on the bed. “What are you doing?”
“Constitutional Law review. It’s riveting.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You don’t actually want to hear about Constitutional Law.”
“I want to hear you talk. So yeah, tell me about it.”
So you do. You talk about the Commerce Clause and the Dormant Commerce Clause and rational basis review, and Macklin listens like you’re telling him the most fascinating story in the world.
He doesn’t understand a word of it, but he doesn’t care. He just wants to hear your voice.
What neither of you know is that Will has walked into Macklin’s room and is filming the whole thing.
***
@_willsmith2’s Instagram Story:
A video of Macklin lying on his bed, phone propped up on a pillow, completely absorbed in his FaceTime call.
You can hear your voice faintly from the phone, talking about something legal and complicated.
Macklin is smiling, chin in his hand, looking at his screen like you’re right there in the room with him.
Will’s caption: “been listening to y/n explain law stuff for 20 minutes. hasn’t looked away from the screen once. simp.”
Comments:
tofff73: disgustingly cute
eklund_72: bro you’re pathetic (affectionate)
celebrini71: she’s explaining CONSTITUTIONAL LAW and he’s looking at her like that?? down horrendous
***
Twitter Thread by @sharksgamereports
OKAY so I was at tonight’s game and need to tell you what I saw during warmups
macklin’s doing his normal routine. stretches, shots on goal, etc. BUT. every time he skates past the tunnel, he looks at it. EVERY TIME.
finally, like 5 min before warmups end, Y/N appears by the glass. she just got there apparently.
this man. THIS MAN. immediately skates over. he’s still in warmups!!! there’s still pucks flying!! he doesn’t care!!!
he skates up to the glass where she is and they just look at each other. she’s smiling, he’s smiling. they can’t even talk through the glass but they’re just. looking.
then she holds up her phone and shows him something (looked like a note that said “good luck” with hearts) and he puts his GLOVE on the glass over where the phone is
i’m not crying YOU’RE crying
oh and then the horn went off to end warmups and he skated away BACKWARDS so he could keep looking at her as long as possible
final score: Sharks 5, Opponents 2. Macklin with 2 goals and an assist. coincidence? I THINK NOT
Replies:
@cellys_girl: “skated away BACKWARDS so he could keep looking at her” STOP IT RIGHT NOW
@macklinmybeloved: the fact that he was SEARCHING for her during warmups ... checking the stands every time 😭
@hockey_wives_gfs: she’s his good luck charm and you can’t convince me otherwise
***
You’re at the grocery store together. It’s a Tuesday afternoon, Macklin’s off day, and you needed to stock up on food for the week.
You have the list. Macklin has the cart.
Or rather, he has one hand on the cart and one hand on you. Sometimes it’s your hand. Sometimes it’s your waist. Sometimes it’s your back pocket. But it’s always touching you somehow.
“Macklin, I need to reach that.”
“Which one?”
“The pasta. Top shelf.”
He reaches over you, grabbing it without letting go of your waist. “This one?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
You continue down the aisle. His hand never leaves your back.
At the checkout, you’re unloading the cart while he bags. But he keeps stopping bagging to help you unload, which defeats the purpose.
“I’ve got it,” you say.
“I know. But I can help.”
“You’re supposed to be bagging.”
“I can multitask.”
“Can you though?”
He grabs you around the waist, pulling you back against him, and you shriek-laugh.
“Macklin! We’re in public!”
“So?” He’s grinning against your neck. “I’m not doing anything inappropriate. Just hugging my girlfriend.”
“We’re in the checkout line!”
“And?”
The cashier is trying very hard not to laugh.
Somewhere behind you, someone is definitely filming this.
***
TikTok: “came to trader joe’s for snacks, left with diabetes from this couple”
The video shows you and Macklin in the checkout line. He’s got you pulled back against his chest, arms around your waist, chin on your shoulder.
You’re trying to unload groceries while he’s just holding you. Not helping. Just holding.
“Macklin, you’re not helping,” you say in the video.
“I’m providing moral support.”
“I don’t need moral support. I need you to bag.”
“But you’re so warm.”
“Oh my god.”
The cashier finally says, “You guys are adorable.”
You both look at her, and Macklin says, dead serious: “Thanks. I know.”
You elbow him, and the video ends with both of you laughing.
Comments:
@trader_joes_fan: THE CASHIER CALLING THEM OUT 😂
@macklin_71: “I’m providing moral support” SIR
@y/n_defender: the way she elbowed him and he just laughed ... they’re so comfortable with each other
@couplegoals2026: came for groceries, stayed for relationship goals
***
Reddit Thread on r/SJSharks
Title: Are Celebrini and his girlfriend ever NOT together?
OP: Okay I’ve lived in San Jose for 3 years and I swear every time I see Macklin out, his girlfriend is with him. Coffee shop? She’s there. Grocery store? She’s there. The gym? SHE’S THERE. I saw them at the GYM at 6am last week. Together. Working out together. Like... do they do anything separately?
Top Comments:
u/sharksforever: I mean she did move in with him so ... probably not much?
u/celebrini_fan_01: they’re in their honeymoon phase still, let them be obsessed with each other
u/teal_and_proud: honeymoon phase?? they’ve been together over a year now. this is just how they ARE
u/sanjose_local: I’ve seen them around too and honestly it’s refreshing? Like he’s a 20yo NHL player and instead of being out at clubs he’s at Whole Foods with his girlfriend. It’s kind of wholesome.
u/sharks_analysis: my conspiracy theory is that they’re actually one person in two bodies and they’re just trying to be whole again
u/macklin_stats: okay but the 6am gym thing is insane. who goes to the gym at 6am TOGETHER
u/relationshipexpert: people who are disgustingly in love, that’s who
***
You’re at a Sharks game in your usual seat. The Sharks are down by one with five minutes left in the third.
Macklin gets the puck at center ice. He’s flying, weaving through defenders. He shoots from the slot. Top corner. Goal.
The arena erupts.
Macklin’s teammates mob him, but as soon as he can, he’s looking up at the stands. Searching for you.
When he finds you, you’re on your feet, screaming, hands in the air. His face breaks into the biggest smile, and he points at you — actually points, right at you — before being dragged back into the celebration.
The jumbotron operator knows what the people want. They cut to you in the stands, catching your reaction in real-time.
The photo of that moment — him pointing at you, you crying with joy — trends on Twitter for three days.
***
@SanJoseSharks: CELEBRINI TIES IT UP! 😤🔥
[Attached: Video of the goal and the celebration, including the point to the stands and the jumbotron shot]
Replies:
@hockey_romantic: THE POINT. THE TEARS. I’M UNWELL.
@celebrini_updates: she’s CRYING i’m CRYING we’re ALL CRYING
@y/n_macklin_4ever: the way he searched for her immediately ... didn’t even finish celebrating with the team first 🫠
@sports_photographer: that jumbotron shot is going to be in their wedding montage one day, mark my words
***
After the game (Sharks win 3-2), you wait in the family lounge.
Macklin comes out still in his suit, hair damp from the shower. When he sees you, his entire face lights up.
He doesn’t run this time. But he does beeline straight for you, dropping his bag and pulling you into a hug that lifts you off your feet.
“You scored,” you say into his neck.
“You were crying.”
“I was proud.”
“I know. I saw.” He sets you down but doesn’t let go. “That’s why I pointed. Wanted you to know the goal was for you.”
“They’re all for me, you sap.”
“Yeah. They are.”
He kisses you right there in the family lounge, in front of teammates and their families and anyone else who happens to be around.
Someone (Will, probably) whistles.
Macklin flips him off without breaking the kiss.
***
TikTok by @sharks_insider
POV: macklin celebrini after scoring the game winning goal
The video shows the family lounge. Macklin walks in, spots you, and his entire demeanor changes. Softer. Warmer.
The hug. The kiss. The casual middle finger to Will.
The caption: working for the sharks means I see a lot of cute couple moments. but these two? UNMATCHED. #velcrocouple #sharksfamily
Comments:
@nhlfan2026: THE MIDDLE FINGER WHILE STILL KISSING HER I’M DEAD
@macklin_defense: working for the sharks and getting to see this regularly ... living the DREAM
@y/n_and_macklin: velcro couple is SO accurate. have they ever been photographed separately???
@celebrini_71: the answer is no. no they have not.
***
Twitter Thread by @y/n_macklin_updates
Monthly roundup of Macklin & Y/N sightings because y’all asked for it:
JANUARY: - Coffee shop (together) - Whole Foods (together) - Movie theater (together, same side of the theater) - Bookstore (together, he was carrying her books) - Farmers market (together, holding hands)
FEBRUARY: - SAP Center x9 (she went to every home game) - Starbucks (together) - Target (together, again) - Ice cream place (together, sharing one cone) - Library (yes, together. he was there for moral support while she studied)
MARCH: - Restaurant (together, same side of booth AGAIN) - Gym (together, 6am, they’re insane) - Park (together, he was reading while she studied on a blanket) - Airport (he was dropping her off, they hugged for 10 minutes straight)
Times spotted separately: 0 Times spotted together: literally every single time
They are ATTACHED and I love it for them
***
You’re lying in bed, scrolling through your phone, when you come across yet another thread about you and Macklin being inseparable.
“Did you know we’re a Velcro couple?” You ask.
Macklin looks up from his own phone. “A what?”
“Velcro couple. It’s what the internet is calling us. Because we’re always together.”
“Oh.” He thinks about it. “That’s accurate.”
“Doesn’t it bother you? People constantly noticing that we’re always together?”
“Why would it bother me?”
“I don’t know. Some people might find it suffocating. Too much time together.”
He sets his phone down, rolling to face you properly. “Do you find it suffocating?”
“No.”
“Do I?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then who cares what other people think?” He pulls you closer. “I like being with you. I like that we do everything together. I like that when I score a goal, you’re there. I like that when you’re studying, I’m there. I like that we go to the grocery store together even though one of us could easily go alone.”
“We are kind of ridiculous.”
“We’re happy.” He kisses your forehead. “Let them call us Velcro. Let them notice that we’re always together. I don’t care. I like being stuck to you.”
“Stuck to me?”
“Like Velcro.” He’s grinning now. “See? It works.”
You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling. “You’re impossible.”
“You love it.”
“I really do.”
He pulls you even closer, until there’s no space between you at all. “Besides, they’re right. We are always together.”
“Because you follow me everywhere.”
“You follow me just as much.”
“Do not.”
“You came to my practice yesterday. You don’t even like watching practice.”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
“You were at school. School is not in the same neighborhood as the practice facility.”
“Fine. I wanted to see you. Happy?”
“Very.” He kisses you. “See? Velcro.”
“We’re not Velcro.”
“We’re totally Velcro.”
“We’re just ... affectionate.”
“Affectionate Velcro.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is now. We invented it.”
You’re laughing now, and he’s kissing your neck, and you think maybe the internet has a point.
You are kind of always together.
But you wouldn’t have it any other way.
***
Twitter, the next morning:
@celebrini_updates: NEW SIGHTING: Macklin and Y/N at breakfast spot in downtown SJ. She’s studying, he’s just watching her study. Like that’s entertainment. They’re insane (affectionate)
@sharksfanforever: at this point I’m convinced they have a secret competition to see how long they can go without being separated
@y/n_macklin_daily: THE VELCRO COUPLE STRIKES AGAIN
@macklin_71_fan: remember when people tried to say the age gap was problematic and now everyone just accepts they’re soulmates who happen to be attached at the hip
@hockeycouples: them: exists in the same space the internet: CONTENT
***
And they’re right.
Because two hours later, when you finish studying and pack up your stuff, Macklin is still sitting across from you.
“You didn’t have to wait,” you say.
“I know.”
“You could have gone home. Done something productive.”
“This is productive. I’m spending time with you.”
“I was studying. We weren’t even talking.”
“Doesn’t matter. We were together.”
And that’s the thing, really. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. Grocery shopping, studying, working out at 6 am, sitting in silence.
What matters is being together.
Velcro couple, the internet calls you.
You prefer “inseparable.”
But really, it’s simpler than that.
You’re just two people who love each other and genuinely enjoy each other’s company.
Even if that means going to the grocery store together when one of you could easily go alone.
Even if that means sitting in silence while one of you studies.
Even if it means the entire internet documenting every time you’re spotted together (which is every time either of you is spotted at all).
Macklin takes your bag without being asked, slinging it over his shoulder with his own.
Dean Di Laurentis x Garrett Graham x John Logan x Tucker!Reader
Summary: Tucker’s one rule is simple … don’t touch his sister. Garrett, Dean, and Logan agree. They are very good at agreeing. They are considerably less good at following through
Warning: 18+ content
Read part one here
The first fourteen days of the spring semester are a slow, agonizing descent into madness.
The house feels like a morgue. The television is rarely on. The Xbox controllers gather dust on the coffee table. The pink poster board with the shiny gold stars is gone — Garrett tore it down on day three because looking at it made him want to punch a hole through the drywall.
You have completely ghosted them.
You haven’t stopped by the house. You haven’t sent a single text. When Tucker invited you over for a movie night last week, you claimed you were swamped with homework. When he asked you to come to their opening game of the semester, you said you had a terrible migraine.
They know exactly what is happening. They terrified you. They broke the illusion of the perfect, polite gentlemen they had been pretending to be, and the reality of their feral, obsessive desire sent you running for the hills.
Did they really ruin it? Is that it? Have they completely lost you before they even had you?
It’s Sunday afternoon, the day after a brutally physical, bloody game against Cornell. Briar won, but it came at a heavy cost.
The living room looks like a triage center. Garrett is stretched out on the sofa, a massive bag of ice taped to his bruised ribs, his face a thunderous mask of exhaustion and misery. Logan is slumped in the armchair, nursing a split lip and a dark purple bruise swelling along his jawline.
Dean is lying flat on the rug, his left knee elevated on a stack of pillows, wrapped tightly in an ACE bandage.
Tucker isn’t home. He’s at the library, completely oblivious to the crushing depression suffocating his three best friends.
“I’m going to text her,” Dean says suddenly, his voice raspy. He stares blindly at the ceiling. “I don’t care if Tucker finds out. I’m going to text her and beg for forgiveness. I’ll buy a rosary. I’ll memorize Bible verses. I just need to see her face.”
“Don’t,” Garrett grunts, closing his eyes. Every time he breathes, his ribs scream, but the ache in his chest has nothing to do with hockey. “She needs space. If you push her now, she’ll transfer to a different school.”
“I miss her cookies,” Logan mumbles, wincing as the movement pulls his split lip. “I miss her face. I miss her telling me to use an inside voice. I’m a shell of a man, Garrett. Look at us. We are pathetic.”
The heavy clack of the front deadbolt unlocking echoes through the silent house.
Instantly, all three men freeze.
The front door pushes open. A biting gust of January wind sweeps into the foyer, followed immediately by the rich, savory, mouth-watering scent of slow-cooked chicken broth, butter, and homemade dough.
“Tucker?” Your soft, melodic voice calls out hesitantly. “Are you home?”
Garrett’s gray eyes snap open. He sits up so fast he completely forgets his bruised ribs, biting back a harsh groan of pain.
Logan sits up in the armchair, his jaw dropping. Dean practically scrambles into a seated position on the rug, ignoring his throbbing knee.
You step into the foyer, pushing the door shut behind you. You are bundled up in a thick, cream-colored cable-knit sweater, a modest pair of dark denim jeans, and sensible winter boots. Your cheeks are rosy from the cold. In your hands, resting on a set of oven mitts, is a massive, heavy Dutch oven.
You came. You actually came.
You walk carefully into the kitchen, your eyes cast firmly down at the floor, absolutely determined not to look into the living room. You heard about the Cornell game from Tucker. You heard it was a bloodbath. Your gentle, nurturing heart couldn’t take the thought of them bruised and starving, even if your mind was still terrified of them. You took pity.
You set the Dutch oven gently onto the kitchen island.
“Tucker isn’t here,” Garrett says.
His voice is deep, rough with a terrifying mixture of relief and absolute desperation. It cuts through the quiet house, causing you to jump violently, your hands flying up to your chest.
You turn slowly.
Garrett is standing in the archway between the living room and the kitchen. He is wearing a tight gray t-shirt and dark sweatpants. You can see the heavy purple bruising creeping up his neck, and the way he holds his side.
Behind him, Logan and Dean step into view. Logan’s lip is busted, his handsome face battered. Dean is favoring his left leg, his eyes wide and completely fixated on you like a starving man looking at a feast.
“Oh,” you whisper, your voice trembling. Your heart immediately kicks into a frantic, erratic rhythm. The memories of your Christmas break — the feverish, filthy, agonizingly real dreams — slam into your mind. Your thighs clench instinctively. You take a step back until your lower back hits the granite counter. “I … I’m sorry. I thought Tucker was home. I just wanted to drop off some chicken and dumplings for him. And … for y’all. Since the game was so rough.”
“You haven’t been here in two weeks,” Logan says. He steps into the kitchen, his dark eyes entirely entirely focused on you. He ignores the Dutch oven. He doesn’t care about the food. He only cares about the girl who made it. “We thought you were never coming back.”
“I’ve been busy,” you lie quickly, your southern drawl thickening with panic. You stare intently at Garrett’s chest, completely unable to meet their eyes. “My classes are very demanding this semester. I should go. I have a paper to write.”
You grab your oven mitts and try to sidestep Garrett to reach the hallway.
Garrett takes one large step, using his massive body to completely block the exit. He doesn’t touch you — he remembers the rules — but he stands firm, an immovable mountain of muscle and determination.
“Please don’t run,” Garrett says, his voice softening into a raw, pleading rumble that absolutely shatters your defenses. “Please, Y/N. Just give us five minutes. We are losing our minds.”
You stop. You look down at your boots, your hands wringing together nervously. “There’s nothing to talk about, Garrett. I heard what y’all were saying. You were playing a game with me.”
“It wasn’t a game to us,” Dean says, stepping up to stand beside Logan. His voice is painfully sincere, stripped of all its usual playboy arrogance. “It was survival. You don’t understand what you do to us, Y/N. You walk into this house, smelling like vanilla, humming your little songs, taking care of us like we actually deserve it … and it completely rewired our brains.”
You swallow hard, your face burning with a fiery blush. “You said you wanted to do filthy things to me.”
Logan lets out a heavy, shuddering breath. “We do. God, sweetheart, we do. But not because we want to use you. Because we are completely, irrevocably obsessed with you. I can’t sleep. I can’t focus on the ice. Every time I close my eyes, I see you.”
“We tried to fight it,” Garrett confesses, taking a half-step closer. His massive presence overwhelms your senses. You can smell his body wash, the clean scent of his sweat, the sheer heat radiating off his skin. “We tried to stay away because we know you’re too good for us. You’re pure. You want the white picket fence and the Sunday school. We’re violent, messy hockey players. But we can’t stay away.”
“The bet was stupid,” Dean adds, running a hand through his sandy hair. “We made it because we were terrified of fighting each other over you. We thought if one of us won, the other two would back off. But it didn’t work.”
You finally look up, your wide, tear-filled eyes darting between the three of them. “Why didn’t it work?”
“Because none of us are willing to walk away,” Garrett says simply, his gray eyes burning with an intense, possessive fire that makes your breath hitch. “I would rather die than watch Dean or Logan take you on a date. I would rather break my own legs than step aside.”
“Same,” Logan agrees instantly, his jaw set.
“So would I,” Dean echoes, his voice hard.
You press your hands to your burning cheeks, completely overwhelmed. This is too much. This is a romance novel, a movie, a fever dream. You are just a simple Early Childhood Education major from Texas. You are not equipped to handle the combined, obsessive devotion of three division one athletes.
“Then what are you saying?” You ask, your voice a breathy, stuttering whisper. You are a gooey mess. The heavy, pulsing ache that plagued you all winter break is back, pooling between your
thighs, making your knees weak. “You can’t all court me. That’s … that’s madness. That’s not how the world works.”
Garrett, Dean, and Logan look at each other. A silent, entirely unified conversation passes between them in the span of three seconds. They spent the last fourteen days arguing, fighting, and finally coming to the absolute, undeniable conclusion that there is only one way this ends without destroying their brotherhood and losing you forever.
Garrett turns his gaze back to you. “We want to share you.”
The kitchen goes dead silent.
Your brain short-circuits. You simply stare at them, your lips parted, waiting for the punchline. But their faces are entirely serious. They are looking at you with a heavy, terrifying sincerity.
“Share me?” You squeak, the words barely making it past your throat. “Like … like a timeshare? Like a rental car?”
“Like a partnership,” Garrett corrects smoothly, taking another small step into your space. “We share everything. We protect you together. We provide for you together. We love you together.”
Panic, bright and entirely religious, violently seizes your chest.
“You can’t share a wife!” You burst out, your hands waving frantically in the air. “The Bible says a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife! Singular! One man, one woman! That is the holy covenant! You can’t have three men and one woman! That is … that is polygamy! That’s illegal! It’s ungodly!”
Dean leans forward, a desperately charming, cheeky smirk fighting its way through his misery. “Hey, come on. People do it all the time. Think of it like Sister Wives, but instead, we’re the Brother Husbands.”
Logan reaches over and violently slaps the back of Dean’s head.
“Ow! What?” Dean yelps, rubbing his skull. “I’m just trying to make it relatable!”
“Shut up, Dean,” Logan groans. He steps closer to you, his dark eyes softening, pleading with you to understand. “Y/N, sweetheart, breathe. Just breathe.”
“I am breathing!” You hyperventilate, pressing a hand to your chest. “I’m having a heart attack! I am a traditional girl! I want a family! How am I supposed to explain this to my mother? How am I supposed to explain this to Tucker? Tucker is going to murder all of you!”
“Let us worry about Tucker,” Garrett says, his voice a low, soothing command that instantly cuts through the static of your panic. He finally reaches out, breaking the absolute rule he set months ago.
Garrett’s large, warm hands gently cup your shoulders.
The physical contact sends a violent shockwave through your entire nervous system. You gasp, your head snapping up to look at him.
“Listen to me,” Garrett says, his thumbs gently stroking the thick wool of your sweater. His gray eyes are a storm of devotion and terrifying, primal possessiveness. “You want to be taken care of? We will take care of you. You want a white picket fence? We will buy you a goddamn fortress. You will never want for anything. You will never be unsafe. You will have three men whose entire existence revolves around making sure you are happy, protected, and completely worshiped.”
“He’s right,” Logan says, his voice dropping into that sweet, soul-searing tone that always makes your heart flutter. He steps up to your right side, his hand coming to rest lightly on your waist. The heat of his palm seeps through your clothes. “You have so much love to give, Y/N. More than one man could ever handle. We know who you are. We know your values. We aren’t asking you to stop being the good girl we fell in love with. We’re just asking you to be our good girl.”
“Please, Y/N,” Dean whispers, stepping up to your left side. He doesn’t touch you, but he leans in close, his green eyes utterly entirely devoted. “I don’t even look at other girls anymore. I don’t want to party. I just want to come home to you. We all do. We’ll be whatever you need us to be. Just don’t run away again.”
You are entirely trapped.
You are surrounded by a wall of solid muscle, heat, and expensive cologne. Garrett is holding your shoulders, his massive chest mere inches from yours. Logan’s hand is burning a brand into your hip. Dean is looking at you like you are the center of the universe.
You try to summon your righteous indignation. You try to summon the lessons from Sunday school. But your body is completely, hopelessly betraying you.
The heavy, slick ache between your thighs is throbbing so violently you can barely stand. Your breasts are heavy, the nipples peaking tightly against your bra, begging for the friction you experienced in your dreams. The sheer, overwhelming reality of having these three incredible men looking at you with such unabashed desire is melting every single moral defense you have left.
“I …” you stutter, your voice breaking. “I’ve never even kissed a boy.”
The confession hangs in the air, incredibly vulnerable and entirely true. You had planned to save your first kiss for the man you were going to marry, maybe on a porch, maybe after months of proper courting.
A dark, incredibly wicked flash crosses Garrett’s eyes.
“I know,” Garrett murmurs, his gaze dropping to your trembling, pink lips. “And I’m not waiting another second.”
Garrett’s hands slide from your shoulders to cup your face. His thumbs trace your jawline, tilting your head up.
You gasp as his face descends.
Garrett’s lips capture yours.
It is not a sweet, chaste first kiss. It is a claiming. It is a possessive, overwhelming brand of ownership. His mouth is hot and demanding, his lips bruising slightly against yours as he takes exactly what he has been starving for. He angles his head, parting your lips with the gentle but firm pressure of his thumb, and his tongue sweeps inside your mouth.
A loud, embarrassing whimper tears from your throat. You taste mint, male aggression, and pure fire. Your hands instinctively fly up to grip the front of his t-shirt, clinging to him to keep your knees from buckling. The kiss is deep, wet, and devastating. It sends a bolt of lightning straight to your core, confirming every single dirty, filthy thing you dreamed about over the break.
Garrett finally pulls back, his chest heaving, his gray eyes glazed with lust. He rests his forehead against yours, both of you gasping for air.
“Holy fuck,” Garrett breathes, his voice entirely wrecked.
Before you can even process the absolute earth-shattering reality of your first kiss, Logan moves.
Logan’s hand slides from your waist up to the back of your neck, his fingers tangling in your hair. He pulls you gently toward him, turning your face, and crashes his mouth down onto yours.
Logan’s kiss is entirely different from Garrett’s. It is sweeping, cinematic, and soul-searing. He kisses you like he is drowning and you are oxygen. He groans into your mouth, a deep, vibrating sound that makes your stomach flip entirely upside down. His tongue strokes against yours, slow and deliberate, mapping every inch of your mouth. It is sweet, but it is deeply, dangerously filthy.
You melt. You completely surrender, your body going boneless against Logan’s chest, letting him hold you up. The religious guilt in your mind evaporates into thin air.
Something that feels this good, you think dizzily, clinging to Logan’s broad shoulders, something that feels this right, can’t possibly be ungodly.
Logan breaks the kiss slowly, dragging his lips across your jawline, leaving a trail of absolute fire in his wake.
Then, Dean steps in.
Dean doesn’t hesitate. He slides his hands around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest, exactly like he did in the dream. You gasp at the immediate, shocking friction of his hard body against your softer curves.
Dean leans down, burying his face in the crook of your neck. He presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the sensitive skin just below your ear, making you arch your back with a sharp cry. Then he turns you in his arms, his green eyes burning, and claims your lips.
Dean’s kiss is pure heat. It is practiced, smooth, and wildly intoxicating. He knows exactly how to move his mouth to make your entire body weak. He bites gently at your lower lip, soothing it immediately with a sweep of his tongue. He tastes like danger and devotion. You kiss him back, finally finding your rhythm, a soft moan escaping you as you tilt your head to give him deeper access.
When Dean finally pulls away, you are completely destroyed.
Your lips are swollen, slick, and practically bruised. Your hair is messy. Your chest is heaving under your cable-knit sweater, and your legs are shaking so badly Garrett and Logan both have to keep their hands on your waist to hold you upright.
You look at the three of them. They are staring at you with expressions of such intense, terrifying love and lust that it takes your breath away.
You are a traditional, sheltered girl. You belong in Sunday school.
But looking at the bruised, massive, fiercely protective men surrounding you, you realize you belong to them, too.
The silence stretches, heavy and thick with the electric aftermath of the kisses.
Dean breaks it.
He clears his throat, a massive, arrogant grin spreading across his handsome face as he steps back, running a hand through his hair.
“Well,” Dean says cheerfully, his green eyes twinkling. “I don’t want to jump the gun here, but that is definitely the best foursome I’ve ever had.”
You gasp, your southern sensibilities violently snapping back online. The fiery blush returns with a vengeance.
Without even thinking, you reach out and slap Dean’s shoulder. It’s not hard, just a sharp, reprimanding smack.
“Dean Di Laurentis!” You scold, your voice shaking, though there is no real anger behind it. “Do not say such filthy things in front of me!”
Dean doesn’t wince. Instead, his grin widens into something incredibly wicked and entirely captivated. He looks at Garrett and Logan, who are both fighting massive, smirking smiles.
“Oh, God,” Dean groans playfully, rubbing his shoulder, his eyes dropping to your flushed face. “I love this little firecracker side of you. I really, really do.”
Logan chuckles, the sound low and dark. “You better get used to it, sweetheart. Because we aren’t letting you go.”
“Never,” Garrett promises, his hand sliding down to firmly grip yours. He intertwines his thick fingers with your delicate ones, the ultimate, terrifyingly permanent gesture. “You’re ours now.”
You look down at your hand enveloped in Garrett’s. You look at Logan’s bruised, smiling face. You look at Dean’s arrogant, devoted eyes.
Your heart pounds. Your palms sweat. You are entirely terrified of what Tucker is going to do when he finds out.
But as the smell of your homemade chicken and dumplings fills the kitchen, blending perfectly with the scent of the three men who just claimed your entire future, you know you aren’t running away ever again.
***
It takes exactly three and a half weeks for the skittishness to finally melt out of your bones.
At first, being the shared girlfriend of three massive, fiercely protective, division-one hockey players felt like trying to navigate a minefield. You jumped every time Garrett entered a room. You blushed violently every time Dean winked at you. You practically stopped breathing whenever Logan casually slung his heavy arm over your shoulders in the kitchen.
You were waiting for the other shoe to drop. You were waiting for the guilt to consume you, for the lightning to strike you down for engaging in something so entirely unconventional and ungodly.
But the lightning never came.
Instead, Garrett, Dean, and Logan treated you like you were made of spun glass. They didn’t rush you. They didn’t push you into their bedrooms. They courted you. They held your hand while watching movies. They kissed your forehead when you studied. They praised you for the smallest, most domestic things — from brewing a pot of coffee to finishing a difficult essay.
They slowly, meticulously rewired your entire understanding of intimacy, proving that their feral obsession with you was grounded in a deep, terrifyingly real devotion.
And now, your body is making it abundantly clear that it is done waiting.
It’s a quiet Thursday night in mid-February. The sleet is tapping gently against the living room windows of the off-campus house. Tucker is gone for the evening, trapped in a mandatory study group at the library that won’t let out until midnight.
You are sitting on the plush living room rug, your back resting against the base of the sofa. You’re wearing a soft, oversized cream cardigan over a modest pink camisole, and a pair of plaid pajama pants. Your Child Psychology textbook is open in your lap, but you haven’t read a single word in twenty minutes.
Because Logan is sitting on the floor beside you, his long legs stretched out, lazily drawing small, electric circles on your bare ankle with his thumb.
Because Dean is lying on his stomach on the other side of you, his chin propped on his hands, shamelessly staring at the soft slope of your neck.
And because Garrett is sitting on the sofa directly behind you, his thick thighs bracketing your shoulders, his large hands slowly, rhythmically massaging the tension out of your neck and scalp.
“You’re not reading, sweetheart,” Logan murmurs, his dark eyes entirely entirely focused on the flush creeping up your cheeks. His thumb trails higher, tracing the line of your calf beneath your plaid pants. “You’ve been on the same page for half an hour.”
“I am reading,” you lie, your voice betraying you with a soft, breathy stutter. “It’s a very dense chapter on cognitive development.”
Dean chuckles, the sound low and wicked. He reaches out, lightly tugging on the hem of your cardigan. “You’re a terrible liar, Y/N. Your pulse is beating so fast I can practically see it from here. What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” you squeak, shutting the textbook with a loud thwack.
Garrett’s hands pause their massage. His thumbs press firmly into the base of your skull, sending a shiver straight down your spine. He leans forward, his chest brushing against the back of your head, his mouth hovering just over your ear.
“Don’t lie to us, baby,” Garrett says, his voice a vibrating, gravelly command that makes your stomach flip entirely upside down. “You know we don’t like it when you lie. Tell us what’s got you so distracted.”
You swallow hard. The truth is, the dreams haven’t stopped. If anything, they have gotten worse. Every night, you wake up tangled in your sheets, your body slick and aching, completely desperate for the release that always slips through your fingers right at the last second. You are exhausted. You are constantly, agonizingly turned on.
You look at Logan. Then you look at Dean. Finally, you tilt your head back to look up at Garrett upside down.
“I’m tired,” you whisper, the confession slipping out incredibly vulnerable. “I’m so tired of waking up aching.”
The atmosphere in the living room changes in a fraction of a second.
The lazy, domestic warmth instantly evaporates, replaced by a thick, suffocating, violently charged heat.
Garrett’s eyes darken to the color of storm clouds. Logan goes perfectly still, his hand gripping your calf tightly. Dean slowly pushes himself up into a kneeling position, his green eyes locked onto yours like a predator that just smelled blood.
“Aching?” Dean repeats, his voice dropping an octave. “Where are you aching, sweetheart?”
Your face burns a magnificent shade of scarlet. You hide your face in your hands. “Please don’t make me say it. You know what I mean.”
“We know,” Logan says gently. He moves closer, prying your small hands away from your flushed face. He presses a soft, lingering kiss to your palm. “But we want to help you fix it. If you’re ready. Are you ready, Y/N?”
You look at them. These three massive, dangerous men who have spent the last month proving that they would burn the world down before they let anyone hurt you. You trust them. You trust them more than you trust yourself.
You give a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
“Yeah?” Garrett murmurs. He reaches down, gripping you by your waist, and effortlessly hauls you up from the floor.
You gasp as Garrett pulls you directly onto his lap on the sofa. You are straddling his thick thighs, your knees sinking into the cushions on either side of his hips. He feels like a wall of solid, burning muscle beneath you.
“Good girl,” Garrett praises, his large hands sliding up your back to pull you flush against his chest. “Such a brave, good girl. We’ve been waiting so incredibly patiently for you.”
The praise hits you like a physical blow. A soft, involuntary whine escapes your throat. You have always thrived on positive reinforcement, but hearing it from Garrett, wrapped in this dark, heavy blanket of pure lust, makes your mind go entirely blank.
Dean moves onto the sofa, kneeling close to your left side. Logan shifts onto the cushions on your right. You are completely surrounded, boxed in by heat and expensive cologne.
“You’re going to let us take care of you,” Dean says, reaching out to gently push a stray lock of hair behind your ear. His fingers trail down to rest against your collarbone. “You’re going to let us make you feel so good, exactly like you deserve.”
“I don’t … I don’t know what to do,” you whisper, your hands clutching Garrett’s broad shoulders for dear life. “I’ve never … I’ve never done anything like this.”
“You don’t have to do a single thing,” Logan promises, leaning in to press a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the side of your neck. You arch your back instantly, a sharp gasp tearing from your lips. “You just sit here and look pretty for us. Can you do that, sweetheart? Can you be a good girl and let us handle everything?”
“Yes,” you breathe, your eyes fluttering shut as Logan’s teeth scrape gently against your pulse point. “Yes, please.”
“Perfect,” Garrett rumbles.
Garrett’s hands slide around to the front of your body. With practiced, incredibly gentle movements, he begins unbuttoning your oversized cream cardigan. He pushes it off your shoulders, letting it pool around your elbows, leaving you in just your thin pink camisole.
Dean’s hands immediately take over. He slides his fingers under the hem of your camisole, his knuckles brushing against the incredibly sensitive skin of your stomach. You shiver violently.
“Look at her,” Dean murmurs, his voice entirely wrecked with adoration and filthy desire. “She’s so soft. She’s absolutely perfect.”
Dean pushes the camisole up, completely exposing your breasts in your simple, white cotton bra.
You instinctively try to cross your arms over your chest to cover yourself — years of deeply ingrained modesty fighting against your rapidly escalating arousal.
But Garrett catches your wrists. He doesn’t grip them hard, just firmly enough to stop you. He guides your arms back, pinning your wrists gently against his chest.
“Ah-ah,” Garrett scolds softly, his mouth hovering over your lips. “No hiding. We want to see you. We want to see everything. You’re beautiful, Y/N. Show us how good you are.”
The praise absolutely destroys your resistance. You let your arms go slack in his grip, offering yourself up to their hungry gazes.
Logan lets out a ragged groan. He leans down, bypassing the fabric of your bra entirely, and presses his hot mouth against the upper swell of your breast.
You cry out, your back arching violently, completely losing your mind as Logan’s tongue laves the soft skin.
“Logan,” you sob, your hips rolling down instinctively against Garrett’s lap. You can feel the impossible, rock-hard length of Garrett’s erection pressing directly against your aching center through the layers of your clothes.
“I’ve got you,” Garrett murmurs, capturing your lips in a deep, wet, punishing kiss.
He completely consumes your moan, his tongue sweeping into your mouth, mimicking the rhythm of your grinding hips.
While Garrett dominates your mouth and Logan worships your chest, Dean moves lower.
You feel Dean’s hands on the waistband of your plaid pajama pants. The realization of what is about to happen sends a jolt of pure electricity straight to your core.
“Dean, wait,” you gasp, breaking the kiss with Garrett for a fraction of a second. “I … I’m scared.”
Dean freezes immediately. He pulls his hands back, his green eyes meeting yours with absolute, terrifying sincerity. “I will stop right now if you want me to, Y/N. We will all stop. Just say the word.”
You look down at him. You look at the fierce devotion in his eyes, the absolute respect that cuts right through the lust. You are not a piece of meat to them. You are their world.
“No,” you whisper, shaking your head, your face flushed and beautiful. “Don’t stop. I’m just … it’s new. I’ve never …”
“I know, baby,” Dean says, his voice softening into something unbearably sweet. He leans forward and presses a kiss to your bare stomach. “I know. And it is the greatest honor of my entire life that you are letting me be the first. I am going to be so careful with you. I promise.”
“He’s got you, good girl,” Garrett praises, kissing your temple. “Just relax for us. You’re doing so incredibly well.”
The combination of Garrett’s grounding presence and Dean’s sweet reassurance gives you the courage to let go entirely.
You nod, letting your head fall back onto Garrett’s shoulder.
Dean hooks his fingers into the waistband of your pants and your underwear, pulling them both slowly, agonizingly down your legs. You kick them off, leaving you entirely bare from the waist down, straddling Garrett’s lap in the middle of the living room.
The cool air of the room hits your feverish skin, but it is instantly replaced by Dean’s burning touch.
Dean parts your thighs gently, positioning himself between your legs. He looks at you. He actually just looks at you for a long, agonizing moment, his chest heaving.
“You’re so pretty,” Dean whispers, his voice thick with reverence. “God, you’re perfect.”
“Dean,” you whine, the empty ache throbbing so violently you feel like you might shatter into a million pieces. “Please.”
“Such a demanding little thing,” Dean chuckles darkly.
His long, calloused fingers reach out and finally, finally touch you.
When his fingertips brush against your slick, swollen center, you scream.
It is a loud, entirely unholy sound that Garrett immediately swallows with another bruising kiss.
The sensation is blinding. It is a thousand times more intense than any dream you had in Texas. Dean’s touch is expert, relentless, and unbelievably precise. He strokes you softly at first, mapping the slick folds of your body, spreading your own wetness over your aching clit.
“She’s so wet for us,” Dean murmurs, his voice a filthy rasp that makes your heart stutter. “Look at this, Logan. Look at how ready our good girl is.”
Logan lifts his head from your chest, his dark eyes tracking down to watch Dean’s fingers working between your legs. The sight of it — of religious, modest you completely coming apart under Dean’s hand — makes Logan let out a guttural curse.
“Fuck,” Logan breathes. He shifts, moving closer, his hand coming to rest firmly on your bare thigh. His thumb presses into your skin, holding your leg open wider for Dean. “You’re so gorgeous, Y/N. You look so perfect taking his fingers.”
“I can’t,” you sob, your hips thrashing wildly against Garrett. You have no idea what you’re doing. You have no control over your own body. You are entirely at their mercy. “It’s too much, it’s too much-”
“It’s not too much,” Garrett commands in your ear, his grip tightening around your waist to anchor you. “You can take it. You are taking it so well. Keep going, Dean. Don’t stop.”
Dean doesn’t stop. He slides one long finger inside you.
You cry out, your fingernails digging violently into Garrett’s shoulders. You feel impossibly full, stretched, and consumed by a heat that is burning you from the inside out.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” Dean praises, his thumb returning to stroke your clit while his finger pumps slowly inside you. “Take it all. Just like that. You’re so tight, God, you feel so good.”
“Tell her she’s a good girl, Logan,” Garrett orders, his voice entirely wrecked with his own restraint. He is hard as a rock beneath you, suffering through the absolute agony of watching his best friends dismantle the girl he loves while he holds her.
“You’re the best girl,” Logan obeys instantly, his face hovering inches from yours. His dark eyes are hypnotic. “The sweetest, prettiest, best girl in the world. And you’re all ours. Every single inch of you.”
The praise is the catalyst.
The “good girl” hits your brain like a massive dose of dopamine. The traditional, eager-to-please part of your soul latches onto their words, entirely overlapping with the filthy, overwhelming physical pleasure.
You want to be their good girl. You want to give them exactly what they want.
Your hips begin to chase Dean’s hand, establishing a frantic, desperate rhythm. You sob openly, the tears slipping down your flushed cheeks. The coil in your lower stomach is winding tighter and tighter, pulling all the oxygen out of the room.
“Garrett,” you cry out, twisting your head to bury your face in his neck. “Garrett, please, I don’t know what’s happening-”
“You’re getting close,” Garrett rumbles, his large hand coming up to tangle in your hair, holding you firmly against him. “Don’t fight it, baby. Let it happen. Let go for us.”
“I’m going to taste her,” Logan declares, his voice completely raw.
Before you can even process the words, Logan switches places with Dean.
Dean pulls his hand back, leaving you whining at the sudden loss of friction, but it only lasts for a second.
Logan kneels between your legs. He grabs your hips, pulling you slightly forward on Garrett’s lap, and buries his face directly against your wet center.
When Logan’s hot, wet tongue lashes against your clit, you completely leave your body.
You scream a piercing, shattered sound that bounces off the living room walls. Your back arches so hard you practically lift off Garrett’s lap.
“Good girl,” Dean praises, stepping back to watch, his hands resting on his hips, his chest heaving. “Give it to him. Let him taste how good you are.”
Logan is merciless. He sucks, laves, and devours you, his tongue working with a terrifying, rhythmic precision. He holds your hips in a vice grip, refusing to let you squirm away from the onslaught of pleasure.
It is exactly the elusive feeling you have been chasing since Christmas. It is the absolute, terrifying edge of the cliff.
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” you chant, your eyes rolling back in your head.
“You can,” Garrett growls, his mouth hot against your ear. “Come for us, Y/N. Be a good girl and shatter for us right now.”
The final, commanding praise snaps the last remaining thread of your control.
The orgasm hits you with the force of a freight train.
You explode. A blinding, white-hot wave of ecstasy rips through your entire body, starting from your core and shooting out to your fingertips. You scream, your body locking up rigidly against Garrett’s chest. Your inner muscles clamp down violently, spasming with an intensity that you never even knew was physically possible.
Logan groans against you, taking the entire force of your climax, refusing to pull his mouth away until the very last tremor fades from your body.
You collapse.
All the strength entirely leaves your limbs. You slump heavily against Garrett’s chest, your head resting weakly on his shoulder. Your lungs are completely starved for air, your chest heaving with violent, ragged gasps. You are drenched in sweat, your skin flushed and hyper-sensitive.
You have never felt so utterly, blissfully ruined in your entire life.
The living room is dead silent, save for the sound of your frantic breathing and the harsh, heavy pants of the three men surrounding you.
Garrett wraps both of his massive arms securely around your waist, holding you tightly against him. He presses a long, incredibly tender kiss to your sweaty forehead.
“I’ve got you,” Garrett whispers, his voice thick with a terrifying amount of love. “I’ve got you, baby. You did so good.”
Logan slowly pulls back. His lips are wet, his dark eyes entirely entirely glazed over. He looks up at you, his face a portrait of absolute worship. He leans forward and presses a gentle, closed-mouth kiss to your knee.
“Perfect,” Logan murmurs. “You are completely perfect.”
Dean steps closer, sinking to his knees beside the sofa. He reaches out, gently brushing the tangled hair away from your flushed face. He is smiling, that familiar, cheeky, arrogant smirk, but his eyes are entirely soft.
“See?” Dean says quietly, his thumb stroking your cheek. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Not ungodly at all.”
You let out a weak, watery laugh, a fresh wave of tears springing to your eyes. But this time, they aren’t tears of guilt or fear. They are tears of absolute, overwhelming relief.
You turn your head, burying your face against Garrett’s neck, inhaling his scent.
“I’m a mess,” you whisper weakly.
“You’re our mess,” Garrett corrects instantly, his grip tightening around you. “And you are never going to ache like that again. Do you understand me? Whenever you need it, whenever you want it, you tell us. You are never going to be unsatisfied.”
“Never,” Dean agrees, leaning in to press a kiss to your temple.
“We exist to serve you,” Logan adds, reaching out to gently squeeze your hand.
You look at them. You look at the fierce, unyielding devotion etched into all three of their handsome faces. You are a southern, religious girl who came to Briar University to get an education and find a husband.
Instead, you found three.
And as Garrett shifts beneath you, adjusting you carefully on his lap, you realize with a sudden, beautiful clarity that you wouldn’t trade this chaotic, intense, entirely unconventional reality for all the white picket fences in the world.
***
It is late April, and the Boston air has finally shed its bitter winter chill, replaced by the soft, humid promise of spring. Finals are looming, the hockey season is wrapping up, and somehow, by nothing short of a divine miracle, Tucker still doesn’t know.
For nearly three months, you, Garrett, Dean, and Logan have engaged in the most intricate, high-stakes game of deception in Briar University history. You sneak into their rooms late at night. They steal kisses in the pantry when Tucker turns his back. They leave bruised love bites on your thighs where your modest skirts hide them perfectly.
You have blossomed. The shy, terrified southern girl is gone, replaced by a woman who knows exactly the kind of devastating power she holds over three of the most dangerous men on campus.
But tonight, you don’t have to sneak around.
Tucker had a date. A real, sit-down dinner date at a fancy Italian restaurant downtown with a girl from his principles of finance seminar. He left the house at seven o’clock, smelling like expensive cologne, promising he wouldn’t be back until at least eleven.
That gave you four hours.
It is currently eight-thirty, and the living room of the house has been entirely transformed into a den of pure sin.
The television is off. The only sound in the room is the heavy hum of the central air conditioning, completely drowned out by the wet, visceral sounds of skin slapping against skin and your own ragged, breathless moans.
You are entirely naked, laid out on the plush center rug. Your yellow sundress is a crumpled heap on the coffee table.
Dean is kneeling between your spread thighs. His hands are firmly gripping your hips, his thumbs pressing into your hip bones to anchor you to the floor. His face is buried completely between your legs. His mouth is a relentless, starving force. His tongue lashes against your swollen, slick clit with a terrifying, expert precision that makes your vision literally go white around the edges.
“Dean,” you sob, your head tossing back against the rug. Your fingers are tangled in his sandy-blonde hair, pulling him closer, begging for more of the agonizingly perfect friction.
“I know, baby,” Dean murmurs against your wet skin, the vibration of his voice sending a fresh bolt of electricity straight through your core. He sucks hard on your most sensitive flesh, completely merciless. “Taste so fucking good. Give it to me, sweetheart.”
But Dean is only one third of the absolute sensory overload tearing your mind apart.
Garrett is kneeling directly behind your head. His thick arms are braced on the rug on either side of your ears. He leans down, his massive chest brushing against the top of your head, and his mouth attacks the sensitive column of your throat. He bites gently at your pulse point, soothing the sting with a hot sweep of his tongue, leaving a dark, blossoming bruise that you will have to cover with a cardigan tomorrow.
Garrett’s large hands slide down your body, entirely bypassing your stomach to heavily cup your bare breasts. His thumbs rub rough circles over your tight, peaking nipples.
“Look at her,” Garrett growls, his voice a deep, vibrating rumble that sinks straight into your bones. He pinches your nipple gently, making you cry out into the empty room. “Our perfect girl, taking all of us like she was made for it. You’re so gorgeous, Y/N.”
“Garrett, please,” you whine, your hips bucking up against Dean’s mouth. You are entirely overstimulated. The heat radiating off their massive bodies is suffocating in the best possible way.
“I’m right here,” Logan says.
Logan is crouched beside you, his dark eyes glazed with absolute, possessive adoration. He is completely naked, the corded muscles of his stomach flexing as he shifts his weight. He reaches out, his calloused hand tracing the line of your jaw, before his fingers slip into your mouth.
You instinctively part your lips, sucking the pads of his fingers, your eyes fluttering shut as you look up at him.
“Good girl,” Logan praises, his voice thick and heavy with lust. The praise hits your brain like a narcotic. He replaces his fingers with his mouth, leaning down to capture your lips in a deep, wet, soul-searing kiss.
Logan’s tongue sweeps into your mouth, mimicking the frantic, desperate rhythm of Dean’s tongue between your legs. He tastes like mint and male aggression. You kiss him back with a feral intensity that you didn’t even know you possessed, your body completely surrendering to the overwhelming, simultaneous attention of the three men.
Garrett groans, his hips shifting restlessly behind you. “My turn. Dean, let me in.”
Dean pulls back, his lips slick and shining. He lets out a ragged breath, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “She’s so wet, Graham. She’s practically melting into the floor.”
“I want her,” Garrett demands, his gray eyes dark as storm clouds.
You whimper as the cool air hits your soaked center, but before you can even register the loss of Dean, Garrett is moving. He shifts down, his massive frame replacing Dean between your thighs.
Logan breaks the kiss, pressing his forehead against yours, his chest heaving. “Look at me, Y/N.”
You open your eyes, your chest rising and falling violently.
“Take him,” Logan whispers, his hand sliding down to grip your waist. “Take him like a good girl.”
Garrett positions himself between your legs. He reaches down, his thick fingers guiding his rock-hard, aching length to your slick entrance. He doesn’t hesitate. With one long, smooth thrust, Garrett buries himself entirely inside you.
You scream. It is a loud, completely uninhibited sound. You arch your back so hard you practically lift off the rug, your internal muscles clamping down violently around his massive size. It is a feeling of absolute, terrifying fullness that stretches you to your absolute limit.
“Fuck,” Garrett roars, his head throwing back, the cords in his neck straining. He stays perfectly still for a second, letting you adjust to him, his hands gripping your thighs like a vice. “You are so damn tight, Y/N. Holy shit.”
“Move,” you beg, tears of pure pleasure pricking your eyes. “Garrett, please, move.”
Garrett obeys. He pulls back slowly, almost entirely withdrawing, before slamming his hips forward, burying himself to the hilt.
The friction is devastating. You cry out again, your hands reaching out blindly.
Dean catches your hands. He is suddenly at your head, lying beside you on the rug. He intertwines his fingers with yours, pinning your arms gently above your head. He leans down, kissing the tears off your cheeks, murmuring a steady stream of filthy, adoring praise right into your ear.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” Dean praises, kissing your jawline as Garrett continues to hammer into you with a brutal, relentless rhythm. “Take every inch of him. You’re doing so good. You belong to us.”
Logan moves to your side. He leans over you, his mouth finding your breasts, his teeth scraping gently over your nipple while Garrett claims you from below and Dean holds you from above.
You are entirely consumed. You are the center of their universe, the sole focus of their feral, predatory devotion.
“I’m close,” you sob, the coil in your lower stomach winding tighter and tighter. “Garrett, I’m going to-”
“Do it,” Garrett grunts, his thrusts getting harder, faster, completely abandoning his restraint. “Come for me, baby. Shatter for us right now.”
The orgasm builds with the force of a tidal wave. You are teetering on the absolute edge, your body trembling violently, ready to explode into a million blinding pieces of white-hot pleasure.
Click.
The distinct, metallic sound of the front door deadbolt unlocking echoes through the house.
But over the sound of Garrett’s skin slapping against your thighs, Logan’s wet groans against your chest, and your own piercing cries, none of you hear it.
The heavy wooden front door swings open.
Tucker walks into the foyer. He looks entirely miserable. His biology date talked about her ex-boyfriend for ninety straight minutes, spilled red wine on his favorite jeans, and then asked him if he could introduce her to Garrett Graham. He just wants to grab a beer, sit on the couch, and forget the entire night happened.
Tucker drops his keys into the ceramic bowl by the door. The sound is muffled by the loud, frantic noises coming from the living room.
Tucker freezes.
He knows exactly what those sounds are. He lives in a house with three massive playboys. He knows the sound of one of his roommates hooking up with a girl on the sofa.
Anger instantly flares in his chest. I told them to take that shit to their bedrooms, he thinks furiously. They know Y/N likes to stop by. I don’t want this filth in the common areas.
Tucker marches past the kitchen, his jaw set, ready to scream at Dean or Logan to put their pants on and get out of the living room.
He steps into the archway.
The scene in front of him registers in fragments.
He sees Garrett’s massive back, his hips driving relentlessly downward. He sees Dean pinning someone’s arms above their head, kissing their neck. He sees Logan beside them, completely absorbed in whatever he’s doing.
And then, Tucker sees the yellow sundress on the coffee table.
It is the dress he bought you for your high school graduation. The modest, pale yellow dress you wear to church.
Tucker’s eyes snap back to the floor.
He sees the hair splayed across the rug. He sees the small, delicate silver cross resting against a flushed collarbone.
The entire universe completely stops.
Tucker’s brain entirely misfires. It cannot process the image. It physically refuses to compute what his eyes are telling him.
His sweet, innocent sister. The girl who thinks hand-holding is a sin. The girl who went to youth group and prayed before meals. She is on the floor, buried beneath the three most degenerate, hyper-sexual idiots he knows.
There is only one logical conclusion in Tucker’s protective, older-brother mind.
They forced her. They manipulated her. They got her alone in the house, surrounded her, and they are assaulting her.
A sound erupts from Tucker’s chest. It is not a yell. It is not a shout. It is a primal, blood-curdling roar of absolute, murderous rage.
“GET THE FUCK OFF HER!”
The roar echoes like a gunshot.
Garrett, Dean, and Logan freeze simultaneously.
You gasp, your eyes snapping open, the blinding haze of the orgasm instantly turning into sheer, icy terror.
Tucker lunges. He doesn’t even hesitate. He completely bypasses Dean and Logan, launching his entire one-hundred-and-ninety-pound frame directly at Garrett’s back.
Garrett barely has time to pull out of you before Tucker tackles him entirely off the rug, sending them both crashing into the heavy wooden coffee table. The table splinters with a deafening crack.
“Tucker, no!” You scream, scrambling backward on the rug, frantically trying to cover your bare chest with your hands.
“I’ll kill you!” Tucker bellows, his fists raining down on Garrett’s face. He is completely feral, his eyes wild with a terrifying mixture of grief and fury. “I’ll fucking kill you! You touched her! You touched my sister!”
Garrett doesn’t fight back. He is the captain. He is the best fighter on the ice. He could easily flip Tucker and knock him unconscious. But this is your brother. Garrett just raises his massive forearms, shielding his face, taking the brutal, bone-crunching hits.
“Tuck, stop!” Logan shouts, launching himself off the floor.
Logan tackles Tucker around the waist, trying to haul him off Garrett.
Tucker spins around with a speed born of pure adrenaline. His elbow connects sickeningly with Logan’s jaw. Logan’s head snaps back, blood instantly bursting from his split lip, and he stumbles backward, hitting the wall.
“Stay away from her!” Tucker screams at Logan, pointing a shaking, bloodied finger at him.
Dean is on his feet in a millisecond. He grabs the nearest thing he can find — a thick wool throw blanket from the sofa — and throws it over your trembling, naked body.
“I’ve got you, Y/N,” Dean says, his voice thick with panic, keeping himself physically positioned between you and the violence exploding in the room. “Put this on. Don’t look.”
“Dean, stop him!” You sob, clutching the blanket to your chest, your heart hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs. “He’s going to hurt them!”
“Tuck, listen to me!” Dean yells, turning toward Tucker, holding his hands up in surrender. “Just listen for one second!”
Tucker turns his furious, tear-filled eyes on Dean. “You. You put your hands on her. I told you if you broke her I would put you in the hospital. I’m going to put you in the ground, Di Laurentis.”
Tucker lunges for Dean.
“NO!”
Your scream rips through the living room, so loud and piercing that it actually makes Tucker freeze in his tracks.
You don’t cower. You don’t stay hidden under the blanket.
You scramble to your feet. The wool blanket is wrapped tightly around your body, covering you from your chest to your knees, but your bare shoulders and disheveled hair are fully on display.
You step directly in front of Dean. You place yourself squarely between your raging, violent brother and the three men who just had you entirely undone.
“Y/N, get out of the way,” Tucker orders, his chest heaving, his knuckles bruised and bleeding. He looks at you with an agonizing, heartbroken expression. “It’s okay, honey. I’ve got you. They aren’t going to hurt you anymore. I’m going to call the police.”
“The police?” You repeat, your voice shaking, your eyes wide with horror.
“They assaulted you,” Tucker says, his voice cracking. He points at Garrett, who is slowly sitting up from the debris of the coffee table, wiping a stream of blood from his nose. “I left you alone for two hours, and these monsters-”
“They didn’t assault me, Tucker!” You scream, your southern drawl entirely stripped of its usual sweetness.
The living room falls dead silent.
The only sound is the ragged breathing of five exhausted, terrified people.
Tucker stares at you. He blinks, clearly not understanding the words coming out of your mouth. “What?”
You stand your ground. You are terrified. You have never defied your brother in your entire life. He has protected you, provided for you, and shielded you from the world.
But looking at Garrett bleeding on the floor, Logan holding his jaw, and Dean standing protectively behind you, you realize that the world you wanted to be shielded from is exactly where you belong.
“They didn’t force me,” you say, your voice dropping, gaining strength with every word. You clutch the blanket tightly against your chest. “They didn’t manipulate me. They didn’t coerce me. I asked them to do this. I wanted this.”
Tucker looks like you just struck him with a physical blow. The color drains completely from his face. “Y/N. You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re in shock.”
“I am not in shock!” You argue, stepping forward. “Look at me, Tucker! Really look at me! Do I look like I was being assaulted? Or do I look like I was with the three men I love?”
The word drops like a bomb in the middle of the room.
Behind you, Dean lets out a sharp intake of breath. Garrett slowly pushes himself to his feet, his gray eyes locking onto you with an intensity that practically burns the air. Logan lowers his hand from his jaw, staring at you in absolute awe.
You haven’t told them you love them yet. You saved it for this exact moment, weaponizing it to shatter your brother’s absolute denial.
“Love?” Tucker whispers, his voice entirely hollow. He looks around the room, taking in the scene again. He sees the way Garrett is looking at you, completely submissive to your command. He sees the way Dean’s hand is hovering inches from your back, desperate to comfort you but respecting the boundary. He sees the way Logan is watching you like you hung the stars in the sky.
The rage slowly seeps out of Tucker’s posture, replaced by a deep, profound confusion.
“You’re a traditional girl,” Tucker says, sounding like a broken record, desperately clinging to the version of you he knows. “You want a husband. You want a family. Y/N, you pray before you eat. You … you don’t sleep with three guys on a living room rug.”
“I am still that girl,” you say softly, the tears finally spilling over your eyelashes. “I still pray. I still want a family. But I want it with them.”
“All of them?” Tucker asks, his voice cracking, looking entirely horrified by the logistics. “Y/N, that’s insane. That’s not a family. That’s a harem.”
“It’s a partnership,” Garrett says.
Garrett steps forward. He ignores the blood dripping from his nose. He stops beside you, standing tall, refusing to shrink away from Tucker’s judgment.
“We love her, Tuck,” Garrett says, his voice a low, steady rumble of absolute truth. “I know you think we’re animals. And maybe we were, before she walked in here. But she changed us. We share her. We protect her. We provide for her. And we would die before we let a single tear fall from her eyes.”
Logan steps up to your other side. “I was going to come to you and ask for your blessing. We all were. We aren’t hiding her like a dirty secret. We’re going to marry her.”
Tucker’s brain officially breaks. He stares at the three of them, these massive, arrogant athletes who usually care about nothing but hockey and themselves, looking at his sister with the kind of reverence usually reserved for deities.
“You guys …” Tucker stammers, running a hand through his hair. “You guys are actually serious. You’re sharing my sister.”
“We are,” Dean says, finally stepping up behind you, completing the wall of muscle surrounding you. “And you can punch us all you want, Tuck. You can break every bone in our bodies. But you aren’t taking her away from us.”
Tucker looks at you. He sees the way you lean subtly back into Dean’s chest. He sees the way your hand reaches out to grip Garrett’s arm. He sees the fierce, unyielding light in your eyes.
You aren’t a victim. You are a queen, standing in the center of her court, entirely protected and entirely loved.
Tucker lets out a long, shuddering breath. The adrenaline crash hits him violently, and he slumps down onto the armchair, burying his face in his bleeding hands.
“I can’t believe this,” Tucker groans into his palms. “My mother is going to kill me. She entrusted you to my care, and I let you get corrupted by half the hockey team.”
“I’m not corrupted, Tucker,” you say gently, stepping forward and kneeling in front of the armchair, keeping the blanket tightly wrapped around you. You reach out, placing your hand on your brother’s knee. “I am happy. For the first time in my life, I am completely, genuinely happy. They treat me like a princess.”
Tucker peeks through his fingers. He looks at your face, glowing even through the tears. He sighs heavily, dropping his hands.
“You really love them?” Tucker asks quietly.
“I love them so much,” you confess, a watery smile breaking across your face. “They make me feel safe.”
Tucker stares at you for a long moment. Then, he looks up at the three men towering behind you.
Garrett’s nose is bleeding down his chin. Logan’s jaw is already swelling. Dean looks terrified.
Tucker points a shaking, bruised finger at Garrett. “If you ever make her cry. If any of you ever do anything to hurt her, or make her feel less than perfect … I won’t just hit you. I will end your hockey careers. Do you understand me?”
“Crystal clear,” Garrett says immediately, not an ounce of hesitation in his voice.
“We wouldn’t dream of it, Tuck,” Logan promises.
Tucker nods slowly. He rubs his face, completely entirely exhausted. “Okay. Okay, fine. You can date my sister. All three of you. God, I need a drink.”
Tucker stands up, avoiding eye contact with any of them. He walks past the broken coffee table, heading straight for the stairs.
“Tucker?” You call out softly.
He stops at the bottom of the stairs, not turning around. “Yeah?”
“Thank you,” you whisper.
Tucker just waves a hand dismissively in the air. “Don’t thank me yet. I still have to figure out how to explain this to Mama. And for the love of God, please put some clothes on before I come back down.”
Tucker trudges up the stairs, his bedroom door clicking shut a moment later.
The living room is completely silent again.
You let out a massive, shuddering breath, the tension leaving your body in a sudden rush. Your knees buckle, and you practically collapse onto the rug.
But you don’t hit the floor.
Garrett catches you instantly, hauling you up into his massive arms.
“I’ve got you,” Garrett murmurs, pressing you tightly against his chest, completely ignoring the blood on his face. He buries his face in your hair, letting out a heavy sigh of relief. “Fuck, baby, you were incredible.”
Logan wraps his arms around Garrett’s back, pressing his face into your shoulder, essentially trapping you in a massive, crushing hug. “You told him you love us.”
Dean practically tackles all three of you, wrapping his long arms around the entire group. “You love us! You actually said it out loud! You’re brilliant, Y/N. You saved our lives!”
You laugh, a bright, tearful sound that echoes in the quiet house. You are surrounded by bruised, battered, beautiful men who belong entirely to you.
“I do love y’all,” you say, resting your head against Garrett’s chest, looking at Logan and Dean. “Even if you did get my brother to break the coffee table.”
Garrett chuckles, a low, vibrating sound that makes your stomach flip. “I’ll buy fifty coffee tables if it means I get to keep you.”
“Come on,” Logan says softly, kissing the top of your head. “Let’s get you upstairs. We have a lot of lost time to make up for.”
As Garrett carries you effortlessly up the stairs, surrounded by the fierce, protective presence of Logan and Dean, you realize exactly how right this is.
You didn’t lose your innocence. You just found it with the exact right people.
***
The late afternoon sun spills through the massive, floor-to-ceiling windows of the newly purchased Back Bay townhouse and on to the pristine white marble countertops.
It has been exactly one year since that explosive, terrifying night when your brother almost destroyed the living room. A year of navigating the absolutely insane, beautiful reality of sharing your life, your heart, and your bed with three division-one hockey players.
And now, they aren’t just college boys anymore. They are graduates.
You stand at the stove, a floral apron tied neatly around your waist over a soft, baby-blue sundress. You are stirring a massive pot of homemade marinara sauce, the rich scent of garlic, basil, and roasting meats filling the expansive, high-end kitchen.
To say this kitchen is an upgrade from the biohazard of their off-campus house would be the understatement of the century.
“I still can’t believe Tucker wore a tie today,” Logan says, leaning against the kitchen island. He’s wearing a fitted black t-shirt and jeans, casually tossing an apple in the air and catching it. “A real, actual tie. And a suit. He looked like an adult. It was deeply unsettling.”
“He’s a businessman now, Logan,” you say, smiling over your shoulder as you adjust the heat under the sauce. “He has to look professional. His new firm expects him to be put together.”
“Well, he looked like a narc,” Dean chimes in. He is sprawled out on one of the plush barstools, his long legs stretched out in front of him. “But I guess I can’t talk. I’ll be wearing a suit every day starting in September. God, Harvard Law. Saying it out loud still makes me feel like I stole someone else’s identity.”
Garrett walks into the kitchen, his dark hair still damp from a shower. He looks exactly like what he is: a professional athlete in his absolute prime. “You got into Harvard Law because you studied until your eyes bled for six months, Di Laurentis. Stop acting like you tripped and fell into the Ivy League.”
“I did it to stay in Boston,” Dean says, offering a lazy, devastatingly handsome smirk. His green eyes shift to you, instantly darkening with affection. “I did it so I wouldn’t have to leave our girl. And so I could keep an eye on you two idiots.”
Garrett chuckles, wrapping an arm around your waist from behind. He presses a hot, firm kiss to the side of your neck. “You couldn’t get rid of us if you tried. We’re locked in.”
It’s true. The four of you are completely locked in.
When graduation approached, the anxiety had threatened to tear you all apart. But Garrett Graham doesn’t lose, and he certainly doesn’t lose his family. When the Boston Bruins offered him a contract, he signed immediately. Logan, fighting tooth and nail, secured a spot with the Bruins organization as well, starting out his rookie season with the Providence affiliate. It meant a commute for Logan, but it meant they stayed together. Dean, true to his word, crushed his LSATs and secured his spot across the river in Cambridge.
And you? You just finished your sophomore year. You have two years left of your Early Childhood Education degree.
Garrett, Dean, and Logan pooled their signing bonuses and trust funds to buy this incredible, sprawling townhouse right in the heart of Boston. It has a massive kitchen for you, four bedrooms, and a custom-built, oversized bed in the master suite that comfortably fits all of you.
“How’s it coming, baby?” Garrett murmurs against your skin, inhaling the scent of your vanilla perfume mixed with the savory food. “Smells incredible.”
“Almost done,” you promise, tapping your wooden spoon against the edge of the pot. “The garlic bread just needs to finish toasting. Go sit down, all of you. You’ve been unpacking boxes all day.”
“We like watching you,” Logan says honestly, his dark eyes tracking your every movement.
It’s true. They treat watching you cook like it is a religious experience. To them, it represents everything they fought for.
You turn back to the stove, humming softly to yourself. The transition into this life wasn’t what you pictured when you left Texas. You thought you’d find a quiet, simple man. You thought you’d have a quiet, simple life.
Instead, you are the center of a chaotic, wildly passionate hurricane. But the core of it — the heart of what you always wanted — is exactly the same. You are still traditional. You love taking care of a home. You love cooking. You love the domesticity of it all.
And they absolutely worship you for it. They don’t want you to stress about money. They don’t want you to stress about anything. They have made it abundantly clear that they want to provide everything, giving you the freedom to be the homemaker you always dreamed of being.
“I still think we need a bigger dining table,” Dean says casually, standing up from his stool and stretching. “You know, for the future.”
Your heart skips a familiar, wild beat. You glance over at him. “The table seats eight, Dean.”
“Yeah,” Logan says, catching Dean’s drift immediately. A slow, deeply wicked smile spreads across Logan’s bruised, handsome face. “But what about when we have kids? Three guys, one girl … statistically, we’re going to have a massive family, sweetheart.”
Garrett’s grip tightens around your waist. His chest expands behind you. “He’s right. A whole house full of tiny humans running around with your eyes and your smile. We’re going to need a bigger table.”
The thought does something completely devastating to your insides. Every time they talk about having children with you — about putting babies in you, about watching your stomach swell, about raising a family together — a heavy, slick ache pools instantly between your thighs. It melts your core. The primal, provider instincts rolling off the three of them are so intoxicating it is a miracle you can even stand upright.
Dean saunters over to the stove. He crowds into your left side, practically pinning you against the counter between him and Garrett.
“I want at least four,” Dean whispers, leaning in close, his lips brushing your earlobe. “I want to keep you busy, Mama.”
You gasp, a violent blush rushing straight up your neck. “Dean!”
Dean chuckles, his hand sliding down your side. He traces the curve of your hip, and before you can stop him, his long, deft fingers slip under the hem of your baby-blue sundress. His hand slides up your bare thigh, his thumb brushing dangerously close to your cotton underwear.
You react entirely on instinct.
You pull the wooden spoon out of the sauce, spin around, and slap the spoon firmly against Dean’s wrist.
“Ow!” Dean yelps, instantly yanking his hand back and rubbing his wrist, though he is grinning from ear to ear.
“You are distracting me, Dean Di Laurentis,” you scold, pointing the sauce-covered spoon at his chest. You try to look stern, but your lips are fighting a massive smile. “I am trying to feed y’all a proper dinner. Keep your hands to yourself until the dishes are done.”
Garrett bursts into a loud, booming laugh, burying his face in your neck.
Logan throws his head back, laughing so hard he has to brace himself against the island. “God, she put you right in your place. Respect the spoon.”
“I’m abused,” Dean complains playfully, leaning down to press a quick, hard kiss to your lips anyway. “I am a victim of domestic violence.”
“You are a menace,” you correct him, turning back to the stove to hide the furious blush painting your cheeks. “Grab the plates. Dinner is ready.”
Dinner is a loud, joyful, incredibly chaotic affair. You sit at the head of the massive, dark wood dining table, surrounded by your boys. They eat like starving wolves, but they never stop checking on you. Garrett cuts a piece of chicken parmigiana and feeds it to you from his own fork. Logan pours your water. Dean keeps a steady hand resting on your knee under the table the entire time.
They banter, they argue about hockey stats, they complain about moving boxes, but their attention is always, constantly anchored to you.
When the last plate is cleared, you start to stand up. “I’ll get the dishes-”
“Absolutely not,” Garrett commands, his voice dropping into that low, authoritative tone that never fails to make your knees weak. He stands up, instantly blocking your path.
“You cooked,” Logan says, stacking the plates effortlessly. “We clean. Those are the house rules.”
“But-”
“No buts, good girl,” Dean says, stepping up behind you and sliding his arms around your waist. “You’ve been on your feet all day making this place feel like a home. Now it’s our turn to take care of you.”
Before you can protest, Garrett leans down and scoops you effortlessly into his massive arms. You squeak, wrapping your arms around his thick neck as he carries you out of the dining room.
“Garrett! I can walk!” You laugh, kicking your legs gently.
“I don’t care,” Garrett says simply.
He carries you up the grand, sweeping staircase of the townhouse, down the wide hallway, and kicks the door to the master suite open with his foot.
The bedroom is a sanctuary. It’s painted a soft, soothing gray, with sheer curtains billowing lightly in the warm evening breeze. In the center of the room is the custom bed — a massive, sprawling mattress covered in luxury white linens.
Garrett steps up to the edge of the mattress and gently drops you onto the center of the bed.
You bounce slightly on the plush comforter, your baby-blue sundress riding up to your mid-thighs. You look up at him, your breath catching in your throat.
Garrett doesn’t smile. The playful, domestic lightness from dinner is entirely gone. His gray eyes are dark, stormy, and completely feral. He grips the hem of his black t-shirt and pulls it over his head in one swift motion, tossing it onto the floor. His broad chest heaves, the muscles shifting beautifully in the dim light of the bedroom.
Footsteps echo in the hallway. Dean and Logan walk into the bedroom, shutting the heavy wooden door behind them. The distinct click of the lock turning sends a violent shiver of anticipation straight down your spine.
“Dishes are done,” Logan murmurs. He pulls his own shirt off, revealing the lean, corded swimmer’s build that contrasts so perfectly with Garrett’s bulky hockey frame.
Dean saunters to the edge of the bed, kicking off his shoes. He unbuckles his belt, the metallic clinking sound loud in the quiet room. His green eyes are locked onto you, hungry and completely devoted. “Now it’s time for dessert.”
You are entirely trapped, completely surrounded by three massive, devastatingly handsome men, and you have never felt safer in your entire life.
Garrett crawls onto the bed. He moves with the terrifying, predatory grace of a professional athlete, his knees sinking into the mattress until he is straddling your hips. His heavy thighs box you in.
“Look at you,” Garrett rumbles, his hands sliding down to grip your waist. His thumbs press into your skin, staking his absolute claim. “You look so pretty in our bed. Like a perfect little housewife waiting for us.”
The dirty, domestic praise hits your brain like a narcotic. A soft, involuntary whine escapes your throat. “Garrett …”
“You like that, don’t you?” Dean asks, crawling onto the bed beside Garrett. He lies down next to you, propping his head up on his hand. His long fingers reach out, lightly tracing the strap of your sundress. “You like being our good girl. Taking care of the house, cooking our meals, and then opening your legs for us at the end of the day.”
“Dean, please,” you gasp, your face flushing a magnificent scarlet. Your hips instinctively roll upward against Garrett’s thick thighs, desperately seeking friction. The slick, heavy ache between your legs is already throbbing out of control.
“Tell us you like it,” Logan commands softly, moving onto your other side.
Logan leans down, entirely bypassing your mouth, and presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss directly to the pulse point on your neck. You cry out, your back arching violently off the mattress as Logan’s teeth scrape gently against your sensitive skin.
“I like it,” you sob, completely losing your mind as Logan’s tongue laves the mark he just made. “I love it. I love being yours.”
“Good girl,” Garrett praises, the sound a low, vibrating purr.
Garrett leans down and captures your mouth. The kiss is explosive. It is entirely consuming, a wet, bruising invasion that leaves you breathless. He angles his head, his tongue sweeping deep into your mouth, tasting the marinara and wine from dinner. You tangle your fingers in his dark hair, kissing him back with a feral desperation that you only ever show them behind closed doors.
While Garrett dominates your mouth, Dean’s hands move to your dress.
With practiced, maddening slowness, Dean slips the straps of your sundress off your shoulders. He pulls the fabric down, exposing your breasts in their simple white cotton bra.
Logan shifts his attention from your neck. He pushes the fabric of your bra down, freeing your heavy, aching breasts. He doesn’t hesitate. Logan’s hot mouth completely engulfs your right nipple.
A loud, shattered moan tears from your throat, muffled only by Garrett’s punishing kiss. You thrash your hips against the mattress, your hands flying down to grip Logan’s dark hair, pressing his face harder against your chest. Logan sucks relentlessly, his tongue flicking against the tight, sensitive peak, drawing out a high-pitched whimper from you.
“My turn,” Dean murmurs, his voice thick with lust.
Dean lowers his head to your left breast, mirroring Logan’s agonizingly perfect torture. You are completely overwhelmed, caught in a crossfire of pleasure that makes your vision literally white out around the edges.
Garrett breaks the kiss, resting his forehead against yours, his chest heaving. He looks down at his two best friends worshipping your body, and a dark, entirely possessive smirk crosses his face.
“You’re going to take all of us tonight, Y/N,” Garrett promises, his large hands sliding down your sides to grip your hips. “We graduated. We bought this house. We are celebrating, and you are going to take every single inch we have to give you.”
“Yes,” you gasp, your eyes fluttering shut. “Please.”
Garrett shifts his weight. He reaches down and bunches the fabric of your sundress in his massive hands, pulling it all the way up to your waist. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of your white cotton underwear and pulls them cleanly down your legs, tossing them onto the floor.
You are completely exposed to them.
The cool air of the bedroom hits your slick, swollen center, but it is instantly replaced by absolute fire.
Dean shifts his position. He moves down your body, kneeling between your spread thighs. He looks at you for a long, heavy moment, his green eyes dark with an unholy amount of desire.
“So fucking wet for us,” Dean whispers reverently.
Dean leans forward and buries his face directly against your center.
You scream. It is a loud, piercing, completely uninhibited sound that bounces off the walls of the master bedroom.
Dean is a master. His tongue is relentless, lashing against your slick, swollen clit with a terrifying, expert precision. He holds your hips in a vice grip, refusing to let you squirm away from the onslaught of pleasure, entirely consuming your wetness.
“Fuck,” Logan groans, watching Dean devour you.
Logan moves up your body, replacing Dean at your side. He leans over you, his eyes burning. “Look at me, sweetheart. Look at me while he makes you feel good.”
You open your tear-filled eyes, meeting Logan’s intense, soulful gaze. You are completely entirely tethered to him, grounded by his presence even as Dean tears your mind apart.
Garrett shifts his weight again. He reaches down between you, his hand brushing against your slick, sensitive skin right above where Dean is working.
“Open wider for me, baby,” Garrett commands softly.
You obey instantly, your thighs spreading as far as they can go.
Garrett positions his rock-hard length at your wet entrance. He doesn’t give you any warning. With one smooth, incredibly powerful thrust, Garrett buries himself entirely inside you.
“Garrett!” You sob out, your back arching off the mattress.
The feeling of absolute, agonizing fullness stretches you to your absolute limit. It is an impossible, overwhelming sensation. Garrett is buried inside you, filling you completely, while Dean’s mouth continues its relentless, wet assault on your clit.
“That’s it, good girl,” Garrett grunts, the cords in his neck straining as he holds himself deep inside you. “Take it all. You belong to us.”
Garrett begins to move. He sets a brutal, pounding rhythm, his hips slamming against yours, his skin slapping loudly against your thighs. The friction is devastating. Every time Garrett pulls out, you whimper at the emptiness, and every time he slams back in, Dean’s tongue catches the exact right spot.
You are completely, hopelessly overstimulated. You are drowning in pleasure, gasping for air, your hands gripping the bedsheets so hard your knuckles turn white.
“I can’t,” you cry out, shaking your head wildly. “I can’t, it’s too much, please-”
“You can,” Logan commands, his voice firm but incredibly loving. He leans down and captures your lips in a deep, soothing kiss, swallowing your frantic cries. “You can take it. Come for us, Y/N. Shatter for your boys.”
The praise, combined with the impossible, dual stimulation, snaps the final thread of your control.
The orgasm hits you like a violent explosion.
You scream into Logan’s mouth, your entire body locking up rigidly against the mattress. A blinding, white-hot wave of pure ecstasy rips through your core, radiating out to your fingertips and toes. Your inner muscles clamp down violently, spasming around Garrett’s thick length with a strength that makes him roar.
“Fuck!” Garrett bellows, his own restraint completely shattering.
He drives into you three more times, fast and brutal, before his entire body goes rigid. He empties himself deep inside you, his heavy chest collapsing against yours, his breath tearing out of his lungs in ragged gasps.
Dean pulls his mouth away with a wet smack. He rests his forehead against your inner thigh, completely breathless, absolutely devastated by the sight of your blinding pleasure.
You are completely ruined.
You lie limp against the mattress, tears of pure, unadulterated relief and love slipping down your flushed cheeks. Your lungs are burning, your heart is hammering against your ribs, and your entire body feels like it is made of melted wax.
Logan breaks the kiss slowly. He brushes the damp hair away from your forehead, his dark eyes filled with absolute worship.
“I love you,” Logan whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to your sweaty temple.
“I love you too,” you breathe, your voice barely a whisper.
Garrett slowly rolls off of you, completely exhausted, but he immediately pulls you against his side. He wraps his massive arm around your waist, tucking your head securely under his chin.
Dean crawls up the bed, his green eyes soft and entirely devoted. He lies down on your other side, throwing his heavy leg over yours, completely boxing you in.
You are entirely surrounded by heat, by muscle, by the scent of sweat and expensive cologne.
“You did so good today, baby,” Garrett murmurs, his voice a low, sleepy rumble vibrating against your chest. “Dinner was amazing.”
“The best,” Dean agrees, kissing your bare shoulder. “I can’t wait to eat your cooking every single day for the rest of my life.”
You close your eyes, a soft, content smile spreading across your face.
It wasn’t the life you envisioned when you left Texas. It is louder, messier, and infinitely more complicated.
But lying in the center of a custom bed, held tightly by three men who would literally burn the world down to keep you safe, you know one thing for certain.
This is exactly where you belong.
***
The screen of the smartphone illuminates the dark bedroom, displaying a wildly gesturing girl wearing an oversized Boston Bruins jersey.
“Okay, HockeyTok, I need you to assemble right now,” the girl says, tapping a manicured nail against the screen. “Because I am losing my absolute mind over the Bruins’ roster, specifically the Graham-Logan situation, and nobody is talking about the elephant in the room.”
A green-screen image pops up behind her. It’s a screenshot from Garrett Graham’s official Instagram account. It shows Garrett, massive and grinning, standing on a boat in Cape Cod. Tucked under his arm, looking incredibly tiny and wearing a modest white sundress, is you.
“Exhibit A,” the TikToker says. “Garrett posts this over the summer. Captioned ‘my entire world.’ Everyone is like, ‘Oh my God, Garrett has a girlfriend! She’s so cute! She looks like a trad-wife angel!’ Case closed, right?”
The image changes. It’s a screenshot from Logan’s Instagram. It’s a candid shot of you sitting at a kitchen island, laughing, with flour on your nose.
“Exhibit B,” the girl continues, her voice rising in pitch. “Logan posts this three days later. Captioned ‘best part of coming home.’ Okay? So now the comments are confused. Is she Garrett’s? Is she Logan’s? Did they break up and she switched teammates? The drama!”
The image changes a third time. It’s a paparazzi photo taken outside the TD Garden. You are walking toward the friends and family entrance. Beside you, holding your hand and carrying your purse, is Dean, looking incredibly sharp in a tailored suit.
“Exhibit C!” the TikToker practically screams. “Dean Di Laurentis! The most notorious playboy to ever walk through Briar University, now a hotshot corporate lawyer in Boston. He is constantly in their private box! He is holding her purse! Guys, I have a theory. And it sounds completely unhinged, but look at the evidence. They all live together. They all post her. They are all fiercely protective of her. Society wants us to think she’s just passed around or they have a really weird sibling dynamic, but I’m calling it right now: The most wanted men in Boston are sharing a girlfriend.”
The video loops back to the beginning.
Garrett lets out a deep, rumbling laugh, tossing his phone onto the plush mattress of the custom king-sized bed. “Well, it took them three years, but someone on the internet finally has two brain cells to rub together.”
“It’s about time,” Dean says, leaning back against the headboard, his laptop resting on his knees. He adjusts his reading glasses, a completely unfair addition to his already devastatingly handsome lawyer aesthetic. “I was getting genuinely offended. I take you out to a five-star dinner, hold your hand across the table, and the tabloids report that I’m ‘escorting Garrett Graham’s lovely girlfriend’ for the evening. It’s an insult to my game.”
“They just can’t comprehend it,” Logan murmurs. He is lying on his stomach, his chin resting on your thigh. He reaches out, his calloused fingers gently tracing the hem of your silk nightgown. “Nobody expects three guys like us to be able to share without killing each other. But they don’t know you.”
You smile, reaching down to run your fingers through Logan’s dark hair. “I think the truth is just a little too scandalous for the sports networks to handle.”
“Not for long,” Garrett says, stretching his massive arms over his head. “The Bruins PR team is sending that camera crew to the house tomorrow morning. They want that Day in the Life video. Are we going to sanitize it for them, boys?”
“Absolutely not,” Dean says without looking up from his legal briefs. “I plan on kissing my wife on camera at least three times.”
You aren’t legally married — state laws being what they are — but they call you their wife. You wear three distinct, incredibly expensive diamond bands on your left ring finger, one from each of them, stacked perfectly together.
“I’m going to do more than kiss her,” Logan grumbles sleepily, turning his face to press a hot, open-mouthed kiss directly to your thigh.
You gasp, a familiar, involuntary shiver running down your spine. Even after years of living together, after countless nights of taking all three of them, your body still reacts to them like it’s the very first time.
“Behave,” you scold softly, tapping Logan’s shoulder. “We have an early morning. The crew gets here at seven.”
***
At exactly 7:00 AM, the doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it!” Garrett yells from the top of the stairs.
Downstairs, the kitchen of the Back Bay townhouse is already a hive of domestic activity. You are standing at the stove, wearing a soft pink, ruffled apron over a loose white t-shirt and comfortable leggings. You are flipping thick, fluffy buttermilk pancakes on a massive griddle, while bacon sizzles in a cast-iron skillet next to it.
You hear the heavy wooden front door open.
“Hey, Bruins fans,” Garrett’s voice booms from the foyer, immediately slipping into his charismatic captain persona. “Garrett Graham here. Welcome to the madhouse. Come on in.”
The camera crew — a cameraman, a sound guy, and a bubbly PR coordinator named Jessica — steps into the foyer.
“Thanks for having us, Garrett!” Jessica says brightly. “So, this is the famous townhouse. You live here with Logan, right?”
“Logan, and another friend of ours from college, Dean,” Garrett says effortlessly, leading them down the hallway. “And, of course, the boss of the house. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
Garrett leads the crew into the massive, sun-drenched kitchen.
The cameraman pans across the pristine marble countertops, the state-of-the-art appliances, and finally rests on you at the stove.
“Morning, baby,” Garrett says.
He walks directly up behind you, wrapping his massive arms around your waist. He doesn’t hesitate. He buries his face in the crook of your neck and presses a long, lingering kiss to your skin, entirely ignoring the camera recording his every move.
Jessica stops dead in her tracks. Her eyes widen.
You smile, turning your head to press a quick kiss to Garrett’s cheek. “Morning. Pancakes are almost ready.”
“Smells incredible,” Garrett rumbles, finally stepping back to look at the camera. “This is Y/N. She runs the show. Without her, Logan and I would probably eat protein powder straight from the tub.”
“Hi!” You say cheerfully, offering the crew a sweet, southern smile. “Would y’all like some coffee? I just brewed a fresh pot.”
“Uh, no, thank you,” Jessica stammers, looking between you and Garrett, clearly trying to process the level of intimacy she just witnessed.
Footsteps echo on the stairs.
Logan walks into the kitchen. He’s wearing gray sweatpants that hang dangerously low on his hips and a backward Bruins cap. He looks exhausted, his eyes half-closed.
He walks straight past the camera crew like they don’t even exist. He goes directly to the stove, stepping up to your other side.
“Morning, gorgeous,” Logan murmurs, his voice thick with sleep. He reaches out, cups your jaw, and tilts your head up.
Logan kisses you. It isn’t a quick peck. It’s a slow, deep, familiar morning kiss that speaks of years of shared history and complete devotion. He pulls back, his thumb swiping gently across your lower lip.
The cameraman slowly lowers the camera by an inch, looking at Jessica. Jessica looks like she might pass out.
“Good morning, Logan,” you say smoothly, completely unfazed. “Your coffee is in the black mug on the counter.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” Logan says, shuffling over to the island to grab his mug. He leans against the counter, taking a sip, and finally acknowledges the crew. “Oh. Hey guys. You’re here early.”
“We’re … we’re rolling,” the cameraman whispers.
Before anyone can say another word, Dean sweeps into the kitchen.
Dean is wearing a custom-tailored charcoal suit, his tie perfectly knotted, looking like he just stepped off the cover of a GQ magazine. He is holding a leather briefcase in one hand.
“I have a deposition at nine, so I have to eat and run,” Dean announces to the room. He walks directly up to the stove.
“Dean, please don’t get grease on your suit,” you warn him gently.
“I don’t care about the suit,” Dean says smoothly.
Dean wraps his free arm around your waist, dipping you backward slightly in a dramatic, incredibly cinematic swoop, and kisses you deeply. He bites your lower lip playfully before pulling you back upright.
“Thank you for breakfast, sweetheart,” Dean says, smirking at the flushed pink color spreading across your cheeks.
“Dean, the cameras,” you scold in a hushed whisper, playfully hitting his chest with your spatula.
Dean finally turns to look at the Bruins PR team standing frozen in the archway. He flashes them his million-dollar lawyer smile. “Good morning. Beautiful day for a documentary, isn’t it?”
Jessica clears her throat violently. “I … yes. Yes, it is. So, you all … you all live here together?”
“We do,” Garrett says proudly, stepping up to stand beside Dean and Logan. The three of them form a massive, intimidating wall of male perfection. “It’s a great setup. Keeps us grounded.”
“Okay,” you announce, turning off the griddle. “Food is ready.”
You reach up behind your neck and untie the strings of your pink apron. You pull the apron over your head and drape it over the back of a barstool.
The removal of the apron reveals the loose, white t-shirt you are wearing underneath. It is soft and sheer, and it clings perfectly to your body.
More importantly, it completely exposes the distinct, unmistakable swell of a five-month baby bump.
The silence in the kitchen is absolute.
Jessica’s clipboard slips from her fingers and hits the floor with a loud clatter.
Garrett, Dean, and Logan don’t notice the PR team’s shock. The second your stomach is revealed, all three men practically gravitate toward you.
Garrett’s massive hand reaches out, resting entirely possessively over your bump. “How’s the little bean today?”
“Kicking,” you say softly, resting your hand over Garrett’s.
Logan leans down, pressing a soft kiss directly to your stomach. “That’s my girl. She’s going to have a wicked slap shot.”
“Don’t put that pressure on her,” Dean argues, fixing his cufflinks. “She’s going to be a litigator. I’m already teaching her objections.”
“It could be a boy,” you remind them, laughing as Garrett guides you gently to your seat at the head of the dining table.
“Doesn’t matter,” Garrett says, his gray eyes softening into absolute mush as he looks at you. “As long as they look exactly like you.”
The camera crew captures the entire thing. The breakfast, the casual touches, the absolute, undeniable, fiercely protective love radiating off the three men as they cater to your every need. They film Logan cutting your pancakes for you. They film Dean kissing your temple before rushing out the door. They film Garrett resting his hand on your knee under the table.
It is the most explicit, undeniable confirmation of the rumors possible.
***
Three weeks later.
The “Behind the B” episode dropped on Instagram and YouTube at noon. By 3 PM, it had broken the internet.
The comments section was a war zone of confusion, awe, and desperate thirst. The conspiracy theorists were vindicated. The casual fans were bewildered. The video link was trending at number one on Twitter.
The dining room of the Back Bay townhouse is filled with the smell of roasted chicken and the sound of Dean’s booming laughter.
Dean is sitting at the table, his tie loosened, holding his smartphone in the air. He is reading an article from a prominent sports journalism website out loud to the room.
“‘The Bruins’ Unconventional Lineup: How Garrett Graham and John Logan Share the Ice … and a Home,’” Dean reads, putting on a dramatic, theatrical voice. “’Fans were shocked this week when a behind-the-scenes video revealed that the Bruins’ star center and winger are part of a modern, unconventional domestic partnership with a Boston lawyer and their shared partner.’”
Logan takes a bite of his chicken, shaking his head. “I love how they make us sound corporate. ‘A modern, unconventional domestic partnership.’ It sounds so sterile.”
“Sterile?” Dean scoffs, scrolling down the article. “Listen to this part. ‘The arrangement challenges societal norms, presenting a picture of progressive, alternative family planning in the heart of professional sports.’”
Garrett snorts into his beer glass. “Progressive? You put on a maxi skirt yesterday because the delivery guy looked at your ankles for too long.”
“You are incredibly traditional, Garrett,” you agree, smiling at him across the table. “You all are. There is nothing progressive about how y’all treat me.”
“Exactly,” Dean says, setting his phone down and pouting playfully. “I’m actually offended. They completely left out the best part of our story. They make it sound like we met at a liberal arts seminar. They completely left out how we took an innocent, church-going southern belle who wouldn’t even hold hands before marriage, and totally corrupted her.”
A fiery blush instantly paints your cheeks. “Dean!”
“It’s true!” Dean defends himself, his green eyes sparkling with wicked amusement. “You were an angel. A pure, sweet angel. And we dragged you right down into the gutter with us.”
“We didn’t drag her,” Logan corrects softly, his dark eyes locking onto yours. The playful banter vanishes, replaced by that intense, soul-searing devotion that always makes your breath hitch. “She walked willingly. Because she knew we would worship the ground she walks on.”
“I did,” you whisper, the heavy, familiar ache pooling instantly in your lower stomach. Even five months pregnant, your body reacts to them with a terrifying, primal need.
Garrett’s gray eyes darken. He sets his beer down on the table. He looks at Logan. Logan looks at Dean.
The silent, telepathic communication of the Briar University hockey team is still perfectly intact.
“Dinner is over,” Garrett announces, standing up from his chair.
“Wait, I haven’t finished my potatoes,” Dean protests.
“Leave the potatoes,” Logan says, standing up and tossing his napkin onto his plate. “The boss is getting that look in her eye.”
You gasp, your blush deepening. “I do not have a look!”
“You definitely have a look, sweetheart,” Garrett rumbles, walking around the table. He doesn’t ask. He effortlessly scoops you up into his massive arms, cradling your pregnant body with absolute, terrifying care.
“Garrett, the dishes,” you protest weakly, wrapping your arms around his thick neck.
“Dishes can wait,” Dean says, suddenly abandoning his food entirely, the prospect of getting you into bed instantly overriding his appetite. He follows Garrett out of the dining room, loosening his tie the rest of the way and pulling it over his head.
They carry you up the sweeping staircase, the air in the house growing thick and heavy with anticipation.
Garrett carries you into the master bedroom and lays you gently in the center of the massive, custom-built bed. The sheer white curtains are billowing slightly, the Boston city lights twinkling through the windows.
You lie back against the plush pillows. Your white t-shirt rides up, exposing the round, beautiful swell of your stomach.
Garrett, Dean, and Logan surround the bed. They strip out of their clothes with a practiced, hurried grace. Shirts hit the floor. Belts clink against the hardwood. Within seconds, you are surrounded by three massive, heavily muscled, entirely naked men.
They crawl onto the bed, the mattress dipping under their combined weight.
Garrett kneels between your legs. He is massive, intimidating, and so entirely yours. He reaches out, his large, calloused hands resting gently on either side of your baby bump. He strokes his thumbs over your skin, his gray eyes filled with a terrifying amount of love.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” Garrett whispers, leaning down to press a hot, reverent kiss to your stomach. “Look what we did to you, Y/N. You are carrying our entire world in there.”
“It still doesn’t feel real,” Logan murmurs. He lies down beside you on your right, his dark hair messy, his eyes soft. He rests his hand next to Garrett’s, his thumb brushing against yours. “We have everything. We have the house, we have the careers, and we have you.”
“And we are never, ever letting you go,” Dean adds, taking his place on your left side. He leans in, capturing your lips in a deep, wet, bruising kiss.
Dean’s kiss tastes like expensive wine and pure devotion. He sweeps his tongue into your mouth, setting a desperate, frantic rhythm that instantly makes your hips roll upward against the mattress.
While Dean consumes your mouth, Garrett’s hands move down.
Garrett hooks his fingers into the waistband of your leggings and your cotton underwear. With excruciating care, he pulls them down your legs, tossing them onto the floor.
The cool air hits your slick, swollen center, but it is instantly replaced by Logan’s hot touch.
Logan shifts down your body. He kneels between Garrett’s thick thighs, burying his face directly between your legs.
You scream, a loud, shattered sound that bounces off the walls of the bedroom. Dean swallows the sound, kissing you harder, his hand coming up to tangle in your hair.
Logan is merciless. His tongue is a weapon of absolute destruction. He laves your sensitive clit, his mouth hot and wet, devouring you with a rhythm that makes your vision white out. You thrash your hips against the sheets, completely entirely at his mercy.
“Logan,” you sob, your fingernails digging into Dean’s broad shoulders. “Please, it’s too much-”
“Take it, baby,” Garrett growls, his voice vibrating right against your ear. He moves up to your chest, pushing your t-shirt up to expose your heavy, aching breasts.
Garrett’s hot mouth engulfs your nipple. The dual sensation — Logan tearing you apart from below and Garrett completely worshipping you from above — sends you completely over the edge in a matter of seconds.
The orgasm hits you with the force of a nuclear bomb.
You scream into the empty room, your back arching violently off the bed. A blinding, white-hot wave of pure ecstasy rips through your entire body. Your inner muscles clamp down, spasming with an intensity that leaves you completely breathless and ruined.
Logan doesn’t pull his mouth away until the very last tremor fades from your thighs. He drags his lips slowly up your stomach, pressing a kiss to your belly button before settling his chin on your chest, his dark eyes glazed and adoring.
Garrett pulls back, his chest heaving, his gray eyes stormy and feral. He looks down at your flushed, thoroughly satisfied face.
You lie limp against the pillows, tears of pure, overwhelming joy slipping down your cheeks. You are a tangled, sweaty mess, completely surrounded by the three men who own your soul.
“I love you,” you whisper, looking between the three of them. “I love you all so much.”
“We love you,” Garrett murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead.
Dean shifts his weight, lying down beside you and throwing his arm over your waist. He rests his head against the pillow, looking at your pregnant stomach with a thoughtful, wicked glint in his green eyes.
“You know,” Dean says casually, his fingers tracing lazy circles on your hip. “I was reading some medical journals the other day. Just doing some light reading between briefs.”
Logan groans. “Oh God. What did you read?”
“I read,” Dean says, a slow, devastating smirk spreading across his handsome face, “that there have been rare, documented medical cases where a woman can actually get pregnant while she is already pregnant. It’s called superfetation.”
The bedroom falls completely silent.
Garrett freezes. Logan blinks.
You stare at Dean, a fiery blush instantly rushing back up your neck. “Dean! That is … that is extremely rare! And practically impossible!”
“Impossible?” Garrett repeats, his voice dropping into a dark, incredibly dangerous register. He looks down at you, the primal, territorial provider instinct flaring up so brightly it practically illuminates the room.
Logan shifts his weight, a slow, feral smile pulling at his lips. He looks at Garrett. “I think she’s challenging us, Graham.”
“I am not challenging you!” You squeak, frantically trying to pull your t-shirt down, but Dean’s hand pins your wrist to the mattress.
“Well,” Dean whispers, leaning in close, his breath hot against your ear. “We are highly competitive athletes, sweetheart. And I’m a lawyer who loves a good precedent. I think we have a moral obligation to try.”
“To try what?” You gasp, your heart hammering against your ribs.
Garrett moves over you, his massive frame completely blanketing your body. He supports his weight on his forearms, keeping his heavy chest off your stomach, but his rock-hard length presses directly against your wet, aching entrance.
“To see if we can put another baby in you, good girl,” Garrett rumbles, his gray eyes flashing with absolute, terrifying devotion. “Open up.”
You open your legs, welcoming him home, exactly where you belong.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Dean Di Laurentis x Garrett Graham x John Logan x Tucker!Reader
Summary: Tucker’s one rule is simple … don’t touch his sister. Garrett, Dean, and Logan agree. They are very good at agreeing. They are considerably less good at following through
Warning: 18+ content
Read part two here
The television screen flashes with the blinding strobe lights of a digital goal horn.
“Read it and weep, Graham,” Logan says, leaning back on the battered leather sofa and crossing his ankles on the coffee table. He tosses his Xbox controller onto the cushion beside him with a heavy, satisfying thud. “That’s three in a row. You’re losing your touch.”
Garrett glares at the screen, his jaw set. “That was a garbage bounce and you know it. EA Sports actively caters to your lack of skill.”
“Or maybe,” Logan says, a slow, lazy grin spreading across his face, “I’m just better than you. Accept it. It’s the first step to healing.”
“I will literally fight you,” Garrett replies, not entirely joking. He rubs the back of his neck, his competitive streak burning just beneath the surface. He hates losing. Doesn’t matter if it’s on the ice, in the classroom, or on a dusty console in their off-campus living room.
From the armchair in the corner, Dean chuckles. He’s sprawled out in a pair of gray sweatpants, a mixing bowl of Lucky Charms resting on his stomach. His phone is gripped in one hand, his thumb swiping with practiced precision. “Don’t fight him, Garrett. Logan’s got that underlying rage issue. You’ll ruin his pretty face, and then how is he going to pull the kappa girls tonight?”
“Please,” Logan scoffs. “My face is indestructible. And for the record, I’m not pulling Kappa tonight. I’m branching out.”
“Branching out?” Garrett raises an eyebrow, hitting the restart button on the console. “To what? Tri Delt? So adventurous.”
“I’m a man of the people,” Logan says effortlessly. He stretches his arms over his head, popping his shoulders. Beneath the easy charm and the quick jokes, there’s a tension Logan carries that he never talks about. Garrett knows it’s there, Dean knows it’s there, but they don’t push. Logan’s dad is a mess, the mechanic shop is a weight around his neck, and hockey is the only place he can breathe. Well, hockey and this living room.
The front door swings open, the deadbolt clicking loudly in the quiet house.
Tucker walks in. He looks entirely out of place in the lazy Saturday afternoon atmosphere. He’s wearing a fitted white t-shirt that clings to his chest, damp with sweat, and a pair of faded jeans. He looks exhausted. More importantly, he looks serious.
“Look who decided to show up,” Dean says around a mouthful of marshmallows. “Where the hell have you been all day, Tuck? You missed the destruction of Garrett’s ego.”
“I was not destroyed,” Garrett snaps.
Tucker doesn’t smile. He doesn’t drop his keys in the ceramic bowl by the door. He just stands there, his hands on his hips, looking at the three of them like he’s assessing a threat.
“I was moving someone in,” Tucker says. His deep, southern drawl is tight, clipped in a way they aren’t used to. Tucker is the calm one. The gentleman. He doesn’t do tense.
“Moving who in?” Logan asks, sensing the shift in the room’s energy. He sits up a little straighter. “You got a new girl already? Semester hasn’t even started.”
“It’s not a girl,” Tucker says, walking into the living room and taking a seat on the edge of the second sofa. He rests his elbows on his knees, folding his large hands together. “Well, it is a girl. But it’s not a hookup. It’s my sister.”
Silence falls over the living room. Even the low hum of the television seems to fade out.
Garrett drops his controller. “Your what?”
“My sister,” Tucker repeats, his voice dropping an octave. “She’s a freshman here. I just finished moving her into her dorm.”
Dean lowers his bowl of cereal. “Hold on. You have a sister? A younger sister? Why the hell are we just hearing about this now?”
“Because I know exactly how you three operate,” Tucker says flatly, his dark eyes snapping to Dean. “And I wanted to keep her existence off your radar for as long as humanly possible.”
“Ouch,” Logan says, pressing a hand to his chest. “I’m hurt, Tuck. I’m a romantic.”
“You’re a menace,” Tucker corrects him without missing a beat. He looks at Garrett. “You’re a puck bunny magnet.” He looks at Dean. “And you’re a walking CDC warning.”
“Hey,” Dean protests, sitting up. “I get tested regularly. I am completely clean. And I am highly respectful of women.”
“I’m not here to debate your morals, Dean,” Tucker says, leaning forward. The easygoing Tucker is completely gone, replaced by an older brother who looks ready to commit a felony. “I am here to lay down some ground rules. Because she goes to Briar now, which means she’s going to be around. She’ll probably come to the games. She might even come by the house if I invite her.”
“Invite her over right now,” Dean says instantly. “I want to meet a female Tucker. Does she say y’all?”
“Dean, shut up,” Garrett says, reading the absolute murder in Tucker’s expression. “Let him talk.”
Tucker takes a deep breath. “You guys know a little bit about how I grew up. Mom working three jobs, right?”
Garrett nods. He knows better than anyone what a screwed-up childhood looks like. His own father made sure of that. But Tucker’s childhood wasn’t violent, it was just hard.
“Well,” Tucker continues, “while I had hockey and football to keep me out of trouble after school, Mom couldn’t leave my sister home alone. So she sent her to the after-school program at the local church.”
“Okay,” Logan says slowly. “So?”
“So,” Tucker says, “she basically grew up in that church. The youth group, the choir, the Bible studies. Everything. My mom and I aren’t religious, but it stuck with her. Deeply.”
Dean frowns, tilting his head. “Like … she prays before meals?”
“Like she is the most sheltered, traditional, sweet, innocent girl you will ever meet in your miserable lives,” Tucker says, his voice completely deadpan. “She’s an Early Childhood Education major. You know why?”
“Because she likes kids?” Garrett guesses.
“Because she wants to be a stay-at-home mom,” Tucker corrects him. “She is going to college to get a degree she only plans on using to raise her own children after she gets married. She wants the picket fence. She wants the Sunday school. She is … entirely pure.”
Logan lets out a sharp laugh, then quickly cuts it off when Tucker glares at him. “Sorry. Sorry, I just—you’re telling me this girl is walking onto
Briar’s campus? Does she know what goes on here? Does she know what goes on in this house?”
“No,” Tucker says firmly. “And she is never going to find out. I need you three to swear to me right now that you will not look at her, you will not hit on her, you will not breathe in her direction with any sort of romantic or sexual intent.”
“Buddy, relax,” Garrett says, holding up his hands. “We aren’t monsters. If she’s your sister, she’s off-limits. Period. Bro code.”
“It’s more than bro code, Garrett,” Tucker insists. “You don’t understand. She is naive. If you so much as smile at her, she’ll think you’re courting her. And I am not joking.” Tucker pauses, dragging a hand down his face. “Guys. She thinks hand-holding is as far as a couple should go before marriage.”
For three seconds, nobody speaks.
Then, Dean chokes on a marshmallow.
Logan bursts into laughter, slapping his thigh. “You’re messing with us. There is absolutely no way.”
“Hand-holding?” Dean wheezes, coughing into his fist. “Before marriage? Tuck, what century did she grow up in?”
“I am completely serious,” Tucker says, and the utter lack of amusement in his face finally makes Logan stop laughing. “She is a southern belle who believes in courtship, purity, and happily-ever-afters. She doesn’t understand guys like you. She doesn’t understand casual. If you touch her, you will break her. And if you break her, I will put you in the hospital.”
The threat hangs in the air, heavy and very real. Tucker is the nicest guy on the team, but he’s also six-foot-three of solid muscle, and nobody doubts he could snap Dean in half if he wanted to.
“Message received, Tuck,” Garrett says, his tone softening. He respects family loyalty. He respects protecting the people you love. “We won’t touch her. We won’t even talk to her if she comes over. She’s invisible to us.”
“Speak for yourself,” Dean mutters, though he looks a little terrified. “I respect a good challenge.”
Tucker stands up, crossing the room in two strides until he is towering over Dean’s armchair. “This isn’t a challenge, Di Laurentis. I swear to God. Stay away from her.”
“I’m kidding!” Dean holds his hands up in surrender, nearly spilling his cereal. “I’m kidding, man! I like women who actually want to sleep with me. Your sister sounds like a nightmare for my lifestyle. She is completely safe from me.”
Logan nods from the couch. “Same here, Tuck. I promise. I don’t need the drama, and I definitely don’t need you bench-pressing me. She’s safe.”
Tucker studies them for a long moment. He searches Garrett’s steady gaze, Logan’s relaxed but honest face, and Dean’s slightly panicked expression. Finally, he nods.
“Good,” Tucker says, stepping back. He looks exhausted again. “Because she’s completely out of her element here. She’s terrified, even if she won’t admit it. The last thing she needs is one of you degenerates making her life harder.”
***
You fold the last of your pastel cardigans, tucking it neatly into the small wooden dresser of your new dorm room.
The air conditioner in the window rattles loudly, fighting a losing battle against the muggy Massachusetts heat, but you barely notice. You smooth your hands down the front of your modest denim skirt, taking a deep breath and looking around the tiny, cinderblock room.
It feels entirely foreign. The smell of industrial floor cleaner, the distant thumping bass from a stereo down the hall, the sound of skateboards clattering on the pavement outside — it’s a million miles away from the quiet, dusty heat of Texas. It’s a million miles away from the gentle hymns of Sunday morning service, the sweet tea on the porch, and the safe, predictable routine you’ve known your entire life.
Your roommate hasn’t arrived yet. The other side of the room is totally bare, a stark contrast to your side, which you have already meticulously decorated. A floral quilt covers your twin bed. A framed photograph of you, your mother, and your brother, Tucker, sits on the desk. Next to it, a small, worn wooden cross leans against a stack of textbooks.
You walk over to the desk and trace the edge of the picture frame. Your mom looks tired in the photo, but she’s smiling. She always worked so hard. Three jobs, barely sleeping, just to make sure you and Tucker had food on the table. You know why Tucker pushes himself so hard on the ice. He wants to go pro to take care of her.
But your path has always been different.
You pull out the chair and sit down, resting your hands in your lap. The girls at the church back home told you that coming to a big university up North was a mistake. They said the boys here would be wild, that the culture was godless, that you would lose your way.
But Tucker is here. And you trust your brother more than anyone in the world. He promised to look out for you.
Still, your stomach is tied in knots. You bite your lower lip, listening to the shrieks of laughter from the hallway as a group of girls runs past your door. They sound so confident. So worldly.
You reach into your tote bag and pull out your journal, opening it to a fresh page. You’ve always found comfort in writing things out. It’s how you process the world.
Dear Lord, you write, the pen scratching softly against the paper. Thank you for bringing me here safely. Please watch over Mom back in Texas. And please guide me through this new season. Help me stay true to my values. Keep my heart guarded until I find the man you have chosen for me.
You pause, tapping the pen against your chin. The idea of marriage is something you’ve prayed about since you were a little girl. You don’t want a college fling. You don’t want to play games. You want the real thing — a man who will hold your hand on the porch, lead a family with kindness, and love you completely. You know that kind of man is rare, especially on a college campus, but you’re willing to wait. You’re willing to save yourself for him.
A loud knock on your open door makes you jump.
You spin around in your chair. Standing in the doorway is a tall, striking girl with bright pink streaks in her dark hair. She’s wearing ripped jeans, a band t-shirt that’s cropped above her navel, and a pair of heavy combat boots. She’s dragging a massive suitcase behind her.
“Hey,” she says, chewing on a piece of gum. “You must be my roommate.”
You stand up quickly, smoothing your skirt again, a nervous but genuine smile breaking across your face. “Hi! Yes, I’m Y/N. It’s so nice to meet you.”
The girl blinks at you, her eyes dropping to your denim skirt, your high-necked blouse, and then over to the floral quilt on your bed. She pops her gum.
“I’m Karly,” she says, pulling her suitcase into the room. “And I’m gonna be honest with you, Y/N. We are going to have a very interesting year.”
You swallow hard, your heart fluttering with a mix of excitement and absolute terror. “I’m sure we will.”
You glance back at the photo of your brother on your desk. Tucker said he lived with a few guys from his hockey team. He said they were nice enough, but that he wanted you to focus on your studies and keep your distance from the hockey house.
I’ll be fine, you tell yourself, turning back to help Karly with her bags. I’m just here to study. How much trouble could I possibly get into?
***
The neon sign for Malone’s flickers in the dimming Massachusetts twilight, casting a red hue over the cracked pavement of the parking lot. It’s early for a Friday night, which means the usual crowd hasn’t completely overrun the bar yet.
Inside, the smell of stale beer, fried food, and floor wax is overwhelming, but to the students of Briar University, it smells like home.
“I’m just saying,” Dean says, sliding into the worn vinyl of a corner booth, “It’s going to be awkward. What are we even supposed to talk about with a girl who thinks premarital hand-holding is a sin? The weather? The stock market?”
“We talk about whatever she wants to talk about,” Garrett says, taking the seat across from him. He grabs a laminated menu from the center of the table, not bothering to look at it. He already knows what he’s ordering. “Tucker said she’s homesick. He just wants us to be nice to her, eat our burgers, and not act like animals for exactly one hour. Can you manage that, Di Laurentis?”
“I can be nice,” Dean says defensively. He runs a hand through his sandy-blonde hair. “I’m incredibly nice. I just don’t know how to interact with a girl without … you know.”
“Flirting?” Logan suggests, sliding into the booth next to Garrett. He bumps his shoulder against Garrett’s to make room. “Objectifying them? Assessing their bra size with a single glance?”
“I don’t objectify,” Dean scoffs. “I appreciate. There’s a difference. And I’m just worried I’ll slip up and say a bad word, and she’ll burst into tears and call the youth pastor.”
Garrett rolls his eyes. “Just keep your mouth shut, then. Logan and I will carry the conversation. It’s an hour. We eat, we ask about her classes, we say it was nice to meet her, and we go home. Simple.”
“Exactly,” Logan agrees, picking up a paper coaster and spinning it between his long fingers. “She’s probably just a female version of Tucker anyway. Plaid shirt, polite smile, talks real slow. It’s not going to be hard to keep it in our pants for Tucker’s little sister.”
“Thank God,” Dean mutters, checking his phone. “Because if she’s a nightmare, this is going to be the longest hour of my life.”
The heavy wooden door of Malone’s swings open.
Garrett, sitting facing the entrance, glances up out of habit. He expects to see a female Tucker. Someone tall, broad-shouldered, maybe a little awkward, hiding behind a bulky sweater.
Instead, the air leaves his lungs in one sharp, sudden rush.
“Holy shit,” Garrett breathes, the words slipping out before he can stop them.
Logan and Dean turn their heads to follow his gaze.
Tucker is walking through the door, his hand resting protectively on the lower back of the girl beside him.
You step into the dimly lit pub, your eyes wide as you take in the sticky floors, the sports memorabilia on the walls, and the loud hum of conversation. You’re wearing a simple, pale yellow sundress. It has a modest square neckline, thick straps, and a skirt that flows perfectly down to your knees. It isn’t tight, it isn’t revealing, and it certainly isn’t trying to be sexy.
But the way the fabric cinches at your narrow waist, the way the soft yellow brings out the undertones of your skin, the way your hair falls in loose, untouched waves over your shoulders — it hits the three boys in the booth like a physical blow.
You look like a walking, talking angel. You look soft. Untouched. You look like Sunday mornings and sweet tea and everything pure in a world they have spent the last three years tearing up.
“Oh, no,” Dean whispers, his voice strangled. He grips the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white. “Oh, God.”
Logan simply stares, his mouth slightly parted. The paper coaster slips from his fingers and lands silently on the table. “Tucker didn’t say she looked like … that.”
“Shut up,” Garrett hisses, kicking Logan under the table, though his own heart is hammering against his ribs in a way it only does right before a puck drops. “Both of you, shut up. Look at the table. Do not stare at her.”
But it’s too late. Tucker spots them in the corner and raises a hand, guiding you toward the booth.
You swallow your nerves, giving your brother a small, grateful smile. He looks so tall and commanding here, so entirely in his element. You, on the other hand, feel completely out of place. The music is a little too loud, the stares from the other tables a little too bold, but you keep your chin up. You’re determined to make a good impression. These are Tucker’s best friends. They’re basically his family up here.
“Hey, guys,” Tucker says as you both reach the table.
Three massive, intimidating athletes immediately scramble to their feet. It’s almost comical how quickly they stand up, almost tripping over each other to get out of the booth.
“Hey, Tuck,” the guy with the dark hair and striking gray eyes says. His voice is deep, a little rough around the edges. He looks at you, and the sheer intensity in his gaze makes you take a half-step back, your shoulder bumping into Tucker’s chest.
“Guys,” Tucker says, his voice taking on that protective, older-brother warning tone they recognize immediately. “This is my sister.”
“Hi,” you say softly. Your southern accent slips out, sweet and slow, curling around the single syllable like molasses.
Dean actually lets out a quiet, pathetic noise at the back of his throat. He coughs loudly to cover it up.
“It’s so lovely to meet y’all,” you continue, clasping your hands together in front of your dress. You look at the dark-haired guy first. “Tucker’s told me so much about you. You must be Garrett.”
Garrett stares down at you. You barely come up to his chest. Up close, he can see the faint dusting of freckles across your nose and the complete, utter lack of makeup. You’re entirely natural. It takes every ounce of his legendary self-control not to reach out and touch your cheek just to see if you’re real.
“Yeah,” Garrett says, his voice tight. He clears his throat, forcing a polite smile that feels entirely foreign on his face. “I’m Garrett. Nice to meet you.”
You smile brightly, and Garrett feels a sudden, violent urge to protect that smile at all costs. It’s a completely irrational, insane thought. He’s known you for thirty seconds. But he wants to wrap you in bubble wrap and fight anyone who tries to take it off.
“And you must be Logan,” you say, turning your attention to the tall, handsome guy with the easy stance and the sharp jawline.
Logan blinks, snapping out of his daze. He normally has a line for every girl, a joke for every situation, a smirk that makes women melt. Right now, he feels like a socially inept middle schooler.
“That’s me,” Logan says, managing a crooked smile. He reaches out, offering his hand. “Good to finally meet the legendary sister.”
You hesitate for a fraction of a second before unclassping your hands and placing your small, soft palm into his.
Logan’s brain short-circuits. Your hand is so tiny in his. His skin is rough from calluses and hockey tape; yours is unimaginably soft. The jolt of electricity that shoots up his arm is so intense he nearly yanks his hand away. He lets go quickly, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, trying to ignore the sudden rush of heat pooling low in his stomach.
“And you’re Dean,” you say, turning to the last guy.
Dean is staring at you with wide, panicked eyes. You have a delicate, silver cross resting against your collarbone. He wants to bite it. He wants to ruin his entire life for you.
“Hi,” Dean says, his voice coming out an octave higher than usual. He clears his throat again, violently. “Yeah. I’m Dean. Welcome to Briar.”
“Thank you,” you say, genuinely touched by how polite they all seem. Tucker made them sound like absolute hooligans, but they’re standing up straight, looking you in the eye, and greeting you with perfect manners. “I really appreciate y’all letting me crash your dinner. I know it’s a Friday night, and you probably have better things to do.”
“Not at all,” Garrett says instantly, his voice a low rumble. “We’re happy to have you.”
“Yeah,” Logan chimes in. “We were just talking about how much we were looking forward to it.”
Tucker narrows his eyes at Logan, clearly suspicious of the overly enthusiastic tone, but he gestures to the booth. “Let’s sit down. I’m starving.”
The seating arrangement suddenly becomes a high-stakes game of musical chairs.
Garrett slides into the U-shaped booth first, taking the far corner. Dean immediately dives in next to him, desperate to put a physical barrier between himself and you so he doesn’t do something stupid like propose marriage. Logan slides into the other side.
Which leaves the space right in the middle, between Logan and Dean.
“Go ahead,” Tucker says, nudging you gently toward the middle of the booth. He plans to sit on the outside edge so he can easily flag down the waitress.
You slide into the booth. You try to make yourself as small as possible, but it’s a tight fit. Your left thigh presses firmly against Dean’s leg, and your right shoulder brushes against Logan’s bicep.
Both men instantly freeze.
You don’t notice. You’re busy smoothing the skirt of your dress over your knees, making sure it stays perfectly modest. “This place is … lively,” you say, raising your voice slightly over the bass thumping from the jukebox.
“It’s a dump,” Garrett says bluntly from across the table. “But they make the best burgers in town.”
“I love a good burger,” you say, giving him a bright smile.
Garrett grips his menu so hard the laminated plastic bends.
A waitress with a nose ring and a tired expression walks over, popping a bubble of chewing gum. “What can I get you boys? And …” she glances at you, raising an eyebrow. “… sweetheart?”
“I’ll have a water with lemon, please,” you say politely. “And the classic cheeseburger. No onions.”
The waitress nods, scribbling it down. The boys place their usual orders — beers, double burgers, loaded fries — and the waitress disappears into the crowd.
“So,” Logan says, leaning forward slightly. He has to turn his body toward you, which means he gets a face-full of your perfume. You smell like vanilla and sunshine. It’s intoxicating. “Tucker says you’re majoring in Early Childhood Education.”
You nod eagerly, happy to talk about something familiar. “Yes! I just had my first orientation class today. It’s so exciting. I love working with kids.”
“That’s awesome,” Dean says. He is staring very hard at a spot on the wall just above your head, refusing to look down at your lips. “You want to be a teacher?”
“Oh, no,” you say with a soft laugh. “I mean, maybe for a year or two. But my real dream is to be a mother. I want to have a big family. I’m getting the degree so I know exactly how to raise my own children one day.”
Silence falls over the table.
To them, college is for partying, playing sports, and avoiding adulthood for as long as possible. The concept of someone actively planning to get married and have a family is entirely foreign.
But hearing you say it, with such absolute conviction and sweetness, doesn’t make them laugh.
Instead, Garrett’s mind flashes with a sudden, unbidden image of you standing in a sunlit kitchen, holding a baby. His baby. The thought hits him so hard he actually chokes on his own saliva, turning away to cough violently into his elbow.
“Are you okay?” You ask, leaning forward, genuine concern in your wide, pretty eyes.
“Fine,” Garrett rasps, his face red. “Swallowed wrong.”
Tucker claps Garrett on the back, looking amused. “Pace yourself, Graham. The food isn’t even here yet.”
“So,” Logan says, desperate to change the subject before he starts mentally picking out baby names. “How are you liking the dorms? Got a good roommate?”
“Karly is … interesting,” you say diplomatically, folding your hands on the table. “She has a lot of heavy metal posters. And she came back very late last night. But she’s been polite.”
“If anyone gives you trouble, you tell me,” Tucker says instantly, slipping into big-brother mode. “Or you tell one of these guys. They’re basically walking brick walls. Nobody will mess with you if they know you’re with us.”
You blush, a beautiful, rosy pink blooming across your cheeks. “Oh, Tucker, I don’t want to bother your friends. I’m sure they have much more important things to do than babysit me.”
“It wouldn’t be a bother,” Garrett says, his voice low and serious. His gray eyes lock onto yours, and this time, you don’t look away. There is a weight in his stare, a silent promise that makes your breath hitch in your throat. “Seriously. You need anything, you call us.”
“Yeah,” Dean adds, leaning in slightly, his resolve to avoid looking at you crumbling. “We’re at your service, Y/N. Literally whatever you need.”
“Thank you,” you say softly, a little overwhelmed by their intensity. They are all so big, so focused, so fiercely protective already. It makes you feel strangely safe.
The waitress returns with the drinks, slamming three heavy pints of beer onto the table and gently placing your water with lemon in front of you.
As she walks away, Garrett, Dean, and Logan reach for their beers at the exact same time. They all need a drink. Desperately.
But before they can take a sip, you bow your head.
You clasp your hands together, resting them gently against the edge of the table, and close your eyes.
Garrett freezes, his pint glass halfway to his mouth. Dean’s eyes go wide, and Logan slowly lowers his beer back to the table.
They watch in stunned silence as your lips move in a silent, hurried prayer. It’s quick — no more than five seconds — but in the middle of Malone’s, surrounded by rowdy college students and blasting rock music, it is the most shocking thing any of them have ever seen.
You open your eyes, offering an apologetic smile. “Sorry. Habit.”
“Don’t apologize,” Logan says quietly. His voice is incredibly soft, stripped of all its usual sarcastic armor. He looks at you like you are something precious. Something fragile that he is terrified of breaking.
Dean swallows hard. He has hooked up with girls in bathrooms, in the back seats of cars, in closets at frat parties. He thought he knew what he liked. He thought he knew who he was.
But looking at you, with your folded hands and your lemon water and your absolute, unwavering purity, Dean realizes he is entirely, hopelessly screwed. He doesn’t want the party girls anymore. He wants you. He wants to take you on a date. He wants to hold the door open for you. He wants to meet your mother.
The thought terrifies him.
The food arrives, and the conversation flows easier than any of them expected. You are easy to talk to. You don’t play games, you don’t try to impress them with fake hockey knowledge, and you laugh at all of Logan’s jokes, even the terrible ones.
You tell them stories about growing up in Texas, about your church choir, about how much you miss sweet tea. They tell you sanitized, PG-rated stories about hockey trips and Coach Jensen’s ridiculous drills.
For an hour, Garrett forgets about his abusive father. Logan forgets about his drunk dad and the mechanic shop waiting to trap him. Dean forgets about his reputation.
They are entirely captivated by you.
When the bill comes, Tucker snatches it before anyone else can reach for it. “I got it. Welcome to Briar dinner.”
“Tucker, you don’t have to do that,” you say, reaching for your small floral purse.
“Put your money away,” Garrett commands gently, his hand shooting out to cover yours.
His large, warm hand rests over your small one. The contact is electric. You gasp softly, looking down at his hand, and then back up into his gray eyes.
Garrett immediately pulls his hand back, as if he’s been burned. Tucker’s warning from earlier echoes in his mind.
“He’s right,” Tucker says, oblivious to the charged moment. “I’m your big brother. I pay. Come on, I’ll walk you back to your dorm. It’s getting late.”
You nod, sliding out of the booth. Dean and Logan practically leap out of the way to let you pass, terrified of brushing against you again.
“It was so nice meeting y’all,” you say, standing by the edge of the table and smoothing your dress. You look at each of them in turn, your smile warm and genuine. “Thank you for letting me join you.”
“Anytime,” Logan says, his voice a little hoarse.
“Seriously,” Dean adds. “Come over whenever.”
“Don’t encourage her, Dean,” Tucker warns, though he’s smiling. “Let’s go, kiddo. See you guys back at the house.”
“See ya, Tuck,” Garrett says.
The three boys stand by the booth, watching as Tucker guides you through the crowded pub toward the exit. They watch the way your yellow dress swishes around your knees. They watch the way guys at other tables turn their heads to look at you, and they all feel a simultaneous, violent surge of possessiveness.
The heavy wooden door closes behind you.
Silence descends upon the corner booth. The loud music, the chatter, the clinking glasses — none of it registers.
Logan runs a hand over his face, pressing his palms into his eyes. He lets out a long, shuddering breath. “Well.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, staring blankly at the empty space where you were just standing. “Well.”
Garrett slowly sinks back onto the vinyl bench, his broad shoulders slumping. He stares at the small glass of water with lemon still sitting on the table.
“We’re so fucked,” Garrett says quietly.
“Completely,” Dean agrees, sliding into the booth next to him. He drops his head onto the table, burying his face in his arms. “I’m in love. I’m actually in love with Tucker’s sister. I want to buy a minivan.”
“She said grace,” Logan mutters, staring at the ceiling as if asking God for help. “She bowed her head and said grace in the middle of Malone’s. I wanted to marry her on the spot. If Tucker finds out what I’m thinking right now, he’s going to murder me and bury me under the ice rink.”
“He’s going to have to bury all three of us,” Garrett says grimly. He crosses his arms over his chest, his jaw set in a hard, resolute line. The competitive fire that makes him the best player on the ice is suddenly burning hot and fast in his chest, aimed entirely at the sweet, innocent girl from Texas.
He knows what Tucker said. He knows the rules.
But Garrett Graham has never been good at following the rules when he sees something he wants.
“Okay,” Garrett says, his voice dropping low, commanding the attention of the other two. “New plan.”
Logan lowers his head to look at him. Dean peeks out from under his arms.
“Tucker said we don’t look at her, we don’t hit on her, we stay away,” Garrett says. “We agreed because we thought she was going to be annoying.”
“She’s an angel,” Dean whispers defensively.
“I know,” Garrett says, his eyes darkening. “Which means staying away is going to be impossible. So, we play it smart. We don’t push. We don’t overwhelm her. We show Tucker that we can be respectful, upstanding gentlemen.”
“I don’t know how to be an upstanding gentleman,” Dean points out, panicking slightly. “I sent a girl a picture of my dick yesterday.”
“You learn,” Garrett snaps. “You adapt. Because if we rush her, she’ll run. If we scare her, she’ll tell Tucker, and we lose. We have to be the perfect, polite guys she thinks we are. We build trust.”
Logan leans forward, a slow smirk starting to form on his lips as he catches on to Garrett’s strategy. “The slow play.”
“Exactly,” Garrett says. “We be her friends. We look out for her. We let her come to us.”
“And then what?” Dean asks, sitting up. “She’s not a hookup in the dorm kind of girl, Garrett. She wants the white picket fence.”
Garrett looks at the empty spot in the booth where you had been sitting, the scent of vanilla still lingering faintly in the air. His chest tightens with a fierce, possessive ache.
“Then I guess,” Garrett says softly, a dangerous edge to his voice, “we start building a fence.”
Logan chuckles, the sound low and dark, a stark contrast to the easygoing guy he usually pretends to be. He grabs his half-empty beer and raises it slightly. “May the best man win.”
Garrett glares at him, the camaraderie snapping back into instant rivalry. “I don’t lose, Logan.”
“Boys,” Dean says, grabbing his own glass and clinking it against Logan’s, his wealthy playboy confidence finally returning. “You’re both forgetting who you’re talking to. She’s going to be mine.”
They drink, the silent declaration of war hanging heavy over the sticky table.
You have absolutely no idea what you’ve just started.
***
“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Tucker says, his large hand resting on the brass doorknob of the off-campus house. He glances over his shoulder at you, his brow furrowed with a mixture of older-brother concern and deep, profound regret.
You adjust the strap of your canvas tote bag, offering him a reassuring smile. “Tucker, it’s fine. Karly had her study group over, and they were playing that awful music with the screaming again. I just need a quiet place to read my Bible and finish my reading for Child Psychology. I promise I won’t be a bother.”
“You’re never a bother, Y/N,” Tucker sighs, dragging a hand down his face. “It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s them. This house is … it’s not a place for someone like you. It’s a zoo. A disgusting, chaotic, morally bankrupt zoo.”
You let out a soft, musical laugh, patting his arm. You’re wearing a light blue, A-line skirt that hits mid-calf and a crisp white blouse with a Peter Pan collar. “They were perfectly lovely at Malone’s last week. They have wonderful manners. I’m sure you’re just exaggerating.”
“Right. Wonderful manners,” Tucker mutters, sounding unconvinced. He pushes the key into the lock. “Just … stay close to me. Don’t touch anything in the kitchen without sanitizing it first. And if any of them look at you funny, you tell me.”
He twists the doorknob, pushing the heavy wooden door open.
The immediate sensory overload is exactly what you would expect from a house inhabited by four massive college athletes. It smells faintly of expensive cologne, citrus floor cleaner, and stale beer. The living room to the left is a disaster zone of scattered Xbox controllers, half-empty water bottles, and a mountain of throw pillows tossed haphazardly onto the floor.
“See?” Tucker says, gesturing to the mess. “Barbarians.”
You step into the foyer, your sensible flats clicking softly against the hardwood. “It just needs a little tidying, that’s all. A house needs a woman’s touch to feel like a home.”
Tucker freezes mid-step, looking at you in absolute horror. “Do not let them hear you say that. Seriously. They will lose their minds.”
You frown, confused, but before you can ask what he means, a door opens on the second-floor landing.
The sound of heavy, bare footsteps echoes against the wooden floorboards upstairs. You instinctively look up, tilting your head back to greet whoever is coming out of the bathroom. You have a polite smile already formed on your lips, ready to say a cheerful hello to Garrett, Logan, or Dean.
You look up.
And your brain entirely stops working.
Standing at the top of the staircase, his hand casually running through his damp, sandy-blonde hair, is Dean.
He is not wearing a shirt. He is not wearing pants. He is not wearing a towel.
He is completely, undeniably, one-hundred-percent naked.
For a fraction of a second, your sheltered, traditional, church-raised mind simply cannot comprehend what your eyes are processing. You have never seen a man’s bare chest before, let alone … everything else.
Water droplets glisten against the hard planes of his abs, tracing the deep V of his hips, drawing your wide, horrified eyes straight down to the absolute center of his body. It is heavy. It is prominent. It is fully on display. You are getting an absolute, unobstructed eyeful of Dean Di Laurentis’s dick.
A tiny, strangled squeak escapes your throat. It sounds like a mouse getting stepped on.
Dean freezes at the top of the stairs. He looks down. He sees you standing in the foyer, staring up at him with eyes the size of dinner plates, your face burning a violent, magnificent shade of scarlet.
“Holy shit,” Dean breathes.
Tucker spins around at the sound of the squeak. He follows your gaze up the stairs.
The roar that erupts from your brother’s chest is something out of a wildlife documentary.
“DI LAURENTIS!” Tucker bellows, lunging forward as if he’s going to sprint up the stairs and tackle Dean through the drywall. “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!”
You slap both of your hands over your eyes, squeezing them shut so tight you see bursts of white light. Your entire body is trembling. “Oh my goodness,” you gasp, your voice muffled behind your palms. “Oh my goodness, Lord forgive me, I didn’t mean to look, I didn’t-”
“I am going to end your bloodline!” Tucker screams at Dean, stepping in front of you to physically shield you from the sight, even though your eyes are already covered. “I am going to rip your head off and throw it into the Charles River! Get a towel! Get a fucking towel!”
Upstairs, a door bangs open. Logan steps out of his bedroom, rubbing his eyes, wearing a pair of low-slung gray sweatpants. “Tuck, what the hell are you yelling-”
Logan stops dead in his tracks. He looks at Dean, fully nude in the hallway. He looks over the railing and sees Tucker practically foaming at the mouth, shielding a violently blushing, trembling you.
“Oh, God,” Logan says, instantly realizing what just happened. A bark of laughter escapes him before he can stop it. “Dean, you idiot.”
“It’s not my fault!” Dean defends himself, though he doesn’t make a single move to cover up. Instead, he casually leans his hip against the banister, an incredibly arrogant, wicked smirk spreading across his handsome face. He looks down at you, knowing exactly what he’s doing to your delicate sensibilities. “Nobody told me we were having company. Besides, it’s just biology, Tuck. Relax. It’s not like Adam and Eve were walking around covered up in denim, right, Y/N?”
You let out another high-pitched squeak, burying your face directly into the back of Tucker’s flannel shirt. “Please tell him to put clothes on, Tucker. Please.”
“I am coming up there,” Tucker says, his voice dropping to a terrifying, deadly calm. “And I am going to castrate you.”
Another door opens. Garrett steps out of his room, his dark hair messy from sleep, wearing nothing but black gym shorts. He assesses the situation in three seconds flat. Naked Dean. Enraged Tucker. And you, shaking like a leaf, hiding behind your brother.
The primal, possessive instinct that Garrett has been desperately trying to keep in check since Malone’s violently snaps.
“Put some fucking pants on, Di Laurentis,” Garrett snarls, his voice so sharp and authoritative it actually makes Dean flinch. Garrett glares at him, his gray eyes flashing with genuine fury. “Now.”
Dean holds his hands up in surrender, dropping the smirk. “Alright, alright! Geez, Graham, calm down. I’m going.”
Dean turns and saunters back into his bedroom, taking his sweet time, fully aware that Garrett and Logan are both staring daggers into his back.
“He’s gone,” Tucker says softly, turning around and placing his heavy hands on your shoulders. “Y/N. Honey, you can open your eyes. He’s gone.”
You slowly lower your hands. Your face feels like it is radiating enough heat to cook an egg. You refuse to look up at the second floor, keeping your eyes glued strictly to Tucker’s chest. “I think I should go back to the dorm.”
“No,” Tucker says firmly, completely entirely enraged on your behalf. “You are not leaving. You came here to study, and you are going to study. I am going to go upstairs and have a very long, very physical conversation with Dean. You go sit in the kitchen.”
“Tucker, please don’t hit him,” you whisper, clutching your tote bag. “It was an accident.”
“The first three seconds were an accident,” Tucker growls. “The Adam and Eve comment earned him a black eye. Go to the kitchen, Y/N.”
Tucker marches past you, taking the stairs two at a time. A second later, you hear Dean’s bedroom door slam open, followed by Dean yelping, and Logan’s booming laughter.
You let out a shaky breath, pressing a hand to your racing heart. You have never been so mortified in your entire life. You try to push the image of Dean’s … anatomy out of your head, but it is seared into your retinas. It was just so … large.
You shake your head violently, asking for forgiveness, and quickly scurry into the kitchen.
If the living room was a disaster zone, the kitchen is an active biohazard.
You drop your tote bag onto a barstool and simply stare. There are three empty pizza boxes stacked on the center island. A pile of mail is scattered over the granite countertops. The sink is overflowing with dirty dishes, some of which look like they’ve been sitting there since the Bush administration. There is a single, lonely apple sitting in a fruit bowl, completely shriveled and brown.
The shock of what you just saw upstairs is immediately replaced by a deeply ingrained, almost pavlovian response to domestic chaos.
You cannot study in this. Your mother raised you better than this.
Without even thinking, you drop your Bible on the only clean corner of the island and roll up the sleeves of your white blouse.
Garrett walks into the kitchen two minutes later, having left Tucker to verbally assassinate Dean upstairs. He is still shirtless, his chest and muscular arms on full display. He expects to find you sitting quietly, maybe crying from shock, or at least staring awkwardly at the floor.
Instead, he stops dead in the doorway.
You have found a half-empty bottle of all-purpose cleaner under the sink. You are vigorously scrubbing the granite island, your hips swaying slightly in your blue skirt as you wipe away dried hot sauce and mysterious sticky rings. The pizza boxes have already been broken down and shoved into the recycling bin.
“What are you doing?” Garrett asks, his voice thick, sounding completely bewildered.
You jump slightly, turning to look at him. You immediately avert your eyes from his bare, sculpted chest, focusing fiercely on his chin. “Oh. I just … I couldn’t sit here with the mess. How do you boys live like this? It’s not sanitary.”
“You don’t have to clean that,” Garrett says, taking a step forward. “Y/N, stop. We have a cleaning lady who comes on Mondays. You’re a guest.”
“Nonsense,” you say, tossing the paper towel into the trash and reaching for another. “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, Garrett. Besides, it helps calm my nerves.”
You finish wiping the counter and move toward the sink. You turn on the hot water, squirting a generous amount of Dawn dish soap over the towering pile of plates.
Garrett just stands there, completely paralyzed.
He watches you plunge your small, delicate hands into the soapy water. He watches the way the afternoon sunlight catches the golden strands of your hair. He watches you naturally, effortlessly take control of his chaotic space and bring order to it.
Garrett grew up in a massive, sterile mansion that felt like a museum. His mother was sick, and his father was a monster. He has never known what it looks like to have a woman happily puttering around a kitchen, humming a soft melody, creating a sense of warmth just by existing in the room.
It hits him like a freight train.
Every protective, possessive, provider instinct in his body flares up so intensely it actually aches. He wants to walk up behind you, wrap his arms around your waist, bury his face in your neck, and never let you leave this house again.
“Do y’all even have any real food?” You ask, drying a plate with a towel and setting it on the rack. “I looked in the fridge to find some water, and it’s nothing but sports drinks, beer, and something that smells like old cheese.”
Logan walks into the kitchen just in time to hear the question. He is also shirtless, showing off a lean, corded swimmer’s build that is completely different from Garrett’s bulk.
Logan freezes beside Garrett, his jaw dropping slightly as he takes in the sight of you standing at the sink, washing their dirty dishes.
“Uh,” Logan says, his brain totally short-circuiting. “We order out a lot.”
“That is terrible for your bodies,” you scold gently, sounding exactly like a southern mother. You turn off the faucet and wipe your hands on a towel. You walk over to the pantry, pulling the door open. You inspect the shelves, pushing aside boxes of protein bars and stale chips. “You are division one athletes. You need proper nourishment. Meat. Vegetables. Complex carbohydrates. Not … whatever these neon orange puffs are.”
You grab a large, heavy bag of flour from the back of the pantry. You haul it onto the newly cleaned kitchen island. Then you march over to the fridge, extracting a carton of eggs, half a stick of butter, and a gallon of milk.
“Y/N, seriously, what are you doing?” Logan asks, his voice practically a whisper. He feels like he’s watching a hallucination.
“I am making you boys a proper breakfast,” you declare, pulling a large mixing bowl from a lower cabinet. “Or lunch, I suppose, since it’s one in the afternoon. Have none of you eaten today?”
Garrett and Logan shake their heads simultaneously, completely mute.
“Exactly,” you say, cracking an egg into the bowl with one hand. “Sit down. Both of you.”
They obey instantly. Two massive, dangerous hockey players scramble onto the barstools on the opposite side of the island, sitting side-by-side, watching you with wide, mesmerized eyes.
“I am going to make biscuits from scratch,” you announce, measuring out the flour. “And some scrambled eggs. And if I can find bacon in that freezer, I’ll fry that up too. A growing boy needs protein.”
Logan swallows hard. His dad is a drunk who can barely remember Logan’s name, let alone cook him a meal. Logan has spent his entire life taking care of everyone else — his dad, his brother, his teammates. Nobody takes care of Logan. Nobody cooks for him just because they want to.
Watching you knead the dough, your small hands dusted with white flour, your face completely serious and focused on the task of feeding him, breaks down a wall inside Logan that he didn’t even know existed. He wants to give you the world. He wants to buy you a house with a wrap-around porch. He is utterly, hopelessly ruined.
“You don’t have to do this,” Garrett manages to choke out, though his voice is rough and betraying his absolute desperate need for you to stay right here forever.
“I want to,” you say, giving him a sweet, blinding smile that makes Garrett’s heart physically stutter in his chest. “It’s the least I can do. I barged in on your Saturday uninvited.”
“You can barge in whenever you want,” Logan says, his voice dripping with such unfiltered sincerity that it makes you pause and blink at him.
Footsteps echo on the stairs. Tucker walks into the kitchen, followed closely by a fully dressed, highly subdued Dean. Dean has a red mark on his shoulder where Tucker clearly shoved him into a wall.
“Alright,” Tucker says, exhaling sharply. “He apologized. He won’t ever-”
Tucker stops.
He looks at the gleaming counters. He looks at the empty sink. He looks at his sister, covered in flour, happily rolling out biscuit dough on the island. And finally, he looks at Garrett and Logan.
Garrett and Logan are staring at you with expressions of such intense, terrifying devotion that Tucker feels a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck.
Dean steps around Tucker, peering into the kitchen.
Dean’s mother is a high-powered corporate lawyer who wouldn’t know how to turn on an oven if her life depended on it. Dean has always dated girls exactly like his mother: driven, ambitious, entirely independent, and terrible in a kitchen.
He looks at you. He looks at the flour on your cheek. He looks at the modest, incredibly feminine way your skirt swishes as you turn to check the oven temperature.
Dean Di Laurentis, the biggest playboy on the East Coast, feels an overwhelming, violent urge to get a corporate job, put on a suit, and come home to you at five o’clock every single day for the rest of his life.
“Oh my god,” Dean whispers, gripping the edge of the doorway to keep himself upright.
“What are you doing?” Tucker asks you, his voice cracking slightly in panic. He told them to stay away. He told them she was pure. He didn’t account for you actively weaponizing your traditional upbringing against them.
“I’m making y’all lunch,” you say cheerfully, oblivious to the immense psychological damage you are currently inflicting on the three men in the room. “Have a seat, Tucker. The biscuits will be done in twelve minutes.”
Tucker looks at Garrett. Garrett’s eyes are dark, practically dilated, tracking your every movement.
Tucker looks at Logan. Logan has his elbows on the counter, his chin resting in his hands, staring at you like you are the sun and he has been living underground his whole life.
Tucker looks at Dean. Dean looks like he is going to pass out from pure, unadulterated yearning.
“Guys,” Tucker says slowly, a warning edge slipping into his voice. “Stop staring at my sister.”
“I’m not staring,” Garrett lies smoothly, though he doesn’t blink once. “I’m watching the dough.”
“I want to eat her dough,” Dean murmurs, still gripping the doorframe.
Tucker violently shoves Dean into the hallway. “Get out! All of you, get out of the kitchen!”
“Leave them be, Tucker,” you scold lightly, pulling a cast-iron skillet from the lower cabinet. You set it on the stove and turn on the burner. “They’re just hungry. Go sit down, Dean. I found some bacon in the freezer.”
Dean slowly steps back into the kitchen, his eyes never leaving you. He walks over to the island and takes the stool next to Logan. He looks at you with a kind of desperate, pleading reverence.
“You’re making bacon?” Dean asks, his voice thick.
“Yes, Dean,” you say with a soft smile. “I’m making bacon.”
Dean puts his head down on the cool granite counter. “I love you. I’m sorry I was naked. Please marry me.”
“Dean!” Tucker roars, lunging forward.
You just laugh, a bright, chiming sound that bounces off the walls, assuming he is entirely joking. “You’re very funny, Dean. But I think you’re just hungry. My mama always says men think with their stomachs.”
“We do,” Logan confirms, his gray eyes burning into you. “That’s exactly what we do.”
Garrett leans forward, resting his massive forearms on the island, putting himself slightly closer to you than the other two. “Can I help you with anything, Y/N? Anything at all. You just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
“Actually,” you say, handing him a bowl and a whisk. “If you could whisk these eggs for me, Garrett, that would be wonderful. I need to keep an eye on the skillet.”
Garrett takes the bowl like it is the Holy Grail. He grips the whisk and begins beating the eggs with the intensity and focus of a man trying to win the Stanley Cup. He would whisk cement for you if you asked him to.
Tucker collapses into the fourth barstool, burying his face in his hands.
The slow play is officially dead.
Garrett, Logan, and Dean are no longer just interested. They are completely, irrevocably obsessed, and sitting in the kitchen while you cook them breakfast is cementing a terrible, beautiful truth in all of their minds.
They are going to fight to the death for you.
And you, blissfully unaware, just hum a quiet church hymn as you flip the bacon.
***
The house is dead quiet, which is entirely unnatural for a Thursday afternoon. Usually, there’s music blasting from someone’s room, the sounds of NHL 20 blaring from the living room TV, or the dull thud of a hockey puck bouncing off the drywall in the hallway.
Today, there is only the agonizing, suffocating weight of three miserable men sitting in absolute silence.
Tucker is gone. He had a mandatory meeting with the academic advisor, followed by a study session at the library, meaning he won’t be back for at least another two hours.
Garrett is sprawled out on the battered leather sofa, staring blankly at the ceiling fan. Logan is sitting backward on the armchair, his chin resting on his folded arms, staring blankly at the blank television screen. Dean is lying flat on his back on the rug, his arms thrown over his face, looking like a corpse that hasn’t been discovered yet.
None of them have brought a girl back to the house in three and a half weeks.
“I can’t take it anymore,” Dean finally says. His voice is muffled by his own arms, thick with genuine, unfiltered despair.
“Take what?” Logan asks, not looking away from the black screen.
“The pretending,” Dean groans, slowly lowering his arms. He stares up at the ceiling, looking haunted. “I can’t sit here and pretend that my entire brain hasn’t been rewired. I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to go to the Kappa party tonight. I don’t want to look at another girl.”
Garrett slowly shifts his gaze from the fan to Dean. He doesn’t say anything, but his jaw clenches.
“I think,” Dean whispers, as if confessing to a murder, “I think I have a thing for trad wives. Like, a serious, life-altering thing.”
For three agonizing seconds, the only sound in the room is the hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen.
Then, Logan lets out a long, shaky breath and drops his forehead onto his arms. “Oh, thank God. Thank God it’s not just me.”
Garrett sits up abruptly, dragging both hands through his dark hair. The sheer relief of the admission breaks the tension in the room like a snapped rubber band. “Are you kidding me? I’ve been losing my mind. I’ve literally been looking up property values in the suburbs. I don’t even like the suburbs!”
“I spent twenty minutes yesterday looking at minivans online,” Dean confesses miserably, sitting up and crossing his legs on the floor. “Honda Odysseys, Garrett. With the built-in vacuum cleaners in the back. I don’t even have a kid to drop Cheerios! Why do I care about a built-in vacuum?”
“Because of her,” Logan states the obvious, his voice heavy.
It has been roughly a month since you moved to Massachusetts, a month since Tucker brought you over for the first time, and exactly one week since you completely dismantled the Briar University hockey team with a piece of poster board and a sheet of shiny stickers.
Without another word, Garrett stands up and walks into the kitchen. Logan and Dean immediately follow him, a solemn, pathetic little parade trailing toward the refrigerator.
They stand in a semi-circle, staring at the white double doors of the fridge.
Right in the center, held up by four strawberry-shaped magnets, is a piece of bright pink poster board. The top reads, in perfectly neat, cursive handwriting House Rules for Good Boys.
“It’s a behavior chart,” Dean whispers, staring at it with a mix of awe and sheer terror. “She gave us a literal behavior chart meant for kindergartners.”
Logan reaches out, lightly tracing the edge of the poster board with his fingertip. “And we are fully governed by it.”
The flashback plays in all of their minds with crystal clarity.
A little over a week ago, you had marched into the house through the front door, carrying a rolled-up piece of cardboard and a small plastic bag from an arts and crafts store. You were wearing a mint-green sundress with a matching ribbon in your hair, looking completely out of place among the empty beer cans and scattered hockey gear.
“Tucker is at practice,” Logan had told you from the kitchen counter.
“I know,” you had said, unfurling the poster board. “I waited until he left. Gather ‘round, boys.”
They had looked at each other, confused, but the gentle, authoritative tone of your voice had them immediately leaving the living room and filing into the kitchen. They had stood in front of you, three towering, intimidating athletes, watching as you expertly magnetized the chart to the fridge.
“This house is a disaster,” you had told them sweetly, placing your hands on your hips. “You curse too much, you leave your dirty socks on the coffee table, and your sink always has dishes in it. Mama always said boys need structure. So, I am giving you structure.”
Garrett had stared at the board. There were columns with their names — Garrett, Dean, Logan, and even Tucker. Down the side were categories like Used Inside Voices, Completed Chores Without Complaining, No Bad Words, Ate All Our Vegetables, and Kindness to Others.
“What is this?” Dean had asked, trying not to laugh.
You had reached into the plastic bag and pulled out a sheet of shiny, holographic gold star stickers. “This is your behavior chart. Every time I come over, I will assess your behavior. If you do well in a category, you get a star next to your name.”
“Y/N,” Logan had chuckled, leaning against the counter. “We’re twenty-two years old. We don’t care about gold stars.”
You had smiled. It was a soft, entirely innocent smile, but it possessed a terrifying power. “Oh? Well, if you get five stars in a row, you get a reward. I will bake you whatever you want. Brownies, chocolate chip cookies, homemade cinnamon rolls …”
They had stopped laughing.
“But,” you had added, raising a delicate finger, “if you break a rule, you lose a star. And if you lose a star, I will be very, very disappointed in you.”
The word had hung in the air.
None of them had ever wanted to disappoint you. The thought of your big, pretty eyes looking at them with sadness or disapproval was literally agonizing.
“I want a star,” Garrett had said instantly, standing up straighter.
“Me too,” Dean had chimed in, suddenly panicking that he was behind.
“What do I have to do right now to get a star?” Logan had demanded, already grabbing a sponge to wipe down the countertops.
And just like that, you had them on a leash.
Back in the present, Garrett stares at the chart. Next to his name, he has four gold stars. Logan has four gold stars. Dean has three.
“I can’t believe I lost a star,” Dean mutters, dragging his hands down his face. “I stubbed my toe on the coffee table! It was a natural reaction!”
“You screamed ‘motherfucker’ at the top of your lungs while she was pulling a pie out of the oven, Dean,” Logan points out mercilessly. “You’re lucky she didn’t take two stars.”
“She looked so sad,” Dean whispers, genuinely distressed by the memory. “She just looked at me, sighed, and peeled the sticker right off the board. It physically hurt my chest, Logan. I felt like I failed as a man.”
“You did fail,” Garrett says, not taking his eyes off his own row of stars. He is one star away from the ultimate prize. “You lack discipline. She likes discipline. That’s why I’m winning.”
“We are tied, Graham,” Logan reminds him, bumping his shoulder. “I took out the recycling yesterday without being asked. She gave me a star for ‘taking initiative’. She patted my cheek, Garrett. She physically patted my cheek and called me a good boy.”
Logan’s voice actually breaks a little at the end of the sentence. The tough, sarcastic mechanic’s son from a broken home has completely crumbled under the weight of maternal praise.
“She called you a good boy?” Dean asks, his head whipping toward Logan, sheer jealousy radiating off him in waves. “When? I was here all day yesterday!”
“When you were in the shower,” Logan says, a smug smile tugging at his lips. “She patted my cheek, gave me a cupcake, and said she was proud of how hard I was studying for my finals.”
Garrett grips the edge of the kitchen counter so hard his knuckles turn white. “If you two think you’re getting the reward over me, you’re delusional. I ate broccoli last night. Plain, steamed broccoli. I hated every second of it, but she watched me do it, and she smiled.”
“God, her smile,” Dean groans, leaning back against the island and shutting his eyes. “It’s destroying my life. It really is.”
Since implementing the chart, you have started coming over every few days. You never come empty-handed. You show up carrying Tupperware containers filled with casseroles, fresh bread, and sweets. You sweep into the house like a gentle hurricane of domesticity, armed with a feather duster and an unshakeable moral compass.
The worst part — the absolute, most debilitating part for the three of them — is what you wear when you do it.
You are entirely oblivious to the effect you have. You show up in floral dresses that hit your knees, your waist cinched with a ribbon, looking like a 1950s housewife stepped out of a catalog. Sometimes you wear a frilly, pastel apron over your clothes to keep the flour off. You hum church hymns while you wipe the counters. You scold them gently for their bad habits. You act like the perfect, traditional wife, entirely unaware that the three men watching you are feral, testosterone-fueled athletes who are one loose thread away from snapping completely.
“I can’t sleep,” Dean confesses, keeping his eyes shut. “I literally can’t sleep anymore.”
“Join the club,” Logan mutters. “I haven’t slept a full night since she started wearing that yellow apron with the little ducks on it.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Dean says, his voice dropping into a raspy, tortured whisper. “I’m having dreams. Wet dreams.”
Garrett scoffs softly. “Dean, you’re twenty-two. Congratulations on basic biology.”
“Not about normal things, Garrett!” Dean snaps, opening his eyes and glaring at him. “About her And it’s messing with my head because they aren’t even normal wet dreams!”
Logan raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
Dean runs a hand violently through his sandy hair, pacing a small circle in the kitchen. “In the dream, she’s in the kitchen. She’s wearing the floral dress. She’s baking cookies. The whole house smells like vanilla and sugar. And she looks so … sweet. So pure. And then she turns around, and she smiles at me, and I walk over to her, and I … I do things to her.”
Dean swallows hard, his face flushing a dark red.
“Filthy things,” Dean continues, his voice strained. “Things that would make Tucker literally murder me with a rusted spoon. On the kitchen island. In the apron. And she’s calling me a good boy the entire time. I woke up yesterday morning and I had to sit in the shower under freezing cold water for forty-five minutes just to keep myself from crying.”
Logan stares at Dean, completely horrified but also terrifyingly empathetic. “Okay. That is … that is intense.”
“It’s psychological warfare!” Dean hisses, gesturing wildly toward the fridge. “She is a literal angel. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She bends over to check the oven, and the skirt flares out just a little bit, and I feel like my brain is melting out of my ears.”
“She is completely untouchable,” Garrett says softly, his voice cutting through Dean’s panic.
Garrett leans against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. His gray eyes are dark, stormy with frustration and an aching, desperate kind of longing.
“That’s the problem,” Garrett says. “You’re dreaming about doing filthy things to her, Dean? She doesn’t even know what a wet dream is.”
Dean stops pacing. Logan looks at Garrett.
“Think about it,” Garrett continues, his voice turning grim. “She thinks hand-holding is a big deal. She prays before she eats a french fry. She was raised in a church where they probably told her that impure thoughts are a sin. If you tried to explain a wet dream to her, she would probably think you spilled water in your bed and offer to help you change your sheets.”
The absolute truth of that statement hits them like a physical blow.
Somehow, the realization of your total, complete innocence makes them all even hornier. It is a forbidden, unreachable purity that their corrupted minds are utterly obsessed with. They don’t want to ruin you. They want to worship you. They want to be the one man in the entire world who gets to show you what it feels like to be touched, to be loved, to be absolutely consumed by someone else.
But it’s impossible.
“She belongs in a glass case,” Logan says miserably, slumping against the counter. “Or a museum. We are entirely too dirtbag for her.”
“Tucker told us from day one,” Garrett says, staring at the floor. “He said if we touch her, we break her. I didn’t get it then. I thought he was just being an overprotective brother. But he was right. We don’t know how to do courtship. We don’t know how to do slow. We’re hockey players. We hit things.”
“I could learn,” Dean says defensively, though he sounds desperate. “I could buy flowers. I could open doors.”
“You hold the school record for most threesomes in a semester, Di Laurentis,” Logan reminds him.
“That was before I saw the light!” Dean argues. “I’m a changed man! I haven’t even looked at a girl since Y/N walked into Malone’s. I am reformed. I am practically a monk.”
Garrett lets out a harsh, humorless laugh. “We’re all monks now. And for what? She’s Tucker’s sister. Even if one of us somehow managed to learn how to be a perfect, god-fearing gentleman, Tucker would never allow it. He knows us too well.”
“Tucker isn’t the boss of her,” Dean points out, his competitive edge finally overriding his misery. He walks back over to the fridge, stopping directly in front of the pink poster board. He stares at the gold stars glinting in the afternoon light.
“What are you thinking, Dean?” Logan asks, eyeing him suspiciously.
“I’m thinking,” Dean says slowly, a dangerous, familiar spark returning to his eyes, “that we have a metric system right here.”
Garrett pushes off the counter. “What are you talking about?”
Dean turns around, a slow, predatory smirk spreading across his handsome face. The misery is gone, replaced entirely by the thrill of the hunt. “This behavior chart. She put it up to give us structure. To make us good boys.”
“Yeah,” Logan says slowly. “So?”
“So,” Dean says, tapping the poster board. “We use it. We play her game. We play it better than we’ve ever played anything in our lives. We don’t just act like gentlemen, we become gentlemen. We compete.”
Garrett narrows his eyes. “Compete for what?”
“For the right to pursue her,” Dean says, the words hanging heavy in the kitchen air.
“We are three guys who are aggressively, pathetically in love with the same girl,” Dean says, pointing between the three of them. “And we are all terrified of Tucker. If we all make a move, it’s going to be a bloodbath. Tucker will kill us, we’ll ruin our friendship, and she’ll run away crying because she hates conflict. So, we make an agreement.”
Dean steps away from the fridge, looking at Garrett, then at Logan.
“Whoever has the most gold stars on this chart by the end of the semester,” Dean proposes, his voice dead serious, “is the winner. The winner gets to go to Tucker, confess his intentions, take the beating like a man, and then ask Y/N on a proper, traditional date. And the losers have to back off completely. Forever. No interfering, no sabotage, no whining.”
Silence descends on the kitchen again.
It is an insane idea. They are betting on the affection of their best friend’s sister using a kindergarten reward system. It is childish, absurd, and potentially relationship-destroying.
But as Garrett looks at the chart, he realizes it is the only fair way.
He wants you. He wants you so badly his teeth ache. He wants to sit at the kitchen table while you make breakfast, he wants to go to church with you on Sundays just to hold your hand, he wants to build that white picket fence himself just to keep you safe inside it.
And he knows Logan and Dean want the exact same thing.
“You’re assuming she’s a prize to be won, Dean,” Logan says quietly, though he hasn’t looked away from the chart. “What if she doesn’t want the winner?”
“If the winner asks her out and she says no,” Dean replies easily, “then she says no. But the winner is the only one who gets the chance to ask. The winner gets a clear shot without the other two crowding him. Deal?”
Logan hesitates. He thinks about your soft hands, the way you smell like vanilla, the way you praised him for doing the dishes. He thinks about a lifetime of coming home to a warm house and someone who actually cares if he had a good day.
He sets his jaw. He refuses to lose that.
“Deal,” Logan says, his voice hard with resolve.
Dean turns to Garrett.
Garrett, the captain. The star center. The most competitive man on the Briar University campus. He looks at the single gold star separating him from Dean, and the tie he currently holds with Logan.
He isn’t going to lose. He doesn’t know how to lose.
“Excellent,” Dean grins, clearly thrilled with himself. “Gentlemen, the game is-”
The front door suddenly clicks open.
“Hey, guys, I’m back!” Tucker’s voice echoes from the foyer, followed by the heavy thud of his backpack hitting the floor. “And I brought Y/N! She wanted to drop off some cookies!”
The three men in the kitchen freeze.
Instant, absolute panic washes over them. The bet, the confidence, the competitive bravado entirely evaporates the second they hear your name.
“Hello!” Your sweet, melodic voice chimes out, followed by the soft click of your sensible shoes on the hardwood floor. “Are you boys in the kitchen?”
Garrett practically dives for the dirty sponge Logan abandoned earlier, furiously scrubbing a spot on the already pristine granite counter.
Logan snatches a rogue piece of junk mail off the island and starts reading it with terrifying intensity, pretending to be deeply engrossed in an ad for a local carpet cleaning service.
Dean just stands there, looking like a deer caught in headlights, violently trying to force the image of his wet dream out of his mind before you walk into the room.
You step into the kitchen.
You are wearing a pale pink dress with little white daisies printed on it. You have a delicate, white crocheted cardigan draped over your shoulders. In your hands is a large plastic container, and you are smiling so brightly it practically illuminates the room.
“Hi!” You say, your southern drawl thick and warm. “I made snickerdoodles. I know y’all have a big game this weekend, so I wanted to make sure you had plenty of energy.”
Tucker walks in behind you, looking exhausted but fond. He glances at the three of them. He notices Garrett aggressively scrubbing a clean counter, Logan reading junk mail like it’s a textbook, and Dean standing rigidly at attention with his hands clasped behind his back.
Tucker squints. “What are you idiots doing?”
“Cleaning!” Garrett barks out quickly, his voice a pitch higher than usual. “Just keeping the house tidy. You know. For the chart.”
You beam at him, setting the container of cookies on the island. “Oh, Garrett, that is so wonderful! Look at you, taking initiative.”
Garrett’s chest puffs out instinctively. He glances at Dean and Logan with a smug, triumphant look.
You walk over to the fridge, pulling a sheet of shiny gold stars from your small purse. You peel one off the sheet, your delicate fingers working carefully. You reach up, standing on your tiptoes slightly, and press the gold star firmly onto the poster board, right next to Garrett’s name.
“There you go,” you say, turning to him and giving his bicep a soft, approving pat. “Five stars for Garrett. You get the first reward.”
Garrett stops breathing. The touch of your hand on his arm sends a jolt of electricity straight to his groin. He stares down at you, absolutely mesmerized, completely lost in the scent of cinnamon and sugar that clings to you.
“Thank you, Y/N,” Garrett manages to rasp out, his voice incredibly deep. “I … I appreciate that.”
Logan and Dean are staring at Garrett with expressions of pure hatred.
“And I noticed that the living room doesn’t have a single piece of clothing on the floor,” you say, turning your attention to the other two. “Did you both help with that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dean says instantly, practically standing at attention.
“Absolutely,” Logan agrees, desperate not to be left behind.
You smile, peeling two more stars off the sheet and adding them to Dean and Logan’s columns. “Good boys. I am so proud of how well y’all are doing.”
Dean lets out a soft, embarrassing whimper. He quickly clears his throat to cover it up, but Tucker definitely heard it.
Tucker narrows his eyes at Dean, his protective instincts flaring up. “You okay, Di Laurentis?”
“Never better,” Dean squeaks, staring rigidly at the fridge.
“Well, I can’t stay long,” you say, turning back to your brother. “I have to get back to the dorm to finish an essay for my literature class. But enjoy the cookies!”
“I’ll walk you back,” Tucker says instantly.
“Oh, you don’t have to,” you assure him, picking up your purse. “It’s still daylight. I’ll be perfectly fine.”
“I am walking you back,” Tucker repeats, leaving no room for argument. He looks at his three roommates. “Don’t eat all the cookies before I get back. Or I’ll take a star down myself.”
“You don’t have authorization to touch the chart, Tucker,” Garrett says seriously. “Only Y/N does.”
You let out a lovely, melodic laugh. “He’s right, Tucker. Only I control the stars. Bye, boys! Have a blessed afternoon!”
“Bye, Y/N,” they chime in unison, sounding like a choir of completely brainwashed cult members.
They watch you leave the kitchen, their eyes glued to the sway of your pink skirt. They listen to the front door open and close, followed by the heavy thud of the deadbolt locking.
The silence returns to the house.
Garrett, Dean, and Logan slowly turn to look at each other.
The misery is gone. The despair is gone.
In its place is an absolutely terrifying, feral determination.
Garrett points a finger at Dean. “I am going to win.”
“You’re delusional,” Dean fires back, snatching a snickerdoodle from the container. “I am going to charm her so hard she’s going to forget your name.”
Logan cracks his knuckles, a slow, wicked grin spreading across his face. “You two can fight it out all you want. But she likes a project. And I am the biggest project in this house. She’s going to fix me, and then she’s going to marry me.”
The war has officially begun.
And all it took was a pack of shiny gold stickers.
***
The pink poster board on the refrigerator is no longer just a behavior chart. It is a monument to madness.
It is the second week of December. Outside the off-campus house, a fresh layer of Massachusetts snow blankets the front lawn, but inside the kitchen, the temperature is absolutely boiling.
Garrett, Dean, and Logan stand in a tight triangle around the kitchen island, staring at the refrigerator.
The chart is completely, utterly full. There is not a single millimeter of blank space left in any of their three columns. The gold stars overlap each other, gleaming mockingly in the overhead lights.
Garrett has exactly seventy-five gold stars. Dean has exactly seventy-five gold stars. Logan has exactly seventy-five gold stars.
It is a perfect, catastrophic, three-way tie.
“This is mathematically impossible,” Garrett says, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. He braces his massive hands on the granite counter, his jaw ticking so hard it looks like it might snap. “One of you cheated. I know for a fact I earned more stars this week. I shoveled the driveway before she even got out of her dorm.”
“I didn’t cheat!” Dean snaps, running a hand frantically through his sandy hair. He looks entirely unhinged. “I went to a knitting circle, Garrett! I sat in a circle with eight grandmothers at the community center and I learned how to knit a scarf! She gave me five stars for ‘embracing wholesome hobbies’. You can’t beat that!”
“Oh, please,” Logan scoffs, pointing an accusing finger at Dean. “I went to a Friday night Bible study. Do you know how hard it is to sit in a folding chair in a church basement, making eye contact with a youth pastor named Keith, while actively hallucinating about doing entirely unholy things to the girl who invited me? I earned those stars with my blood, sweat, and sanity.”
“It doesn’t matter what any of us did,” Garrett growls, turning his fierce gray eyes on his teammates. “The bet was simple. The one with the most stars at the end of the semester gets the right to pursue her. Nobody else interferes. We tie, nobody wins. Which means nobody has the go-ahead.”
“Well, somebody has to win!” Dean practically shouts, pacing the length of the kitchen. “I am dying, boys. I am literally dying. Tucker and Y/N fly back to Texas tomorrow morning for Christmas break. That’s three weeks. Three weeks without seeing her, smelling her, or hearing her call me a good boy. If I don’t get to stake my claim before she leaves, I’m going to throw myself off the campus bridge.”
Logan rubs the back of his neck, his normally easygoing face tight with frustration. “We can’t all pursue her. Tucker will literally buy a shotgun. We agreed to the bet so we wouldn’t tear this house — and her — apart.”
“Fuck the bet,” Garrett says suddenly.
Dean and Logan stop. They both stare at their captain.
“Excuse me?” Dean says.
Garrett stands up to his full, intimidating height. His chest heaves under his dark gray t-shirt. “Fuck the bet. Fuck the gold stars. I can’t do this anymore. I am not stepping back just because we tied. I want her. I am going to make her mine, and I don’t care if I have to fight both of you and Tucker to do it.”
“Whoa, hold on,” Logan says, stepping forward, his own alpha instincts flaring up. “You don’t just get to claim her because you’re the captain, Graham. I want her just as badly as you do. Do you have any idea what it does to me when she wears those little floral dresses? When she hums while she washes my dishes? I want to put a ring on her finger. I want her in my bed.”
“Your bed?” Dean barks out a harsh, desperate laugh. “I want her everywhere. I want her on this kitchen island. I want to ruin that perfect, sweet little innocence of hers. I want to pull her hair and make her scream my name until she loses her voice. I want to do filthy, degrading, mind-blowing things to her while she’s wearing that goddamn frilly apron, and I’m not letting either of you get to her first!”
“You think you’re the only one?” Garrett snarls, taking a step toward Dean, completely entirely feral. “I want to bend her over the dining table. I want to hold her down and make her take every inch of me until she’s begging. I am obsessed with her, Di Laurentis. It’s a sickness. I’m going to ruin her for any other man.”
“You’ll have to go through me,” Logan warns, his voice dropping an octave, his fists clenching at his sides. “Because she’s going to be underneath me, looking up at me, taking it all-”
A loud, metallic clatter cuts through the kitchen.
It sounds like a tin can hitting the hardwood floor in the foyer.
Garrett freezes. Logan stops breathing. Dean’s eyes go wide.
Simultaneously, the three massive athletes turn their heads toward the hallway.
You are standing in the foyer.
The front door is slightly ajar behind you, letting in a biting gust of December wind. You are wearing a thick, powder-blue winter coat, a white knitted beanie, and your cheeks are flushed pink from the cold.
At your feet lies a round metal tin. The lid has popped off, scattering a dozen perfectly frosted, homemade Christmas cookies across the hardwood floor.
Your hands are clamped over your mouth. Your eyes, usually so bright and warm, are dilated with absolute, unadulterated shock. They are wide and glistening with the sudden, sharp sting of tears.
You heard everything.
Every filthy, dirty, explicit thing they just said. The bet. The gold stars. The competition to “win” you. The incredibly graphic, violent ways they want to ruin your innocence.
“Y/N,” Garrett breathes, the color entirely draining from his face. The fierce, feral competitor vanishes in a fraction of a second, replaced by sheer, suffocating panic. “Y/N, wait.”
You let out a small, broken gasp. You take a step backward, your sensible winter boot crunching on a sugar cookie.
“Sweetheart, please,” Logan begs, holding his hands up like he’s approaching a terrified, wounded animal. He takes a slow step forward. “Just let us explain. It’s not what you think-”
“You … you bet on me?” You whisper, your voice trembling so violently it barely makes a sound. “A chart? Like … like a prize?”
“No!” Dean says, his voice cracking with pure desperation. “No, Y/N, it wasn’t like that! We just—we all wanted you so badly, and we didn’t know how to handle it!”
You look at Dean. Then you look at Logan. Then you look at Garrett.
The image of them — the perfect, polite gentlemen you thought you were helping, the boys you prayed for, the boys you baked for — shatters into a million jagged pieces. They aren’t gentlemen. They are predators. And they have been circling you for months, salivating, waiting for the right moment to pounce and do the horrible, filthy things they just described.
A sob tears from your throat.
You spin on your heel, grab the doorknob, and practically throw yourself out into the freezing snow.
“Y/N!” Garrett roars.
The heavy wooden door slams shut behind you with a deafening bang.
Garrett, Dean, and Logan sprint into the foyer, slipping on the crushed cookies. Garrett rips the front door open, stepping out onto the icy porch in nothing but his socks.
“Y/N!” He yells into the falling snow.
But you are already running. You are sprinting across the front lawn, tears streaming down your freezing cheeks, desperate to get back to the safety of your dorm, to Tucker, to anywhere that isn’t here.
Garrett stands on the porch, the freezing wind whipping through his hair. Logan and Dean stand in the doorway behind him, looking at the empty street.
“She’s gone,” Logan whispers, his voice entirely hollow.
Garrett slowly turns around, his gray eyes dead. He looks at the crushed cookies on the floor. He looks at the chart on the fridge in the distance.
“We are so fucked,” Garrett says.
***
The Texas heat is a jarring contrast to the New England winter. Even in December, the air is mild and humid.
You sit in the third pew of your childhood church, surrounded by the familiar scent of polished wood, old hymn books, and your mother’s floral perfume. The choir is singing a beautiful rendition of “O Holy Night.” It is peaceful. It is safe.
It is absolute torture.
It has been exactly two weeks since you fled the off-campus house. Two weeks since you boarded a plane with Tucker, who spent the entire flight wondering aloud why his three best friends were suddenly ignoring his texts and acting like they were at a funeral. You hadn’t said a word. You couldn’t.
You try to focus on the pastor’s sermon, but your mind is a traitor.
Every time you close your eyes, you don’t see angels or scripture. You see Garrett’s massive arms braced against the kitchen counter. You see Dean’s wicked, hungry smirk. You see Logan’s intense, darkening eyes.
I want to ruin that perfect, sweet little innocence of hers.
Dean’s voice echoes in your head, a phantom whisper against your ear. You shiver violently, crossing your arms over your chest, pressing your knees together in the church pew.
You are a good girl. You have always been a good girl. You saved yourself, you kept your thoughts pure, you prayed for guidance.
But overhearing them has awakened something entirely terrifying inside your body.
The shock and betrayal have slowly, agonizingly, morphed into something else. Something hot. Something heavy. Something that makes your skin flush and your pulse race in places you have never paid attention to before.
That night, you lie in your narrow childhood bed, the ceiling fan spinning lazily above you. The house is completely silent.
You squeeze your eyes shut, clutching the edge of your quilt, trying to pray yourself to sleep. Lord, please cleanse my mind. Please remove these thoughts. Please make me forget them.
But the darkness behind your eyelids is entirely hijacked.
You drift into a restless, feverish sleep.
The dream hits you with the force of a tidal wave.
You are in the kitchen of the off-campus house. You are wearing the yellow floral dress, the one that ties at the waist. But the fabric feels incredibly thin, brushing against your overly sensitive skin.
A hand grips your hip. It is massive, hot, and calloused.
Garrett.
You gasp in the dream as he pulls your back flush against his broad, solid chest. You can feel the hard ridges of his abs through your dress, the overwhelming, suffocating heat of his body. He leans down, his mouth brushing against the sensitive skin beneath your ear.
“Mine,” Garrett growls in your ear, his voice a vibrating, possessive rumble that shoots straight down your spine and pools between your thighs. “You’re mine, Y/N. I told you I was going to ruin you for anyone else.”
You whimper, arching your neck, completely powerless to stop the heavy, wet ache blooming between your legs.
Then, Dean is in front of you. He steps into your space, his eyes dark with unfiltered lust. He reaches out, his long, skilled fingers trailing down the center of your chest, undoing the tiny buttons of your dress with agonizing slowness.
“Such a good girl,” Dean murmurs, his voice a wicked, sinful coaxing. He parts the fabric, exposing your collarbone, the swell of your breasts. “So pure. God, I want to dirty you up. I want to hear you beg for it, sweetheart.”
In the real world, tossing and turning in your childhood bed in Texas, your breathing turns ragged. Your hands instinctively slide down to grip the bedsheets, twisting the fabric into knots. A sheen of sweat coats your skin. You are burning up from the inside out.
In the dream, Logan’s hands replace Dean’s. Logan is kneeling in front of you. He pushes the skirt of your dress up, his large hands gripping your bare thighs. His thumbs press into the soft, sensitive flesh, parting your legs.
“Please,” you hear yourself cry out in the dream, though you don’t even know what you’re begging for. It is an entirely new, blinding sensation.
“I’ve got you,” Logan whispers, his breath hot against the juncture of your thighs. “I’m going to make you feel so damn good, Y/N. Just let go.”
Logan’s mouth touches your skin.
You jolt awake in the dark.
Your eyes snap open, your chest heaving as you gasp for air in the quiet Texas bedroom. Your heart is pounding a frantic, erratic rhythm against your ribs.
You lie there, paralyzed, completely consumed by the physical aftermath of the dream.
Between your thighs, there is a heavy, throbbing ache. A wet, slick heat that you have never felt before. The friction of your own cotton underwear against your swollen flesh is almost unbearable. Your body is practically vibrating with an empty, aching need.
“Oh my God,” you whisper into the dark, tears springing to your eyes.
You pull your knees to your chest, burying your face in your hands, overwhelmed by the crushing guilt. You feel like a sinner. A dirty, corrupted sinner. You are having explicitly filthy dreams about your brother’s three best friends doing things to you that you couldn’t even put into words.
And the worst part — the part that makes you sob into your pillow — is that your body craves it.
You don’t want to forget them. You want to go back to sleep. You want Garrett’s possessive grip. You want Dean’s dirty praise. You want Logan’s mouth on your skin.
For the rest of the Christmas break, you are a ghost. You pick at your food. You stare out the window. Every time Tucker mentions their names, asking why the hell they aren’t returning his calls, your stomach plummets, and a fresh wave of heat washes over your body.
It is a grueling, exhausting war between your sheltered mind and your rapidly awakening body. And your body is winning.
***
It is the night before you and Tucker are supposed to fly back to Massachusetts for the spring semester.
Your suitcase is packed and sitting by the door. You are lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, dreading the return to Briar University. You don’t know how you are going to look at them. You don’t know how you are going to be in the same state as them without completely falling apart.
Exhaustion finally drags you under.
The dream that comes this time is not a fragmented sequence. It is a terrifying, hyper-realistic onslaught of the senses.
You are entirely naked. You don’t know how it happened, but the floral dresses and the sensible skirts are gone. You are lying on the plush rug of their living room floor.
Garrett is above you. His heavy, muscular body presses you into the carpet, his chest crushing against yours. He grips both of your wrists in one of his massive hands, pinning them above your head. His mouth is entirely consuming yours, a punishing, bruising kiss that leaves you breathless and dizzy.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Garrett murmurs against your lips, his hips rolling down to press against yours. You can feel the impossible size and hardness of his erection pressing directly against your aching, wet center. “You are taking all of this.”
You cry out into his mouth, your back arching off the floor, desperate for the friction.
But then Garrett pulls back.
Dean slides behind you, pulling your back flush against his chest. He wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you tightly against his own hard length. His mouth attacks your neck, sucking hard enough to leave a bruise, his teeth scraping over your pulse point.
“You like it, don’t you?” Dean rasps in your ear, his hand sliding down your stomach, dipping lower and lower until his fingers brush against your slick heat. “You like being our good girl. Let me hear it. Say you like it.”
“I like it,” you sob in the dream, completely losing your mind as Dean’s long fingers slide into your wetness, stroking you with an expert, merciless rhythm. “Please, Dean, please-”
“Look at me, sweetheart.” Logan’s voice.
You open your eyes. Logan is kneeling between your spread thighs. His gray eyes are dark, stormy, completely fixated on the sight of Dean’s fingers working inside you.
Logan leans forward. He rests his large hands on your hips, his thumbs pressing into your hip bones, pinning you in place.
Then, Logan lowers his mouth.
The sensation of his hot, wet tongue sliding over your most sensitive, swollen flesh sends a violent shockwave through your entire body.
In your bed in Texas, you cry out loudly, your back arching off the mattress. Your hands fly down to your own body, completely entirely driven by instinct. You don’t even know what you’re doing, but you need relief. You need it so badly it feels like you’re dying.
In the dream, the sensory overload is pushing you straight to the edge.
Garrett is kissing you again, swallowing your moans. Dean’s fingers are pumping inside you, stretching you, matching the frantic, desperately wet rhythm of Logan’s tongue lashing against your clit.
The pleasure is building, pooling, tightening like a coiled spring in your lower stomach. It is agonizing. It is beautiful. It is right there. You are seconds away from shattering, from experiencing your very first orgasm, surrounded by the three men you realize, with terrifying clarity, you are hopelessly, completely in love with.
“Let it go for us,” Garrett growls.
“Come for me, baby,” Dean demands.
“Taste so fucking sweet,” Logan murmurs.
The tension snaps. You are right on the absolute edge of the precipice, your body preparing to explode into a million pieces of blinding, white-hot ecstasy.
And then-
The shrill, piercing shriek of your iPhone alarm clock shatters the silence of the room.
Your eyes snap open.
The living room vanishes. Garrett is gone. Dean is gone. Logan is gone.
You are alone in your childhood bedroom. It is 5 AM. Your flight is in three hours.
The physical sensation drops out from under you, leaving you stranded on the absolute edge of the cliff. The heavy, aching arousal is still there, throbbing violently between your legs, demanding a release that is suddenly, cruelly out of reach.
You let out a frustrated, desperate whine, your hands gripping the bedsheets so hard your knuckles turn white.
The realization of what you have been reduced to hits you. You are a tangled, sweating, thoroughly aroused mess, waking up from a filthy dream about three men you haven’t spoken to in weeks.
You sit up in bed, bringing your knees to your chest.
And then, you burst into tears.
You cry because you are frustrated. You cry because your body aches in a way you don’t know how to fix. You cry because you are a traditional, sheltered girl who was supposed to wait for a sweet, simple man, and instead, you have been entirely corrupted by three massive, filthy-mouthed hockey players.
You don’t want the white picket fence anymore.
You want the off-campus house. You want the chaos. You want Garrett’s fierce protection. You want Dean’s dirty praise. You want Logan’s intense, soulful eyes.
You crave them. You crave them so badly it feels like a physical illness.
You wipe your tears roughly with the back of your hand, looking across the room at your packed suitcase.
In three hours, you will board a plane back to Massachusetts. In less than twelve hours, you will be back on the Briar University campus.
You take a deep, shaky breath, the residual heat of the dream still causing a deep, heavy pulse between your thighs.
You don’t know what you are going to do when you see them. But you know one thing for absolutely certain.
You are not the same innocent girl who ran out of that house a month ago.
Heyyyy, I absolutely LOVE your writing! Especially your young god series! Would ever be open to maybe writing for Ben Kindel??
Thank you so much! I have to draw the line when it comes to the 2025 draft class because I’m an Islanders fan and we’ve all collectively agreed that Matthew Schaefer is our son … so I can’t see myself writing for anyone drafted the same year as him 😭
Hai!! Just wanted to say how much I love your work and appreciate the amazing content you feed us all! As well as you becoming a doctor like okayyy beauty and brainsss idk how u manage it all 🫶🫶🫶 okay love ur work and ur sidcros series is actual joy in my life so thanks for the amazing work 🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶😍😍😍😍😁😁😁😁
Thank you so much! Sometimes I genuinely think being able to write fics is the only reason I manage it all without having a mental breakdown 😭 Therapy is expensive but opening up a new Google Doc is cheap
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Summary: the one where he puts a ring on your finger
Series Masterlist
Sidney has been carrying a ring in his pocket for three days, and he’s starting to think it might burn a hole through his shorts.
The ring box is small, velvet, and currently residing in the right pocket of his linen pants while you’re six feet away, crouched down and cooing at a tabby cat on the cobblestone streets of Folegandros. This is the fourth cat you’ve befriended today — or maybe the fifth, he’s lost count — and watching you baby-talk to a stray while the Aegean Sea sparkles behind you is making his chest feel too tight.
“Sidney, look at her little face,” you call out, glancing back at him with that smile that made him buy the ring in the first place. “She’s so sweet. Do you think she’s hungry?”
“Probably,” he says, even though he has no idea. He’s been to a lot of places, done a lot of things, but Greek island cat behavior was never in his wheelhouse.
You’re already digging through your bag — the woven one you bought in Naxos two days ago — pulling out the bougatsa you’d grabbed at breakfast. You break off a piece and offer it to the cat, who sniffs it suspiciously before accepting.
“Good girl,” you murmur, stroking her sun-warmed fur. “Such a pretty girl.”
Sidney pulls out his phone and takes a photo, adding it to the collection he’s been building all week. You feeding cats. You laughing at a local taverna. You in that white sundress that makes you look like you belong here, among the whitewashed buildings and endless blue. You looking at him like he hung the moon when he surprised you with this trip.
The plan had been simple: skip the tourist traps, rent a yacht, and island-hop through the Cyclades the way normal people can’t. Santorini and Mykonos were beautiful, sure, but they were also Instagram factories, full of influencers and cruise ship crowds. He wanted something real. Something authentic. Something that felt like it belonged to just the two of you.
So he’d hired a captain and a small crew, and for the past week, you’d been sailing from island to island — Naxos, Paros, Antiparos, Koufonisia, and now Folegandros. Small islands. Quiet islands. Islands where locals still outnumbered tourists, where you could walk through villages and actually hear church bells instead of club music.
And watching you fall in love with each one has been the best part of the trip.
You stand up, brushing off your dress, and loop your arm through his. “Thank you for this,” you say, like you have every day. “This whole trip. It’s perfect.”
“You’ve said that about every island,” he points out, amused.
“Because it’s true about every island,” you counter. “How did you even find these places? I’ve never heard of half of them.”
“Research,” he says, which is true. He’d spent weeks reading travel blogs, watching videos, messaging people who’d been to Greece. He’d wanted to get it right.
“Well, you nailed it,” you say, squeezing his arm. “This is the best vacation I’ve ever been on.”
The ring box feels heavier in his pocket.
Tonight, he thinks. It has to be tonight.
He’d been planning to propose since the beginning of the season. Had the ring custom-made six months ago by a jeweler in New York who specialized in unique pieces. Had it designed specifically for you — a blue diamond, because you’d once mentioned in passing that you loved how unusual they were, set in platinum with cathedral details that the jeweler had called “architectural“ and “distinctive.” The kind of ring you could wear every day but that would still make people stop and stare.
He’d been carrying it for three days, looking for the perfect moment, and somehow every moment had felt both perfect and not perfect enough. Sunset in Naxos? Too crowded. That quiet beach in Antiparos? Too isolated. The yacht deck under the stars? Too predictable.
But tonight. Tonight he has a plan.
“Come on,” he says, tugging you gently down the street. “We should get ready for dinner.”
“Where are we going again?” You ask.
“It’s a surprise,” he says, which makes you narrow your eyes suspiciously.
“You’ve been very mysterious about tonight,” you observe.
“Have I?” He asks innocently.
“Very,” you confirm. “Should I be worried?”
“Definitely not,” he assures you. “Just trust me.”
“I always trust you,” you say simply, and the ring box burns hotter.
Back on the yacht, you disappear into the cabin to get ready while Sidney checks in with the captain about timing. Dinner reservations are at seven-thirty — he’d made them weeks ago, calling the restaurant directly, explaining in broken English and hand gestures over video chat what he wanted. The owner, an elderly woman named Yiayia Eleni, had been delighted, conspiratorial, promising him the best table and complete discretion.
He showers and changes into the nice shirt he packed specifically for this — white linen, rolled sleeves, paired with his better shorts and the watch you got him for his birthday. He looks at himself in the mirror and takes a breath.
“You’ve played in the Olympics,” he tells his reflection. “You’ve won Stanley Cups. You can propose to your girlfriend.”
His reflection doesn’t look convinced.
When you emerge from the cabin twenty minutes later, his brain stops working entirely.
You’re wearing a dress he’s never seen before — soft blue, the color of the Aegean, with thin straps and a skirt that moves when you walk. Your hair is down, slightly wavy from the sea air, and you’re wearing the delicate gold necklace he bought you in Paros.
“Is this okay?” You ask, suddenly self-conscious. “You said nice restaurant, but I wasn’t sure how nice-”
“You’re perfect,” he interrupts. “You look perfect.”
You smile, pleased, and do a little spin. “I bought it in Naxos. I was saving it for a special occasion.”
“Good instinct,” he manages, and offers his arm.
The restaurant is a ten-minute walk from where the yacht is docked — a small, family-owned place right on the water with only six tables. Yiayia Eleni greets you at the door with enthusiastic cheek kisses and a flood of Greek that neither of you understand but that clearly means “welcome.”
She leads you to a table on the terrace, right at the edge where the stone meets the sea. It’s the best table, separated slightly from the others, with a view of the harbor and the sunset that’s just beginning to paint the sky pink and gold.
“Sidney, this is beautiful,” you breathe, sitting down. “How did you find this place?”
“I have my ways,” he says mysteriously.
Yiayia Eleni returns with wine — local, she explains in careful English, from her son’s vineyard on the island. She pours you each a glass, winks at Sidney in a way that suggests she knows exactly what’s happening tonight, and disappears back into the kitchen.
“She’s adorable,” you say, watching her go. “I love these family places. They have so much character.”
“Better than the tourist traps,” Sidney agrees.
“So much better,” you say. “I mean, I’m sure Santorini is beautiful, but this-” you gesture at the view, the quiet harbor, the locals walking past, “ — this feels real. Like we’re actually experiencing Greece, not just performing it for Instagram.”
“That’s what I was hoping for,” he admits.
You reach across the table and take his hand. “You did good, Crosby. This whole trip. It’s been incredible.”
“Yeah?” He asks, even though you’ve told him this every day.
“The best,” you confirm. “I don’t want it to end.”
“It doesn’t have to,” he says carefully. “We could come back. Make it a regular thing.”
“I’d like that,” you say, smiling. “Annual Greek island trip. I could get behind that tradition.”
The food arrives in waves — Greek salad, grilled octopus, fresh bread with olive oil, moussaka that Yiayia Eleni insists you try. Everything is perfect, simple and fresh and made with obvious care. You moan over the octopus, declare the moussaka life-changing, and insist on trying to learn the Greek words for “thank you” and “delicious.”
Sidney watches you charm Yiayia Eleni’s husband — Papou Pavlos — when he comes out to check on your meal, sees you light up when you successfully communicate that the food is incredible, and feels the ring box pressing against his leg like a heartbeat.
The sun is setting now, turning the sky into a masterpiece of orange and pink and purple. The other diners are focused on their own meals, their own conversations. Yiayia Eleni catches his eye from the doorway and gives him an encouraging nod.
It’s time.
“Hey,” he says, and his voice comes out rougher than intended.
You look up from your wine, smiling. “Hey yourself.”
“I want to tell you something,” he starts, and watches your expression shift from casual to attentive.
“Okay,” you say slowly. “Should I be worried? You look very serious suddenly.”
“Not worried,” he assures you. “Just give me a second. I’ve been planning what to say for weeks and now I’m blanking.”
“Planning what to say about what?” You ask, but there’s something in your eyes now, a dawning realization.
Sidney stands up, his chair scraping against the stone, and your eyes go wide.
“Sidney-” you start.
“Let me say this,” he interrupts gently, moving around the table. “Please. I need to say this.”
He drops to one knee beside your chair, and you make a sound that’s halfway between a gasp and a sob.
“Oh my god,” you whisper.
“I had a whole speech planned,” he admits, pulling the ring box from his pocket. “I’ve been rehearsing it for days. But now I’m looking at you and I can’t remember any of it.”
“That’s okay,” you say, and your eyes are already shining with tears. “You don’t need a speech.”
“I do though,” he insists. “Because you need to understand—you need to know what you mean to me.”
He takes a breath, and the words start coming.
“I’ve been playing hockey since I was three years old,” he says. “My whole life has been about the game. About training and winning and being the best. And I love it. I love hockey. But you-” his voice catches. “You made me realize that there’s more to life than the game.”
You’re crying now, tears streaming down your face, but you’re smiling.
“You made me want things I didn’t think I wanted,” he continues. “A home that’s actually a home, not just a place I sleep between road trips. Lazy mornings and inside jokes and someone who calls me out when I’m being too intense about game film.”
You laugh through your tears. “You are too intense about game film.”
“I know,” he says, smiling. “And you’re the only person who can tell me that and make me actually listen.”
He opens the ring box, and your hand flies to your mouth.
“Oh my god,” you breathe. “Sidney, that’s-”
“I had it made for you,” he explains. “The blue diamond because you said you loved them. The cathedral setting because you’re always talking about architecture when we travel. I wanted it to be unique. Like you.”
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” you whisper.
“This whole trip,” he continues, “watching you fall in love with these islands, seeing you feed every cat we encounter, listening to you try to learn Greek from the locals — I’ve been falling more in love with you every single day. Which I didn’t think was possible because I was already so gone for you.”
“Sid,” you say, your voice breaking.
“You’re brilliant and funny and kind,” he says. “You’re going to finish your PhD and do incredible things and change the world with your research. And I want to be there for all of it. I want to watch you defend your dissertation and get your first academic job and publish your first book. I want to support you the way you support me.”
“You already do,” you manage.
“I want to come home to you every night,” he continues. “I want to travel the world with you. I want to have babies with you — when you’re ready — and build a family. I want to grow old with you and still be feeding Greek cats when we’re seventy.”
You’re fully sobbing now, and so is Yiayia Eleni, who’s appeared in the doorway with a handkerchief.
“You’re my home,” Sidney says, and his own voice is unsteady now. “You’re my family. You’re everything I didn’t know I needed and everything I can’t imagine living without. And I know I’m older than you, and I’m gone a lot, and my life is complicated, but-”
“Sidney,” you interrupt, your hand on his face. “Ask me. Please just ask me.”
He takes a shaky breath. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” you say immediately, emphatically. “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.”
He barely gets the ring out of the box before you’re pulling him up, kissing him with tears streaming down both your faces. He manages to slip the ring onto your finger between kisses, and it fits perfectly — of course it does, he had your ring size memorized from that time you tried on rings at a vintage store in Pittsburgh.
When you finally pull back to look at it, you make a sound that’s pure joy.
“Sidney, this is—I can’t even-” You turn your hand, watching the blue diamond catch the last of the sunset. “How did you design this? It’s perfect. The cathedral setting, the way the band has these details — it’s like it was made specifically for me.”
“It was,” he confirms. “Every part of it. I wanted you to have something no one else has.”
“Mission accomplished,” you say, kissing him again. “I can’t believe you did this. Here, on this perfect trip, at this perfect restaurant-”
“I wanted it to be special,” he says.
“It’s perfect,” you assure him. “You’re perfect. This is perfect.”
Yiayia Eleni appears with champagne that Sidney definitely didn’t order but that she’s clearly been saving for this exact moment. She’s talking rapidly in Greek, gesturing at the ring, at you, at Sidney, and while you can’t understand the words, the meaning is clear: congratulations, how beautiful, how wonderful.
Papou Pavlos appears with a camera, insisting on taking photos. The other diners are applauding. Someone brings out baklava with a candle in it.
“Did you plan all this?” You ask, laughing through tears.
“I planned the proposal,” Sidney admits. “Yiayia Eleni planned the celebration.”
“I love her,” you declare, and Yiayia Eleni, understanding her name if not the words, beams and kisses both your cheeks.
You insist on taking photos of the ring against the sunset, the ring with the harbor in the background, the ring next to your wine glass. Sidney takes a photo of you wearing the ring, your smile brighter than any sunset, and knows he’s going to frame it.
“Call my parents,” you say suddenly. “And yours. We have to tell them.”
“Right now?” He asks, amused.
“Right now,” you insist. “They need to know. Your parents need to know they’re getting a daughter-in-law. My parents need to know they’re getting Sidney Crosby as a son-in-law, which they’re going to lose their minds about.”
“Your dad’s going to make daddy jokes,” Sidney realizes.
“Oh absolutely,” you confirm. “For the rest of your life. You’ve signed up for this.”
“Worth it,” he says, kissing you again.
You make the calls right there at the table, with the Aegean Sea behind you and the ring catching every light. Your mom cries. Your dad says “I knew it” and then makes exactly the joke Sidney predicted about calling him dad. Sidney’s mom cries too, and his dad gives him a gruff congratulations that sounds suspiciously emotional.
Your brother demands photos of the ring immediately and then sends back a string of all-caps messages about how Sidney BETTER TREAT HIS SISTER RIGHT OR ELSE.
“He’s twenty-one,” you point out, reading the messages. “What’s he going to do?”
“He plays college baseball,” Sidney says. “He could probably do some damage.”
“Fair point,” you concede.
By the time you finish making calls, the sky is fully dark, stars beginning to appear. Yiayia Eleni has brought out more wine, more baklava, and what looks like her entire extended family to congratulate you.
“This is the best day of my life,” you tell Sidney, your hand in his, the ring gleaming in the candlelight.
“Mine too,” he agrees.
“Better than winning the Stanley Cup?” You tease.
“So much better,” he says, and means it. “The Cup doesn’t kiss back.”
You laugh, that sound he loves, and lean your head on his shoulder. “What do we do now?”
“Now,” he says, “we finish our wine, eat more baklava than is advisable, and walk back to the yacht as an engaged couple.”
“And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow we wake up and you’re still going to be my fiancée,” he says. “And I’m going to make you breakfast and probably stare at you wearing that ring for several hours.”
“Sounds perfect,” you say. “What about after this trip?”
“After this trip, we go home and you finish your PhD,” he says. “And we start planning a wedding. And we build our life together.”
“Our life,” you repeat, testing the words. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me too,” he says.
Yiayia Eleni insists on more photos — of you and Sidney, of the ring, of the whole family together. She makes you promise to send copies, to come back for your anniversary, to name your first daughter Eleni.
“She’s very invested in our future,” you observe as you finally say goodbye.
“She’s been planning this since I called to make the reservation,” Sidney admits. “I think she’s been shopping for your wedding gift.”
“I love her,” you say again. “I love this place. I love this island. I love that this is our story now — how you proposed on a quiet Greek island at a family restaurant while I was still sunburned from feeding cats all day.”
“That’s very on brand for us,” Sidney observes.
“It really is,” you agree.
The walk back to the yacht is quiet, your hand in his, the ring catching the moonlight. Other couples pass by, locals heading home from dinner, and Sidney realizes this is what he wants for the rest of his life. This. You. Quiet walks and shared moments and building something that matters more than hockey ever could.
On the yacht, you insist on modeling the ring in better lighting, taking more photos, sending them to your cohort group chat and watching the messages explode.
The yacht is anchored in the quiet harbor, the island lights twinkling on the shore. You lean against the railing and Sidney wraps his arms around you from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder.
“I can’t believe I get to marry you,” you murmur.
“I can’t believe you said yes,” he counters.
“Of course I said yes,” you say, turning to face him. “You’re Sidney Crosby. You’re brilliant and kind and you make me laugh and you support my career and you planned this entire perfect trip just to propose to me in the most romantic way possible.”
“When you put it that way, I sound pretty good,” he says, smiling.
“You are pretty good,” you confirm. “Even if you are a dirty old man sometimes.”
“I’m your dirty old man now,” he points out.
“Fiancé,” you correct. “You’re my fiancé. My dirty old fiancé.”
“Even better,” he agrees.
You kiss him under the stars, wearing his ring, and Sidney thinks about how far they’ve come from that charity gala where you argued about hockey statistics. How you’ve gone from the girl who challenged him to the woman he can’t imagine living without.
“I love you,” he says against your lips.
“I love you too,” you say back. “Future husband.”
“Future wife,” he replies, and the words feel right in a way that makes his chest tight.
Later, in the cabin, you insist on sleeping with your left hand on his chest so you can see the ring even in the dark.
“You’re ridiculous,” he says fondly.
“I’m engaged,” you counter. “I’m allowed to be ridiculous about my engagement ring.”
“Fair,” he concedes.
“Tell me again,” you say sleepily. “About the ring. How you designed it.”
“I worked with a jeweler in New York,” he explains, his fingers tracing patterns on your back. “Told him I wanted something unique. Something that represented you. He suggested the blue diamond because they’re rare and distinctive. The cathedral setting because of the structural elements, the way it frames the stone. We went through probably twenty designs before we found the right one.”
“It’s perfect,” you murmur. “I’m never taking it off.”
“You’re going to have to,” he points out. “For lab work. Research. When you’re washing dishes.”
“Okay, fine, sometimes I’ll take it off,” you concede. “But I’m going to hate every second of it.”
He laughs, pressing a kiss to your hair. “I’m glad you like it.”
“I don’t like it,” you correct. “I love it. Just like I love you.”
“Love you too,” he says. “Future Dr. Crosby.”
You make a happy sound. “I didn’t even think about that. I’m going to be Dr. Crosby. That sounds so official.”
“Very official,” he agrees. “Very impressive.”
“Your wife is going to be a doctor,” you say, testing the words. “How does that feel?”
“Like I’m the luckiest man alive,” he says honestly.
You shift to kiss him properly. “We both are. Lucky, I mean.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “We really are.”
You fall asleep like that, engaged and happy and planning a future that feels bigger and brighter than anything Sidney could have imagined.
The thing about Sidney Crosby is that he’s spent his whole life winning.
But this — you, with his ring on your finger, saying yes to forever — this is the biggest win of all.
sorry to bother lol but i’ve been wanting to get into hockey but have no clue where to start 😭😭
i’ve been searching things up but honestly it’s so confusing and was hoping you could help
i just want to know like the basics of hockey and where i could possibly start watching it and where to start
hope that makes sense
thanks!!
Welcome to the dark side, we have goalie hugs! I made a little explainer post about hockey a while ago that I think is a pretty good jumping off point to start with 🫶
Summary: you don’t tell him your last name. By the time Dean finds out, he’s too far gone to do anything but brace for impact. Falling for the ice-cold, vodka-drinking Russian freshman is one thing. Falling for Ilya Rozanov’s little sister is a death wish. Dean decides he doesn’t care
Warning: 18+ content
Read part one here
The last agonizing tremor of your climax finally fades, leaving your body entirely boneless against the tangled sheets of Dean’s bed.
You are staring blindly at the ceiling, your chest heaving as you drag oxygen back into your lungs. Your mind feels completely blank, blissfully scrubbed clean of everything except the heavy, throbbing ache between your thighs and the lingering heat of Dean’s mouth.
Dean shifts his weight at the foot of the bed. He pulls away from your wet center with a soft, indecent sound, resting his cheek against your inner thigh for a long second to catch his own breath. His blond hair is a messy, sweat-dampened halo, and his broad shoulders rise and fall rapidly.
Slowly, he pushes himself up, crawling up the length of the mattress until he is hovering over you.
He looks completely wrecked in the best possible way. His lips are slick and slightly swollen, his green eyes dark and blown wide. He drops down onto the mattress beside you, flopping heavily onto his back and letting out a long, exhausted groan.
He doesn’t give you any space. He immediately rolls onto his side, throwing one heavy arm across your stomach and pulling you flush against his warm, sweat-slicked chest. He presses a soft, lingering kiss to your bare shoulder, tasting you on his own lips.
“Jesus,” Dean murmurs into the quiet room. “You taste so fucking good, Y/N.”
“You are …” you start, but your voice comes out as a weak, raspy croak. You clear your throat, trying to summon a shred of your usual dignity. “You are very enthusiastic.”
Dean chuckles, the sound vibrating against your ribcage. “Enthusiastic. That’s one word for it. I was going for ’life-changing,’ but I’ll take it.”
You let your eyes slip shut, resting your head against the pillow and enjoying the heavy, comforting weight of his body against yours. The room is quiet, the only sounds the faint hum of the heating vent and the synchronized rhythm of your breathing. It is peaceful. It is perfect.
Which is exactly why your instincts tell you to ruin it.
Ilya’s voice echoes in the back of your mind. Men like that, they get attached. They get possessive. You shift slightly, trying to put an inch of space between you so you can clear your head, but Dean’s arm immediately tightens like a vise around your waist, locking you in place.
“Don’t move,” Dean says quietly. The playful, post-coital banter is suddenly gone from his voice. It is replaced by a low, serious tone that makes your heart give a hard, erratic thump.
“I am sweating,” you complain, though you make no further effort to move. “Your body heat is excessive.”
“Tough. You’re staying right here.” Dean props himself up on one elbow, looking down at you. The dim light from the bedside lamp casts sharp shadows across his face, highlighting the firm, resolute set of his jaw. “We need to talk.”
Your stomach drops. You hate talking. Talking leads to feelings, and feelings lead to a loss of control.
“If this is about your performance on the ice yesterday,” you deflect smoothly, keeping your expression perfectly blank, “I already told you that your gap control was acceptable. Not great, but acceptable.”
“It’s not about hockey, Y/N,” Dean says, refusing to take the bait. He reaches up, brushing a damp strand of hair off your forehead. His touch is incredibly gentle, completely at odds with the intense, unwavering look in his eyes. “It’s about us.”
“There is no us, Di Laurentis,” you remind him, clinging to the rules you established on day one. “This is an arrangement. It is mutually beneficial. It is casual.”
“Right. Casual,” Dean repeats. He lets out a dry, humorless laugh. “I have a toothbrush in your bathroom. I know your coffee order by heart. You know my stats better than my head coach does. And I just spent the last twenty minutes making you scream my name in two different languages.”
He leans down, his face inches from yours. “Tell me again how casual this is.”
You swallow hard, your throat suddenly dry. “Those are just details.”
“Bullshit,” Dean fires back. He isn’t angry, but he is completely uncompromising. “It’s not casual for me. Not anymore. I’m not doing this halfway, Y/N. I want you.”
“You have me,” you point out, gesturing vaguely to your naked body trapped beneath his.
“You know what I mean,” Dean says, his voice dropping an octave, turning raw and gravelly. “I want all of you. I don’t want you going on dates with other guys. I don’t want you looking at anyone else. Hell, I barely want you looking at my teammates.”
“You are being ridiculous.” You push against his chest, finally managing to sit up slightly, though Dean simply shifts his weight to keep you pinned to the mattress. You pull the sheet up to cover your breasts, suddenly feeling incredibly exposed. “I do not go on dates with other men. I do not have the time or the patience.”
“But you could,” Dean presses, his green eyes locking onto yours. “You could walk out of here tomorrow and hook up with some finance bro from Harvard, and I wouldn’t have the right to say a damn thing about it.”
“And you could hook up with a sorority girl,” you counter, lifting your chin. “That is the point of being casual. We are both free to do as we please.”
“I haven’t even looked at another girl since the night you insulted my backhand,” Dean admits bluntly. The raw honesty in his voice actually makes you flinch. He doesn’t hide behind a smirk. He just lays his cards on the table, completely vulnerable. “I don’t want anyone else. I just want you. I want to be your boyfriend.”
The word hangs in the air between you, heavy and terrifying.
You stare at him, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. You came to America to escape the suffocating control of the men in your family. You promised yourself you wouldn’t get tied down. You promised yourself you would always hold all the cards.
“Dean,” you say, your voice tight, your Russian accent slipping out heavily. “You do not want this. I am difficult. I am demanding. My brother is a literal psychopath who will probably put you in the hospital when he finds out.”
“I don’t give a fuck about Ilya,” Dean says instantly. “Let him try. I’ll take a beating if it means I get to keep you.”
“It is not just him,” you argue, shaking your head. Your chest aches. You hate how much you want to say yes. “We are entirely different. You are … you are Dean Di Laurentis. You are the party guy. You do not do commitment.”
“I do now,” Dean says simply.
“People do not change that fast.”
“Watch me.”
“I cannot do this,” you say, a genuine edge of panic creeping into your voice. You try to scramble backward against the headboard, desperate to put physical distance between you so you can think straight.
But Dean is faster.
He shifts forward, following you up the bed. Before you can retreat, his hands come up, gripping your wrists firmly but gently, pulling them away from the sheet you are clutching like a shield. He pins your hands flat against the mattress on either side of your head.
“Don’t run away from me,” Dean murmurs, his face hovering just above yours.
“I am not running,” you lie, your breathing turning shallow. “I am simply concluding this conversation.”
“The conversation isn’t over.”
Dean leans down, and instead of kissing your lips, he presses his open mouth against the pulse point just below your jaw.
You let out a sharp, involuntary gasp.
“Dean,” you warn him, though your voice lacks any real authority.
He ignores you. He traces the line of your jaw with his tongue, his breath hot against your skin. “You talk too much when you’re scared, Y/N.”
“I am not scared.”
“Yes, you are,” he whispers against your skin. He trails a line of soft, open-mouthed kisses down your neck, lingering on the sensitive spot right at the base of your throat. “You’re terrified. You like being in control, and right now, you realize you don’t have it. Because you want me just as much as I want you.”
“Arrogant,” you breathe, your eyes fluttering shut as his teeth lightly scrape against your collarbone. A violent shudder rips through your body.
“Honest,” he corrects.
He shifts his weight, sliding his knee securely between your thighs, forcing your legs apart. You are completely pinned beneath him, completely at his mercy, and the terrifying truth is that you don’t want to be anywhere else.
Dean releases one of your wrists, using his newly freed hand to slowly, deliberately trace a path down your stomach. His rough calluses drag against your soft skin, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. He dips his fingers just below your navel, pressing lightly against your lower abdomen.
You arch your back instinctively, a soft moan escaping your lips. You are still so incredibly sensitive from your earlier climax, and his proximity is short-circuiting your brain.
“Tell me this is casual,” Dean challenges, his voice dark and raspy. He moves his mouth to the swell of your breast, his tongue swirling around the tight peak.
“Dean,” you gasp, your fingers curling into the sheets. “Stop playing fair.”
“I’m playing to win,” he mumbles against your skin, lightly sucking the sensitive flesh into his mouth.
You cry out, your hips bucking up against his thigh. Your defenses are crumbling. They are completely, utterly disintegrating under the sheer, focused intensity of his attention. He knows your body perfectly. He knows exactly how to dismantle you.
He slides his hand lower, his long fingers finding your wet, aching center. He doesn’t enter you. He just traces the slick folds, pressing firmly against your clit with his thumb.
“Look at me,” Dean commands softly.
You force your eyes open. The cocky, easygoing college boy is gone. The man hovering over you is lethal, focused, and entirely devoted to you. His green eyes are burning into yours, completely stripping away every wall you have ever built.
“Be mine,” Dean whispers, his thumb slowly, agonizingly circling your most sensitive spot. “Just mine, Y/N. Say yes.”
“If I say yes,” you grit out, your accent thick, your body trembling under his touch, “you are going to regret it. I will ruin your life.”
Dean smiles. It is a devastating, triumphant smile.
“Ruin it, then,” he says. “But you’re doing it as my girlfriend.”
He presses his thumb down harder, and you shatter.
“Fine!” You gasp out, the word tearing from your throat as pleasure spikes sharply in your core. “Fine, yes. I am yours. We are exclusive.”
Dean stops moving his hand. He freezes, staring down at you, his chest heaving. The triumph in his eyes is so bright it’s almost blinding.
“Say it again,” he breathes.
“Do not push your luck, Di Laurentis,” you groan, turning your head against the pillow to hide the flush creeping up your cheeks.
Dean laughs, a sound of pure joy. He releases your other wrist, using both hands to cup your face, forcing you to look at him. He kisses you — hard, deep, and impossibly sweet. It isn’t a demanding kiss. It is a promise. It tastes like victory and relief.
“My girl,” Dean murmurs against your lips. “God, I love the sound of that.”
“Do not get used to it,” you warn him weakly, though you kiss him back, your hands tangling in his thick blond hair. “If you do anything to annoy me, I am breaking up with you.”
“You can try,” Dean grins, pulling back slightly to look down at you. His eyes darken, the playful energy suddenly shifting back into something entirely carnal. He looks at your flushed skin, your bruised lips, your dark hair spread wildly across his pillows.
“And now,” Dean says, his voice dropping into a rough, gravelly purr that makes your stomach clench. “For being such a good girl and finally admitting the truth, I think you deserve a reward.”
You raise an eyebrow, trying to summon your haughty persona, but it’s completely ruined by the way your chest is heaving. “A reward? You think you are training a dog?”
“I think,” Dean says, sliding his hand down your stomach to grip your hip firmly, “I’m going to fuck you so hard you forget how to speak entirely.”
Your breath hitches.
Dean doesn’t hesitate. He reaches over to the nightstand, grabbing a foil packet. He rips it open with his teeth, his eyes never leaving yours, and rolls it on with quick, practiced efficiency.
When he settles back over you, the air in the room feels thick enough to cut with a knife. He hooks his hands under your knees, dragging your legs up high and hooking them over his broad shoulders. The position completely opens you up to him, leaving you entirely exposed and deeply vulnerable.
“Dean,” you whisper, your eyes widening slightly at the intense, predatory look on his face.
“I’ve got you,” he promises softly.
He aligns his hips with yours, the thick, blunt head of his length resting against your slick opening. He doesn’t thrust right away. He just lets you feel the size of him, the heavy, pulsing heat waiting at your entrance.
“Tell me who you belong to,” Dean demands, his voice a low, rough rumble.
“I belong to myself,” you fire back stubbornly, even as your hips instinctively tilt up, silently begging him to enter you.
Dean chuckles darkly. He pushes forward just an inch, stretching your tight entrance, and then pulls back.
You let out a frustrated whine, your hands gripping the sheets. “Dean. Please.”
“Say it,” he insists, repeating the agonizingly slow, teasing motion. “Who are you exclusive with, Y/N?”
“You,” you gasp, your resistance completely snapping. “You. Just you.”
“That’s right.”
Dean grips your hips tight enough to leave bruises and drives forward in one long, brutal thrust, burying himself inside you to the hilt.
You scream, your head throwing back against the mattress. The feeling of him filling you completely, stretching you so deeply, is overwhelming. It is painful and pleasurable and incredibly intense. You are so wet from his mouth earlier that he glides in smoothly, but the sheer size of him makes you completely breathless.
Dean groans, his jaw clenching as he forces himself to hold still for a second, letting your body adjust. His chest is heaving, a sheen of sweat coating his skin.
“Fuck,” he grates out, his eyes squeezed shut. “You are so perfect. So tight.”
“Do not stop,” you beg, your accent thick and heavy. You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling his chest down flush against yours. You need the friction. You need him.
Dean opens his eyes, looking down at you with a gaze that is pure, unfiltered fire. “I’m not stopping until the sun comes up.”
He starts to move.
The first few thrusts are slow and incredibly deep. He pulls almost all the way out, letting the sensitive head drag against your entrance, before slamming his hips forward and burying himself inside you again. The skin-on-skin slap of his body meeting yours echoes loudly in the quiet room.
You sob out a breath, your nails digging into his shoulders. “Dean … oh my god.”
“Look at me,” he commands, his voice tight with his own strain.
You open your eyes, meeting his intense green gaze. He wants you to see this. He wants you to see exactly what he is doing to you, exactly who is making you feel like this.
He speeds up, his thrusts becoming harder, faster, and more punishing. The angle is devastating. With your legs hooked over his shoulders, every single stroke hits deep, striking that bundle of nerves that sends blinding sparks behind your eyelids.
The room spins. The only things anchoring you to reality are the heavy weight of Dean’s body, the burning heat inside you, and the relentless, driving rhythm of his hips.
“Are you mine?” Dean asks, his voice harsh as he pounds into you.
“Yes,” you gasp, entirely broken down.
“Just mine?” He thrusts harder, the head of the bed frame banging rhythmically against the wall.
“Yes!” You cry out.
“Good.” Dean shifts his grip, sliding one hand under your lower back to angle your hips even higher. The penetration becomes impossibly deeper. “Because I am completely fucking obsessed with you.”
The dirty, possessive words act like a match to a powder keg.
Your entire body goes rigid. The pleasure spikes so sharply it steals your vision. You feel the climax building in the pit of your stomach, tightening like a coiled spring, hot and frantic.
“Dean,” you sob, the syllables fracturing. You try to push back against him, chasing the friction, completely desperate.
“I know,” he rasps, reading your body perfectly. He leans down, capturing your lips in a messy, bruising kiss, swallowing your moans as he increases his pace to a frantic, relentless sprint.
He is relentless. He doesn’t give you a single second to catch your breath. He just keeps driving into you, deep and hard, pushing you higher and higher until you are completely teetering on the edge.
“Pozhaluysta,” you beg wildly against his mouth.
“Come for me, Y/N,” Dean growls, tearing his mouth away to look at your face. “Let it go.”
You shatter.
Your climax rips through you with violent force, a massive, overwhelming wave of pure ecstasy. You scream his name into the quiet room, your inner walls clamping down hard and fast around his thick length.
Dean shouts, a raw, guttural sound of triumph. He drives his hips forward two more times, impossibly deep, and completely falls apart with you. He empties himself inside the condom with heavy, shuddering groans, his entire body trembling as he collapses against you.
He buries his face in the crook of your neck, his weight crushing you into the mattress. His chest heaves against yours, his heart hammering a frantic, terrifying rhythm directly over your own.
For a very long time, neither of you moves. The only sound in the room is the ragged, desperate panting of two people completely wrecked by each other.
Slowly, the adrenaline begins to fade, replaced by a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion.
Dean stirs first. He pulls out of you with a soft sound, disposing of the condom before crawling right back into bed beside you. He doesn’t give you a chance to retreat to your side of the mattress. He wraps his arms around you, pulling your back flush against his chest, and tangles his legs with yours.
He presses a soft, lingering kiss to the back of your neck.
“Mine,” Dean whispers into the dark room, his voice completely satisfied.
You let out a soft sigh, too tired to argue, too happy to care. You close your eyes, letting the warmth of his body envelop you. You know you are going to have to deal with Ilya eventually. You know your perfectly controlled life is completely off the rails.
But as Dean’s hand rests heavily over your heart, keeping you grounded, you smile into the darkness.
Let the game begin.
***
The arena is absolutely deafening on a Friday night in early December.
You are sitting in your usual spot in the lower bowl, your heavy winter coat unzipped, the collar of your dark sweater pulled up against the chill of the rink. The air smells exactly the same as it always does — cold ice, stale popcorn, and the sharp, metallic tang of sweat and adrenaline.
Down on the ice, game is tied 2-2 in the middle of the second period against a viciously aggressive opponent. The play is fast, sloppy, and heavily physical.
“I still don’t understand icing,” Morgan says loudly, leaning close to your ear to be heard over the roar of the student section behind you. She is clutching a massive pretzel and shivering, despite wearing three layers. “Like, why can’t they just hit it to the other side?”
“Because it slows down the pace of the game and rewards lazy defensive zone breakouts,” you explain automatically, your eyes tracking the puck as it cycles behind the Briar net. “It forces the team to skate the puck over the red line before dumping it.”
“Right. Obviously.” Morgan takes a bite of her pretzel. “Are you going to Dean’s house after this?”
You don’t look away from the ice. “Maybe.”
“That means yes,” Morgan singsongs. “You guys are, like, practically married now. It’s actually kind of gross how obsessed he is with you.”
You finally tear your gaze away from the game, shooting your roommate a flat, unimpressed look. “We are not married. We have been exclusive for exactly one month. And he is not obsessed.”
“He literally brought you a coffee in the middle of a blizzard on Wednesday just because you texted him that the dining hall espresso machine was broken,” Morgan points out dryly. “He treats you like a queen.”
“I am a queen,” you say smoothly, turning back to the game. “He is simply acting accordingly.”
Before Morgan can argue, a sudden, massive shadow falls over your row.
The overhead arena lights are blocked out. The people sitting in the row behind you suddenly go dead silent. You feel a distinct, heavy shift in the air, followed by the undeniable scent of expensive Tom Ford cologne and a hint of winter frost.
“Move over,” a deep, booming voice commands in heavily accented English.
Morgan jumps, her eyes going completely wide. She scrambles to the left, practically throwing herself into the empty seat beside her to clear the space.
You turn your head slowly.
Dropping down into the newly vacated plastic seat next to you, completely unannounced and looking like a mob boss, is your older brother.
Ilya stretches his long, powerful legs out, resting his forearms on his knees as he peers down at the ice. He is wearing a dark, tailored wool peacoat over a black turtleneck, a dark beanie pulled low over his forehead. He looks entirely out of place in the sea of drunk college students wearing cheap synthetic jerseys, and yet, he looks like he owns the entire building.
“Ilya?” You ask, your voice dropping perfectly into Russian. “What are you doing here?”
“The Bruins have a home stand,” Ilya replies in Russian, not taking his eyes off the ice. “We played last night. We play again on Sunday. I was bored. And you were not answering your texts.”
“I am watching a hockey game.”
“You are watching boys chase a piece of rubber like blind dogs,” Ilya corrects, gesturing vaguely toward the ice as the opposing team fumbles a pass. “Look at this. The neutral zone is completely wide open. It is a tragedy.”
You sigh, rubbing your temples. “You cannot just show up to my university unannounced, Ilya. You are going to cause a riot.”
It’s true. Whispers are already breaking out in the surrounding rows. People are pointing. The Briar student section is heavily populated by hockey fans, and the Boston Bruins’ star center sitting casually in Section 104 is not going unnoticed.
“Let them riot,” Ilya says dismissively, switching back to English for Morgan’s benefit, shooting her a devastating, perfectly charming smile that makes her blush furiously. “Hello, Morgan. Are you learning about hockey?”
“H-hi, Ilya,” Morgan stammers, completely starstruck. “Yes. I mean, Y/N is trying to teach me.”
“Good luck,” Ilya snorts. He leans forward, resting his chin on his fist. His eyes narrow as he begins to analyze the play with ruthless, surgical precision. “Look at this power play. It is pathetic. The umbrella formation is too flat. The center is not moving his feet.”
You cross your arms, sinking slightly lower in your seat. “They are college students, Ilya. Not professionals.”
“They are pretending to be hockey players,” Ilya grumbles. “Ah, look. Number … sixty-six.”
Your breath hitches slightly.
Down on the ice, Dean receives a pass at the point. He looks incredibly sharp tonight, his skating fluid and effortless. He drags the puck along the blue line, walking it away from a diving defender, and snaps a crisp, perfect pass right into the slot for a waiting forward.
“Number sixty-six,” Ilya repeats, his eyes tracking Dean’s movement. “He is fast. I will give him that. Good edge work. But he is arrogant.”
“You are calling someone arrogant?” You ask dryly. “That is rich.”
“I am arrogant because I am the best,” Ilya states, entirely serious. “This boy, he plays with a chip on his shoulder. Look at his gap control. It is … acceptable.”
Coming from Ilya, the word ‘acceptable’ is essentially a glowing endorsement. It takes everything in your power not to smile.
“He is the leading scoring defenseman in the conference,” you point out casually, playing devil’s advocate.
“Because he plays against children,” Ilya counters immediately. “But he has good hands. And he hits hard.”
As if on cue, an opposing forward tries to enter the Briar zone with his head down. Dean steps up, dropping his shoulder, and delivers a clean, crushing open-ice hit that sends the forward flying into the boards.
The crowd erupts into cheers. You offer a small, proud clap.
Ilya nods slowly, a grudging look of respect crossing his face. “Okay. That was not terrible. He has decent timing.”
You turn your head to hide your smirk. Ilya is literally analyzing your boyfriend, completely unaware that the “acceptable” defenseman currently dominating the ice is the exact same boy who has been leaving bruises on your hips for the last month.
For the rest of the game, Ilya provides a running, highly critical commentary. He complains about the coaching. He complains about the referees. He loudly predicts every single play before it happens, much to the awe of the frat boys sitting three rows back who are currently taking notes.
When the final buzzer sounds, securing a 4-2 victory for Briar, the arena explodes with noise.
“Finally,” Ilya sighs, standing up and stretching his massive frame. “I was beginning to lose brain cells.”
“You only have three left to lose,” you tease, grabbing your purse. You look up at him. “So, are you taking me to dinner? Or did you just come here to complain?”
“I am taking you to dinner,” Ilya confirms, wrapping a heavy arm around your shoulders and pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “But first, I want to see the locker room. I want to see where these boys pretend to be athletes.”
Your stomach drops. “You want to go to the locker room?”
“Why not?” Ilya smirks, his dark eyes gleaming with amusement. “I am Ilya Rozanov. I go where I want.”
You look at Morgan, who gives you a wide-eyed, terrified look. You promised to wait for Dean outside the locker room after the game. It’s part of your routine. Dean comes out, fresh from the shower, pulls you into a dark corner, kisses you senseless, and then drags you to his car.
Now, you are going to be waiting outside the locker room with the most overprotective, terrifying player in the NHL.
The game is officially up.
“Fine,” you say, your voice perfectly calm despite the frantic hammering of your heart. “Let us go.”
***
The hallway outside the locker room is usually heavily guarded, restricted to team personnel and family. But when a six-foot-four Russian tank with a multi-million dollar NHL contract walks down the corridor, the security guards practically stumble over themselves to hold the doors open.
You stand with your back against the cinderblock wall, arms crossed, trying to look completely unbothered. Ilya stands next to you, taking up half the hallway, looking around with a deeply unimpressed expression.
“It smells like wet dog,” Ilya observes loudly.
“It is a hockey locker room, Ilya,” you remind him.
The heavy double doors swing open.
The first person to walk out is Garrett. The Briar captain is dressed in a sharp suit, his gym bag slung over his shoulder, chatting over his shoulder to Logan.
Garrett steps out into the hallway, turns his head, and freezes.
He stops so abruptly that Logan literally crashes into his back.
“What the hell, G?” Logan complains, rubbing his shoulder. “Keep walking-”
Logan looks up. He sees you. Then, his eyes track to the right, and he sees the massive, brooding figure standing next to you.
Logan’s mouth drops open.
Garrett looks like he is going to faint. He is staring at Ilya with the wide, terrified, awestruck expression of a man who has just met God.
“Holy shit,” Garrett whispers.
Ilya raises an eyebrow. He looks Garrett up and down, his gaze heavily calculating. “You are the captain. Graham. Yes?”
“Y-yes,” Garrett stammers. His voice actually cracks. The captain of the Briar hockey team, the guy who fights defensemen twice his size on the ice without blinking, is currently sweating through his suit jacket. “Yes, sir. Garrett Graham.”
“I have seen your tapes,” Ilya says casually, though his tone is terrifyingly flat. “Your face-off percentage is acceptable. But you rely too much on your wingers to dig the puck out of the corners. You need to use your body more.”
“I will,” Garrett says immediately, nodding so fast he looks like a bobblehead. “I’ll do that. Thank you, Mr. Rozanov. Sir.”
“Do not call me sir,” Ilya grunts. “You make me sound old.”
Tucker walks out next, stops dead in his tracks, and slowly backs away until he is pressed against the opposite wall, trying to make himself entirely invisible.
And then, the doors swing open one last time.
Dean steps out into the hallway.
His blonde hair is damp from the shower, pushed back in a messy, effortless style. He is wearing a tailored grey suit jacket with the collar open, no tie, looking entirely too cocky for his own good. He is laughing at something one of the assistant coaches said inside.
He turns the corner, his green eyes scanning the hallway. They find you instantly.
A massive, devastatingly handsome smile breaks across his face. He takes a step toward you, his entire body language softening, lighting up with that intense, focused devotion he saves entirely for you.
“Hey, beautiful,” Dean says, closing the distance. “Sorry I took so long, I had to-”
Dean stops.
He is exactly three feet away from you. He finally realizes that the massive, dark-coated wall of muscle standing right next to you is not a security guard.
Dean’s eyes slowly travel up from the expensive black combat boots, over the tailored peacoat, and finally lock onto the dark, lethal face of Ilya Rozanov.
The silence in the hallway is absolute.
Garrett is holding his breath. Logan is slowly inching toward the exit, ready to call an ambulance. Tucker has closed his eyes, preparing for the gore.
You stand perfectly still. You look at Dean, and then you look at your brother.
“Ilya,” you say, your voice ringing clearly in the dead-silent corridor. “This is Dean Di Laurentis. Dean, this is my brother, Ilya.”
Ilya slowly turns his head to look at Dean. The casual, slightly bored older-brother aura completely vanishes. His posture straightens, his shoulders expanding, taking up every inch of available space. He looks down at Dean with eyes so dark and cold they could freeze the Charles River.
“Ah,” Ilya says softly. The Russian accent is suddenly much, much thicker. “Number sixty-six.”
Dean swallows. You can literally see the Adam’s apple bob in his throat. But to his absolute credit, he doesn’t take a step back.
He squares his own shoulders. He pulls himself up to his full height, refusing to cower. He meets Ilya’s terrifying gaze head-on, the cocky, playful college boy completely melting away, replaced by the stubborn, unyielding defenseman who refuses to give up his blue line.
“It’s an honor to meet you,” Dean says, his voice steady, offering his hand.
Ilya looks at Dean’s outstretched hand for a long, agonizing five seconds. He does not take it.
Dean slowly lowers his hand, entirely unbothered, tucking it into the pocket of his slacks. He holds Ilya’s stare.
“You are dating my sister,” Ilya states. It is not a question. It is an accusation, heavy with the promise of violence.
“Yes,” Dean says simply. “I am.”
“She is nineteen years old,” Ilya says, taking a single, slow step closer to Dean. He is invading his space, using his size to intimidate. “She is brilliant. She is perfect. And she is the only family I have that matters.”
“I know,” Dean replies, his jaw tightening slightly. “She talks about you all the time.”
“Then she has told you what I do to people who cross me,” Ilya murmurs, his voice dropping so low it’s almost a growl. “She has told you that I do not play games, Di Laurentis. I end them.”
“She mentioned it,” Dean agrees, his green eyes flashing with a sudden, dark challenge.
“Let me make this very clear,” Ilya says, leaning down slightly so he is perfectly eye-level with Dean. “If you make her cry, you will not have to worry about a career in the NHL. Because they will not find enough of you to bury in a matchbox. Do you understand me?”
Garrett actually whimpers.
You cross your arms tighter, watching Dean closely. Most men would apologize. Most men would stammer, back away, and promise to be perfect.
Dean just stares right back into the eyes of the most dangerous man in hockey.
“If I make her cry,” Dean says, his voice low, steady, and vibrating with absolute certainty, “you can have a free shot. You can break both my legs. But it won’t happen.”
Ilya’s eyes narrow to slits.
“Because I’m not going to hurt her,” Dean continues, leaning in a fraction of an inch himself, refusing to back down. “I’m keeping her.”
The tension is so thick you could carve it with a steak knife. The two men stare at each other, neither blinking, neither giving an inch. It is an absolute standoff of alpha male ego and fierce, unyielding protectiveness.
And then, suddenly, the ice breaks.
Ilya lets out a sharp, barking laugh.
He lifts his massive hand and claps Dean on the shoulder. The force of the hit is so hard it actually makes Dean stumble half a step, but Ilya grips his shoulder tightly, hauling him back up.
“I like this one!” Ilya booms, turning to look at you, his eyes sparkling with genuine amusement. “He has spine! He is stupid, but he has spine!”
The collective exhale from Garrett, Logan, and Tucker sounds like a punctured tire.
Dean blinks, totally caught off guard by the sudden shift in energy, but a slow, cocky smirk immediately begins to form on his lips. “I prefer the term confident, but I’ll take stupid if it means you aren’t going to murder me.”
“Oh, I might still murder you,” Ilya says cheerfully, releasing Dean’s shoulder. “We will see how the season goes. Your backhand is still weak.”
“It’s getting better,” Dean fires back effortlessly, leaning casually against the wall. The fear is completely gone, replaced by his usual, charming swagger. “Y/N runs drills with me. She’s a brutal coach.”
“She learned from me,” Ilya points out, puffing out his chest slightly. “The Russian system is superior.”
“I don’t know,” Dean argues playfully, crossing his arms. “The North American system focuses more on creativity. Let the players make plays.”
“Creativity is an excuse for a lack of discipline,” Ilya scoffs, waving a hand dismissively.
“Discipline doesn’t score the game-winner in overtime.”
“I scored the game-winner in overtime last night!”
As you watch them argue, a strange, creeping realization begins to settle over the hallway.
You watch Dean lean against the wall, one ankle crossed over the other, a completely arrogant, completely self-assured smirk on his face. He is talking with his hands, completely relaxed, verbally sparring just for the fun of it.
Then, you look at Ilya. He is leaning against the opposite wall, one ankle crossed over the other, wearing the exact same arrogant, self-assured smirk. He is talking with his hands, arguing just to hear his own voice, completely thriving on the friction.
They have the exact same posture.
They have the exact same cocky, infuriating grin.
They radiate the exact same possessive, fiercely loyal energy hidden beneath layers of playboy swagger and ego.
You look over at Garrett, Logan, and Tucker.
The three Briar players are staring at Dean and Ilya with wide, horrified eyes. Logan slowly turns his head, making eye contact with you.
“Do you see this?” Logan whispers, his voice trembling slightly. He points a shaking finger between the two men. “They are … they are the exact same person.”
“It’s like looking at a multiverse variant,” Tucker mutters, completely disturbed. “Same font, different languages.”
“She’s dating the American version of her brother,” Garrett says, looking like he might actually throw up. “This is a psychological nightmare. Freud would have a field day with this.”
“Shut up, Garrett,” you hiss, your cheeks flushing violently.
But as you look back at them, you can’t deny it. Dean laughs at something Ilya says, throwing his head back in that rich, booming way that echoes down the hall. Ilya claps him on the shoulder again, offering a sharp, sarcastic insult that Dean immediately deflects with a perfectly timed chirp.
They are getting along flawlessly. They are practically speaking their own language — a language built entirely on hockey stats, trash talk, and massive egos.
And the scariest part? Neither of them seems to realize it.
“So,” Ilya says, pulling a sleek black card case out of his coat pocket. “You boys are hungry? I am buying dinner. The steaks in this town are acceptable. Come, Di Laurentis. You will sit next to me and explain why your power play is so predictable.”
“It’s not predictable,” Dean argues, pushing off the wall and falling into step beside Ilya as they start walking down the hall. “We run a one-three-one. It’s designed to open up the half-wall.”
“It is designed for lazy wingers,” Ilya corrects loudly.
They walk down the corridor together, completely ignoring the rest of you, deeply engrossed in an argument about special teams tactics.
You stand in the hallway, watching them go.
“Well,” you sigh, rubbing your temples again. “That went better than expected.”
Garrett slowly walks up next to you, his eyes still glued to Ilya’s retreating back. “Y/N.”
“Yes, Garrett?”
“Can you ask your brother to sign my chest at dinner?”
You close your eyes. “I am going to pretend you did not just ask me that.”
“Please,” Garrett begs, sounding entirely pathetic. “I have a sharpie in my bag.”
“We are leaving,” you announce, grabbing Garrett by the sleeve of his expensive suit and dragging him down the hall after Dean and Ilya. Logan and Tucker follow silently behind, both looking like they are still trying to process the sheer psychological horror of what they just witnessed.
As you catch up to them, Dean glances over his shoulder. He spots you, stops walking for a second, and waits for you to reach his side.
When you do, he doesn’t say a word. He just reaches out, sliding his large, warm hand around your waist and pulling you flush against his side. He presses a soft kiss to your temple, right in front of your brother.
Ilya stops talking. He looks at Dean’s arm around your waist. He looks at the way you lean into Dean’s side, completely relaxed.
For a second, the dangerous, protective older brother flares up in Ilya’s eyes.
But then, he looks at Dean’s face. He sees the absolute devotion there. He sees the way Dean looks at you like you are the only thing in the entire arena that matters.
Ilya huffs a soft breath, shaking his head. He turns around, shoving his hands into the pockets of his peacoat.
“Come on, children,” Ilya calls out, a rare, genuine smile touching his lips. “Dinner is on me. And Di Laurentis?”
“Yeah?” Dean asks.
“If you order your steak well-done,” Ilya warns over his shoulder, “I will revoke my approval.”
Dean laughs, pulling you a little tighter against his side.
“Don’t worry, old man,” Dean calls back playfully. “I like it raw.”
You let out a long, exasperated sigh, hiding a smile against Dean’s shoulder as you all walk out into the freezing Boston night.
One arrogant, hockey-obsessed idiot was hard enough to manage. Now, you officially have two of them.
You really are going to need more deadbolts.
***
The Ottawa winter is absolutely brutal, the kind of biting, deep-freeze cold that makes your lungs ache the second you step outside.
“I don’t understand how people survive here,” Dean complains, his teeth actually chattering as he parks his sleek SUV in the sprawling, snow-covered driveway of the massive luxury estate. “It’s negative twelve degrees, Y/N. Negative twelve. The air hurts my face.”
“You play a sport that takes place entirely on a sheet of frozen water,” you point out dryly, unbuckling your seatbelt. “You should be used to the cold.”
“Arena cold is different from Canadian tundra cold,” Dean argues. He kills the engine and turns to look at you.
The dashboard lights cast a soft glow across his face. He is older now, his jawline sharper, his shoulders broader from years of NHL conditioning. He has a tiny, faded scar above his left eyebrow from a high stick three seasons ago, but he is still, undeniably, the most devastatingly handsome man you have ever seen. And the heavy platinum band resting on his left ring finger — matching the diamond currently sparkling on your own — is still the best decision you have ever made.
“Besides,” Dean says, reaching across the center console to cup your face, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone. “Your brother chose to sign with Ottawa just to punish me. I know it. He wants me to freeze to death during the holidays.”
“Ilya did not sign a massive, eight-year contract with the Senators to punish you,” you laugh, leaning into his touch. “He signed it to be closer to Shane.”
Dean smiles, a soft, incredibly fond expression that he saves entirely for you. “Yeah, yeah. The greatest love story in the NHL. Come on, Mrs. Di Laurentis. Let’s go freeze.”
You brave the frigid air together, jogging up the salted stone steps to the massive mahogany front door. Before Dean can even ring the bell, the door swings open.
Shane stands in the entryway, wearing a soft grey cashmere sweater and looking every bit the golden boy of the NHL. He holds a can of ginger ale in one hand, his wedding band flashing in the warm foyer light.
“Y/N! Dean! Get in here before you let all the heat out,” Shane laughs, stepping back to let you both inside.
“Shane,” you smile, stepping into the sprawling, gorgeously decorated house and pulling him into a warm hug. “It is good to see you. Smells incredible in here.”
“Ilya’s making my mother’s brisket,” Shane says, rolling his eyes fondly as he claps Dean on the shoulder. “Good to see you, man. Rough game against Tampa on Thursday.”
“Don’t remind me,” Dean groans, shrugging out of his heavy wool coat. “Our penalty kill is a disaster right now.”
“Whose penalty kill is a disaster?” A booming, heavy Russian accent echoes from down the hall.
A second later, Ilya rounds the corner. He is wearing a dark apron over a black t-shirt, a wooden spoon in one hand, and a massive grin on his face. Years of professional hockey have only made him wider and more intimidating, but the sheer joy on his face when he looks at Shane, and then at you, softens his entire demeanor.
“Little bird!” Ilya drops the wooden spoon on a side table and crosses the foyer in three massive strides, scooping you up into a bone-crushing hug. He spins you around once before setting you back on your feet, kissing the top of your head. “You look beautiful. Marriage is treating you well.”
“I am managing,” you reply in Russian, smiling up at him.
Ilya turns his attention to Dean. He looks his brother-in-law up and down, his eyes narrowing in that familiar, hyper-critical way.
“Di Laurentis,” Ilya greets, his voice dropping into a flat, unimpressed drawl. “Your plus-minus this month is embarrassing. You are pinching too high in the offensive zone. Have you forgotten everything I taught you?”
“I play top-pairing minutes for a Cup-contending team, old man,” Dean fires back without missing a beat, a cocky smirk instantly appearing on his face as he shakes Ilya’s hand. “I can afford to take risks. Some of us actually have a reliable defensive partner to cover for us. Not all of us are busy staring at our own husbands across the ice.”
Ilya lets out a sharp, barking laugh, pulling Dean into a rough, one-armed hug. “You are an idiot. Come into the kitchen. The team is here. They want to meet the American liability.”
You follow the boys down the wide hallway, the sound of loud, overlapping voices and clinking glasses growing louder. Ilya and Shane’s house is an architectural masterpiece, completely open-concept, and right now, the massive kitchen and attached living room are overflowing with professional hockey players.
Half the Ottawa Senators roster seems to be lounging around the kitchen island, drinking beers and eating appetizers. When you and Dean walk in, the conversation stutters to a halt.
“Boys,” Ilya announces loudly, gesturing with his wine glass. “This is my little sister, Y/N. And her husband, Dean Di Laurentis. If any of you hit him on the ice next month when we play them, I will buy you a Rolex.”
A chorus of laughter breaks out. You recognize a few of the younger players staring at Dean with wide eyes.
Dean isn’t just a college player anymore. He is a bona fide NHL star, known for his lethal backhand, his punishing hits, and his absolute refusal to back down from a fight. To the young Ottawa players, seeing Dean standing casually in their captain’s kitchen is a surreal experience.
“Nice to meet you guys,” Dean says, leaning against the marble counter and effortlessly sliding into his charismatic, playboy-turned-superstar persona. “Don’t listen to Ilya. If you hit me, he’ll actually cry. He loves me.”
“I tolerate you because my sister likes your face,” Ilya corrects loudly, handing you a glass of white wine.
“Sure you do,” Shane murmurs, stepping up behind Ilya and wrapping his arms casually around his husband’s waist. Ilya immediately leans back against Shane’s chest, the massive, terrifying Russian practically melting into the Canadian. It’s a sight that the hockey world is finally used to — the league’s first openly queer, married power couple — but it still warms your heart every time you see it.
“So, Di Laurentis,” LaPointe asks nervously, holding a beer. “Is it true you guys run a completely fluid neutral zone trap in Boston? Because our coach showed us tape of your game against Florida, and your transition speed is insane.”
Dean’s eyes light up. Hockey is his second favorite topic in the world, right after you.
“It’s not entirely fluid,” Dean says, gesturing with his hands as he launches into a highly technical breakdown of his team’s defensive systems.
You stand back, sipping your wine, and watch the room.
Ilya naturally jumps into the conversation, loudly arguing with Dean about the merits of aggressive forechecking versus positional defense. They are standing mirroring each other — both holding their drinks in their left hands, both gesturing wildly with their right, both wearing identical, arrogant, infuriatingly handsome smirks.
“They are exactly the same,” a voice whispers next to you.
You turn your head to see Haas, the young forward, watching Ilya and Dean with a look of absolute awe and mild terror. He doesn’t realize he spoke out loud until you raise an eyebrow at him.
“Sorry! I mean, ma’am—Y/N—sorry,” Haas stammers, his face flushing bright red. “It’s just they’re both so … intense.”
“You can say cocky, Luca,” Shane laughs, joining you on the outskirts of the hockey debate. “We all know they’re cocky.”
“They’re assholes,” Boodram chimes in from the other side of the counter, keeping his voice low so his captain doesn’t hear. “But, like, in a good way? Like, they know they’re the best players in the room, and they want everyone else to know it too. It’s crazy.”
“It is a carefully cultivated brand,” you say dryly, taking another sip of wine.
“You disagree?” Ilya suddenly calls out, spinning around to point an accusing finger at Dean. “You think a drop pass on the power play entry is a good idea? It is a coward’s move! It slows the momentum!”
“It creates space, Ilya!” Dean argues back, his competitive streak fully ignited. He starts pacing back and forth in front of the island. “If you drop the puck to the trailer, you force the defense to step up, which opens the wings! It’s basic geometry!”
“It is basic stupidity!” Ilya roars, throwing his hands in the air. He turns to the Ottawa rookies. “Do you hear this? This is why the American system is flawed. They rely on tricks instead of brute force.”
The Ottawa players look terrified to be brought into the crossfire.
Shane sighs, setting his empty wine glass on the counter. He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t yell. He simply looks at his massive, raging husband and says, very calmly, “Babe. Inside voice. And pass the salad.”
The transformation is instantaneous.
Ilya stops shouting mid-sentence. His chest heaves once, his eyes completely dial back from murderous enforcer to devoted husband.
“Yes, malysh,” Ilya murmurs softly. He picks up the salad bowl and hands it to Shane, the argument completely forgotten.
Across the kitchen, Dean is still pacing, completely fired up. “I’m telling you, the drop pass is statistically proven to increase zone entries by forty percent! It’s not a trick, it’s-”
“Dean,” you say.
Your voice isn’t loud, but it cuts through the noise of the kitchen with absolute, undeniable authority.
Dean stops pacing instantly. His head snaps toward you, his green eyes wide and completely focused on you.
“Yes, sweetheart?” He asks, his entire posture softening.
“Stop waving your hands around,” you tell him smoothly. “You are making me dizzy. Come here and eat your protein.”
You slide a small plate of sliced brisket across the marble island.
Dean doesn’t hesitate for a single second. The superstar defenseman, the cocky, arrogant NHL playboy, obediently walks over to you, wraps an arm around your waist, presses a kiss to your temple, and spears a piece of meat.
“Sorry, Y/N,” Dean murmurs against your hair. “Got carried away.”
“You always do,” you reply fondly, running a hand through his blond hair.
You look across the island.
LaPointe and Haas are staring at you, and then at Shane, and then back to the two massive, highly dangerous hockey players happily eating their respective bread and carrots.
LaPointe leans over to Haaa, his voice a barely audible whisper of pure disbelief.
“They walk them like dogs,” LaPointe breathes. “It’s insane.”
“Terrifying,” Haas agrees in a hushed, reverent tone. “I want a marriage exactly like that.”
You catch Shane’s eye across the kitchen. The Canadian raises his ginger ale toward you in a silent, perfectly synchronized toast. You raise your wine glass back. The rookies are right, of course, but neither you nor Shane would ever admit it out loud.
***
Dinner is a loud, chaotic, incredibly warm affair.
Ilya’s brisket is perfect, the wine flows freely, and the dining room echoes with laughter, old hockey stories, and ruthless chirping. Dean fits in flawlessly with the Ottawa players, trading insults with Ilya that sound vicious to an outsider but are actually layered with deep mutual respect.
It wasn’t always easy. Those first few years after college were a brutal adjustment. Dean getting signed, the long-distance strains, Ilya’s terrifying protective streak flaring up every time Dean’s name was in the tabloids. But Dean proved him wrong. Every single time, Dean proved that his devotion to you wasn’t just a college phase, it was the defining anchor of his life.
By the time the Ottawa players finally clear out around midnight, retreating into the freezing snow to head home, the massive house is finally quiet.
You, Dean, Ilya, and Shane migrate to the sprawling living room. A fire is cracking in the massive stone fireplace, casting a warm, flickering glow over the leather furniture.
Shane is curled up on the sofa, his head resting in Ilya’s lap. Ilya is absently running his large, calloused fingers through Shane’s hair, looking completely at peace.
You are sitting on the oversized loveseat, your legs draped across Dean’s lap. He is gently massaging your calves through the fabric of your jeans, his thumb pressing into the muscles with practiced ease.
“Good dinner, old man,” Dean says quietly, staring into the flames.
“Yuna’s recipe,” Ilya replies softly, his eyes closed. “It is foolproof. Even you could not ruin it.”
Dean chuckles. He leans his head back against the sofa, his green eyes catching the firelight. For a moment, he is quiet, a rare, reflective look crossing his face.
“You know,” Dean says, his voice losing all its usual sarcastic armor. “Dykstra was asking me earlier about how I got signed m. About how I climbed the undrafted free agent projections.”
Ilya opens one eye, looking at Dean across the room. “You fixed your gap control.”
“Yeah. I did.” Dean’s hand rests heavily on your knee, his thumb stroking your skin. He looks at Ilya, the tension between them completely replaced by a deep, unspoken brotherhood. “But that’s not what got me there. I told him the truth.”
“Which is?” Shane asks gently.
“I wouldn’t be playing in this league if it wasn’t for you guys,” Dean says. He looks down at you, his eyes incredibly soft, and then back to Ilya. “If Y/N hadn’t torn my game apart that night in the lobby … if Ilya hadn’t spent that entire summer in Boston physically beating my ass on the ice … I would have coasted. I would have been a good college player, and then maybe played beer league.”
You feel a tight, warm ache in your chest. You reach out, lacing your fingers through Dean’s.
“You did the work, Dean,” you tell him softly. “We just pointed out your flaws.”
“You pointed them out very aggressively,” Dean grins, though the emotion in his eyes is entirely genuine. He looks at Ilya. “Seriously. Thank you. Both of you. For not letting me settle.”
“You are a good man, Di Laurentis,” Ilya says, his voice thick and sincere. “You are arrogant, and you talk too much, but you take care of my sister. And you are a hell of a defenseman. You earned your spot.”
Dean swallows hard, his jaw tightening as he nods. Coming from Ilya Rozanov, there is no higher praise on earth.
“But don’t think this means I’m not going to put you in the boards next month,” Ilya adds quickly, the gruffness returning to his voice. “If you try that drop pass in my zone, I will end your career.”
“I look forward to seeing you try, grandpa,” Dean fires back instantly, the cocky grin returning in full force.
Shane laughs, sitting up and stretching. “Alright, that’s my cue. If you two start drawing up plays on napkins, I’m going to bed. Goodnight, kids.”
“Goodnight, Shane,” you smile as Ilya stands up, pulling his husband to his feet.
“Sleep well, little bird,” Ilya says, pressing a final kiss to your forehead. He points two fingers at Dean, pointing them back at his own eyes in an I’m watching you gesture, before following Shane down the hallway toward the master suite.
The living room falls quiet again, save for the crackle of the fire.
Dean turns his attention entirely to you. He slides his hands up your thighs, gripping your hips, and pulls you effortlessly across the sofa until you are straddling his lap.
“Hi,” Dean murmurs, his hands resting warmly on the small of your back.
“Hi,” you reply, resting your forearms on his broad shoulders. “You are feeling very sentimental tonight.”
“Can you blame me?” Dean asks, his eyes tracing the line of your jaw, down your neck, and back up to your eyes. “I’m sitting in a mansion in Ottawa, playing in the NHL, holding the most incredible, terrifying, beautiful woman in the world. I’m a lucky guy.”
“You are,” you agree, completely unabashed. “But you earned it.”
Dean smiles, that devastating, million-dollar smile that still makes your heart skip a beat all these years later. He leans in, capturing your lips in a slow, incredibly deep kiss. It tastes like expensive wine, woodsmoke, and years of absolute devotion.
You kiss him back just as fiercely, your fingers tangling in his thick blonde hair. The heat between you flares instantly, burning just as bright and desperate as it did in that tiny college bedroom years ago.
Dean breaks the kiss, pressing his forehead against yours, his breathing slightly elevated.
“You know,” Dean whispers, his hands sliding down to grip the back of your thighs. “The guest room is all the way on the other side of the house. Soundproof walls, too. I checked.”
You raise an eyebrow, your old, haughty confidence returning in full force. “You checked the acoustics of my brother’s guest room?”
“A good player always scouts the arena before the game,” Dean murmurs, his voice dropping into that rough, gravelly register that completely short-circuits your brain. He kisses the sensitive skin just below your ear. “What do you say, Mrs. Di Laurentis? Ready for puck drop?”
You let out a soft, helpless laugh, leaning your head back as his lips trail down your neck.
Some things never change. He is still arrogant, he is still incredibly demanding, and he is still, without a doubt, exactly the game you want to play for the rest of your life.
“Take me upstairs, Di Laurentis,” you whisper into the quiet room.
Dean doesn’t hesitate. He stands up effortlessly, carrying you in his arms as he walks toward the hallway, a triumphant, wicked smirk on his face.
You rest your head against his shoulder, entirely safe, entirely loved, and completely in control.
The Ottawa winter rages outside, but inside, you have never been warmer.
Summary: you don’t tell him your last name. By the time Dean finds out, he’s too far gone to do anything but brace for impact. Falling for the ice-cold, vodka-drinking Russian freshman is one thing. Falling for Ilya Rozanov’s little sister is a death wish. Dean decides he doesn’t care
Warning: 18+ content
Read part two here
The 2000s hits blasting from the speakers are so loud they rattle the floorboards, but Dean is undeniably bored.
He leans against the doorframe of the living room, a red Solo cup dangling loosely from his fingers. The party is packed, a sweaty sea of grinding bodies, spilled beer, and bad decisions, but it’s the exact same crowd as last weekend. And the weekend before that. Dean is a guy who thrives on variety, and lately, the scenery is getting repetitive. Money is no object, and usually, neither are women. He rarely spends a night alone. But tonight? Nothing is catching his eye.
“You look miserable,” Garrett remarks, bumping Dean’s shoulder as he passes by with a fresh keg of beer.
“I’m not miserable,” Dean corrects him smoothly. “I’m uninspired.”
Logan snorts from his spot on the ratty couch. “Uninspired? You literally took twins home on Tuesday.”
“That was Tuesday, Logan. It’s Friday. I’m a growing boy. I need fresh stimulation.” Dean sighs, pushing off the doorframe. “I’m going to the kitchen to find something stronger than this watered-down piss.”
“Good luck,” Tucker calls out over the music. “I think the football team raided the liquor cabinet an hour ago.”
Dean navigates the crowded hallway with the effortless grace of a guy who owns the place. He dodges a couple making out against the thermostat and sidesteps a puddle of questionable origin. As he rounds the corner into the kitchen, the noise level shifts. It’s less thumping bass and more rowdy, escalating shouts.
A crowd is gathered around the center island. Specifically, a crowd of massive, tank-like senior football players. And right in the middle of them is you.
Dean stops dead in his tracks.
You are perched on one of the barstools, looking entirely out of place and yet completely in control. Your hair falls over your shoulders in messy waves, and you’re wearing a cropped leather jacket over a tight top that leaves exactly the right amount to the imagination. But it isn’t just the way you look — though you are undeniably, breathtakingly stunning. It’s the way you’re holding court.
“You are slowing down, big guy,” you say, your voice carrying over the chanting. It’s smooth, slightly raspy, and laced with a heavy, unmistakable Russian accent.
You push a brimming shot glass of clear liquid toward a guy Dean recognizes as Meathead Mike, a defensive lineman who weighs close to three hundred pounds.
“I’m not slowing down,” Mike grunts, looking slightly green around the gills. “I’m pacing myself.”
“Pacing,” you repeat, a smirk playing on your lips. It’s a wicked, self-assured smirk. You pick up your own shot glass. “In Moscow, pacing is for the weak. We drink, or we go home to sleep. Which one are you doing, Mishka?”
Dean is instantly fascinated.
“I’m drinking,” Mike growls, snatching the glass.
You tap your glass against his. “Na zdarovye.”
You toss the vodka back effortlessly, not even a flinch crossing your features. You set the glass down with a sharp clack against the granite. Mike follows suit, but he gags halfway down, coughing violently into his elbow. His buddies groan and slap his back.
“Alright, alright, he’s done,” one of the other linebackers laughs. “Jesus, girl. What are you made of?”
“Mostly spite,” you reply, your face deadpan, though your eyes gleam with amusement.
You glance over your shoulder at a blonde girl standing nervously by the fridge. Your roommate, Morgan, the quintessential all-American girl next door whom you dragged here because you were bored.
“Morgan,” you say, snapping your fingers lightly. “Pass the bottle. I think the offense wants a turn.”
Morgan looks terrified. “Um, I think maybe we should stop? That’s, like, a lot of vodka.”
“It is barely a warm-up,” you insist, reaching over to grab the handle of Smirnoff yourself. You look at the bottle with a mix of pity and disgust.
Dean watches you, completely captivated. He knows the type of girls who hang around Briar parties. They giggle, they flirt, they bat their eyelashes at the hockey players. You are doing none of that. You look like you could buy and sell everyone in this room, and honestly? You probably could.
Six years younger than Ilya Rozanov, the infamous, cocky Boston Bruins center, you are practically a miniature version of him. Ilya brought you to the United States the second you turned eighteen, pulling you out of Moscow and away from your emotionally abusive father and older brother. He bought you a luxury apartment just off the Briar campus, filled your bank account, and told you to get an education — mostly because, in Ilya’s words, “hockey players are dumb, and we need at least one brain in the family.” Ilya spoils you rotten and guards you like a dragon hoarding gold. But right now, nobody in this kitchen knows that.
Dean takes a step forward, sliding into the gap left by one of the retreating football players.
“I don’t think you should waste your time with the offense,” Dean says, leaning his hip against the counter right next to you. He flashes you his trademark, million-dollar smile — the one that usually has girls melting into puddles. “They drop the ball when it counts.”
You pause, the vodka bottle hovering over a glass. You turn your head slowly, raking your eyes up and down Dean’s frame. You take in his messy blond hair, his sharp jawline, the casual but expensive fit of his casual sweater.
Your expression doesn’t change. You don’t melt. You don’t even blink.
“And who are you?” You ask, your tone bordering on bored. “The waterboy?”
A few of the remaining football players snicker. Dean’s eyebrows shoot up. Okay. Not the usual reaction.
“Dean Di Laurentis,” he says, offering his hand. “I live here. Play hockey.”
You look at his hand, then back up to his face. You don’t shake it. “Congratulations on paying rent, Dean Di Laurentis. But as you can see, I am busy.”
Dean lets his hand drop, entirely unbothered. The chase is the best part, and you just handed him a massive head start.
“Busy giving the entire offensive line alcohol poisoning,” Dean notes, glancing at the bottle. “You know, that’s cheap shit. It’ll eat straight through your stomach lining.”
You snort, pouring yourself another shot anyway. “Please. I am Russian. This,” you tap the bottle of Smirnoff, “is practically flavored water.”
“A Russian,” Dean says, stepping a fraction closer. “That explains the accent. What brings you to a sweaty college basement in Massachusetts? Boston isn’t exactly Moscow.”
“Thank God for that,” you mutter under your breath. You pick up the shot glass, twirling it between your fingers. “I go to school here. First semester. Which means I am currently trying to enjoy a party, but people keep talking to me instead of drinking.”
Dean laughs, a genuine, startled sound. “You’re a freshman? Could’ve fooled me. You’re holding court like a senior.”
“Age is a number,” you say dismissively. “Maturity is knowing when a man is trying to hit on you with terrible opening lines.”
“Terrible?” Dean clutches his chest in mock offense. “Ouch. I’ll have you know my opening lines have a very high success rate.”
“Then the women here have very low standards.” You toss the shot back. Again, no chaser. No wince.
Dean shakes his head in amazement. “Okay, color me impressed. You’re completely unbothered by that.”
“I am unbothered by most things,” you reply. You slide off the barstool, landing lightly on your feet. You’re a few inches shorter than Dean, but the way you hold yourself makes you seem taller. You have this undeniable, gravitational pull.
You turn to your roommate. “Morgan. Are we having fun yet, or do you want to go?”
Morgan jumps, startled to be addressed. “Um! I’m having fun! But, uh, maybe no more shots?”
“Fine. No more shots.” You look back at Dean. “See? I am very compromising. A delight to be around.”
“I can tell,” Dean says, his eyes tracking the movement of your mouth. “But you know, you never told me your name.”
“I did not,” you agree.
Dean waits a beat. “Are you going to?”
“No.”
Dean laughs again. He loves this. He is completely, hopelessly intrigued. You are stunning, sharp-tongued, and just the right amount of a bitch. It’s a breath of fresh air. “Come on. Give me something. A fake name? A nickname?”
“You can call me when you have better vodka,” you deadpan. You step around him, your shoulder brushing lightly against his chest. The contact sends a sudden, sharp jolt of electricity straight down Dean’s spine.
“Hey, wait,” Dean says, turning to follow you as you start walking toward the living room. “At least tell me what you’re studying. Let me guess. Business? Political science?”
You don’t stop walking, but you glance back over your shoulder, a patronizing smile on your lips. “Do I look like I want to wear a pantsuit and argue in a boardroom?”
“You look like you’d win every argument,” Dean fires back effortlessly.
“Obviously. But I don’t need a degree for that.” You weave through the crowd with expert precision.
Dean keeps pace, ignoring the people calling his name. “So what is it then? Art history? Bio?”
“You ask too many questions for a hockey player,” you tell him. “Aren’t you supposed to just grunt and hit things?”
Dean grins, stepping directly into your path to force you to stop. “I can do that too, if you’re into it.”
You look up at him, your eyes narrowing slightly. It’s a purely assessing gaze, like you’re weighing his worth on a scale and finding him somewhat lacking, but not entirely useless.
“You are very confident,” you note.
“I have reason to be,” Dean says, his voice dropping a fraction of an octave, turning rougher, more intimate. “I’m a good guy to know around here. I throw the best parties. I know the best places to eat. I can get you out of that dorm and into places you actually want to be.”
“I do not live in a dorm,” you say smoothly. “And I go wherever I want to go.”
A shadow crosses your face so fast Dean almost misses it. The mention of your father in Moscow hits a nerve, pulling at the dark memories Ilya dragged you away from. Your jaw tightens.
“Not my father,” you say, your voice suddenly cold enough to freeze hell over. “My brother.”
Dean instantly realizes he stepped on a landmine. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. Just making conversation.”
“You are making assumptions,” you correct him sharply. You take a step back, the playful banter completely evaporating from your posture. You look at Morgan, who is hovering a few feet away. “We are leaving.”
“Wait,” Dean says, reaching out instinctively. He catches your wrist, his fingers wrapping around the warm, soft skin.
You freeze. You look down at his hand on your wrist, and then slowly bring your eyes back up to meet his. The look you give him is so lethally calm it actually makes Dean’s heart skip a beat.
“Remove your hand,” you say softly.
Dean lets go immediately, holding both hands up in surrender. “My bad. I’m sorry. Seriously.”
You brush off your sleeve, even though he barely gripped you. You are Ilya’s sister through and through, you don’t take shit from anyone, especially not pretty-boy athletes who think they own the world.
“Do not touch me again,” you say.
“I won’t,” Dean promises, and he means it. He watches as you turn on your heel and stalk toward the front door, Morgan trailing anxiously behind you.
“Hey!” Dean calls out, unable to help himself. He takes a few steps after you. “Can I at least get your number? To apologize properly?”
You stop at the front door and look back at him. The coldness has receded a bit, replaced by that same haughty, amused superiority from the kitchen.
“You do not need my number, Dean Di Laurentis,” you call back over the thumping bass of the music. “You are clearly used to girls making things easy for you.”
“And you’re not going to?” Dean asks, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.
You smile — a full, devastatingly gorgeous smile that hits Dean like a physical blow to the chest.
“I do not make anything easy for anyone,” you say.
With that, you open the front door and step out into the cool September night, pulling it shut behind you.
Dean stands in the hallway for a long, silent moment. The party rages on around him, people bumping into his shoulders, girls laughing in his direction, but he doesn’t notice any of it. He is staring at the closed front door, his mind completely blank except for the echo of your heavy Russian accent and the sharp, burning realization that he needs to see you again.
Garrett appears out of the crowd, clapping a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Hey man, who was that? She completely ghosted you.”
“I don’t know,” Dean murmurs, still staring at the door. “But I’m going to find out.”
Garrett laughs. “Looked like she was about to rip your throat out.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, a slow, entirely genuine smile spreading across his face. He finally turns to look at his teammate, his eyes bright with a sudden, fierce energy. “I think I’m in love.”
***
Outside, the air is crisp, biting at your exposed skin. You pull your leather jacket tighter around yourself as you walk down the sidewalk, the rhythmic click of your boots echoing in the quiet street.
“Oh my god,” Morgan gasps, rushing to keep up with your long strides. “Are you insane? Do you know who that was?”
“Some guy named Dean,” you say dismissively, checking your phone. A text from Ilya sits on the lock screen: Are you home? Drink water. Lock door. Love you.
“Not just some guy!” Morgan insists, practically vibrating with anxiety and awe. “That’s Dean Di Laurentis! He’s, like, Briar hockey royalty. He’s gorgeous, he’s rich, and he literally never gets turned down. You just rejected the hottest guy on campus!”
“He is arrogant,” you reply, typing a quick reply to Ilya: I am fine. Going home now. Do not be annoying.
“Well, yeah, they all are!” Morgan huffs. “But he was so into you! Why did you blow him off?”
You slide your phone back into your pocket and look at Morgan. You like her — she’s sweet and harmless — but she clearly doesn’t understand how the world works. At least, not your world.
“Because, Morgan,” you say patiently, your Russian accent softening in the quiet night air. “Men like that are used to getting what they want the moment they want it. They think the world is a vending machine. You put in a little charm, and a woman falls out.”
“And you’re not a vending machine,” Morgan finishes, nodding slowly.
“Exactly.” You smile, looking ahead down the dimly lit street toward your luxury apartment building. “I am the prize. If he wants me, he is going to have to work for it. And I am going to make him work very, very hard.”
You know exactly what you’re doing. You saw the look in Dean’s eyes when you walked away. The shock, the frustration, the desperate, clawing hunger. It’s the exact reaction you wanted.
Ilya taught you a long time ago that on the ice, you never let the opponent know your next move. You make them chase you. You make them exhaust themselves trying to figure you out, and then, when they’re completely off balance, you strike.
Dean Di Laurentis thinks he’s a player. He thinks this is a game he knows how to win.
But as you walk back to your apartment, a small, triumphant smile playing on your lips, you know one thing for absolute certain.
He has absolutely no idea who he is playing with.
***
The sharp, scraping sound of steel biting into ice is the first thing that actually makes you feel like you can breathe since you landed in America.
You sit in the third row of the arena, the chill of the rink seeping through your designer sweater, and you close your eyes for just a second. The smell of the cold, the faint metallic tang of sweat and Zamboni fumes — it’s universal. It smells like Moscow. It smells like the freezing, dilapidated local rinks where you used to sit huddled in a thick coat next to your mama, her gloved hands wrapped around a paper cup of awful coffee, watching a scrawny, angry little Ilya learn how to check kids twice his size into the boards.
Hockey is in your blood just as much as it is in Ilya’s. Before your mother passed away, the rink was your sanctuary. It was the only place your father didn’t care to go, which meant it was the only place you, Ilya, and your mama were truly safe. Now, there are very few things in this world you genuinely love: Ilya, expensive clothes, fast cars … and this.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Morgan complains loudly over the roar of the crowd, pulling you out of your memories. She is shivering beside you, holding a foam finger she bought at the concession stand. “Why are they hitting each other so much? Isn’t the puck over there?”
“It is a forecheck,” you say, not taking your eyes off the ice. “They are establishing physical dominance to force a turnover in the defensive zone. Keep up.”
“I thought we were just here to look at hot guys,” she mutters, taking a sip of her hot chocolate.
“You are here to look at hot guys,” you correct her smoothly. “I am here because I appreciate the sport.”
And you do. But as you watch the Briar Hawks cycle the puck in the offensive zone, your eyes inevitably track back to number sixty-six. Dean Di Laurentis.
You haven’t seen him since the party last weekend. You haven’t texted him, and since you didn’t give him your number, he hasn’t texted you. But on the ice, he is impossible to ignore. For a guy who spends his weekends trying to charm freshmen out of their clothes, he is undeniably lethal on the blue line. He’s a defenseman, playing right side, and his skating is fluid, almost effortless.
“Oh, look,” Morgan gasps, pointing. “It’s Dean! He’s the guy you yelled at!”
“I did not yell at him,” you say calmly. “I simply declined his unsolicited advances. There is a difference.”
“He’s really good, isn’t he?”
You narrow your eyes as Dean receives a pass at the point. He fakes a slap shot, dragging the puck around a sliding defender, and fires a wrist shot through traffic. It clangs hard against the post and deflects out.
“He is decent,” you allow, your voice flat. “But his gap control is inconsistent, and he relies too heavily on his forehand.”
Morgan stares at you blankly. “Is that English?”
“It is hockey,” you reply, leaning back in your seat. “Which is better.”
The buzzer sounds a few minutes later, the scoreboard flashing a 4-3 victory for Briar. The crowd erupts into a deafening cheer, the student section banging on the glass. You offer a polite, golf-clap level of applause. It was a sloppy third period. Briar let up on the gas, allowing two unanswered goals in the final ten minutes. Ilya would have been screaming on the bench if his team played like that.
“Okay, they won! Can we go now?” Morgan begs, teeth chattering. “I can’t feel my toes.”
“We can go,” you agree, standing up and brushing invisible lint off your jeans. “Your toes are weak.”
You navigate the crowded concourse, weaving through the sea of Briar hockey jerseys and drunken college students. You are halfway to the main exit, your mind already jumping ahead to the heated seats in your car, when a voice cuts through the noise.
“Hey! Moscow!”
You don’t stop walking. You know exactly who it is, but you are not a dog to be called.
“Hey, wait up! Come on, I know you hear me!”
Footsteps jog up behind you, and suddenly Dean is stepping right into your path, forcing you to stop or physically walk into his chest.
You pause, looking up at him slowly.
Dean is slightly out of breath, his chest heaving under a crisp, perfectly tailored charcoal suit. His blond hair is still damp from the post-game shower, pushed back casually, and his tie is already loosened at the collar. He looks ridiculously, unfairly handsome, and the smug, triumphant grin on his face tells you he knows it.
“You know,” you say, your accent thick and unbothered, “usually, the players wait until they have left the arena to harass the fans.”
Dean laughs, dragging a hand through his damp hair. “I saw you walking out. Had to run to catch up. I didn’t peg you for a hockey fan.”
“I am full of surprises,” you reply dryly. “Now, if you will excuse me, my friend is freezing to death.”
Morgan, standing a few feet away, gives a tiny, terrified wave. Dean shoots her a dazzling smile that makes her blush furiously, before immediately turning his full attention back to you. The laser-focus in his eyes is intense. It’s the same look he had on the ice.
“So you came to watch me play,” Dean says, his voice dropping into that smooth, confident purr. “I’ve gotta say, I’m flattered. You played hard to get at the party, but you show up to my game? That’s a mixed signal, sweetheart.”
You let out a soft, patronizing laugh. “I came to watch a hockey game, Di Laurentis. You just happened to be on the ice. Do not flatter yourself.”
“Ouch,” Dean says, though his grin doesn’t waver. “You’re killing me here. But hey, we won. You can’t deny we put on a good show.”
“A good show?” You tilt your head, crossing your arms over your chest. You look him up and down, your expression perfectly deadpan. “Is that what you call that third period?”
Dean blinks, the smugness faltering for a fraction of a second. “Uh. Yeah. We got the win.”
“You got lucky,” you correct him seamlessly. “Your team played a neutral zone trap for the first two periods, which was effective against a slower offensive line. But in the third, they adjusted their breakout, and your defense collapsed. You were scrambling.”
Dean is staring at you now. The playful, flirtatious energy completely drains out of him, replaced by genuine, unadulterated shock. “Wait. You actually … you know the systems?”
“I know when a team stops moving their feet,” you say, stepping a fraction closer. You don’t even realize you’re doing it, but the hockey analysis is completely taking over. “Your forwards stopped backchecking, which left you and your partner hung out to dry on odd-man rushes. You were playing on your heels for the last ten minutes.”
Dean’s mouth opens slightly. He looks like he’s just been hit by a truck. “I … yeah. Garrett was pissed on the bench. We gave up the blue line way too easily.”
“You specifically,” you point out, tapping a finger lightly against his expensive suit jacket. “You pinched on the boards with four minutes left. It was a stupid risk. If their winger had been half a second faster, that was a breakaway, and the game goes to overtime.”
Dean swallows hard. He’s looking at you like you just sprouted a second head, but more importantly, he’s looking at you like you are the most incredible thing he has ever seen in his entire life. His eyes track the movement of your finger on his chest, then snap back up to your lips.
“You saw that,” he murmurs, his voice suddenly sounding a lot rougher.
“I have eyes,” you say dismissively. “But the real problem is your transition game. You are fast, I will give you that. But you are predictable.”
“Predictable?” Dean echoes, his competitive streak flaring up. He steps closer, closing the distance between you so that you have to crane your neck slightly to maintain eye contact. “I’m the leading scoring defenseman in the conference.”
“Because you play against college boys,” you fire back, unimpressed. “But you rely entirely on your forehand. Every time you pick up the puck behind the net, you pivot right. Every single time. You never transition to your backhand to make the breakout pass up the left wing.”
“Because my forehand is stronger,” Dean argues, a defensive edge creeping into his tone. “The pass is more accurate.”
“Because your backhand is weak,” you correct him bluntly.
Silence falls between you.
Even the dull roar of the crowd leaving the arena seems to fade into the background. Dean just stares down at you, his green eyes wide, his chest rising and falling visibly under his shirt.
He is completely silent.
For a defenseman who prides himself on his skill, being called out like that should infuriate him. It should make him defensive, angry, or at least dismissive. But you watch as a slow, dark flush creeps up his neck. You watch the way his jaw tightens, and the way his gaze drops to your mouth again, heavy and hot.
Holy shit, Dean thinks. His brain has short-circuited.
He’s spent his entire life surrounded by puck bunnies. Girls who wear his jersey, girls who tell him he played great even when he knows he played like garbage, girls who only care about the post-game parties and the status of hooking up with a Briar hockey player.
And then there is you. Standing in the middle of a crowded lobby, ripping apart his blue-line transitions and calling his backhand weak with a heavy Russian accent and an expression that says you couldn’t care less if you bruised his ego.
He has never been so incredibly turned on in his entire life. It’s actually a little terrifying. His pants suddenly feel uncomfortably tight, a heavy knot of pure lust coiling in his gut.
“My backhand is weak,” Dean repeats slowly, his voice dropping an octave, practically vibrating with tension.
“Very weak,” you confirm, completely oblivious to the internal crisis you are causing him. Or maybe you aren’t oblivious. Maybe you just don’t care. “If you ever make it to the pros, a smart forechecker will notice that in the first period and shut down the right side of the ice. You will be useless in your own zone.”
“Useless,” Dean whispers. He licks his lips, stepping even closer. The scent of his expensive cologne mixed with the faint, lingering smell of his body wash hits you. “God, you are brutal.”
“I am honest,” you reply, though your breath catches slightly as he invades your personal space. You hold your ground, refusing to back up. “Do you want me to stroke your ego and tell you that you are perfect, Di Laurentis?”
“No,” Dean says immediately, and he means it. “I want you to tell me everything else I did wrong.”
You pause, caught off guard for the first time. You expected him to get mad. You expected him to puff up his chest and rattle off his stats. You did not expect him to look at you like he wants to drag you into the nearest broom closet and let you dissect his entire life.
“You missed a wide-open pass to Graham on the power play in the second period,” you say, your voice a fraction softer, the air between you suddenly thick and electric.
“Keep going,” Dean murmurs, his eyes dark, his body angled entirely toward you.
“You … you over-commit on the penalty kill.” You feel a flush rising to your own cheeks now, furious at yourself for losing your composure. Why is he looking at you like that? “You chase the puck instead of holding the box.”
“What else?” Dean asks, his voice practically a gravelly whisper. He reaches out, and for a second you think he’s going to touch you, but he just rests his hand on the wall next to your head, leaning in. “Tell me my gap control is shit again.”
You swallow hard. Ilya warned you about American boys. He did not warn you about this.
“Your gap control is shit,” you say, forcing your voice to stay steady. You lift your chin, meeting his intense gaze head-on. “And if you do not fix it, you are going to cost your team the championship.”
Dean lets out a harsh breath, shaking his head slightly as a slow, wicked smile spreads across his face. “Jesus Christ. Who are you?”
“I am the girl who is leaving,” you say, ducking swiftly under his arm.
The spell breaks. You grab Morgan by the sleeve of her coat, practically dragging her toward the glass doors.
“Wait!” Dean spins around, his dress shoes slipping slightly on the tile. “Seriously! What’s your name? I can’t keep calling you Moscow!”
You push through the double doors, the freezing night air hitting you like a physical wall. You don’t stop, but you look over your shoulder one last time. Dean is standing inside the lobby, framed by the bright fluorescent lights, looking after you with a mixture of desperation and awe.
“Fix your backhand, Di Laurentis,” you call back, a smirk finally breaking through your icy exterior. “Maybe then you will earn my name.”
You turn away, letting the doors swing shut behind you.
“Oh my god,” Morgan gasps as you speed-walk toward the parking lot. “What just happened? What was that? Was that flirting? Because it sounded like you were insulting him, but he looked like he wanted to eat you alive.”
“It was hockey analysis,” you say firmly, though your heart is hammering against your ribs in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with the sport.
“No, that was … that was aggressive sexual tension disguised as hockey analysis,” Morgan insists, pulling her keys out of her pocket. “Y/N, I am not joking. I think you just broke Dean Di Laurentis.”
You reach your car, leaning against the cold metal door as you wait for Morgan to unlock it. You think about the look in Dean’s eyes when you called out his play. The sudden shift from arrogant playboy to entirely, intensely captivated. You didn’t expect him to care about the sport as much as the glory. You didn’t expect him to listen to you.
And you certainly didn’t expect to feel this sudden, terrifying urge to see him again.
“I did not break him,” you say softly, mostly to yourself as you pull open the passenger door. You stare out at the darkened arena one last time, the cold air biting at your cheeks.
“But I think I might.”
***
Inside the arena lobby, Dean is still standing exactly where you left him.
He feels like he’s just been hit by lightning. His heart is pounding against his ribs, his blood rushing hot and fast through his veins. He replays the last five minutes in his head on a loop. The way your eyes flashed when you criticized his transition game. The heavy, intoxicating purr of your Russian accent. The absolute, unshakeable confidence radiating off you.
Garrett walks out of the locker room hallway a minute later, dressed in his own suit, his gym bag slung over his shoulder. He spots Dean standing completely still in the middle of the empty concourse.
“Hey,” Garrett says, walking over and waving a hand in front of Dean’s face. “Earth to Dean. You good, man? You look like you just saw a ghost.”
Dean slowly turns his head to look at his captain.
“Garrett,” Dean says, his voice totally deadpan.
“Yeah?”
“I need to run drills.”
Garrett frowns, confused. “What? Now? We just played a game, dude. We’re going to Malone’s to celebrate.”
“No,” Dean says, shaking his head. He looks back at the doors you just walked through, that wicked, determined smile returning to his face. He has never wanted a challenge more in his entire life. He has never wanted a girl more in his entire life. “I need ice time. Right now.”
Garrett stares at him. “Are you sick? Are you concussed? What drills do you even need to run?”
Dean adjusts the cuffs of his suit jacket, his eyes gleaming.
“Backhand passing,” Dean says simply. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
***
The Briar University quad is a rare picture of New England perfection today. The sun is shining, the sky is a crisp, cloudless blue, and the temperature is hovering right around seventy degrees — an absolute miracle for early October.
Because of this, half the student body has decided that classes are optional. The sprawling green lawns are covered with students lounging on blankets, throwing Frisbees, and pretending to study.
You are one of the people pretending to study.
You sit on a plaid blanket under the shade of a large oak tree, a heavy microeconomics textbook propped open on your lap, and a pair of oversized, dark sunglasses resting on your nose. You have a highlighter in one hand, but you haven’t marked a single page in twenty minutes.
It is entirely too loud to focus, mostly because of the pickup soccer game happening fifty yards away.
Normally, you would just pack up and go back to the quiet luxury of your off-campus apartment. But there is a reason you are still sitting here, pretending to read about supply and demand curves.
Dean Di Laurentis is playing soccer.
He is running around the makeshift field with his teammates along with a guy you recognize from a party as Beau, the star quarterback of the Briar football team. They are loud, obnoxious, and taking the game far too seriously for a Thursday afternoon.
“Pass it, Di Laurentis, you puck hog!” Beau shouts, jogging backward as Dean weaves the black-and-white ball between his feet.
“It’s a ball, Beau, not a puck,” Dean fires back, his footwork surprisingly nimble for a guy who spends his life on ice skates. “And maybe I’d pass if you knew how to finish a play!”
“I throw seventy-yard bombs for a living,” Beau laughs, trying to steal the ball. “I finish plenty.”
“Yeah, but your footwork is trash,” Logan calls out from across the grass. “Stick to using your hands, golden boy.”
You watch them over the top of your textbook, hidden safely behind the dark lenses of your sunglasses. Dean is wearing a grey Briar Hockey t-shirt and athletic shorts, his blond hair sticking up in sweaty, messy spikes. He is laughing, completely in his element, shouting trash talk at his friends.
And then, he turns around to jog backward, scanning the perimeter of the quad.
His eyes sweep over the crowds of students, past the girls clustered on a nearby blanket who have been practically drooling over him for the last hour, and land squarely on the oak tree.
He stops. He actually trips over the soccer ball, stumbling forward a few steps before catching his balance.
“Hey, watch it!” Tucker yells as he steals the abandoned ball. “Head in the game, Di Laurentis!”
Dean completely ignores him. He is staring straight at you. Even from fifty yards away, you can see the exact moment the cocky, playful grin melts off his face, replaced by that sharp, predatory focus he had in the arena lobby.
You do not wave. You do not smile. You simply flip a page in your textbook, pretending you haven’t noticed him at all.
“Man, it’s hot out here, isn’t it?” You hear Dean say loudly a moment later.
You glance up just in time to see Dean grab the hem of his grey t-shirt and pull it over his head in one smooth, practiced motion. He tosses the shirt onto the grass, running a hand through his damp hair, and stands there in the dappled sunlight.
He is built exactly the way a Division I athlete should be built. Broad shoulders, a sculpted chest, and a torso lined with sharp, defined abdominal muscles that disappear down into the waistband of his shorts. He looks like a centerfold for a fitness magazine, and he absolutely knows it.
The group of girls on the blanket nearby actually let out a collective gasp.
You, however, slowly raise an eyebrow behind your sunglasses. Really? “What are you doing?” Logan demands, hands on his hips. “Put your shirt back on, nobody wants to see that.”
“I’m cooling down,” Dean says easily, though he is looking directly at you. “Gotta let the skin breathe, right?”
“You’re an idiot,” Garrett mutters.
Dean ignores them. He leaves the soccer game entirely, jogging across the grass at a slow, deliberate pace. He is making sure you have plenty of time to look. You make sure your eyes are glued firmly to the page about market equilibrium.
“Hey there, Moscow,” a smooth, slightly out-of-breath voice says a minute later.
A shadow falls over your textbook. You wait three full seconds before you slowly tilt your head up. Dean is standing at the edge of your blanket, his chest rising and falling from the run, a bead of sweat tracing a path down his stomach. He has his hands planted on his hips, flashing you that million-dollar, dimpled smile.
“You are blocking my light,” you state plainly.
Dean’s smile widens. He drops down onto the grass, sitting directly across from you on the edge of your blanket, completely uninvited.
“You’re studying,” he observes, leaning back on his elbows. He stretches his long legs out, crossing them at the ankles. “Econ. Boring.”
“It is only boring if you lack the intelligence to understand it,” you reply, picking up your highlighter. “Which, I suppose, explains your opinion.”
Dean barks out a laugh, entirely unoffended. “God, I missed you. Where have you been hiding? I’ve been checking the stands at practice every day.”
“I do not hide,” you say smoothly, turning a page. “And I do not attend practices. I have a life.”
“A life that involves sitting on the quad, reading a textbook, and secretly watching me play soccer?”
“I was not watching you.”
“Right. You were just staring intently in my general direction.” Dean shifts closer, the scent of fresh air, grass, and masculine sweat washing over you. It is entirely distracting. “Did you enjoy the show, at least?”
You pause. You look up from the book, sliding your sunglasses down the bridge of your nose so you can look him directly in the eyes. You let your gaze drop down his chest, over his abs, and back up to his face.
“You took your shirt off in seventy-degree weather,” you say dryly. “It was the most obvious display of male ego I have ever witnessed.”
“Did it work, though?” Dean challenges, a teasing spark in his green eyes.
“I am not a fan of theatrics.” You push your sunglasses back up. “Put your shirt on, Di Laurentis. You look ridiculous.”
“You’re lying,” Dean murmurs. His voice drops into that low, gravelly register that he used at the arena, the one that makes the hair on the back of your arms stand up. He leans forward, closing the distance between you. “I saw the way you looked at me just now. You like the theatrics.”
Your breath hitches slightly, but before you can fire back a cutting remark, a sharp, loud ringing cuts through the tension.
Your phone, sitting on the blanket beside your leg, is vibrating. The caller ID flashes brightly in the sunlight.
You let out a soft sigh, breaking eye contact with Dean. “I have to take this.”
“Boyfriend?” Dean asks, his voice suddenly losing its playful edge. His jaw tightens, a flash of genuine territorial annoyance crossing his face.
“None of your business,” you say smoothly. You pick up the phone and swipe to answer, bringing it to your ear.
Dean doesn’t move. He sits right there, completely invading your personal space, watching you intently. He clearly expects you to get up and walk away, or lower your voice.
Instead, you lean back against the trunk of the oak tree and slip effortlessly into your native tongue.
“Hello, Ilyusha,” you say in Russian, your voice softening just a fraction, the sharp consonants and flowing vowels rolling off your tongue perfectly.
Across from you, Dean practically stops breathing.
His eyes widen, locking onto your mouth. He doesn’t understand a single syllable of what you just said, but the sound of it hits him like a physical blow. Your voice is huskier in Russian, deeper, and the cadence is incredibly intimate.
“Y/N. Little bird,” Ilya’s booming voice comes through the speaker, loud enough that you have to pull the phone away from your ear for a second. “Why did it take you three rings to answer? Are you safe? Is someone bothering you?”
You roll your eyes, though a fond smile touches the corner of your lips. “I am sitting on the grass at school, Ilya. I was reading. Nobody is bothering me.”
You glance at Dean. He is staring at you with an intensity that is bordering on feral.
“Well, except maybe one idiot,” you add, a smirk forming.
Dean shifts his weight, leaning closer. “What did you just say?” He whispers, his voice thick. “Are you talking about me?”
You ignore him.
“An idiot?” Ilya demands, his protective instincts instantly flaring. “What kind of idiot? A boy? Do I need to fly back to Massachusetts and break someone’s kneecaps? Because I have a game in Dallas tomorrow, but I can make the flight tonight.”
“Do not be dramatic,” you sigh, switching your phone to the other ear. “It is just a hockey player. He thinks he is charming.”
“A hockey player?” Ilya groans. “God, Y/N. I told you to stay away from them. They are stupid. They only want one thing. Trust me, I know. I am one.”
“I know you are,” you laugh softly. “I am handling it.”
“You better be,” Ilya grumbles. “But listen to me. You are in college. You are beautiful. You are going to have boys chasing you. I do not like it, but I cannot stop it.”
“You are remarkably self-aware today.”
“Shut up and listen,” Ilya says, though there is warmth in his voice. “I am your brother, so it is my job to threaten to kill them. But I am also realistic. If you find a boy you actually like — which is highly unlikely because your standards are terrifying — you have fun. Do you hear me? Have fun. Use protection. Make him buy you dinner.”
You feel a flush creeping up your neck. Having your older brother give you sex-positive dating advice is always a bizarre experience.
“I am hanging up now,” you tell him, embarrassed.
“Wait, wait! Let me finish,” Ilya laughs. “If he crosses a line, you break his heart. If he makes you cry, I break his legs. It is a very simple system.”
“I understand the system, Ilyusha.”
“Good. Give them hell, little bird.”
“I always do. Good luck with the game tomorrow. Love you.”
“Love you too. Call me this weekend.”
You hang up the phone, tossing it back onto the blanket. You let out a breath, centering yourself, and then you turn your attention back to Dean.
You fully expect him to have a smug comment ready. You expect him to ask who you were talking to, or tease you about the foreign language.
Instead, Dean is staring at you like a starving man looking at a feast.
His pupils are blown wide, almost entirely swallowing the green of his irises. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, and there is a dark, heavy flush high on his cheekbones. He is leaning so far forward that his face is only inches from yours.
“Di Laurentis?” You ask, frowning slightly. “Are you having a stroke?”
“What the fuck was that?” Dean asks, his voice so raw and raspy it barely sounds like him.
“It was a phone call.”
“In Russian.”
“Yes,” you say slowly, as if explaining something to a child. “I am Russian. I speak Russian to my family. This is not a new development.”
“You didn’t sound like that when you spoke English,” Dean breathes, his eyes tracking the movement of your lips. “Your voice … it dropped. It was completely different.”
“It is a different language,” you point out. “The inflection changes.”
“Do it again,” he demands softly.
You raise an eyebrow, your heart suddenly giving a hard, erratic thump against your ribs. The sheer, overwhelming wave of lust rolling off him is palpable. It is thick enough to choke on.
“Do what again?” You ask, keeping your tone carefully neutral.
“Speak it,” Dean says. He reaches out, and this time you don’t pull away when his fingers lightly brush against the side of your knee. The touch sends a jolt of pure electricity straight up your thigh. “Say something else. Anything.”
You look at him, really look at him. You see the desperate curiosity, the absolute fascination. But beneath that, you see exactly what he is thinking.
Dean doesn’t just want to hear you speak Russian. He wants to hear you speak it in his bed. He wants to hear you whisper it in his ear when the lights are out. He wants to know what you sound like when you lose that rigid, icy control.
The realization makes the breath catch in your throat. It is intoxicating. The power you hold over this guy right now is absolute, and you both know it.
You lean forward, mirroring his posture. You let your sunglasses slide down your nose slightly, locking eyes with him.
“You are completely out of your mind,” you say in Russian, your voice a soft, husky murmur.
Dean lets out a ragged exhale, his eyes slipping shut for a fraction of a second. “God. I have no idea what you just said, but say it again.”
“No,” you say, slipping back into English. You sit back against the tree, pulling your leg away from his touch. The sudden loss of contact leaves a cold spot on your skin. “The show is over.”
“Come on,” Dean groans, running a hand over his face. He genuinely looks pained. “You can’t do that to a guy and just stop. It’s cruel and unusual punishment.”
“I told you at the party,” you remind him, picking up your highlighter and turning back to your textbook. “I do not make things easy for anyone.”
“I don’t want it to be easy,” Dean says. The playfulness is completely gone from his voice. It is replaced by a quiet, fierce sincerity that makes you look up again.
He is staring at you, not with the smug arrogance of a playboy, but with the focused, unwavering determination of a D1 athlete who has his eyes on the championship.
“I don’t care how hard you make it,” Dean tells you, his voice steady. “I’m not going anywhere.”
You hold his gaze for a long moment, your pulse hammering a frantic rhythm in your ears. Ilya’s voice echoes in the back of your mind. If you find a boy you actually like … give them hell.
A slow, wicked smirk curves your lips.
“We will see, Di Laurentis,” you murmur.
“Yo, Dean!” Garrett’s voice echoes across the quad, breaking the heavy tension. “Are you playing or are you just going to sit there and bother the girl all day?”
Dean doesn’t take his eyes off you. “I’m busy!” He yells back.
“We’re down a man!” Beau shouts. “Get your ass back over here!”
Dean finally tears his gaze away, looking over his shoulder at his friends. He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Duty calls. But this isn’t over.”
“It has not even begun,” you correct him.
Dean smiles. It’s a softer smile this time, smaller and much more dangerous. He pushes himself up off the grass, grabbing his discarded t-shirt. He doesn’t put it back on, much to the delight of the girls on the nearby blanket, but simply slings it over his shoulder.
“Have dinner with me,” Dean says, looking down at you.
It isn’t a question. It is a demand.
“I am busy tonight,” you reply without missing a beat.
“Tomorrow, then.”
“I have plans.”
“Saturday.”
“I study on Saturdays.”
“Sunday night,” Dean counters, refusing to back down. “My treat. Any restaurant in the city. You pick.”
You tap your highlighter against the page of your textbook, pretending to consider it. You are pushing him, testing the limits of his patience. Most guys would have walked away by now, their egos bruised.
Dean just stands there, waiting.
“Sunday,” you finally say, your tone conceding an inch. “But I pick the place, and you pay.”
“Deal,” Dean says instantly, looking like he just won the Stanley Cup. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“You do not know where I live.”
“I’ll figure it out,” Dean promises, taking a step backward toward the soccer game. “See you Sunday, Moscow.”
“Do not call me that,” you call after him.
“Then give me your real name!” He shouts back over his shoulder, jogging backward.
You smile, looking back down at your textbook. You wait until he is halfway across the quad before you answer, your voice carrying easily over the grass.
“It’s Y/N.”
Dean stops. He turns around, a massive, genuine grin breaking across his face. He points a finger at you, backing away toward his friends.
“Y/N,” Dean repeats, testing the sound of it on his tongue. He nods slowly. “Sunday, Y/N. Be ready.”
You watch him turn and jog back to the game, immediately tackling Beau to the ground in a mess of limbs and laughter.
You let out a long, shaky breath, closing your textbook. Studying is officially impossible now. You pull your knees up to your chest, resting your chin on your arms as you watch the group of boys on the grass.
Dean is laughing, shoving Logan out of the way to steal the ball. He looks carefree, happy, and entirely out of your league when it comes to emotional availability. He is exactly the kind of guy Ilya warned you about. A player. A distraction.
But as Dean suddenly looks over his shoulder, catching your eye from across the field and shooting you a quick, blazing wink, you know exactly what is happening.
You are giving him hell.
And you are enjoying every single second of it.
***
The date is, annoyingly, perfect.
You expected Dean to stumble. You picked an upscale, impossibly hard-to-book French-Asian fusion restaurant in the heart of Boston — the kind of place with a six-month waiting list that you only bypassed because Ilya knows the owner. You expected Dean to look out of place, or complain about the portion sizes, or act like the typical, uncouth college athlete he pretends to be.
Instead, he showed up at your apartment building right on time, wearing a tailored black button-down that made his shoulders look impossibly broad, and a pair of dark jeans that hugged his legs in all the right ways. He opened the car door for you. He ordered wine in flawless, unaccented French. He kept up with your sharp, biting banter effortlessly, matching you insult for insult with that constant, devastating smirk on his face.
He didn’t just survive the test. He passed it with flying colors.
“You look annoyed,” Dean observes as he steers his sleek black SUV off the highway, taking the exit back toward the Briar campus.
“I am not annoyed,” you say, looking out the passenger window at the passing streetlights.
“You’re a little annoyed,” he teases, glancing over at you. The dashboard lights cast a warm glow across his sharp jawline. “You thought I was going to embarrass myself. You thought I’d order chicken fingers and ask for ketchup.”
“I thought you would be a hockey player,” you correct him, turning your head to meet his gaze. “Instead, you were surprisingly tolerable.”
Dean laughs, a rich, genuine sound that fills the quiet interior of the car. “Tolerable. Wow. I’ll have to add that to my resume right under top scoring defenseman.”
“Do not let it go to your head.”
“Too late.” Dean reaches across the center console. He doesn’t ask. He just slides his hand over yours where it rests on your thigh, lacing his long, warm fingers through yours.
Your breath catches slightly, but you don’t pull away. His palm is rough with calluses from his hockey stick, a stark contrast to the soft leather of the car seats and the smooth fabric of your slip dress. The casual intimacy of it sends a sudden, sharp jolt of heat straight to your core.
“So,” Dean murmurs, his thumb brushing a lazy circle against your skin. “The date is over. I paid. I was charming. I didn’t embarrass you in front of the waiter.”
“Barely.”
“Where to now, Y/N?” He says your name softly, testing the weight of it. “I can take you back to your ivory tower. Or …”
He lets the sentence hang in the air, thick and heavy with implication.
You look at his hand holding yours, and then up at his profile. You can feel the electric tension radiating off him. You know exactly what he’s asking, and you know exactly what the answer is. You made up your mind somewhere between the second glass of wine and the way his eyes darkened when you laughed at one of his jokes.
“Your house is on the way,” you say, your voice perfectly steady, though your heart is suddenly hammering against your ribs. “It would be inefficient to drive all the way to my apartment.”
The SUV actually swerves a fraction of an inch as Dean’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. He exhales a harsh, shaky breath.
“My house,” he repeats, as if making sure he heard you correctly.
“Unless you are scared your roommates are awake.”
“I don’t give a fuck if my roommates are awake,” Dean says instantly. He hits the turn signal, taking a sharp left onto the residential street that leads to the off-campus hockey house. “My door has a lock.”
The drive takes less than five minutes, but it feels like an eternity. The air in the car is so thick with anticipation you can barely breathe. When Dean finally throws the SUV into park in the driveway, he doesn’t wait for you. He is out of the car in a flash, opening your door and offering you his hand.
The house is surprisingly quiet. The usual thumping bass and smell of stale beer are absent. As Dean unlocks the front door and ushers you inside, you see exactly one person.
Logan is sprawled on the ratty living room couch, a bowl of cereal balanced on his chest, watching SportsCenter on low volume.
He looks up as the door clicks shut. He sees Dean. Then he sees you.
Logan’s spoon freezes halfway to his mouth. His eyes dart between the two of you, taking in Dean’s dark, focused expression and your thoroughly unimpressed, perfectly manicured appearance.
“Di Laurentis,” Logan says slowly, lowering the spoon. “You brought a girl home.”
“Astute observation,” Dean says, not stopping as he guides you toward the stairs by the small of your back.
“No, I mean, you brought a girl home,” Logan insists, sitting up slightly. “Not a puck bunny. Not a sorority girl. You brought an actual woman who looks like she could murder you and hide the body.”
“I will not hide the body,” you tell Logan calmly over your shoulder as you start up the stairs. “I will leave it in the living room for you to clean up.”
Logan’s eyes widen. He looks at Dean with pure, unadulterated respect. “Good luck, man. You’re going to need it.”
“Shut up, Logan,” Dean snaps, though he is smiling as he pushes you gently up the final few steps and down the narrow hallway.
He opens the door at the end of the hall, pulling you inside, and kicks the door shut behind him. The heavy click of the lock sliding into place echoes in the quiet room.
Dean’s bedroom is surprisingly clean. The bed is large and freshly made, there are no clothes on the floor, and the faint scent of his expensive cedar and citrus cologne lingers in the air.
You barely have a second to take it in before Dean is right in front of you.
The playful banter is completely gone. The energy shifts so fast it gives you whiplash. He crowds you against the heavy wooden door, his hands coming up to bracket your head. He looks down at you, his green eyes completely dilated, dark and hungry.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since you yelled at me in the kitchen,” Dean whispers, his voice rough and vibrating with need.
“I did not yell at you,” you breathe.
“Shut up,” he murmurs, and then his mouth crashes down onto yours.
It is a devastating kiss. There is nothing hesitant or gentle about it. It is pure, unfiltered demand. His lips are hot, his tongue immediately parting your lips, tasting the expensive wine and sweeping inside to claim every inch of your mouth.
A sharp, electric shock rips through your body. You kiss him back just as fiercely, your hands flying up to grip the lapels of his black shirt. He lets out a low, guttural groan, sliding his arms around your waist and pulling your hips flush against his.
He is hard. Achingly, brutally hard against your stomach.
The realization sends a thrill of pure power straight to your head. Ilya taught you to never let anyone dictate the pace of the game. You pull your mouth away from his, leaving him chasing your lips with a frustrated sigh.
“My turn,” you say smoothly.
Before Dean can process what you mean, you grab the collar of his shirt and push. He stumbles backward, completely caught off guard. You advance, pushing him again until the back of his knees hit the edge of his mattress, and he falls backward onto the bed with a soft thud.
Dean looks up at you, his chest heaving, his dark hair messy from your hands. He looks completely thoroughly derailed. “What are you doing?”
“Taking control,” you tell him. You step between his spread thighs, looking down at him with a wicked, predatory smile. “You are very used to running the show, Di Laurentis. But you are playing my game now.”
Dean swallows hard. He leans back on his elbows, watching you with wide, fascinated eyes. “Okay. Show me your game, Moscow.”
You climb onto the bed, straddling his hips. He groans instantly at the friction, his hands twitching at his sides, but he doesn’t touch you. He lets you set the pace.
You reach down, your fingers deliberately slow as you start undoing the buttons of his tailored shirt. You watch his face as you work, taking in the rapid pulse at the base of his throat, the way his jaw tightens with every agonizingly slow brush of your knuckles against his bare skin.
Once the shirt is fully unbuttoned, you push it off his shoulders, letting it fall onto the sheets. You run your hands flat over his sculpted chest, feeling the heavy, frantic thud of his heart beneath his ribs.
“You are impatient,” you murmur, leaning down to press a soft, teasing kiss to the center of his chest.
“I’m dying,” Dean corrects roughly. His hands come up, gripping your hips tightly. “Y/N. Please.”
“Please what?” You ask, your voice dropping into a sultry, teasing purr. You shift your weight, grinding down against his hard length right through his jeans.
Dean’s head throws back, his hips automatically bucking up against you to chase the friction. “Fuck,” he gasps. “Take it off. All of it.”
You smile. You reach down, finding the hem of your slip dress, and pull it up over your head in one smooth motion, tossing it to the floor. You are wearing nothing but a matching set of sheer, black lace lingerie.
Dean stares at you. He actually stops breathing for three full seconds.
“Holy shit,” he whispers reverently. “You are … you are perfect.”
“I know,” you say confidently.
You lean down, capturing his lips again. The kiss is deep, wet, and incredibly hot. You move your hips in a slow, rhythmic grind that has Dean cursing into your mouth. He is letting you ride him, letting you dictate the rhythm, his large hands resting on your waist, guiding your movements but not forcing them.
You reach for the buckle of his belt, your fingers completely steady, but before you can even undo the clasp, the dynamic shifts.
Dean’s patience completely snaps.
“Okay. You’ve had your fun,” Dean growls softly against your lips.
Before you can even react, his hands tighten on your waist. He lifts you effortlessly — like you weigh absolutely nothing at all — and in one fluid, powerful motion, he flips you.
You let out a startled gasp as your back hits the mattress. Suddenly, Dean is hovering over you, his broad shoulders blocking out the overhead light. His eyes are entirely black now, the playful, indulgent boy completely gone, replaced by something dark, dominant, and terrifyingly hot.
“You think you’re the only one who likes control?” Dean murmurs, leaning down so his mouth is a breath away from your ear. “You think you can just climb on top of me, grind against me like that, and I’m just going to lay there and take it?”
“You were doing a very good job of it,” you try to say haughtily, but your voice is suddenly a little breathless.
“I was letting you win the first period,” Dean corrects, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of your earlobe. “But the game is mine now.”
He doesn’t give you a chance to argue. His hands are everywhere. He unclasps your bra with a single, practiced flick of his fingers, tossing it aside. He takes your mouth again in a bruising, dominant kiss, swallowing your soft gasp as his warm, rough palm cups your breast. His thumb drags firmly over your nipple, and a jolt of pure pleasure shoots straight down to your core.
You arch your back, your hands tangling in his thick blond hair. The icy, untouchable Russian princess act is rapidly melting under the sheer, scorching heat of his attention.
Dean breaks the kiss, moving his mouth down your neck, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses along your collarbone. At the same time, his hand slides down your stomach, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your lace panties and pulling them down your legs.
He steps off the bed for exactly three seconds. The sound of his zipper dragging down, his jeans hitting the floor, and the tear of a foil wrapper are deafening in the quiet room.
When he comes back over you, he is completely bare, beautiful, and completely focused. He settles between your thighs, his knees pressing your legs wider.
He reaches down, his fingers finding your slick, aching center. He strokes you once, two fingers pressing deep inside, and you let out a sharp, genuine cry.
“You’re so fucking wet for me,” Dean groans, his voice dark with triumph. He leans down, his mouth hovering over yours. “Tell me you want this.”
“I want it,” you breathe, your accent heavy. “Do not make me wait, Dean.”
He doesn’t. He grips your hips, aligning himself with your wet heat, and pushes forward.
He fills you completely in one long, agonizingly slow thrust. You gasp, your nails digging half-moons into the hard muscles of his back as he buries himself to the hilt. It’s incredibly deep, stretching you so perfectly it makes your vision swim.
Dean freezes, a low shuddering groan tearing from his throat. He rests his forehead against yours, his eyes closed, his jaw clenched tight as he fights for control.
“Fuck, Y/N,” he breathes, his body trembling over yours. “You are so tight. So incredibly tight.”
“Move,” you demand softly, your hips instinctively arching up to take him deeper.
Dean’s eyes snap open. “Yes, ma’am.”
He starts to move. He pulls back almost completely before driving his hips forward, burying himself deep inside you again. The friction is immediate and explosive.
“Oh!” You gasp, your head throwing back against the pillows.
Dean sets a brutal, relentless pace. He isn’t rushing, but he isn’t being gentle either. Every thrust is deep, hard, and perfectly angled. He hits the exact spot that makes your toes curl with every single stroke. The skin-on-skin slap of his hips meeting yours echoes loudly in the quiet room, a dirty, incredibly erotic sound.
“Is this good?” Dean asks, his voice thick, thrusting hard into you. “Is my form okay for you, Moscow?”
“Shut up,” you moan, your hands gripping his shoulders desperately.
“You had a lot of opinions about my performance on the ice,” Dean taunts darkly, dropping his head to bite lightly at your neck as he pounds into you. “Critique this.”
“Dean-”
“Say my name again,” he demands, his grip on your hips tightening. He angles his hips differently, grinding hard against your clit with his pelvis as he thrusts deep inside you.
The sensation is so sharp, so overwhelming, that your brain completely short-circuits. The English language entirely evaporates from your mind.
“Bozhe moy,” you cry out, your voice fracturing.
Dean freezes for a fraction of a second, his head snapping up. His eyes are wide, wild with sudden, explosive heat.
“What did you just say?” He breathes, thrusting back into you with sudden, renewed ferocity.
“Da,” you gasp, completely unable to stop yourself. The pleasure is mounting too fast, spiraling out of control. “Da, pozhaluysta.”
“Russian,” Dean groans, the sound completely animalistic. “Fuck, yes. Keep doing that. Talk to me in Russian.”
He speeds up, his thrusts becoming a rapid, punishing rhythm. You are completely lost in it, clinging to his broad shoulders as the world spins around you.
“Sil’neye,” you beg, your nails scratching down his back. Harder. “I don’t know what that means,” Dean rasps, his chest heaving, sweat dripping from his forehead onto your collarbone. “But I fucking love it. Tell me you’re mine. Tell me in Russian.”
“Tvoya,” you sob, the word slipping out as the tension in your core finally snaps. “Ya tvoya.”
The climax hits you like a freight train. You cry out loud, your back bowing off the mattress as wave after wave of intense, blinding pleasure rips through your body. Your inner muscles clamp down hard around his thick length, milking him perfectly.
Dean lets out a loud, raw shout. He drives into you two more times, impossibly deep, and then completely falls apart. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, his body shaking uncontrollably as he empties himself inside the condom, completely surrendering to you.
For a long time, the only sound in the room is the ragged, desperate sound of both of you fighting to catch your breath.
Dean’s heavy weight is crushing you into the mattress, but you don’t care. You feel thoroughly, beautifully wrecked.
Slowly, the haze begins to clear. Dean shifts his weight, pulling out of you with a soft, wet sound, and carefully rolls off to the side to dispose of the condom. When he comes back, he drops onto the mattress beside you, throwing one heavy arm and a leg over your body, pulling you flush against his side.
You rest your head on his bare chest, listening to his heart still hammering against his ribs.
“Wow,” Dean breathes into the quiet room.
“Yes,” you agree softly, your voice still a little raspy.
Dean presses a soft kiss to the top of your head, his fingers lazily tracing the curve of your hip. “You completely lost your mind there at the end, didn’t you?”
You feel a flush creeping up your neck. “I do not know what you are talking about.”
“Liar,” Dean laughs softly. “You lost your English entirely. It was the hottest fucking thing I have ever experienced in my entire life.”
You turn your head, resting your chin on his chest so you can look up at him. His eyes are soft now, completely completely devoid of the cocky arrogance he usually wears like armor. He just looks entirely, thoroughly captivated by you.
“You played a good game, Di Laurentis,” you tell him, your accent soft and thick in the quiet room.
Dean smiles, reaching up to tuck a damp strand of hair behind your ear. “Good enough for a second round?”
You raise an eyebrow, your old, haughty confidence returning in full force. “Do not flatter yourself. Let us see if you can handle the conditioning drills first.”
Dean throws his head back and laughs, a bright, happy sound that makes something warm and completely foreign bloom in the center of your chest. He pulls you up slightly, capturing your lips in a soft, lazy kiss that tastes like contentment and the promise of a very long night.
“Whatever you want, Moscow,” Dean murmurs against your mouth. “I’m not going anywhere.”
***
The house living room smells like stale pepperoni, cheap beer, and the distinct, aggressive musk of four college athletes who have been yelling at a television for the past two hours.
Dean is sprawled in the worn armchair, a long-necked bottle of Corona resting on his stomach. On the ratty couch, Garrett, Logan, and Tucker are packed shoulder-to-shoulder, their eyes completely glued to the sixty-inch screen mounted on the wall.
It is a Tuesday night, which means the Boston Bruins are playing the Toronto Maple Leafs, and in this house, an NHL game is basically a religious event.
On the screen, Ilya Rozanov, the Bruins’ star center and arguably the most terrifying, arrogant, and talented player in the league, intercepts a pass at center ice. With a burst of speed that defies the laws of physics for a man of his massive size, he blows past two Toronto defensemen, dekes the goalie out of his crease, and casually roofs the puck on his backhand.
The goal horn blares through the TV speakers, shaking the floorboards of the living room.
“Holy shit,” Garrett breathes, leaning forward so fast he almost knocks over his beer. “Did you see that edge work? The guy is an absolute machine.”
“It’s disgusting,” Logan agrees, shaking his head in awe. “He makes NHL defensemen look like Pee-Wee players. It’s physically embarrassing for them.”
“And there are still idiots out there who claim Shane Hollander is a better player,” Tucker snorts, reaching for a slice of cold pizza from the box on the coffee table. “Hollander is great, sure. He’s got the golden boy reputation. But Rozanov? Rozanov is a killer. He has zero conscience on the ice.”
“Hollander has better defensive metrics,” Garrett points out, ever the captain. “But yeah, offensively, Rozanov is in a league of his own. If I ever meet him, I think I’d actually ask him to sign my chest.”
Dean laughs, taking a slow sip of his beer. “You literally have a poster of him in your bedroom, Garrett. It’s creepy. You’re twenty-two years old.”
“It’s not a poster, it’s a framed print,” Garrett corrects defensively. “And it’s about respecting greatness, Di Laurentis. Try it sometime.”
Dean just grins, leaning his head back against the armchair. He feels relaxed. Better than relaxed, actually. He feels completely, terrifyingly anchored. It’s been three weeks since that first date with you, and his life has practically flipped upside down. He spends half his nights sneaking into your luxury apartment, and the other half trying to convince you to stay at his place. You are demanding, brilliant, ruthlessly critical of his defensive zone coverage, and the best thing that has ever happened to him.
He hasn’t looked at another girl since the night you called his backhand weak.
On the TV, the broadcast cuts away from the Bruins’ bench celebrating the goal.
“An unbelievable individual effort from Ilya Rozanov,” the play-by-play commentator announces over the roar of the TD Garden crowd. “His tenth goal of the season already, and we’re not even fully into November.”
“And you know who’s loving it up there?” the color commentator chimes in. “Let’s take a look up at the Bruins’ friends and family suite.”
The camera cuts from the ice to the luxury boxes high above the lower bowl. The shot zooms in on two young women sitting in the plush front-row seats, leaning over the glass barrier to look down at the ice.
Dean’s brain instantly short-circuits.
He stops breathing. The bottle of Corona slips dangerously in his grip.
It’s you.
You are right there on the sixty-inch screen, wearing a flawless black leather jacket over a form-fitting white top. Your hair is styled in perfect waves, and you are currently in the middle of an animated, laughing conversation with the woman sitting next to you.
“Whoa,” Logan says, leaning forward. “Who are they? The one on the left is gorgeous.”
“Shut up, John,” Dean croaks, his voice cracking horribly.
The broadcast graphics flash at the bottom of the screen, highlighting the two of you.
“That’s Svetlana Vetrova on the right,” the commentator explains cheerfully. “Daughter of the legendary Soviet goaltender Sergei Vetrov. She and Rozanov grew up together in Moscow.”
The camera pans slightly, focusing entirely on your face as you laugh at something Svetlana says.
“And with her is Ilya Rozanov’s younger sister,” the broadcaster continues, the words echoing through the dead silent living room like gunshots. “She just moved to Boston this fall to attend university locally. The Rozanov siblings are famously close. Ilya practically raised her, and rumor has it he is incredibly protective.”
The TV screen shows Ilya skating back to the bench. He looks up toward the suite, pointing a gloved finger directly at you. You smile, rolling your eyes affectionately, and give him a small, sarcastic golf clap.
In the house, the silence is so heavy it could shatter glass.
Garrett’s jaw is practically on the floor. He slowly, mechanically turns his head to look at Dean.
Logan and Tucker follow suit, their eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated horror.
Dean is frozen in the armchair. All the blood has rushed out of his face, leaving him pale and dizzy. His heart is hammering a frantic, terrified rhythm against his ribs.
He thinks about the way he pushed you against his bedroom door. He thinks about the sheer, insane volume of highly explicit texts he has sent to your phone in the last forty-eight hours. He thinks about the massive, bruised hickey he left just below your collarbone two days ago — a hickey that Ilya Rozanov could probably see with his naked eye from center ice.
“Dean,” Garrett whispers, his voice trembling slightly. “Is that …”
“Yes,” Dean says hollowly.
“That’s Moscow,” Tucker confirms, sounding like he’s at a funeral. “That’s your girl.”
“She didn’t tell me,” Dean gasps out, clutching the beer bottle like a lifeline. “She told me her brother paid for her apartment! She never said her brother was the most dangerous player in the National Hockey League!”
“You’re sleeping with Ilya Rozanov’s little sister,” Logan says, the reality of the situation finally crashing down on him. A slow, hysterical laugh bubbles up in his chest. “Dean. He is going to literally kill you. He is going to break your legs with his bare hands.”
“I have a poster of her brother in my room,” Garrett says, staring blankly at the wall. “I’ve been in the same room as you two while you were making out, and I have a poster of her brother on my wall.”
“What do I do?” Dean demands, panic finally settling in. He drops the beer onto the side table and runs both hands through his hair, gripping the blond strands tightly. “Do I text her? Do I ask why she didn’t tell me? Do I change my name and move to Mexico?”
“You can’t move,” Tucker says solemnly. “Rozanov has Russian mob connections. He will find you.”
“He does not have mob connections!” Dean yells, though his voice pitches up nervously. “Does he?”
“Dude, he led the league in penalty minutes for three consecutive seasons,” Logan points out, highly unhelpful. “He shattered a guy’s jaw last year just for looking at his goalie wrong. If he finds out you — Briar’s biggest, sluttiest defenseman — are hooking up with his baby sister? You’re dead. They’ll never find your body.”
Dean stares at the television screen. The broadcast has moved on, showing a replay of the goal, but Dean can’t see the puck. All he sees is his own impending doom.
He is so incredibly fucked.
***
Two hours later, you are sitting in a private booth at one of the most exclusive steakhouses in Boston.
The post-game adrenaline is still buzzing in the air. Ilya is sitting across from you, casually dressed in a dark designer sweater that stretches tight across his massive shoulders. He has a faint, purpling bruise on his jaw from a high stick in the second period, but his mood is absolutely electric.
“I told you,” Ilya says, cutting into a massive, rare ribeye steak. “Toronto defense is weak this year. They leave the middle of the ice wide open. It is insulting.”
“You showboated on the breakaway,” you point out, sipping your sparkling water. “You did not need to go to the backhand. The five-hole was open.”
“I am an entertainer, Y/N,” Ilya replies smoothly, chewing his steak. “The fans pay a lot of money to see me play. I must give them a show.”
You roll your eyes, picking at your truffle fries. You love him, but his ego takes up ninety percent of any room he walks into. Still, the dinner is nice. Sibling bonding time is rare during the NHL season, and you cherish the moments when it’s just the two of you, speaking Russian and acting entirely normal.
“Sveta looked well,” you say, changing the subject. “I hear she is thinking of taking a job with the Bruins.”
“She is good,” Ilya nods. “She asks about you. She says you are distracted lately.”
You pause, a fry halfway to your mouth. You lower it back to the plate, keeping your expression completely neutral. “I am not distracted. I am adjusting to a new country and a new curriculum. Economics is demanding.”
Ilya stops chewing. He swallows, rests his forearms on the heavy mahogany table, and pins you with a dark, intensely knowing look.
“Do not lie to me, little bird,” Ilya says softly, his heavy accent wrapping around the Russian words. “You have been living here for months. You were not distracted in September. But the last three weeks? You are checking your phone during the game. You are smiling at your screen.”
“I look at memes,” you lie smoothly.
“You do not understand American memes,” Ilya shoots back without missing a beat. “So, let us skip the part where you insult my intelligence. Who is putting that smirk on your face?”
You let out a slow sigh, leaning back against the leather booth. You knew this conversation was coming. Ilya is overprotective on a good day, and completely tyrannical when it comes to the men in your life. You intentionally haven’t told him about Dean because you wanted to enjoy the early stages without your brother accidentally ending Dean’s hockey career.
“It is nothing serious,” you say carefully, sticking to Russian so the waiter passing by won’t understand. “Just a boy from the university.”
Ilya’s eyes narrow instantly. “A boy. Does this boy play a sport?”
“That is irrelevant.”
“It is highly relevant. If he is a hockey player, I need to know immediately so I can arrange an accident on the ice.”
“Ilya.” You give him a sharp, warning look. “I am nineteen years old. I am allowed to have fun. You told me to have fun.”
“I told you to have fun with respectable men,” Ilya argues, jabbing his steak knife in your direction. “Not college athletes. They are animals. They do not know how to treat a woman.”
“He treats me very well, actually,” you fire back, defending Dean instinctively. The memory of Dean’s complete devotion — both in and out of the bedroom — flashes through your mind. “He takes me to nice places. He is polite.”
“Polite,” Ilya snorts, taking a large gulp of his red wine. “Sure. And what does this polite boy think is happening between you two? Does he know it is casual? Because men like that, they get attached. They get possessive.”
“He knows,” you say smoothly, though a tiny flicker of doubt sparks in your chest. Does Dean know it’s casual? He certainly hasn’t been acting casual lately. He acts like he owns you, and worse, you find yourself letting him.
“He knows,” Ilya repeats sarcastically. He shakes his head, cutting another piece of steak. “I worry about you, Y/N. You play these games, but eventually, someone gets hurt. You cannot just keep things casual forever. Eventually, you have to commit or walk away.”
You stare at your brother. The sheer hypocrisy of his statement actually leaves you speechless for a moment.
You slowly pick up your glass of wine, swirling the dark red liquid. You look at Ilya over the rim of the glass, a slow, lethal smirk curling the corners of your mouth.
“You are giving me advice on commitment?” You ask, your tone dangerously soft.
Ilya pauses, a flicker of unease crossing his features. “I am your older brother. It is my job to give you advice.”
“Interesting,” you note, leaning forward and resting your elbows on the table. “Because as far as I can tell, you have been in a situationship for the last six years, and you still refuse to put a label on it.”
Ilya’s jaw drops slightly. The smug, overprotective older brother act completely shatters. A dark, furious blush creeps up his neck, disappearing into his hairline.
“I do not know what you are talking about,” Ilya says rigidly.
“Oh, please.” You take a sip of your wine, enjoying the sudden shift in power. “How is Jane?”
Ilya actually chokes on his wine. He coughs, grabbing his napkin and pressing it to his mouth, his eyes watering.
You watch him without an ounce of pity. You have known about “Jane” for years. You know exactly who “Jane” is. You know that Jane is not a woman, and you know that Jane happens to be a certain golden boy captain of the Canadian national team who plays in Montreal. You know that Ilya and Shane Hollander have been hooking up in secret hotel rooms across North America for years, wrapped up in a bitter rivalry that is a very thin cover for a desperate, consuming obsession.
Ilya refuses to admit it out loud, but he knows that you know.
“Jane is fine,” Ilya grits out finally, glaring at you across the table.
“Good. Tell her I say hello,” you say pleasantly. “And tell her that if she ever breaks your heart, I will break her legs. That is the system, yes?”
Ilya stares at you. For a long, tense moment, the air between you crackles with unspoken threats and sibling stubbornness.
And then, slowly, the tension breaks.
Ilya lets out a low, rumbling laugh, shaking his head. He wipes his mouth with the napkin, looking at you with a mixture of immense pride and total defeat. You really are his exact replica.
“You are a menace, Y/N,” Ilya says softly.
“I learned from the best,” you reply smoothly.
Ilya sighs, raising his glass of wine toward you in a gesture of surrender. “Fine. You win. I will stop asking about the boy from university. For now. But if he hurts you, Y/N, I am serious. I will end him.”
“He will not hurt me,” you say confidently, clinking your glass against his. “I would never give him the power to do so.”
“Za zdarovye,” Ilya murmurs.
“Za zdarovye.”
You take a sip of the expensive wine, feeling a rush of affection for your brother. You handled him perfectly. He is backed off, your secret is safe, and your casual arrangement with Dean remains uninterrupted.
But as you set your glass down, your phone buzzes in your purse.
You pull it out, glancing at the screen under the table so Ilya can’t see.
It’s a text from Dean.
Actually, it’s six texts from Dean, sent in rapid succession.
Dean: Tell me right now you’re not actually Ilya Rozanov’s sister.
Dean: Holy shit.
Dean: They showed you on the broadcast.
Dean: Garrett is hyperventilating into a paper bag.
Dean: Why didn’t you tell me?
Dean: Are you with him right now? Don’t let him look at your neck.
You stare at the screen. Your carefully constructed, compartmentalized life is suddenly colliding in real-time.
You look up across the table. Ilya is casually cutting into his steak, completely oblivious to the absolute meltdown happening on your phone. He is relaxed, happy, and entirely unaware that his beloved little sister is sleeping with a hockey player.
You look back down at the screen, your thumb hovering over the keyboard.
A tiny, wicked thrill races down your spine. The game just got a lot more interesting.
You: I am having dinner with him now.
You: Do not panic, Di Laurentis. He does not know about you. Yet.
You hit send, slide the phone back into your purse, and pick up your fork, completely unbothered.
Across town, Dean receives the text.
He stares at his phone screen for a full minute, the words burning into his retinas. The terrifying confidence of your reply does nothing to soothe his racing heart.
“Well?” Logan asks nervously from the couch. “What did she say?”
Dean slowly lowers his phone, looking at his three best friends. His expression is completely haunted.
“She told me not to panic,” Dean whispers.
“Oh, you’re dead,” Tucker nods sagely. “That’s exactly what people say right before they execute you.”
“Can I have your signed Marchand stick when you die?” Garrett asks, entirely serious.
Dean ignores them. He falls back against the armchair, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He is terrified. He is absolutely, completely terrified of Ilya Rozanov finding out that Dean has had his hands all over his little sister.
But beneath the terror, beneath the very real threat of physical violence, there is another feeling. A feeling that Dean can’t ignore, no matter how hard he tries.
He thinks about you sitting across from the most intimidating man in the NHL, calmly texting him, completely in control of the situation. He thinks about the way you challenge him, the way you speak Russian against his skin in the dark, the way you make him want to be better, faster, stronger just to earn a shred of your approval.
Dean drops his hands, staring blankly at the ceiling of the hockey house.
He is terrified. But he isn’t going to run.
“I’m keeping her,” Dean says suddenly, his voice quiet but incredibly firm.
The three guys on the couch stop talking. They stare at Dean like he has just lost his mind.
“Dean,” Garrett says slowly. “Did you hear what we just said? Her brother will end your career. He will end your life.”
“I don’t care,” Dean says, sitting forward. The panic is fading, replaced by that fierce, undeniable stubbornness that makes him the best defenseman in the conference. He grabs his beer, taking a long pull. “Let him try. I’m not letting her go.”
Logan sighs, rubbing his temples. “We’re going to need to buy so many deadbolts.”
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
i absolutely love your fics, like from f1, to hockey and now to offcampus (which im yet to watch tbh), you’ve always put out such great work and i just really wanted to share my appreciation in a sense!
excited for whatever you post next, much love!!
— ☀️
Thank you so much! I literally just finished putting the finishing touches on the Rozanov!Reader fic I promised everyone weeks ago … so keep an eye out for that tomorrow 🤭
I want to clarify that I’m not speaking from personal experience (thank you to my wonderful readers), but it’s crazy that I come across at least two posts a day trying to police other people’s writing! Have some people completely lost the plot about fanfiction etiquette? Are they just so entitled that they genuinely don’t care?
As a reminder: fanfiction is being written for FREE by writers who do it solely for the love of the game. Don’t like something? Don’t read it! Complaining that the fandom you’re reading fanfiction about is missing a particular trope/reader characterization/plot? Write it yourself! Fandom is a better place for everyone involved when we remember it would cease to exist without the foundation of respect it’s built on.
