No clue that the last time I’d been inside an Omega was over a year ago—a quick, clinical rut-relief hookup in a Vancouver hotel room with a Beta-adjacent scent blocker and zero emotional investment. Just enough to keep the feral edge from sharpening into something dangerous before the next road trip. Since then? Nothing. Sahara desert. Hand and cold showers and the occasional memory ofherthat left me harder than any game-day adrenaline ever could. And now this—going from zero to full Olympic fucking games in one night—was a level of endurance I hadn’t trained for. My thighs burned. My abs were locked tight. My balls ached with the need to spill, but I held it back because she wasn’t done, and I’d be damned if I finished before my Diamond got everything she needed.
I loved a challenge. Always had. That was why I’d become a goalie in the first place—stand in the crease, read the play, absorb every hit and still come out standing. But this? This was next-level. Her heat-scent was everywhere, thick and sweet and impossible to parse into single notes yet, flooding the room until my Alpha instincts were screamingmine, protect, claim. I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood and reminded myself of the rule I’d laid down in the SUV on the way here.
No knotting.
I’d said it flat-out to the guys while Octavia drifted in the back seat, half-lost to the preheat haze.
“None of us. Not tonight. Not until she’s clear-headed and chooses it.” Maddox had nodded once, Renzo had shrugged like it was obvious, and Kael’s pale eyes had flicked to mine with that unreadable captain stare.
I’d meant it for all of them.
I meant it for myself, too.
Just because she’d given me another chance didn’t mean I got to take advantage. Lock inside her, swell, trap her in that perfect, helpless bliss while her body bonded on instinct? No. Not when she might wake up tomorrow and realize she’d been claimed in the middle of a heat she hadn’t planned. Not when the last time I’d walked away from her, I’d left scars I could still see in the way she tested every touch before she trusted it.
So I gripped her hips harder and encouraged her instead. “That’s it, Diamond. Just like that. Ride me. Use me.”
She moaned—low, throaty, the sound vibrating straight down my cock—and picked up speed. Her thighs flexed with every rise and fall, the same powerful quads that launched triple Lutzes and held death spirals like they were nothing. Sweat glistened between her breasts, catching the low lamplight and turning her skin to molten gold. Her curls, still damp from the shower, stuck to her temples and the curve of her neck in wild spirals. Every time she sank down, her slick coated me fresh, hot and slippery and so abundant it dripped down my balls and onto the sheets.
I groaned, head tipping back against the pillow. “Faster for me, baby. Please. You’re gonna please your Alpha, yes?”
“Fuck yes,” she breathed, but the exhaustion threaded through the words like a hidden edge in the ice. My girl was running on pure heat-fueled adrenaline now, and even that had limits. A nap would be a blessing—for her, for me, for the fragile thread of control I was clinging to with bloody fingernails.
She rode me harder anyway. Faster. The slap of skin on skin grew sharper, wetter. Her inner walls fluttered around me, milking, squeezing, trying to pull me deeper. I watched her face—eyes half-lidded, lips parted, that storm-gray gazelocked on mine like she was daring me to look away. How this woman still had the energy after the day she’d had—three perfect tens on the ice, a public party, a preheat that hit like a freight train—I had no idea. It had to be studied. Bottled. Sold to every Olympic athlete who ever needed a second wind.
My climax coiled tight at the base of my spine, hot and heavy and impossible to ignore any longer. I bit my bottom lip, teeth sinking in until the sting grounded me. “Octavia—fuck—I’m close.”
She didn’t slow. If anything, she leaned forward, hands braced on my chest, nails digging crescent moons into my pecs, and rolled her hips in that devastating figure-skater circle that hit every sensitive spot inside her at once. The pressure built—relentless, perfect—until my vision blurred at the edges and my balls drew up tight.
It crashed over me like a breakaway gone wrong.
I cursed—long, guttural, half in English, half in the Newfoundland French my grandfather taught me— and sank deep, hips snapping up to meet her one final time. My cock pulsed hard inside her, spilling into the condom in thick, endless waves that left me shaking. She quivered around me at the exact same second, her own climax ripping through her like a perfect throw quad finally landing clean. Her walls clamped down, rhythmic and strong, milking every last drop from me while her head fell back and a broken cry tore from her throat.
I caught her when she slumped forward.
Arms wrapping around her sweat-slick back, I pulled her down to my chest, cradling her like she was made of the same fragile crystal that used to decorate her competitioncostumes. “I got you,” I whispered against her damp temple. “I got you, Diamond. Breathe.”
She was catching her breath in shallow, trembling pulls, but her eyes were already drifting shut—barely awake, body going limp in that boneless way only a satisfied Omega could manage. Her cheek pressed to my sternum, right over my hammering heart. I stroked her back in long, slow passes, feeling the heat still radiating off her skin, the faint tremors that lingered in her thighs where they straddled mine.
This was definitely taking hockey practice to the next level.
My lungs burned like I’d just survived a triple-overtime shootout. My pulse thundered in my ears. I needed another minute—just one—to get my shit together before the next wave hit her. My hand kept moving, tracing the elegant line of her spine, the dip at the small of her back, the curve of her ass I’d always been obsessed with. She sighed, soft and trusting, and something in my chest cracked wide open.
Then I felt it.
The knot.
Swelling at the base of my cock, pushing against the condom, demanding to lock. My body didn’t care about rules or caution or the fragile trust we were rebuilding. It wanted to seal her to me, keep her safe and full and mine.
The pressure built fast—hot, insistent, impossible to ignore when my hands were full of exhausted Omega and my cock was still buried deep inside her.
I bit my bottom lip hard, tasting the faint copper of blood again, and tried to breathe through it.
A soft knock sounded at the half-open door.
“You need some help?”
CHAPTER 17
