A volatile NHL defenseman with a ruined knee. A fierce physical therapist with a family legacy to save. And a six-week fake engagement contract that’s about to short-circuit the entire league.
Jaxon Vance is the "volatile lone wolf" of the Chicago Cougars—forty million dollars of defensive anchor with a broken joint capsule and a media reputation in flames. If he doesn’t pass his medical fitness review by opening night, the front office is ready to trade him to Calgary. He needs a miracle, and he needs it away from the city glare.
Dr. Chloe Miller is a master clinician with her own ticking clock. Her father’s South Side sports academy is days away from a bank foreclosure. When Jaxon’s corporate-minded manager offers a massive cash injection to save the facility, it comes with a catch: she has to move into Jaxon’s isolated cabin in Glacial Lakes, Wisconsin, fix his knee, and play the role of his devoted, adoring fiancée for the press.
The terms of the contract are rigid: Six weeks of forced proximity. Total compliance for the cameras. And a clean, amicable public split when the season starts.
But inside the quiet log walls of the Northwoods, the clinical boundaries start to blur. Every manual treatment block runs white-hot with an electric friction neither of them budgeted for. As the media spotlight turns blinding, Jaxon stops playing like he’s the only one on the ice—and Chloe realizes the real danger isn't the contract leaking to the press.
It’s how easily the performance is turning into reality.
From author Avery Cross comes Off-Ice Friction, a full-length, high-steam contemporary sports romance. It is Book 1 in the Glacial Lakes Series. While the series features recurring teammates and local town characters, each book is a completely interconnected standalone following a different couple to a guaranteed Happily Ever After. Can be read in any order. No cliffhangers. No cheating.
Genre: Romance
Jaxon Vance is the "volatile lone wolf" of the Chicago Cougars—forty million dollars of defensive anchor with a broken joint capsule and a media reputation in flames. If he doesn’t pass his medical fitness review by opening night, the front office is ready to trade him to Calgary. He needs a miracle, and he needs it away from the city glare.
Dr. Chloe Miller is a master clinician with her own ticking clock. Her father’s South Side sports academy is days away from a bank foreclosure. When Jaxon’s corporate-minded manager offers a massive cash injection to save the facility, it comes with a catch: she has to move into Jaxon’s isolated cabin in Glacial Lakes, Wisconsin, fix his knee, and play the role of his devoted, adoring fiancée for the press.
The terms of the contract are rigid: Six weeks of forced proximity. Total compliance for the cameras. And a clean, amicable public split when the season starts.
But inside the quiet log walls of the Northwoods, the clinical boundaries start to blur. Every manual treatment block runs white-hot with an electric friction neither of them budgeted for. As the media spotlight turns blinding, Jaxon stops playing like he’s the only one on the ice—and Chloe realizes the real danger isn't the contract leaking to the press.
It’s how easily the performance is turning into reality.
From author Avery Cross comes Off-Ice Friction, a full-length, high-steam contemporary sports romance. It is Book 1 in the Glacial Lakes Series. While the series features recurring teammates and local town characters, each book is a completely interconnected standalone following a different couple to a guaranteed Happily Ever After. Can be read in any order. No cliffhangers. No cheating.
Genre: Romance
Used availability for Avery Cross's Off Ice Friction