by Elise Faber
Centered
Gold Hockey #9
Elise Faber
CENTERED
BY ELISE FABER
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
CENTERED
Copyright © 2020 Elise Faber
Print ISBN-13: 978-1-946140-74-6
Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-946140-79-3
Cover Art by Jena Brignola
Contents
Gold Hockey Series
Gold Cast of Characters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Epilogue
Charging
Gold Hockey Series
Gold Hockey
Also by Elise Faber
About the Author
Gold Hockey Series
Blocked
Backhand
Boarding
Benched
Breakaway
Breakout
Checked
Coasting
Centered
Charging
Gold Cast of Characters
Heroes and Heroines:
Brit Plantain (Blocked) — first female goalie in the NHL, loves boy bands
Stefan Barie (Blocked) — captain of the Gold
Sara Jetty (Backhand) — artist and figure skater
Mike Stewart (Backhand) —defenseman for the Gold, romance guru
Blane Hart (Boarding) — center for the Gold, number 22
Mandy Shallows (Boarding) — trainer and physical therapist
Max Montgomery (Benched) — defensemen for the Gold, giant nerd
Angelica Shallows (Benched) — engineer at RoboTech, also a giant nerd
Blue Anderson (Breakaway) — top forward in the league and for the Gold
Anna Hayes (Breakaway) — Max’s former nanny, no relation to Kevin Hayes
Rebecca Stravokraus (Breakout) — Gold publicist, makes killer brownies, known at PR-Rebecca
Kevin Hayes (Breakout) — forward for the Gold, no relation to Anna Hayes
Rebecca Hallbright (Checked) — nutritionist for the Gold, plethora of delicious vegan recipes, known as Nutrionist-Rebecca
Gabe Carter (Checked) — doctor, head trainer for the Gold
Calle Stevens (Coasting) — assistant coach for the Gold, former national team member
Coop Armstrong (Coasting) — talented forward on the Gold, addicted to historical romance audiobooks
Mia Caldwell (Centered) — 5th degree black belt, brings the snark
Liam Williamson (Centered) — Gold forward finding his love for the game, charming and pushy in equal measures
Charlotte Harris (Charging) — new Gold GM, hates losing and the game Chubby Bunny
Logan Walker (Charging) — defensemen for the Gold, skills include: cockiness and being able to buy presents that make Charlotte squirm
Devon Scott (Block & Tackle) — former player, current owner Prestige Media group
Becca Scott (Block & Tackle) — Devon’s assistant
Additional Characters:
Bernard — head coach
Richie — equipment manager
Dan Plantain — Brit’s brother
Diane Barie — Stefan’s mom
Pierre Barie — Stefan’s dad, owner of the Gold
Spence — former goalie, married to Monique, daughter Mirabel
Monique — married to Spence, former model
Mirabel — daughter of Spence and Monique
Mitch — Sara’s boss
Allison and Sean — Blane’s parents
Pascal — Devon Scott’s security lead
Roger Shallows — Mandy’s dad
Grant and Megan — Devon’s parents
One
Liam
He was fucking up.
As usual.
He’d had a particularly bad practice, after a particularly bad game, after a particularly bad series of games, and he knew that his hopes of staying with the San Francisco Gold were quickly becoming slim-to-none.
The name Williamson used to strike fear in the league.
His grandfather, his father, his two older brothers all had been forces to be reckoned with.
He . . . was scraping by.
Four teams in four seasons.
Shitty stats.
And somehow, he’d gotten picked up off waivers by the Gold, reigning league champions, who were in the midst of a rebuilding season after losing some of their big stars to retirement.
He was expected to fill a hole.
But how in the fuck was he, the smallest and least scary of the Williamsons, supposed to fill a hole when he’d barely earned a roster spot?
Fuck.
He put his head down, tugged the collar of his jacket up.
He should just call it already, put the league behind him and find a new career. Math had been his strong suit—maybe he should go back and be an accountant. He could run his brothers’ multimillion-dollar fortunes, help them eke out a few more dollars and—
“Watch out!”
The warning came a second too late.
He’d already stepped off the curb, already put himself in range of the car that was blowing through the red light, tearing through the intersection, not giving a shit that there were pedestrians walking—
Well, of all the ways to go, at least this would be quick.
But just as the car came within an inch of him, Liam found himself jerked back onto the curb, his one-hundred-and-eighty-pound frame becoming unwieldy and clumsy.
Kind of like on the ice over the last few years.
That was his last thought before he found himself sprawled, ass first, on the San Franciscan sidewalk.
Gross.
“What. The. Fuck?” a female voice snapped.
The same female voice that had warned him.
“Do you have a fucking death wish?” she yelled, causing his eyes to snap open, making him look up at an angel . . . a foot tapping, arms crossed, seriously pissed, and seemingly way too small to have been able to haul his ass back onto the curb female.
Liam thought he just might have that death wish.
Especially if it meant he got to be rescued by a woman who looked like an angel. He opened his mouth to reply.
But apparently didn’t work fast enough.
Because the woman, the beautiful, curvy female, made a disgusted noise and strode away from him.
He watched her go, watched that gorgeous ass stride down the sidewalk, and stop outside a storefront. By the time he pushed to his feet, she’d pulled out her keys and unlocked the door, disappearing inside.
Liam glanced at the sign overhead.
Golden Gate Martial Arts.
He thought o
f the swaying hips as she’d stomped away. He thought of the fiery words she’d snapped at him. He thought of the pretty brown eyes and lush lips incongruously paired with enough strength to pull him out of the way of the oncoming car.
And suddenly, he thought that, hockey or not, he might just want to stay in San Francisco after all.
Two
Mia
She leaned back against the closed door, hand pressed to her chest as her heart threatened to beat its way out of her body.
Her pulse pounded, her free hand shook, her legs were weak.
“What the fuck?” she muttered, sinking down onto the floor, dropping her forehead to her bent knees.
The cars. The horn. The man . . . standing in the middle of the crosswalk.
Not moving.
Not fucking moving.
She could still feel the heat of the car’s engine as it barreled toward him, toward her, when she’d run forward to pull him back. Adrenaline had made her fast and strong, had allowed her to get them both onto the sidewalk. That, paired with the car swerving enough to avoid them at the last minute, had meant she hadn’t ended up a San Franciscan pancake.
And now, she had to teach karate to a group of four-year-olds.
Mia sat there for a few minutes, thankful she’d been running ahead of schedule but cognizant that her window to get her shit together was closing. In fifteen minutes, her kiddos would start showing up for their thirty-minute class of jumping, kicking, yelling, and rolling.
All controlled, of course. One of the reasons she loved this sport so much was that every movement, every yell, every kick and punch and roll were to demonstrate some aspect of control.
Although, she thought, pushing herself to her feet and taking some slow deep breaths, that control was relative when it came to four-year-olds.
“Better,” she murmured, the adrenaline surge gone, the shaking diminishing.
Now, she could focus enough to review her lesson plan, to set up for class. She moved to her ever-present clipboard, the one with all of her class information, and the one she would be totally lost without. Finding today’s sheet, she saw she would have some helpers, but they were ten and twelve, and students in her program for older kids. Brayden and Will were focused and respectful, but they were still ten and twelve.
Juggling.
Most of her job was juggling.
Lips curving upward into a smile, a large grin that would ruin her tough-as-nails persona if anyone saw, she thought of how much she enjoyed juggling. Nothing made her happier than when she was managing several things at once, when she had more than a handful of balls in the air.
Handful of balls.
Heh.
But inner dirty mind aside, multitasking was her superpower.
Running a class of wiggly kids while also answering the occasional phone call, fielding questions from parents, keeping an eye on her assistants . . . and that was all just during one class. Then rinse and repeat for all of the other classes—which, on any given evening, could number five.
But she loved it.
She loved kids. She loved teaching. She loved the connection the studio gave her to her dad.
What she didn’t enjoy was the knock on the door precisely ten minutes before class started, just as she was pulling out the pads she’d need for the lesson. Sighing, juggling the pads—more juggling, ha—as she made her way over to the door, she flicked open the lock and nudged the door outward, her teacher voice already prepped and ready since her students knew better than to knock, knew they were supposed to wait outside until she invited them into the studio.
“Remember—”
Her admonishment cut off because standing outside the door was . . . him.
The stranger she’d pulled from the crosswalk, the one who’d sprawled with her on the concrete of the sidewalk, who’d twisted slightly to take the brunt of the fall, even as she’d braced herself for the impact that was coming.
He was big . . . and pretty.
Deep gray eyes, so dark they almost looked black. Rich tan skin that hinted at Mediterranean roots and made her mouth water for pasta, her stomach yearn for pizza, though she rarely indulged in junk food. Long lashes, a plump bottom lip, a crisp jawline. His nose had a bump along its bridge, indicating it had been broken before, but that along with other signs of imperfection scattered across his face only somehow added to the pretty—scars forming an X bisecting his right brow, another near the corner of his mouth, one more marring a spot halfway along his jaw.
Beautiful, but not perfect. Gorgeous in the imperfections.
Desire, hot and heady, swept through her.
And Mia got pissed.
She might enjoy multitasking, might in some darkly logical portion of her mind be able to attribute juggling attraction with the duties of her job, with the promises she’d made herself as the ultimate form of multitasking. But the heat that had swept through her at the sight of this man in the street, the flames that burst back into life when her gaze met his now, told her that rationalizing the way her body paid attention to this man’s was not going to go well. It undermined. It made her want things she’d carefully boxed up and tucked away.
She dealt in control, not in waves of lust, not in the intense desire this man had invoked in just a few seconds, her body instantly attuned to the beautiful man inches from her, remembering the way he’d felt pressed against her, cradling her against the impact, at least until she’d remembered herself.
Because fuck, she needed to get laid.
A slow, hot smile turned up the edges of that luscious mouth, and Mia thought for a second she’d said that aloud. Thankfully, as the silence stretched, as no pithy comment emerged, it seemed she hadn’t. Instead, she watched his smile widen as he traced his gaze from her face—hair now pulled back into a severe ponytail, to her gi, crisp white and tied with her fifth-degree black belt, down to her bare toes.
“Fifth-degree?” he asked, and she barely held back the shiver his voice had sliding down her spine.
Deep. Velvet, with a hint of rasp.
Pure sex.
Stifling the intense heat that flashed through her, that slid between her thighs, that had moisture pooling there, she simply lifted a brow.
Yes, she was fifth-degree, and nearly twenty years of work had gone into that thick band of embroidered black cotton.
She resisted the urge to cross her arms as his gaze dipped down again.
“You look about fourteen,” he muttered.
“I’m twenty-six,” she said. “What about you?” She let her gaze glide deliberately to his temples, to the gray strands threaded there. “Forty?”
Another hot smile that had the hairs on her nape standing up. But this one was paired with a shake of his head, a step forward. “Actually, I started going gray at eighteen,” he said, voice dropping, getting even huskier.
“So, you’re what then?” Mia said, taking a deliberate step backward, moving into the studio, letting go of the door. He caught it before it closed on him, broad fingers wrapping around the metal frame as she came to a stop a couple feet away, both unnerved by this man and confident she’d be able to defend herself if the need arose. “Twenty?”
The man stayed in place, just on the threshold of the door. “Twenty-five.”
So young for such heavy secrets in his soft gray eyes. But then again, Mia knew her own eyes held plenty of secrets, plenty of pain.
Not going there.
She lifted her chin. “Did you have a reason for knocking on my door?”
“Your door?” he asked, lifting his brow but not moving any closer.
“This is my studio,” she said.
“Impressive.”
No. It had begun as an obsession—to not let go of this last tie to her father—then it had broken and reformed into something that was more obligation than connection, and finally . . . it had become part of her. Something she loved and lived for.
“What do you want?” she asked.
A bl
unt question, but that was Mia.
Sharp and to the point. No fluff. But also the perfect way to keep people at a distance with her off-putting frankness.
The man blinked, face showing surprise with her tone. Yet, he didn’t retreat, didn’t react like most men who approached her did—he certainly didn’t back up, didn’t flee under the intensity of her direct stare.
Instead, his lips curved slightly, the barest bend softening the corners of his mouth, drawing her focus, making her mouth water.
Making her brain struggle to refocus.
Thankfully, she’d had twenty years of training that helped her to concentrate through distractions. Which meant she was able to shove down the attraction and wait him out.
The brow came down, the mouth flattened, seriousness took over mischief.
“I wanted to say thank you,” he said. “I—” Something dark flashed through his expression. “Thank you for rescuing me. You shouldn’t have put your life at risk to save mine.”
“It wasn’t a big deal.”
“No.”
She tilted her head to the side at the sharp tone, surprised it had come from him and not her own mouth.
“It was a huge deal,” he said and then muttered, almost to himself, “I risked a stranger’s life and nearly got myself run over because I couldn’t get out of my head.” His eyes made him seem far away even though they never left hers, and Mia found herself frozen in place. Then he blinked, and he was right there in the present. “I’m sorry.”