An hour later I’m scribbling notes on my notepad when Professor Whitaker drops a bomb on us. “Alright, your first assignment is going to be a big one. In fact, it is going to last your whole final year and count for 50% of your grade. So, take this assignment extremely seriously,” she says fixing us all with a look.
We all listen intently as she continues. “We are roughly 50/50 between journalism and PR students, so you need to partner up, one from each area. Your brief is to follow a sporting team which will be chosen from a hat, you will follow that team through the year, specifically their training and games. You are to promote them in new ways and write a story each week on their progress and events. Your article will then be published in the Denver News, so make it good.”
The room falls into hushed whispers of excitement while Sophie reaches for my hand, instantly claiming me as her partner, like as if I would have chosen anyone else. Professor Whitaker places a written outline of the project on the front desks and the students begin passing them back.
I grab my brief and begin reading through it as Professor Whitaker grabs a hat from the boy sitting in the front row then takes a seat at her desk. “You have a few minutes to work out your partner and then we will work out who is taking what team,” she says as she begins tearing up little pieces of paper and placing them in the hat.
Five minutes later she begins calling students down the front and one by one they begin choosing their sport. The baseball team, the swimming team, the football team, even the cheerleaders get a mention. It’s my turn to head down the steps and pick a team. Sophie gives my ass a good luck slap as I pass her and I cross my fingers hoping I pick out a good team.
I stand before Professor Whitaker who holds the hat up high. I reach up onto my tippy-toes and begin shuffling the leftover teams between my fingers before landing on the winning team.
I pull it out and open the folded piece of paper. Oh shit!
Damn, how do I break it to Sophie that we’ve just got stuck with the worst team on campus… Well, that was probably a bit much?
They are certainly not the worst, they are extremely talented, but they waste it on alcohol and parties. Though, maybe that could be a good thing, I’m sure we would get a lot of great stories that we could exploit, I’m sure there are probably secret pregnancies and drugs all around them, though, I can’t say it would do any good for the whole ‘promoting’ part of the project. But after last year’s epic fail during the championship game. They are easily the most hated sporting team on campus. Their plummet from stardom happened almost overnight after their last game, and now I guess it’s our job to return them to the previous Gods they were known as.
I look up at Sophie who is watching me intently from the back of the room. “Well?” she asks.
“We’ve got the Dragons, The Ice Hockey Team.”
Chapter 2
Miller
“Come on. Quit skating like a bunch of pussies and show me what you’ve got,” Coach Harris yells from the barriers. “You’ve had a few months off and you come back looking like this. I may as well replace you with the figure fairies. Get. Moving.”
I push myself harder. I’ve got to be the best and show the team what a great captain I’ll be this year. After all, I’m going to win us the championship this year and get myself a one-way ticket into the NHL. But, hell, that isn’t going to happen without a shit load of hard work. My blades cut into the ice as I continue my sprints. Up and down, up and down. Spraying an avalanche of ice shavings as I stop at each end, pushing myself harder and harder.
I glance down the line and notice a few of the boys lacking behind and slot myself between them. “Come on Bobby,” I encourage, giving the newbie Junior a slap on the shoulder and smirk as he instantly picks up his pace. Now that’s more like it.
We complete our sprints and move right onto the next and I do what I can to push these guys around me to their absolute best. After last season, these guys could use the win. We haven’t won that championship in 3 years, each year we’ve made it the finals to let it slip right through our fingers. But no, not this year. Not on my watch. I’m going to bring it home for us, show these new guys what hockey is all about and repair our reputation if it’s the last thing we do. Especially after last year’s fuck up.
It’s our first session back and to say the guys look like shit would be an understatement, they’ve spent their time off partying and fucking around, probably with the same bunch of whores that they recycle between them. Me? I’ve spent my break on the ice and in the gym. I know where I’m going and there ain’t no way in hell I’m letting it out of my sight.
“Cain,” Coach bellows. I turn instantly and make my way over to the man who has become so much more to me than a coach.
“Yeah, Coach?”
“Looking good out there,” he grunts. “Get the goals out and run some drills,” he orders.
“Yes, Coach,” I say, heading back into the centre of the ice and hearing the relief from the teams as I call for them to stop their sprints. I give a few simple orders and the team split up instantly, a few head off to grab the goals while others grab the box of pucks and empties them out onto the ice causing them to spill in each direction. We all skate around, collecting a puck and get straight into our drills.
We’re a good half hour into training when two girls walk into our closed session and take a seat up in the grandstands. I continue on with my training, they are probably one of the guys’ current hook-ups wanting to see us mighty Dragons in action. I ignore them as best I can until a bright flash draws my attention. I glance up at the grandstand to see a girl standing with a camera raised to her face and the other girl, scribbling furiously in a notepad. What the hell? Who are these girls? We couldn’t be getting reporters sneaking in already. Usually that only happens towards the end of the season, or if one of the guys has fucked up real bad. Though, the season hasn’t even begun and as far as I’m aware all my guys are clean.
I skate over to Coach Harris, who has his back to the grandstand. “We got an interview today?” I ask.
His eyebrows pinch together in confusion. “No, what are you talking about?”
I indicate with a nod of my head up into the grandstand towards the girls. Coach turns around and instantly zones in on them, taking in the notepad and camera. His face turns a horrible shade of red. “Hey,” he yells, gaining their attention. “Get down here.”
“Shit,” I hear Tank, my best friend saying as he comes up behind me, watching the girls make their way down the grandstand. “Wouldn’t want to be them right now.”
The boys gather around to see what’s going on as they get close. “Fuck,” Tank laughs, indicating to the taller girl as they get closer. “That’s the chick from the gym.”
“No way,” I laugh, taking her in. “She’s hot.”
“Yeah, you should see what that girl is willing to do, man. She’s fucking wild,” he says, lowering his voice as they reach the team and I finally get a chance to take the girls in. The tall one is hot, exactly Tank’s type of chick, but the other. Wow, she is beautiful. Long, dark golden hair is pulled back and begging for me to wrap my hand around it. She glances around the group of men before her and I expect her to be shy or intimidated but instead, she smiles the most stunning smile I have ever seen making her green eyes practically glow and my dick instantly hardens. Fuck.
“What the hell is going on?” Coach asks. “This is a closed training session. Who are you?”
“Hi,” my little golden girl says, sticking her hand out. “You must be Coach Harris? I’m Dani and this is Sophie were students in Professor Whitaker's communications class,” she explains as if that should mean something to him. He takes her hand and gives it a quick shake, purely just to be polite.
“Ok, thanks for coming but we have a lot of work to get through, I’m sure you can see yourselves out,” he says dismissively.
The girls glance at each other in confusion and focus back on Coach. “Um… We were given an
assignment to promote and write weekly articles on the team, we were told you were on board,” Dani says.
“I’ve never heard of it,” he says. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude but you should pick another team. I don’t have time for this,” he says.
“Unfortunately, we can’t do that,” Sophie says. “Professor Whitaker has assigned us the hockey team and does not accept changes. Believe me, we tried. This assignment counts for 50% of our grade, so with or without your approval, we’ll be doing it.”
Coach Harris instantly begins to fume and Dani takes a step forward, placing a hand on her friend's arm to cut her off. “Coach, with all due respect. Sophie and I are really good at what we do. It’s no secret that you guys have lost a lot of respect and not to mention, your reputation has seriously gone down the toilet after last season. Honestly, maybe PR and journalism students are exactly what you need right now.”
Coach lets out a loud huff and studies the girls. “What would all this involve?”
“Not much,” she says. “We only received the assignment a few days ago so we haven’t planned it all out yet, but most likely would be a few fundraisers for charity, a few interviews with the guys, you know, those type of things.”
He presses his lips into a tight line. “What kind of fundraisers are we talking? That sounds like it will take up too much of their time.”
“No, no. They won’t need to do a thing, only show up. But we will make sure it doesn’t conflict with their training or games.”
He huffs once again and turns towards us. “You boys on board with this?” he asks.
The boys all begin grunting their approvals but I speak up. There are a few things golden girl hasn’t answered. “What kind of fundraisers and events are we going to have to be involved in?” I ask. Her beautiful green eyes land on mine and she takes me in, her cheeks take on the sweetest shade of pink that has me nearly losing my mind.
She cringes but continues with confidence. “Well, we are hoping you guys would be cool with this but we were thinking ‘sex sells’,” she says, my dick hardening, even more hearing those words come from her sweet mouth.
“What?” Coach sputters out. “That’s ridiculous. My boys are not whoring themselves out.”
The boys break into silent laughter at coaches misunderstanding. “No,” Dani clarifies, looking equally as horrified at the idea that Coach does, though I know some of these guys honestly wouldn’t mind. “What I meant was, we could do things like a ‘Boys of Hockey calendar’ that we could sell and all proceeds will go to charity,” she goes to continue but one of the boy's cuts in.
“No offense, but a calendar sounds pretty shit,” Brody smirks unapologetic.
Sophie scoffs at him. “Very unimaginative,” she says. “We were thinking more like you guys would be practically naked in the calendar with say… I don’t know, a strategically placed puck covering the goodies. Take it from a female perspective. Every woman on this campus and probably in the state would want a copy of that calendar, sell it for $20 and bam. You’re raking it in, you make a big show of donating it to charity at one of your televised games and suddenly you’ve restored your reputation.”
I nod along, I like where this is going. “So the calendar sounds good, but there’s got to be more, we need good publicity to last the whole season.”
“Don’t worry, we’ve got you guys covered,” Dani smiles. “I was thinking of auctioning you all off, well, at least the ones of you who are single, think something along the lines of ‘One night with…’. And we could have a small bio in the article each week like a ‘Hockey Hottie of the week’ the girls would drool all over that.”
“Ok, sounds like a plan. Though seems like you girls are going to be spending a lot of time around here?”
“Yeah,” she says, glancing at Coach. “If that’s ok? We’re all going to know each other pretty well by the end of the season.”
“Some of us already know you pretty well,” Tank says winking at Sophie who finally looks in his direction, her eyes popping out of her head in shock.
“Oh, hey there Big Guy,” she smiles, her eyes hooded, clearly remembering their time together.
“You just let me know if you need anything,” he tells her, though we all know he is no longer talking about this project. I hit him across the chest and push him away.
“Right,” Coach says. “You girls stay out of the way while they are training and I’ll have no problem.”
“Got it, coach,” Dani says. “Do you mind if we take a few photos after training?”
Coach shrugs his shoulders to say he really doesn’t give a fuck. “Sure,” he grunts turning his attention back to us. “Get on with it,” he hollers as we all break away and get straight back to our training.
I watch Dani every chance I get, watching her movements, the way she flicks her hair over her shoulder when it falls in her face, the way she stands and focuses through the lens of her camera with such passion it could knock me over and I know one thing. I won’t stop until I have this girl in my bed.
An hour later we wrap up the most enjoyable training session I’ve ever suffered through and I head into the locker room. The boys are a mess, dripping with sweat after I kicked their asses on the ice. They all talk animatedly about Dani and Sophie, making bets on who is going to tap it first. Though, we all know Tank has already been there but what I didn’t expect was to hear him tell them to knock it off. Maybe this chick has had some kind of effect on him.
I take my skates off and rid myself of my sweaty uniform, grab a towel and head into the shower with one thing on my mind.
Chapter 3
Danielle
“Holy Shit,” Sophie says as the boys pile off the ice and head into the infamous locker room. “What is Tank doing on the team? There is no way I’m going to be able to keep it to a one-night-stand now.”
I laugh at her misery. “I think we have bigger problems,” I say, glancing down at Coach Harris. “He hates us. He’s probably waiting for us to screw up so he can kick us out of here.”
“Yeah, but he will come around, once this all gets going and he sees some results he will be all for it,” she says. “Now get your ass downstairs and get a photo of them in the locker room.”
“What?” I squeak. “No way. I’m not going in there.”
“You have to. You’re the photographer. I mean, I’m coming with you, I’m not missing that, but you’re the one with the skills Missy, now get off your ass.”
“Fine,” I grumble as I get up. “What do you need a photo of them in the locker room for?”
“So I can add it to my spank bank,” she laughs.
“Be serious,” I scold, bopping her shoulder.
“I think we need something exciting to kick it all off and the boy's locker room has always been taboo, prohibited, dark and intriguing. It’s the Garden of Eden and all the ladies are dying to know what kind of fruit it holds so we are going to show them.”
I smirk at her reasoning, though, I can’t complain about that. We make our way downstairs and twist our way through the maze of hallways as we search out the boy’s locker room. We come up to the door, after following the noise and smell of sweaty men.
I go to knock on the door to warn them we are here but Sophie walks straight by me. “Cover up boy’s, we’re coming in,” she announces as she barges her way in. I follow behind her and I feel the heat instantly rise to my cheeks. Damn it. I keep my eyes down, trying to give them a little bit of privacy but as Sophie chats and giggles away, I realize that these boys don’t care, they are all extremely confident in what they’ve been blessed with and from what I can see, so they should be.
Sophie begins to explain what we need to the half-naked boys and they agree straight away and begin huddling around for a photo. “Hold on,” Tank calls. “We’re missing Miller.”
A few of the boy’s moan and tells us to get on with it but Tank insists we wait, after all, Miller is the captain and what locker room photo would be compl
ete without the captain?
Not two minutes later Miller walks out of the bathroom, just showered with his towel wrapped around his narrow waist, giving me the perfect view of his toned chest and abs that lead down to the perfect mouth-watering ‘V’, drops of water glisten off his perfect body and heat begins to flood in my stomach as an intense need comes over me. I raise my eyes instantly locking on his and I realize I’ve been caught checking him out. He smirks at me but goes to join the boys.
I raise my camera and take a few shots, some with them posing but some just natural, which to me, comes off a lot sexier. “Ok, thanks, guys,” I say, placing the cap back on the lens. “You can get dressed now.”
I scramble as I try to flee the locker room. “Dani,” I stop in my tracks and turn to figure out which of these sexy men is needing my attention. I look around and find none other than Miller’s eyes on me, he indicates with a slight jerk of his head for me to join him. I walk over and stand before him, very aware that he is still glistening with water that slowly drips from his dark hair and is wearing nothing but a very loose towel.
“Like what you see?” he smirks as he reaches into his locker and pulls out a sharpie.
I make a show of looking him over then give a non-committed shrug. “Nah… Seen better,” I tell him.
“I doubt that,” he says, his dark eyes flaming. He takes my arm and sends shivers right through my body. I watch in confusion as he uncaps his sharpie and begins scribbling his number right down the length of my arm.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I shriek, pulling my arm out of his firm grasp and fixing him with an unimpressed look, while simultaneously ignoring the way his intense eyes bore into mine. I look down at my forearm to see the first half of his number, taking up at least half of my arm.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m giving you my number,” he says smugly.
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