The Man I Couldn’t Resist

The Man I Couldn’t Resist.

NOVEL STATUS: COMPLETED

PUBLISHED CHAPTERS: 13 CHAPTERS

The Man I Couldn’t Resist- Sneak Peek

LENNOX

The Riverside Arena belonged to me on Tuesday mornings. That was the arrangement—nine to eleven, the ice mine, the silence mine, the humiliation of falling on my face entirely my own business. I’d booked the slot four months in advance and written it in my planner in red ink, which was as close to a blood pact as the scheduling system allowed.

So when I heard the unmistakable clatter of hockey gear echoing down the corridor, I assumed it was my imagination.

It wasn’t.

Beckham Cole materialized at the rink entrance like a very inconvenient weather system—large, loud, trailing six teammates who moved through every room like they owned it. In full gear, he looked enormous. The kind of enormous that takes up space without apology. He caught my eye immediately, which I resented, and held my gaze two seconds too long, which I resented more.

I needed this ice.

He skated over with the ease of someone who had never once been told no, and handed me a folded note. His coach’s handwriting—a scheduling override, giving his team the ice until eleven. Typical.

𝗥еa𝘥 𝘧𝗿𝗈m у𝗈𝗎𝘳 𝗉𝘩оnе 𝗈ո 𝘨𝘢l𝗇𝘰𝘷𝖾𝗅𝘀.𝘤𝗈𝘮

They didn’t.

Coach Merritt, who viewed figure skating with roughly the same respect he reserved for mime and interpretive dance—something decorative, harmless, best performed somewhere nobody had to watch. He made his opinions known regularly, and his players had absorbed them like doctrine.

“Whatever you say, Beckham.” I handed the note back without meeting his eyes and pushed off toward center ice. “Just don’t mess with my surface—they just ran the Zamboni.”

The cold air tightened around my face. Behind me, I could feel his gaze following the line of my shoulders, my back, the path of my blades. Not the obvious kind. Something more deliberate. Almost like he was paying attention.

I refused to find that interesting.

-Continue in The Man I Couldn’t Resist chapter 1 –