Off-Ice Overtime

Sapphic Hockey Romance
by Aurora North

Available at Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and more

Pairing: FF (Sapphic)

Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Inferno

Tropes: Forced Proximity, Only One Bed, Teammates to Lovers, Secret Relationship, Praise Kink, Slow Burn, Workplace Romance, Found Family, Touch Her and Die

Two weeks. One cabin. One bed I should not be sharing with my captain.

Rebecca Morrison has been my captain for six years. Six years of watching her lace her skates. Six years of her perfect, impossible control. Six years of pretending the pull I feel in my chest is admiration and nothing more.

Then the team announces the off-season retreat — mandatory, two weeks, a mountain lodge in the middle of nowhere — and I walk into our shared cabin to find one king bed and a captain who won’t quite meet my eyes.

She has rules. The league has rules. The team has a fraternization clause thick enough to end careers. Beck Morrison follows every single one.

Until the first night she doesn’t.

Until she pins me against the bedroom door with her hand around my throat and tells me, in that quiet, measured captain voice, that if we do this, it has to stay in this cabin. It has to stay off the ice. It has to be a secret.

I say yes before she finishes the sentence.

I just forgot to tell her I’ve been in love with her for six years. And secrets like that don’t stay in a cabin.

You’ll love this if you enjoy:

✅ Slow-burn sapphic with a hard snap

✅ Forced proximity + only-one-bed + teammates-to-lovers stacked

✅ A dominant, emotionally-repressed captain learning to use her words

✅ A golden-retriever winger who’s been waiting six years

✅ Praise kink throughout, dialed to 11

✅ Forbidden workplace romance with real stakes (and a real dark moment)

✅ Found-family women’s hockey team with the best supporting cast

✅ HEA guaranteed 💍

Buy Now

Get the Bonus Chapter →

⚠️ Content Warning: This novel contains explicit sexual content (graphic FF scenes including D/s dynamics, praise kink, and strap-on use), discussion of a workplace fraternization clause, an emotional dark moment involving a public denial, and mild anxiety depictions. Intended for readers 18+.

📖 Read Chapter One Free

Not sure yet? Read the full first chapter right here.

Chapter One

— Tori —

I was trying to decide whether to eat the last protein bar in the bottom of my bag or save it for the drive home when Coach Delacroix walked into the video room and ruined my entire summer.

She didn’t know she was about to ruin it. Coach doesn’t ruin things on purpose. She walked in the way she always walked in — clipboard under one arm, reading glasses shoved up on her head, a half-drunk coffee in her other hand — and she said, “Okay, my loves, listen up,” because she called everybody my loves, which was one of the roughly eight hundred reasons twenty-three grown women played the way they played for her.

I was sitting in the back row next to Del, who was half asleep against my shoulder because we’d had a skate that morning that no one had wanted and Coach had made us do anyway. I elbowed her in the ribs.

“Wake up. They’re starting.”

“I’m awake.”

“You’re literally drooling on my hoodie.”

“It’s a tribute.”

I was about to argue with that, because the hoodie was new and also technically Del’s, which is a whole separate thing, but then Beck walked in and I forgot how to use a mouth.

I shouldn’t say it like that. Like she made an entrance. Beck Morrison doesn’t make entrances. She walked into the room the way she walked everywhere — straight back, even stride, a little leather-bound notebook in her hand — and she sat down in the front row because of course she did. Captains in the front. Rookies in the back. Centers along the wall. That was the whole thing about Beck. There was a right way to do every single thing in the world and Beck Morrison had already figured it out.

I looked at the back of her head.

Dark hair up in a high ponytail today, the one she wore on rest days, not the French braid she wore for games. The little gold chain at the nape of her neck, the one she never took off, catching the fluorescents when she turned her head a quarter-inch to say something quiet to Del’s replacement on D. Her shoulders, through whatever she was wearing — some soft dark sweater that looked expensive the way Beck’s whole life looked expensive, in a way that wasn’t showy, it was just correct. Like her sweater had an appointment and was on time.

Six years, I thought. Six years, Victoria.

“You’re staring,” Del said, eyes still closed against my shoulder.

“I’m not.”

“Your neck is purple.”

“My neck is a normal neck color.”

“Kid. Your neck is a mood ring. Your neck is begging me to take you for a walk.”

“I will drop you on the floor.”

“Love you too.”

Coach cleared her throat at the front of the room. I looked forward so fast I almost took Del’s head off my shoulder. Beck was turned around in her chair now, one arm draped over the back of it, doing a slow captain sweep of the room to check everyone was there. Her eyes went past me without pausing. They never paused. They had never paused in six years. I had made a study of it. Every time Beck Morrison’s gaze tracked through me the way wind tracks through a curtain, I filed it away and added it to the spreadsheet in my head titled You Are Not Her Type Victoria, Kindly Sit Down.

I sat down.

Her eyes snagged on Del, who was now sitting up because Del was afraid of exactly three people and Coach was two of them, and then kept moving. They crossed over me the way they always did and I think I made a sound in my throat because Del reached over, under the table where the rookies couldn’t see, and she patted my thigh exactly once. The way you pat a horse that’s about to bolt.

“Easy,” she said.

“Shut up.”

“I’m being supportive.”

“This is not support, Delaney, this is —”

Coach raised her voice half a decibel, which from Coach Delacroix was the equivalent of a fire alarm. The entire room went still.

“Thank you. I know it’s the last thing before the break and you all have your cars running in the parking lot. I’m going to make this fast.” She took her glasses off her head and actually put them on, which meant she was going to read something off a page, which meant it was official. My stomach did a small, unprovoked somersault. “As you know, we wrapped up the regular season three weeks ago. Semis last week. I am proud of this group. I am proud of every single one of you. That said.”

Oh, I thought. Here we go.

“The front office and I have been talking about next season, and about how we come back in September ready to win the whole thing this time, not just get close. And we have a proposal. I’m going to tell you about it and then I’m going to ask you to trust me. Okay, my loves?”

The room made a sound that was half agreement, half suspicion.

“Cedar Ridge,” Coach said.

The married players groaned. Every single married player, in unison, like a barbershop quartet of despair. I didn’t immediately know why, because Cedar Ridge wasn’t a phrase that meant anything to me — but from the back of the room somebody whispered no with real feeling and then somebody else laughed and a rookie two seats down from me leaned over and whispered what the hell is Cedar Ridge and Del, without opening her mouth wide enough to be caught speaking, said, “Retreat. Mountains. Cabins. It’s a thing.”

“Cedar Ridge Retreat,” Coach continued, ignoring the barbershop quartet with the ease of a woman who had been ignoring barbershop quartets for thirty years. “Cape Breton Highlands. Two weeks. Training, team-building, rest. Mandatory. Full team. Non-negotiable. I am telling you now so you can clear your calendars because I don’t want to hear about anyone’s cousin’s wedding. Move the wedding.”

Someone in the back, I think Mack, said “oh my God yes” out loud before she could stop herself. The rookies had been loud for about a month leading up to this meeting about wanting a bonding thing. Now the rookies had a bonding thing and approximately half of the veterans wanted to quietly drown them.

“When?” somebody called.

“Three weeks from Monday.”

“How long?” somebody else called.

“I literally just told you. Two weeks.” Coach looked over the top of her glasses. “Are we awake, my loves?”

“We’re awake, Coach.”

“Good. Cabin assignments will be in the group chat by end of week. One bedroom, two players, you work it out. There’s a practice rink on the property, gym, trails, a lodge with a kitchen that will feed you, and if I find out a single one of you left the property to go drinking in town on a night before a skate, you will wish you had chosen a different career.”

Del made a small, anguished noise into my shoulder.

“Yes, Delaney?” Coach said, without looking.

“Nothing, Coach.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Coach went on for another few minutes — logistics, the bus leaving from the rink, the bag limit, the part where the front office was paying and we should all be grateful. I didn’t hear any of it. My brain had locked on one sentence and was going around the track with it like a dog with a squeaky toy.

Cabin assignments will be in the group chat by end of week.

One bedroom. Two players. You work it out.

I looked at the back of Beck’s head again.

I shouldn’t have. I know. I am a grown woman and I have a job. I have a league. I have a contract and a therapist and a life with a lot of moving parts. But I looked at the back of her head — the chain at her nape, the clean line of her pony — and I thought, very clearly, Delacroix, if you put us in the same cabin I am going to die.

Beck, as if she could feel me thinking it, picked that exact moment to turn around.

Not all the way. Just a quarter-turn in her chair, like she was shifting her weight. Her eyes came back through the room in a lazy arc, that captain sweep, checking faces. She got to my row. She got to me.

And for maybe half a second, she paused.

Her eyes on mine. Dark, dark brown, almost black in the fluorescents. One eyebrow doing that thing where it lifted half a millimeter, which on Beck was the equivalent of another woman screaming.

Then her eyes kept moving. She turned back around.

I don’t know what my face did. Whatever my face did, Del felt it, because her hand found my thigh again under the table and this time the pat was harder.

“Breathe, kid,” she said, low. “You’re going to pass out.”

“I’m breathing.”

“Mm.”

“Did she just — Del, did she just —”

“Oh yeah.”

“She paused.”

“Yeah, kid. She paused.”

“She never pauses.”

“I know.”

I sat there for the rest of the meeting with my heart banging around in my chest cavity like a puck in an empty net, and I did not hear another word Coach said.

The parking lot was cold for May. That’s Halifax for you. You think you’re done with winter and winter is still writing you letters.

I came out of the practice facility with my bag over one shoulder and my hood up and I was making a beeline for my car when I saw Beck, three rows down, unlocking her Audi. Nobody else around. Everybody else was still inside hugging Coach goodbye for the summer.

I thought about walking past.

I thought about walking past for a full two seconds.

Then my feet carried me over because my feet are traitors and always have been.

“Hey, Cap.”

She looked up over the top of her open door. The cold did something to her face that the fluorescents hadn’t — it pinked her cheekbones, softened her a quarter inch. She looked less like a magazine and more like a person, which was dangerous.

“Zhang.”

“Can I ask a stupid question?”

“You’re going to.”

“Cedar Ridge. What are we walking into. Because the veterans all groaned and the rookies all lost their minds and I don’t know which camp I’m supposed to be in.”

She closed the car door. Leaned a hip against it. Crossed her arms.

“You’ll be fine,” she said. “It’s cozy. Cabins in the woods. Small rink. Decent food. Coach just likes to pretend we’re going to boot camp. It’s mostly naps and pine needles.”

“Naps and pine needles.”

“That’s the technical term.”

I laughed. I probably laughed too loud, because Del was coming out of the facility behind me and I heard her say oh my God to nobody in particular.

“Bears?” I said.

“What?”

“Are there bears. I’m from Mississauga, Cap. I don’t know how to do bears.”

She did the thing she does where she doesn’t quite smile but you can hear it — a very small exhale through her nose, like a laugh that didn’t get permission to be a real laugh. It’s the single most frustrating sound a person has ever made in the history of sounds. I have lain awake at night because of that sound.

“There are bears,” she said. “They are not interested in you.”

“How can you possibly know what a bear is interested in.”

“I know what I’m interested in. Bears are a subset of mammal. I extrapolate.”

“That is the least reassuring thing you have ever said to me.”

“Zhang. You’ll be fine.”

I could have left it there. Should have, probably. But my mouth was open and my brain was still doing laps around the word cabin so I said, “Who are you hoping you get paired with?”

She looked at me for a beat.

“I’ll take whoever Delacroix gives me,” she said. “I always do.”

“Captain answer.”

“That was me answering. As the captain.”

“Right.”

There was a moment. There was definitely a moment. Her eyes did the thing where they got a little darker, or I imagined they did — I have been imagining Beck Morrison’s eyes doing things for six years, my data is not reliable — and she looked like she was going to say something else, and then her phone buzzed in her hand and she looked down at it and the moment went sideways into a parking lot and got hit by a car.

“I should go,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Drive safe, Zhang.”

“You too, Cap.”

She got into her Audi. I stood there in the cold like a complete idiot until Del came up behind me and put her chin on my shoulder, which she could do because she was my height exactly.

“So,” Del said.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I can hear you not saying it.”

“You’re going to have a really fun summer, is all I’m saying.”

“Del.”

“A very cozy summer. Very pine needles. Very —”

I elbowed her in the ribs again. She laughed. She did laugh with permission, like a normal person. Beck’s Audi pulled out of its spot three rows over. Beck did not look at me. I watched her brake lights go all the way to the exit and then I watched them turn onto the road and then I watched them go away.

“She paused,” Del said quietly, not joking anymore.

“Yeah.”

“She never pauses.”

“I know, Del.”

“Kid.”

“I know.”

I drove home the long way. I stopped at the grocery store and bought a six-pack and a bag of those frozen dumplings you’re supposed to boil but I always microwave. I walked upstairs to my apartment and I dropped my bag in the hall and I opened a beer standing at the counter in my coat.

My phone buzzed on the counter.

HALIFAX TIDEWATER — OFFICIAL TEAM CHAT

Coach, in the chat: Cabin assignments for Cedar Ridge posted. See attached. Questions to me directly, not to each other.

PDF attachment.

I stared at my phone.

I took a long sip of my beer.

I opened the PDF.

The list was alphabetical by cabin number. My eyes went to the Ms first, because if Beck’s name was at the top of a column with someone else’s, then I would know immediately and the whole thing would be over and I could go eat my dumplings.

I didn’t find her in the Ms.

I scrolled.

CABIN 4 — Morrison, R. / Zhang, V.

I read it three times.

I read it a fourth time to make sure I hadn’t misread my own last name, which, you know, unlikely, but.

I set my beer down on the counter very carefully, like I was afraid of breaking something. My compass tattoo — the little one on the inside of my right wrist — was fluttering in a way it only did when my pulse was doing something stupid. I pressed my thumb over it. It kept fluttering anyway.

My phone buzzed again.

Lily (sister): YO. YOU ON THE CHAT?

Lily: CABIN 4

Lily: TORI

Lily: VICTORIA

Lily: ARE YOU OKAY

I looked at the screen.

I looked at my dumplings, unopened, in their grocery bag on the counter.

I looked at the ceiling. I asked the ceiling, quietly, what I had done to deserve this. The ceiling declined to answer.

I picked up the phone and typed back.

Nope.

Want to keep reading? The full novel is available now.

Buy Off-Ice Overtime

🔥 Want an EXCLUSIVE Bonus Chapter?

“The Cabin — One Year Later” — a scene too hot for the retailers.

One year after the book ends, Beck and Tori return to Cabin 4 at Cedar Ridge. Beck has a ring. Tori has a secret. The porch is waiting. What happens in that cabin is the longest, filthiest, tenderest scene Aurora North has ever written — and it’s only available right here on the website.

Get the Bonus Chapter →