Free Sapphic Romance: Back to Center Ice — A Full-Length Second-Chance Hockey Novel by Aurora North
Looking for your next high-heat sapphic romance? Back to Center Ice is available completely free right now — a full-length 113,000-word novel with a second-chance love story between a retired pro hockey player and the small-town rink manager she left behind eleven years ago. Praise kink, forced proximity, found family, and an HEA that will leave you wrecked in the best way.
The Premise
Emily “Em” Dawson has spent twelve years keeping the Birch Lake Community Arena alive by sheer force of will. She runs the programs, coaches the kids, fixes the pipes at 3 a.m., and hasn’t taken a day off since she was twenty-one. She’s competent, steady, and fine. Completely fine. She does not need anyone — especially not the woman who left her eleven years ago without looking back.
Alex Rivers was a star. A pro hockey forward with a jersey on TV and a highlight reel that could make you cry. Then her knee exploded, her career ended, and she spent fourteen months alone in a Montreal apartment watching her own clips and wondering when she’d stopped feeling anything. So she did the only thing left: she went home. To the rink. To the town. To her.
Em isn’t interested in second chances. But Alex keeps showing up — at 5:30 a.m. with coffee and donuts, coaching kids who adore her, building shelves in Em’s house, and naming the dying ice plant Gerald. And when forced proximity, late nights, and eleven years of unresolved tension finally combust, “just physical” becomes the most dangerous lie either of them has ever told.
What’s Inside
This is a full-length (~113,000 word) contemporary FF sapphic romance with 12 explicit scenes, alternating dual POV, and an earned happily ever after. It’s the kind of book where the sex scenes and the emotional development are inseparable — where what happens between the sheets matters as much as what happens at the boards.
The tropes: second chance, forced proximity, small town, found family, praise kink, slow burn that detonates into inferno heat. The dynamic: a woman who’s spent a decade being everyone’s foundation meets the person who makes her feel like she’s allowed to stop holding everything together — and the surrender wrecks them both in the best possible way.
If you’ve ever highlighted a passage in a romance novel because the praise kink made you feel things you weren’t prepared for, this book was written for you.
Why It’s Free
Aurora North writes high-heat sapphic romance that doesn’t shy away from the explicit and doesn’t apologize for the emotional. Back to Center Ice is available as a free download because new readers deserve to know what they’re getting into before they commit — and because Em and Alex’s story is the kind of book that creates lifelong readers.
No catch. No strings. No subscription required. Just a link and a novel that will rearrange your bookshelf priorities.
Reader Checklist
You’ll love this book if you’re looking for:
✅ A free sapphic romance that doesn’t read like it’s free — 113K words, emotionally devastating, graphic heat
✅ Second-chance FF with a retired pro athlete and a small-town rink manager who never left
✅ “She left / she stayed” with real consequences and real repair — the funeral scene will gut you
✅ Praise kink as a load-bearing structural element — “good girl” as emotional demolition
✅ A nonbinary Zamboni driver named Noah who steals every scene and drafts a budget
✅ Found family that includes disapproving mothers, protective sisters, and an eighty-three-year-old who skates backward
✅ 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Twelve explicit scenes ranging from desperate office-couch reunions to slow, ocean-side lovemaking to an ice rink at midnight
✅ Anger sex that ends with both of them crying — and commitment sex that ends with both of them laughing
✅ An HEA that ends with dual proposals, a clipboard, and a goal horn
Read Chapter One
Want to sample before you download? The full first chapter is available on the book page. Meet Emily Dawson at 5:28 a.m. in a rink that smells like cold air and burnt coffee, talking to a building like it can hear her — and then watch headlights sweep across the parking lot and everything she’s spent eleven years holding together start to shake.
The Bonus Chapter
After you finish the novel, there’s an exclusive bonus chapter waiting — The Night Before New York — a scene too hot for any retailer, set between the final chapters, featuring the ESPN blazer, deliberate marking, strap-on scenes both ways, and the kind of slow, devastating sex that only happens when two people are completely, unshakably in love. It’s free on our site at the bonus chapter page.
More from Aurora North
Browse all Aurora North books.
Hard Launch, Soft Rules
Their romance was scripted. The rules they broke were not.
Hostile Take-Her-Over
She was hired to decide if I keep my company. I decided to keep her.
No Repeat Customers
Della never sleeps with the same woman twice. Corinne has no intention of asking twice.
Her Favorite Bad Decision
Seven years ago, she chose the tour over the woman. Now the woman controls the tour.
Backhanded Compliments
They spent six years studying each other's bodies. The winner finally gets to decide what happens next.
She Likes It Rough Draft
Her editor requested revisions. The notes became extremely hands-on.
Never Miss a Release
Get new release alerts, exclusive bonus content, and reader-only giveaways.
