Overtime Minutes

MM Hockey Romance
by Chase Power

Free with Kindle Unlimited

Pairing: MM
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Inferno
Tropes: Teammates to Lovers, Captain/Rookie, Forced Proximity, Slow Burn, Touch Starved, Grumpy/Sunshine, Only Soft For You, Praise Kink

“No more overtime” becomes “no more holding back.” Two teammates. One rule. A love that refuses to stay in the dark.

Marcus Vale is the captain who keeps everything locked down. His career, his composure, his heart — all controlled, all contained, all protected by a decade of walls built after one photograph destroyed his draft night and taught him that wanting someone was a liability.

Theo Cross is the rookie who can’t stop breaking rules. Fast, reckless, emotionally fearless — he walked into Marcus’s locker room and refused to look away. When a brutal overtime loss leads to an almost-kiss in the dark, they make a deal: overtime only. After hours. When nobody’s watching. The only time they’re allowed to be real.

But the rule was never going to hold. Not when Marcus starts smiling for the first time in years. Not when Theo starts playing the best hockey of his life. Not when the team can see the chemistry and the media starts asking questions and the front office decides that the captain’s happiness is an organizational risk.

When the walls go back up and the distance threatens to destroy everything — their hockey, their team, and the love they built in stolen hours — Marcus will have to choose: the fortress that kept him safe, or the man who made him realize he was never really living inside it.

You’ll love this book if you enjoy:

✅ Captain/rookie MM hockey romance with SCORCHING heat
✅ Slow burn that detonates (🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ — graphic, explicit, emotional)
✅ Touch-starved grumpy captain × sunshine rookie who won’t quit
✅ “We shouldn’t but we can’t stop” with an overtime-only arrangement
✅ Found family hockey team (Jamie the goalie WILL be your favorite)
✅ Public pining, a viral photo, and a presser that breaks the internet
✅ HEA guaranteed — these boys earn every minute of it

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⚠️ Content Warning: This novel contains explicit sexual content (graphic MM scenes), strong language, sports-related violence, depictions of anxiety and internalized fear around public identity, and an emotionally intense slow burn. Intended for readers 18+.

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Not sure yet? Here’s how it starts.

Chapter One: Theo

The Norwood Ice Complex smelled like cold air and ambition, and Theo Cross was drowning in both.

He’d driven fourteen hours from Rochester with everything he owned crammed into the back seat of his Civic — two duffel bags, a stick bag held together with hockey tape, and a box of ramen he’d bought in bulk at the last gas station because his signing bonus hadn’t hit yet and he wasn’t about to starve his way through preseason camp. The AHL didn’t pay enough to build savings. It paid enough to build hunger.

Now he stood in the parking lot of a real NHL facility, staring at the logo on the glass doors like a tourist. The Hartford Whalers — reborn, relocated, rebranded as the Hartford Stampede three years ago when the expansion deal went through. Not exactly a dynasty. But NHL was NHL, and Theo had been waiting for this call since he was six years old and broke his collarbone trying to deke around his own father in the driveway.

His phone buzzed.

Mom: You there yet? Send a picture. Your father is pretending he’s not excited but he’s been refreshing the roster page since 6am.

Theo grinned and took a selfie in front of the doors — tongue out, eyes wide, doing his best impression of someone who wasn’t about to vomit from nerves. Sent it. Pocketed his phone before she could respond with seventeen follow-up questions and a Bible verse.

He loved his parents. He also loved them from fourteen hours away.

Inside, the facility was everything the AHL wasn’t. The hallways were wide and clean, the carpet thick enough to swallow footsteps, and there were actual photographs on the walls — framed action shots of players Theo had watched on TV six months ago. He passed a media room, a players’ lounge with leather couches that looked like they cost more than his car, and a nutrition bar stocked with things that had ingredients he couldn’t pronounce.

A guy in a team-branded polo appeared from nowhere. “Theo Cross?”

“That’s me.”

“Welcome to Hartford. I’m Danny, equipment manager. Let me show you the room, get you set up.” Danny had the easy energy of someone who’d done this a hundred times — welcomed the wide-eyed call-up, pointed him toward his stall, and watched him either sink or swim. “Your stuff got shipped ahead. Pads are fitted, but we’ll adjust after your first skate if anything’s off.”

Danny walked fast. Theo kept up, cataloguing everything — the weight room (massive), the medical suite (gleaming), the video room (bigger than his apartment in Rochester). And then they turned a corner and the hallway opened into the locker room, and Theo stopped breathing for a second.

It was round, like every NHL room, but somehow bigger than he’d imagined. Stalls lined the walls, each one with a nameplate. The carpet had the Stampede logo at center, and the lighting was warm and low, like the room itself was designed to make you feel like you belonged.

Theo didn’t feel like he belonged. Not yet.

“You’re here.” Danny pointed to a stall between two names Theo recognized — Jamie Ouellet, the goalie, and Ricky Sandoval, a third-line center who’d been in the league for nine years. Theo’s nameplate was there. Fresh. The letters crisp. CROSS 67.

“Sixty-seven?” Theo said.

“Roster numbers for camp. You’ll get a permanent one if you make it.” Danny said it kindly, but the if landed like a check.

Theo ran his fingers over the nameplate. “I’ll make it.”

Danny smiled. “Good. Team meeting in forty-five. Don’t be late. Coach hates late.”

He disappeared. Theo stood alone in the empty room and let himself have ten seconds of pure, uncut awe. Then he sat in his stall, pulled out his phone, and texted his best friend from juniors:

Theo: I’m in the show, Coop. The fucking show.

Cooper: Don’t do anything stupid.

Theo: No promises.

The team meeting was in the video room, and by the time Theo walked in, most of the seats were taken. He recognized faces from TV, from highlight reels, from the posters he’d had on his wall in college. These were real NHL players. Big, loud, sprawled in chairs with the ease of men who’d earned their place. The room smelled like coffee and cologne and the particular musk of twenty-five competitive men in close quarters.

Theo found a seat near the back. Kept his mouth shut for once. Observed.

The coaching staff filtered in — head coach Bill Pearson, a silver-haired man with the energy of a retired general who missed the war. Assistant coaches flanking him. A strength coach who looked like he could bench-press the Zamboni.

Pearson talked about expectations. Systems. Compete level. “We’re not here to develop potential,” he said, scanning the room. “We’re here to win hockey games. If you’re not ready to do that, the bus to Bridgeport leaves at five.”

A few guys shifted. Theo didn’t. He’d heard versions of this speech his whole life. The words changed; the message didn’t. Earn it or go home.

Pearson introduced the leadership group. Alternate captains: Decker Holt, a thick-necked blueliner with a beard that belonged on a lumberjack, and Matty Schultz, a veteran forward who’d been with the franchise since the expansion draft. They stood when their names were called, nodded, sat back down.

“And your captain,” Pearson said. “Marcus Vale.”

Theo had seen Marcus Vale play dozens of times on screen. He knew the stats — top-pairing defenseman, plus-eighteen last season, led the team in blocked shots and ice time. He knew the reputation — steady, disciplined, the kind of player coaches built systems around. He knew what he looked like in a helmet and visor, which was roughly constructed by God on a day when He was showing off.

But he’d never seen Marcus Vale in person, and the screen hadn’t prepared him for this.

Marcus stood from his seat in the front row, and it was like watching a building decide to move. Six-three, maybe six-four, with shoulders that filled the room and dark hair cropped short at the sides, longer on top, pushed back like he’d run his hand through it once and called it done. Sharp jaw. Straight nose. Eyes so dark they looked black from across the room.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t need to. The room oriented toward him the way a compass orients toward north — not because it chose to, but because it couldn’t help it.

“Thanks, Coach,” Marcus said. His voice was low and calm, the kind of voice that expected to be listened to and always was. “We’ve got a good group this year. A lot of new faces. I want everyone in this room to know that the C on my jersey doesn’t make me better than you — it makes me responsible for you. If you need something, come to me. If you’ve got a problem, come to me. If you want to know what it takes to stay here, watch how we practice today. That’ll tell you everything.”

Short. Direct. No wasted words. He sat back down, and Theo realized he’d been holding his breath.

Christ.

Marcus Vale was the most magnetic human being Theo had ever seen, and he hadn’t even looked in Theo’s direction. Not once.

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Two weeks after the playoff clinch. Phones off. Door locked. Twelve uninterrupted hours. Marcus and Theo celebrate with three rounds, a slow dance callback, and the filthiest, most joyful chapter in the book.

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