Ice bound

Natalia Mitchell has lived on the rink since she was four years old. By fifteen, she'd reached the Junior Olympics-only to return home without a medal and a reputation that followed her like a shadow. Though she's always seen stood on a podium at comps, Natalia is still hailed as figure skating's next great prodigy: disciplined, brilliant, and painfully careful. In a sport as delicate as hers, she's learned that perfection means obedience-to the rules, to expectations, and to silence. Especially about who she is, and who she could want.

Pierria Rousseau doesn't bend. As the fiercely territorial captain in her second year in the NHL, she's built her career on dominance, loyalty, and protecting what's hers. Outspoken, openly lesbian, and unapologetic, Pierria keeps her personal life locked down tight. So when figure skating suddenly starts sharing ice time at her team's Michigan rink-and a sharp-tongued, five-foot firecracker with no fear of flipping her off steps onto her turf-Pierria's patience snaps.

What begins as open hostility turns into something far more dangerous. Stolen glances across the rink. Late-night hotel rooms. The weight of expectation pressing down as hard as gravity. Natalia fights to stay within the lines she's drawn for herself, even as Pierria becomes the one force that makes her want to break them. And Pierria, who never planned to fall for the woman she once despised, finds herself holding onto the hope that there's room in Natalia's guarded heart-for love, for risk, for her.
Because on the ice, one wrong move can ruin everything.
And falling has never been so terrifying-or so inevitable.