Checking Love: An Obsessed Playboy, His Best Friend, and a Coach’s (The Obsidian Ice Book 9)

He’s the NHL’s most reckless playboy. I’m his best friend—and the head coach’s daughter. We were supposed to keep our hands to ourselves. We failed. Knox Keller is a walking penalty box. He’s the Boston Obsidian’s star center, an armored weapon on the ice, and a total disaster everywhere else. He’s also my best friend. For five years, I’ve cleaned up his PR messes, managed his schedule, and completely ignored the dark, starving way he looks at me when he thinks no one is watching. I know the rules. You don't cross the blue line with the franchise player. And you definitely don't sleep with the man your father coaches. But Knox doesn't play by the rules. When a brutal playoff series pushes us into the same hotel rooms and late-night shadows, the boundaries shatter. He's bleeding, battered, and entirely too close. The scent of his cedarwood cologne, the heat radiating off his skin in freezing arenas, the heavy, possessive way his thumb traces my pulse—it knocks the air right out of my lungs. If my dad finds out, Knox gets traded. If the press finds out, my front-office career is dead. But Knox is obsessed. He’s decided I belong to him, and he doesn't care who he has to tear down to prove it. We're playing a dangerous game in the dark. And Knox Keller never loses. CHECKING LOVE is Book Nine in The Obsidian Ice Series by P.L. Mondal. It is a high-heat, high-tension, best-friends-to-lovers hockey romance featuring a fiercely protective playboy, secret hotel hookups, and chemistry that melts the ice. Can be read as a standalone. No cliffhangers.