The Penalty Box: A Hockey MM Short (The Casey Whitlock Collection Book 8)

The Penalty Box Sessions ran long. So did the nights. 247 penalty minutes. Two suspensions. One therapist who should have known better. Garrett Hale is the most dangerous man in the league. Thirty-one years old, 220 pounds of scar tissue and rage, an enforcer whose fists built a career that is one mistake away from ending. After a hit that puts another player in the hospital, the team gives him a choice: anger management counseling or early retirement. Dr. Samir Patel is the therapist assigned to fix him. Quiet. Precise. Controlled. He has spent his whole life being careful — as a professional, as a son, as a gay man who came out too late to know how to be anything else. He has never crossed a boundary in his career. He has never wanted to. Until Garrett looks at him across the therapy room like he is something to be devoured. Their sessions become a game of inches. Garrett starts showing up early. Samir stops watching the clock. The space between them narrows with each conversation, each unbroken gaze, each minute the session runs past its end. Until one night, after the suspension that ends Garrett's season, there is no more professional excuse. No more door. No more distance. Samir shows up at Garrett's apartment at midnight. Neither of them walks away. Features explicit content, graphic language, and a forbidden therapist-patient relationship. Intended for mature readers 18+.