The Coach's Forbidden Play

Holden Briar has spent twenty years building a reputation clean enough to survive any scrutiny. His newest player is the one person who can dismantle it with a single glance. And every game they win together makes walking away a little more impossible.

Holden Briar took the Thorneworth Ravens' head coaching position because he believed in the rebuild. Fourteen seasons on benches across the league, a record the front office could hold up without apology, and a personal code strict enough that he has never once confused what he wants with what he's allowed to have. He is the kind of coach players trust because they can read the line between him and them and know it will hold. It has always held.

Then the draft picks arrive, the roster shifts, and one face in the lineup stops being background.

Theo Rasmussen is twenty-three years old, the fastest forward Holden has put on a power play in a decade, and the kind of player who looks at a coach on the bench the way Theo looks at Holden, which is too long and too specific, and which Holden has been telling himself since October means nothing beyond professional attention. The problem is professional attention doesn't feel like this. And Holden has been around hockey long enough to know the difference between reading a room and lying to himself about what's in it.

The line was always the line. Theo plays like he doesn't see it. Holden sees nothing else. The organization is watching. One move ends both their careers.

In a sport where a coach's authority is everything and a player's future depends on the man behind the bench, what's building between Holden and Theo isn't just forbidden, it's career-ending for them both. There's no version of this that's safe. Holden knows it. Theo knows it too. The question is who stops first.

Perfect for fans of Helena Hunting, Sarina Bowen, and Avery Keelan. The Coach's Forbidden Play is a full-length standalone MM Hockey Romance with HEA and no cliffhanger. Contains mature content, steam, and an age gap that the rulebook never accounted for.