Alex

by Sawyer Bennett

Pushed into a career on the ice that wasn’t what he would have chosen for himself, Alex Crossman lives life with distain – for everything and everyone.

Life as the Most Valued Player is completely and utterly meaningless to a man that doesn’t like what he sees when he looks in the mirror in the morning. But value or not – Alex has the art of being a class one prick down to perfection and has no intension of changing his modus operandi any time soon – or so he thinks.

Because when the team have finally had enough of the attitude he is left with the unwelcome option of cleaning up his public image to the management’s satisfaction of warming his arse on the bench for the foreseeable future. Hell is that a choice?

 Stepping into the fray Alex, joins forces with Sutton – a dependency councillor to help with her drug awareness program. Surely a huge star like him on board will do the program the world of good – well you would think but their initial meeting was hardly a stellar occasion – Alex was in fine fettle and his arrogant bastard persona was front and centre. Lucky for him Sutton has dealt with his sort before and getting her to take his bait was never going to happen. She saw through him fairly early on and I think she could read the pain that he tried to keep locked away inside.

Alex is everything that Sutton shouldn’t want and he is definitely the wrong side of the private /professional boundary but she can’t keep him out, he works his way under her skin and she is smitten. I would love to say that it was easy for the two of them but when they took the step over the professional line – their private relationship wasn’t an easy ride.

Sutton can see that Alex is laden down with more issues than any one person should ever have to carry alone and she is willing to share the load and to help him deal with his abusive childhood but she would have him running scared is she pushed the issue so instead she bides her time, offers him a shoulder to lean on and an ear to listen when he is ready and waits for Alex to come to her to talk. Experience, personal and professional have given her enough empathy to know that he deserves more than her trying to force his hand.

Alex has never felt what it was like to be loved before, not truly loved – for who he is, not what he can do on the ice or what he has in the bank, but for what he has in his heart, for the man that he hides away, for the man that Sutton knows loves her – and it takes him a lot longer to see the writing on the wall for the two of them, to recognise that the feelings he has for Sutton and the way she is with him is the real McCoy, it is what he has been missing all his life and he doesn’t want to go without it for another minute.

From the instant these two met I knew they were going to be amazing together, soul mates in every sense of the word.

I loved this book and I have to say that I have a new found enthusiasm for all things ice hockey!!