Played by Naima Simone EXCERPT & GIVEAWAY

Played
Naima Simone
Publication date: September 3rd 2024
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Sports

USA Today bestselling author Naima Simone heats up the page with intensity and wit in this romance between a pro hockey player and a firefighter, both struggling to move on from the past.

Being a firefighter isn’t easy. Especially for a Black woman. Working with family helps a little. But when somebody from your company doesn’t come back from a call, it’s brutal—as in, “How’m I supposed to go on?” brutal.

And one death took me to a really dark place.

A year later, I’m at the Pirates’ hockey training facility. Just another day on the job. Until I find a charred journal. I look inside for the owner’s name, but the words on the page punch me in the gut. It’s like reading my own thoughts. Reliving my own pain.

The journal belongs to Solomon Young, left-winger for the Pirates—a father and widower. When I return it, I’m racked with guilt for the invasion of privacy. The look Solomon gives me is cold as ice.

But damn if that man isn’t hot as hell.

Now he’s stuck in my brain. And fate seems intent on making us face off.

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EXCERPT:

Hours later, after the call to the hockey training facility, I finally sink to my bunk, the leather-bound book in my hands. I stare down at the journal, flipping it from front to back. Why am I so drawn to it? Hell, right now, I really am feeling like f**king Gollum with the One Ring.

This holds someone’s personal, most private thoughts. Yet I trace the Celtic tree of life emblem on the front, then toy with the leather string wrapped around it. The longer I hold it, touch it, the stronger the curiosity stirs inside me.

It’s wrong to pry. Wrong to even consider opening the cover and . . .

Dammit.

Even as the . . . ickiness writhes inside me like a pissed-off nest of snakes, I loosen the strap and slowly open the journal. There’s no name on the inside flap or on the first page where it’s typed This journal belongs to . . . with a line for the identification of the owner. Conversely, that makes me feel an iota better about violating this faceless and nameless person’s privacy.

Or I’m just trying to justify what I’m about to do.

What I can’t seem to stop myself from doing.

Slowly, as if I’m opening a box of precious treasure, I flip to the first page.

August 2

Dear Kendra,

Goddamn, I feel so stupid even writing that. You know I don’t do this sh*t. The most I’ve ever written was a grocery list the one and only time you let me go shopping by myself. And we both remember how that turned out. A $500 bill and a shit ton of beer and beef jerky. But here I am, writing in a journal of all things. The therapist your father insisted I go see gave me this as homework. And if I want to keep seeing the ice, I have to cooperate. Apparently, I have an anger problem that’s not getting any better. Your father better be glad he’s not just my in-law but the owner of my team or else I’d tell him and the therapists to go fuck themselves. Yeah, sorry. I know that’s your dad.

Well, since I have to do this and you’re the only person I want to talk to, I’m writing this shit to you. Besides, as crazy as it sounds, I swear I can hear you in my head. And I feel closer to you. Like you’re here right next to me. I said it sounded crazy, right?

I don’t have anything to say.

Except.

Except I miss you. I miss you like f**king crazy, sweetheart.

And I need you.

Solomon Young.

Author Bio:

Published since 2009, USA Today Bestselling author Naima Simone loves writing sizzling romances with heart, a touch of humor and snark. Her books have been featured in The Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly, and described as balancing “crackling, electric love scenes with exquisitely rendered characters caught in emotional turmoil.”

She is wife to Superman, or his non-Kryptonian, less bullet proof equivalent, and mother to the most awesome kids ever. They all live in perfect, sometimes domestically-challenged bliss in the southern United States.

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