A USA Today bestseller.

He'll give her what she needs . . .

Addison Williams isn't looking for romance, but when she encounters an eavesdropping stranger on an adjoining hotel balcony, she figures she's due a little fun. She just hadn't reckoned on the "fun" escalating so quickly to "out of control." One minute she's flirting with a whiskey-graveled voice in the dark, the next that same voice is telling her to do things. Hot, wicked things.

Cup-winning hockey player Ford "Killer" Callaghan can't believe he let the anonymous woman who blew his mind slip away into the night. He'll track her down because once could never be enough—even if discovering her identity places her strictly out of bounds.

Stolen kisses. Secret hook-ups. Deliciously forbidden in every way. Can a passion that started in the dark find a lifetime of love in the light?

Originally published in Hot on Ice: A Hockey Romance Anthology, this sexy prequel to the Chicago Rebels hockey series features an older, curvy woman, a younger, driven hero, and a happily-ever-after you'll swoon over.

I picked up this book because I requested the third book of this series for review. I wanted to really dig into this series since I’ve been seeing such good reviews of the series as a whole all over Goodreads and other blogs.

In Skates Trouble is the short story that kicks off the Chicago Rebels series and it was a really quick read for me. I enjoyed what I did read but the experience came with some drawbacks.

So, Addy Williams is in Chicago and staying at a hotel when her friends come over to hang out and they get to talking about men and dating and sex on her hotel balcony. They’re all talking and laughing it up, not knowing that hockey star Ford “Killer” Callaghan is listening in on their talk from the next balcony over and he’s heard everything. He’s immediately interested in one of the voices. The sexy voice that is complaining about how her ex couldn’t please her in the sack and things get real interesting once Addy’s friends (cause, of course, it was Addy’s voice that Killer loved, duh) leave because Killer and Addy get real friendly and…that’s it.

The next day, Addy shows up at her friend’s house for dinner and she’s still thinking of last night’s steamy solo action with help from her neighbor when she’s brought face to face with…that voice. The voice that belongs to the guy that talked her to an out of this world orgasm, a guy that she thought she’d never in a million years meet face to face.

Addy’s ex-husband owns the hockey franchise that Ford plays for and a whole lot of complications arise as they try to figure out where to go from here.

As I said, this was a really quick read so everything happened at what felt like, warped speed. They went from helping each other masturbate on their hotel balconies to OMG, I need you, I love you and I want to spend forever with you in seriously, the blink of an eye. Everything happened so fast and it wasn’t quite believable to me but it did set up the rest of the series for me and I enjoyed that.

Ford was an interesting character who stood out to me in this book. Of everything, I think I’ll remember him the most. He’s younger than Addy but he knows his mind and heart. She’s worth figuring out their complications and I liked that.

Addy, on the other hand low key rubbed me the wrong way for most of this short story. From the way that her and her friends talked on the balcony (I had an attitude about their attitude while they were talking and the way that they spoke about men in general), to the way she was with Ford, and then the whole “don’t call her a plus-size model” thing, this story wasn’t long enough for me to completely get her though in the end, I didn’t hate her. I actually came to like her. She just…took some getting used to.

I’m interested in continuing this series and despite my issues with the heroine and the insta-love, this was still a pretty decent romance so I’m looking forward to jumping into the next book.

Chicago Rebels Series

Grade: 3 out of 5