She’s been a #1 International Bestselling Author around the world with millions sold, and now Ava Miles delivers one of the wackiest rom-com of all-time to binge, with laugh-your-heart-out moments you won’t forget.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Ava Miles’s The Hockey Experiment, which is out June 9th 2025.
Date a hockey player?? Why the heck would she want to do that?
But study him? Sign her up for that experiment!
Except when Dr. Valentina Hargrove meets the captain of the Alexandria Eagles, Brock “The Rock” Thomson, she isn’t sure her original hypothesis that hockey players are Stone Age throwbacks stands up.
Stock options and impressive IQs weren’t on her checklist. Brock may have the requisite scary scar, but it’s on a sexy, after-shave scented, rock-hard jaw—and he chews his food with his mouth closed.
Only she can’t date him—her proposal guidelines are strict. She is to study hockey players to determine whether they are modern cavemen. Hockey stick/club—same, same. Even their dental issues make the similarities seem academic.
Except Brock’s manly come, now, mine routine seems to answer the one question plaguing women since the beginning of time: what is it about men that women find so irresistible? His desire to make her his isn’t just about him making fire to impress her and finding them a nice fur-lined cave with a picket fence for their happily ever after.
He’s more than a guy with a wooden stick, putting Val’s whole study in jeopardy and the team’s path to victory when they discover she’s also the daughter of the Eagles’ new owner…
The honest assessment of his behavior was clinically comfortable and emotionally assuring. “I had trouble paying attention in the team meeting, and I didn’t have a single creative thought today. That’s rare for me.”
He angled closer to her, his sexy, skin-tingling scent making her knees feel like she’d done a thousand leg lifts. “So we’re both feeling distracted.”
“Darla—and Masters and Johnson—assure me this is a normal biological reaction to the opposite sex.”
He looked to be biting the inside of his cheek. “Masters and Johnson… The scientists who wrote Human Sexual Response. I caught the TV series about them on Showtime when I was on the road once. It was interesting, to say the least.”
Hearing the way his deep baritone voice said sexual from his full lips had her belly tightening. “Yes, that’s them. They outlined the biological essence of male and female interactions as related to sexual attraction and relations.”
His blue eyes speared her with a heated glance, and her brain cheered the attraction indicator. “Is this light reading after you finish up at the arena?”
She became a little self-conscious. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Never.” He took a step closer and lifted his hand to play with the hair resting against her right shoulder and breast. “I like it when you go into sexy librarian mode.”
Her mouth went dry. Her heart rate cantered. She lost track of what she was saying as she stared into his warm blue eyes. “Ah…where was I?”
“You were telling me about sexual attraction and relations—and essences.”
His voice was velvety soft, igniting an inferno of desire in her core regions. Belly. Thighs. Even her breasts felt tight. She’d never experienced this level of arousal before—with any of her three partners. Before, she’d looked on sex as a human act to be explored as much for the scientific miracle it was as for the personal experience.
The miracle hadn’t been obvious with her partners, and as a personal experience, she’d been more excited to dissect her first frog. A vibrator—courtesy of Darla for her birthday—had given her a glimpse of the miracle. But she’d never hungered for it.
Not like she hungered for the man in front of her.
“Val…”
Brock’s use of her name brought her back. “I…umm—”
“Maybe we should get ourselves a drink and sit down while you tell me more. Before I give in to the urge to kiss you. Right now.”
Kiss her?
This soon? “But I thought that came at the end of the evening on a first date in most cases.”
He fought what looked like a grin. “Usually… But we’re in new territory.”
“You realize that too?” She nearly slumped in relief that it was out in the open.
“I do. Didn’t you hear me mention my focus issues today?” He took her elbow and gently led her through the open family room to the kitchen.
“Exactly!” She tripped a couple of steps in the heels Darla had insisted she put on before he capably righted her. “My attraction indicators for you are at extreme levels, Brock. Scientifically compelling. Personally alarming, honestly.”
God, was she saying too much? “I don’t mean alarming like it’s completely bad,” she continued, pausing to glance outside. Snow was falling now amidst the bright lights of downtown. Her body was so warm she wanted to rush outside and let it cool down her heated skin.
“That’s good to hear,” he said, amusement lacing his voice. He was so large he was almost taking up as much space as the refrigerator, she realized. “What are you drinking tonight?”
“Ginger ale.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “It’s snowing, and I’m driving. I’m not used to driving much anymore. Especially in a big city. Oh, I’m talking too much. I’m not even making sense. Usually, I’m composed.”
“I know.”
“I’m practically babbling like a gray mouse lemur.”
The rumble of a chuckle escaped him, kicking up her desire levels. “It looks good on you.”
She glanced up into his understanding eyes, as blue as a clear sky. “I’m not myself. I mean, I was prepared for the elevated heart rate and the increase in body temperature. And the high dopamine levels that make me want to keep smiling at you.”
“I do like seeing you smile.” He was leaning against the granite countertop, his casual pose like a tidal wave of potent masculinity.
She waved her hands. “But this frantic mental activity, where I can’t keep a calm thought in my head, is completely unacceptable and so not me. I always know what I’m going to say. In school I was a lead debater. I’m acclaimed for my lectures.”
She slapped a hand over her mouth.
“Oh, God, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that! We weren’t supposed to talk about me or work or anything important. This was the getting to know you phase. First date. A light dusting of facts and engagement around topics of mutual interest.”
“A light dusting of facts, huh?”
“You are laughing at me!”
He stood and walked over to her like a jaguar who’d only just awoken from a long, restful nap. “Val, if you knew what was going through my head right now, you’d know laughing is the furthest thing from my mind. The way you’re acting is downright sexy and adorable. I’m doing my best not to kiss you senseless.”
She wanted to kiss him too, she realized. Leap up and wrap her arms around his neck kiss him. “Do you think it would help? Stop you from thinking about it, I mean, and me from babbling?”
The look he leveled at her, filled with heat and amusement, had her smiling at him. For no reason. Goodness. She was setting smile records for the Guinness Book of World Records.
“Are you asking me to kiss you? Because I pretty much repeated end of the night over and over to myself as a mantra all the way from my house so I wouldn’t move too fast.”
“Too fast? Did you not hear me talking about alarming rates of physical attraction indicators?”
“I did—and the whole lemur comment.” He put his arm around her waist and drew her to him so slowly it made concepts like physics’ debunking of time and space become credible. “Which I kinda imagined you saying wearing those thick glasses with your hair up. I might need to hear the daytime Val say something like that. But only for me.”
She stared up at his towering physique, the angles of his rock-hard jaw and face shadowed by the overhead lighting. “Only for you… Proprietary urges in males are common indicators of physical attraction.”
He cupped her cheek in his hot hand, making her want to curl into him. “Are they? Well, truthfully, I seem to be having a lot of proprietary urges when it comes to you…”
