Okay, I can do this! I've worked with much tougher cookies than these guys. Come on baby, you got this.

I did a few little jumps in the air and decided now would probably be a good time to stop talking to myself. I'd finally arrived at the New York Rangers training facility in Tarrytown NY and I was seriously biting my nails down to the quick thinking about this job I'd finally nailed down.

While performing at a national ballet competition at the age of 18, a bad landing snapped my right Achilles' tendon with a sound like a rifle shot. Everybody there knew that sound, it was the sound that preceded many surgeries and months and months of PT. After it was all over I had regained not only my mobility and ability to dance, but had also found what I wanted to do most in life, I wanted to help people recover from what seems to be a catastrophic injury. Thankfully I was already a bio major at Rutgers and was able to switch my major, and eventually attain a doctorate in physical therapy. I still danced, but it was no longer my primary focus. I had two years of post-graduate work at the American Ballet Theater and was ready to look for a permanent position. It was pretty slim pickings with dance companies, so on the advice of my program advisor and friend Connie, I looked into professional sports teams, and scored an interview with the head of personnel for the New York Rangers! The New York Rangers! I could hardly believe my luck. Me, my dad and my best friend Joe have spent the last umpteen years of my life sitting on the couch catching every game we could, and every once in a while hopping on the train into the city and heading up to the Garden and catching a real live game. I know, I know, Gretzky and Messier are probably odd heroes for a tutu wearing little girl, but there it was. My hockey gods were right up there with Baryshnikov and Pavlova in my estimation. Amazing athletes all.

Anyway, I had finally made it through the rigorous application process and many interviews. Make no mistake, they were pretty leery of hiring a woman to fill a position that had always been held by a man, but my experience at ABT and my stellar grades all through school must have made me a more desirable candidate than the older men that were up for the job. Maybe the new team owner had something to do with it. She had publicly stated that she was unhappy with the amount of women who work for the team. Whatever the reason, I didn't really care; I just knew that this place was going to be a great move for me.

I adjusted my huge bag on my shoulder, fished out my i.d. lanyard from under my hoodie, squared my shoulders and marched to the door and swiped my way into the training center. I would be one of three therapists who would work with the team doctor Dr. Pierre Boulanger a massive, chocolate skinned French Canadian. We'd bonded during the hiring process when he discovered that we could converse in French beyond the expected balletic lexicon. It was a little intimidating for my 5'4" self to stand next to this man-mountain, but he exuded this great no bullshit demeanor that commanded instant respect and was incredibly endearing. I called him Doc, but I think Tank would have been a more apt moniker.

I got such a rush entering my new little office, I had my own office! A whole office that had my name on the door, and my desk, and my chair, well, you get the picture. I had one little room in this huge building. I finally felt like an honest to god grown up now. Heaving the bag onto my desk, I pulled out some heavy duty resistance bands and some foam rollers. Doc had said it would be okay if I instituted some techniques I had been using for injury prevention at ABT here and see how it worked out. Carrying the props into the treatment rooms, I saw that Bobby and Lester, my fellow therapists, were already at work wiping down the tables and organizing the equipment.

"Good morning guys!" I had to yell over the music they had going. Guess they needed a little melodic push in the morning.

"Hey Steph!" they replied.

I turned and made my way back to the office to finish unpacking my bag. I took my dance bag out and left it on the chair and fished out a few pictures to decorate my desk. Bending to push the duffle under my desk for now, I snapped straight up hearing a shrill wolf whistle. Turning around Lester and Bobby stood in the doorway grinning ear to ear. Bobby at least had the grace to look a little ashamed to be caught peeping. Lester, however, looked pretty damn proud of himself.

"Can it, Lester Molester, you're cute an' all, but at least let me get through my first day before the sexual harassment starts!" Bobby cracked up at that, and I had to join in. Bobby had the kind of laugh that you just had to join in with. Even Lester, though initially horrified by my harassment threat, realized I was joking and cracked up too. Little did he know that Molester was going to be my new nickname for him.

Cute didn't adequately describe either one of them though, Lester Santos, had lovely green eyes, ridiculously long dark lashes and a body a girl could seriously drool over. Bobby Brown had skin a shade darker and looked smoother than the proverbial baby's butt, and a body that looked every bit as delicious as Lester's. I'd definitely have to find time for some extra work-outs with this group. Maybe a little extra mascara? If we ever took a medical team picture I'd probably fade into the background.

"Okay you two, give me some hints to get me through my first day. What should I expect?"

"Did you get the app I told you about?" asked Lester.

"Yep" I held out my iPad for him.

"Pull it up and I'll walk you through it" he said.

I tapped the icon, "Now, see the roster appears? Tap on any of the players and it'll give you their medical history and who is actively being treated right now."

I'd pulled up the record for Carlos Manoso #25, not only was Carlos widely considered one of the best captains that had ever skated for the Rangers he was also considered one of the sexiest men alive. Well, according to People magazine, and every living breathing woman in the country (quite a few men too!). What made him stand out were his amazing defensive skills, he was also a great goal scorer and passer as well. He had more assists than goals, and was known to be calm no matter what came his way. He was a natural leader and it was clear the team revered him. What he was personally like remained to be seen, I had my fingers crossed that he wasn't a giant asshole. With a face and natural talent like that it would be so easy to fall into the role of a tyrant/brat.

His medical record definitely surprised me. He was currently playing with a first degree sprained wrist, and a second degree ankle sprain. Both injuries were incurred at the same time. He was only 4 weeks post injury and had already been back on the ice for 2. They had started treatment right way on both and he was due to come in later in the day for a re-evaluation (by me!) and some therapy. I felt my face get a little warm at the idea that I'd have my hands on him later in the day. Looking up I realized my new friends had been watching me while I absorbed the info I had gotten. My cheeks got a little hotter knowing they'd witness my unprofessional reaction. I mentally face palmed. Unh!

"Look guys, I've been a fan since I was 2 and my dad gave up hope on having a boy and decided that I would be his little sports partner. Being around these guys is going to take some getting used to."

They both nodded and unh- huh'd but I don't know if they totally bought it.

"All right Tiny Dancer, let's get moving. They'll be heading for a quick break in 5 minutes and we can get the introductions over with."

This was definitely a nicknaming crew. He clapped Les on the shoulder and said, "C'mon Molester let's show our new girl around."

Following behind them, I had a second to appreciate just how gorgeous they were.

Hey! Be a professional for Christ's sake. It's your first friggin day!

I checked to make sure I wasn't drooling and snapped my eyes up at the sharp blast of a whistle. I watched from behind the bench as the guys finished up their speed drills and meandered over to the bench. They were just so different to the sleek and sinuous dancers I was used to. Big, bulky men, yet incredibly agile and fast! They towered over me because of the added height of their skates. Good thing I wasn't some shy wallflower. I'd be in real trouble with this group! I did, however wish I had dressed up a little more than my Rangers tee-shirt and athletic pants uniform. At least I had a little mascara on and my crazy curly hair was somewhat restrained in a pony-tail. But, this is all they were ever going to see me in so…I did a mental shrug. I wasn't here looking for a boyfriend.

"Coach", Lester said, "this is Stephanie Plum, our newest physical therapist."

I extended my hand and was surprised by the gentle handshake I received from this man, I was expecting a bone crusher grip. He was known for being a real hard-ass to his players, really tough but fair. He expected nothing but absolute excellence in his players. You fucked up, you were scratched from that night's game. You fucked up badly enough, he'd send you to the minors for a week to make up for it.

"John Esposito, nice to meet you Stephanie. If any of my guys give you a hard time, you tell me, I'll find a suitable punishment. These guys can be real babies when it comes to PT."

He turned to address the team still on the ice.

"Listen up! This is Stephanie Plum, I expect you to treat her with the same respect that you treat Les, Bobby and Tank with. She has a doctorate in PT and has been hand-picked out of a pool of very qualified candidates. The medical team believes she'll be a good fit for us and I want you guys to listen to her when she tells you to do something. I expect full cooperation from all of you."

I thought his paternalism was a little annoying, but I understood his warnings. I was new to the hockey world, but I didn't really think that it'd be all that different than breaking into any other close knit group. I'd just have to earn their trust the hard way, by fixing what ails them, and showing them I wasn't someone that would let them push me around. I was scanning their faces as the coach was speaking and was met with mostly nods and little waves. I got a little jolt every time I recognized someone, this was way up there on the This Is The Best Day Of My Life List. Joe was gonna be so pissed he was missing this! When I got to the far end of the group I realized I was looking directly at the captain himself! He was staring right at me so intensely I felt a little frission deep down in my belly, the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up and my nipples hardened to roughly about the same size and density of steel ball bearings.

Holy cow! That is one intense man! What the hell am I gonna do when I have to touch him!

It's just the cold from the ice making you react this way. How can you have a physical response to someone who's not even touching you?

I dragged my eyes away from him and spoke to the team,

"I look forward to working with you all." I said lamely.

What the fuck? That's what I say? Christ they're really gonna love me! I'm going to have to work some serious magic right away!

My eyes slid to Manoso without my permission and he had this almost smile tipping up the corners of his mouth.

Great, glad I could amuse you! My day isn't complete unless someone can enjoy my discomfort!

I turned and hurried back to my office and fired up the coffee maker my predecessor had been kind enough to leave behind. I pulled up the music app and ran through a quick warm up while there was no one around. There was just enough room in here to practice some little jumps, and if I was careful some grande battements. I needed to relieve some nervous energy right about now. I was one big ball of tension. I had left my door open so I could hear if anyone came into the attached treatment room. I was off to the side of the door, using the elbow high filing cabinets as a makeshift barre. This is how I achieve my zone. Stretching slowly, isolating every single muscle after any workout allows my mind to go blank. Bending nose to knee then straight up and then cambre all the way back from the waist, only problem was the sight I was greeted with. An upside down Carlos Manoso in my doorway.

Holy fucksticks! How many times today am I going to embarrass myself in front of this guy today?

I snapped straight up and popped my leg down off the filing cabinet, and turned to face him. He'd changed out of his padding and shorts into a sleeveless shirt and gym shorts and sneakers.

Isn't there anything this guy doesn't look good in?

Realizing I was staring again I shook myself and approached him with hand outstretched.

"Hi, Stephanie Plum, Mr. Manoso, pleasure to meet you." He looked down at my hand like he didn't know quite what to do with it, but gently grabbed my fingers with his and shook. I felt the tingle all the way up to my shoulder. I snapped my eyes to his and thought he may have felt something there too.

"Yeah, you can call me Carlos if you like. I know that I was supposed to come by later, but I have a few meetings this afternoon so I thought maybe we could take care of this now?" His voice was like liquid velvet, and beautifully deep. I really wasn't sure how much time I could spend around this gorgeous man without seriously making a fucking fool of myself.

"Uh, umm of course, sure, umm… just head on over to the first table while I pull up your newest MRI's and I'll see what we're dealing with here." He turned and I got the back view. Jesus Christ! This man was too good looking to be real. I quickly grabbed my iPad and pulled up the images I wanted to see. It seemed that any tearing that was present when the injury had occurred had healed and there was only a little inflammation left.

"Uh…Carlos, these look really good as I'm sure Dr. Boulanger told you. I'm just going to test your range of motion."

"Sure, go ahead." He climbed up and leaned back supporting himself with his elbows. He was one solid block of muscle, but there was such an incredible amount of intelligence in his expression. He was still staring at me, and holy hell was it making me uncomfortable.

I picked up his foot and pulled off his shoe and sock.

Really? He even has nice feet? He's been sweating his ass off in skates and pads for hours, and they still smell good. Wait a minute…he smells good all over.

He must've showered!

Oh! What a mental image! Hot, soapy, water slowly running down what looks like perfectly cut abs towards…

For the love of god! Fucking focus! PROFESSIONAL!

I could feel the flush start all the way down at my hairline, only made worse when I looked up at him and realized I could see straight up his gym shorts. Holy crap!

FOCUS!

Blinking myself out of my fog and cleared my mind and throat.

"Okay, can you dorsiflect against my hand?" he complied "good, now circle to the side, good, now the other?" I watched his face closely for signs that this was painful and was getting nothing out of him.

"Does it hurt? At all?" he shook his head no. "You had it taped up for skating today right? How'd it feel?"

"Not bad, I've had worse and managed okay." He said.

"How about the wrist? You had that taped up right?" he nodded. He thought a moment then said.

"It feels perfectly fine, I've had no trouble with it at all." He flexed his hand up, down and side to side and I got a little distracted by the ripple of his arm muscles all the way up his arms, but what the hell any good PT should be checking out all his musculature, right?

I ran to the cabinet where I'd stashed my resistance bands, and selected the one with the lightest resistance to start with, and ran through the same exercises, but with resistance and lots of reps. He was really strong which was to be expected.

I felt this low level hum coursing through me that threw me off balance, it intensified in direct relation to my proximity to him. I'd only had that one cup of coffee earlier so it couldn't be that. Given, that I'd only just realized we weren't alone in the room and were being observed by Bobby and Molester, I had to assume it was coming from him. I couldn't really understand it. I'd never felt like this before with anyone. I wasn't exactly a saint, but I didn't get around a whole lot either. I'd never felt this kind of immediate attraction to anyone, ever. I'd been peeking up at him to see if his face was showing any pain while he ran through the mini work-out, he seemed truly fine, though every time I looked up he seemed to be staring right at me. I switched him out to a higher band and closely watched him through the same rotation. Bobby and Molester lost interest when their own patients wandered in.

"Alright, uh…Carlos, if you could hop up and head over and face the wall from about three feet away. We need to work on the little bit of calf stiffness I was feeling earlier. Bend you're left leg and straighten your right leg. Good, now hold for 30 seconds." I bent down and felt his gastrocnemius tense, I massaged it as he held the stretch. Whoa! Look at the goose bumps that just popped up on his leg! Then I made a big mistake. I looked straight ahead from my crouched position. I was pretty much eye-to-cock level.

Is he still wearing his cup?

I'm used to male dancers wearing dance belts, which confer a bit of an exaggeration in size in the old man bits department , but this was ridiculous! No one is that big unless Mr. happy is happy right? Wait did it just move? Looking up at his face I realized he was gazing down at me with an eyebrow raised. Mortification replaced my curiosity at being caught staring at the man's dick. Holy shit! I'd started calling Lester, Molester after one comment, I'm pretty sure I just leaped that same creeper boundary with a great big grand jete! But, wait a second… he doesn't look pissed at me. He looks a little turned on. I snatched my hand away from his calf like it was on fire, and abruptly stood up. A little too quickly, all the blood rushed to my head and I swayed a bit. The swimmy feeling got a little worse when I realized that he'd put his arm around my waist to steady me. Backing away, I tried to play my stupidity off as being star struck instead of being dickmatized.

"Well Mr. Manoso, if you repeat 3 sets of those exercises, twice a day, and keep up with the ibuprofen as needed you should be back in full fighting shape by next week. I've found that if you do those exercise once a day after it's fully healed it'll help stabilize that ankle and then it should limit that injury from happening again. Not that you're not recovering well today it's jus…you know my dad is a really huge fan of yours and Joe too! I really don't think that we've ever missed a game"

Shut the fuck up Stephanie!

"yeah… so keep the band I have plenty more, and come back in this time next Monday and we'll re-assess. Um…yeah."

Shut. The. Fuck. Up!

Mumbling "nice to meet you" I turned away, but couldn't resist one last peek over my shoulder. Christ he was so fucking gorgeous and if I'm not mistaken he was checking out my ass! Okay that might have put a little bounce in my step.

I bolted into my office and skirted the desk to grab another cup of coffee, I felt that hum intensify again. Turning with coffee in hand, I nearly collided with him.

"Was there something else?" I had to look up to see his face. He was really in my personal space, something I usually hate. With him though, I didn't seem to mind. He made me uncomfortable, but not in a bad way. I just seemed to be hyper-aware of his presence.

"Yeah, do you have another cup?" It took me a minute to figure out what he was saying.

"Oh! Yes here hold on a sec, and let me wash it out for you! Please have a seat" I grabbed my bag from the floor and rooted around till I found the my other mug. Running to the hand washing sink I rinsed my hands and the cup for him and dashed back in to my office. Thank god Bobby and Lester were too busy to witness this. I didn't know them really well yet, but I was certain they wouldn't let my goofy behavior go without a fair amount of ribbing. I quickly poured him some.

"Milk and sugar?" he shook his head no, never taking his eyes off me. If any other guy had been this quiet with me, and just kept staring at me the way he did, I would've been calling the cops or Joe. His scrutiny was uncomfortable and was making me squirm, but in sort of a good way. He was so fucking intense. He accepted his coffee from me and lightly grazed my fingers, I tried to suppress a shiver at the contact.

He finally broke his silence.

"How long did you dance?" he asked quietly he held up the mug I gave him and then I realized which one I had given him. It was a picture of me taken by a teacher at my ballet school, right before the competition that changed my life. I'd been rehearsing before going on stage and was in what I called my happy arabesque. I was on pointe and my legs where split vertically to nearly 180 degrees and I was reaching for the sky. Even though that day ended in misery, it brought me to my current path. Joe always loved that picture of me so he had it put on a mug as a present. It may have been vain, but I loved that picture of me as well.

"My whole life!" I replied. "I've done it for as long as I can remember. It's what I thought I would always do. Turns out, I'm not a great teacher though, and I found this when I was injured, and at the risk of sounding corny, I found my calling. Now I practice ballet for myself and do this for others." I'd managed to hold his gaze through all of that, but had to look away at the end. I was feeling the beginnings of a long heartfelt speech coming on.

"How long have you played hockey?" He smiled and blew out a breath. "Only since I was 10, I grew up in Newark and my mom was becoming concerned about who I was hanging out with. She heard about an urban hockey team in Manhattan, and dragged my ass there on the train three nights a week. Have you heard of Hockey in Harlem?" I nodded, "it was headed by Adam Graves, he saw me play once and talked my mom into bringing me back. We ended up moving to Cranford and I was on the high school team there and was scouted for college. After school I was drafted here and have been here ever since. I'd love to play out my entire career here, but we'll see."

Wow no stories about how fabulous of a player he was. Very just the facts ma'am. Maybe he wasn't cocky at all.

"What did you injure?" he asked.

How was his face so perfect? He played hockey, he should have a scar or something, wait…there's a tiny scar on the bridge of his nose. Probably from a helmet…

"Hmm?" uh-oh I was getting goofy again.

"You said you were injured, and that's how you found PT. What did you hurt?" he looked at me quizzically.

"My right Achilles', snapped like a twig, hurt like a mother…trucker. Took 4 surgeries to fix the damn thing, but it's pretty great now. Good as new." I couldn't resist and had to kick off my sneaker and tugged off my sock, I yanked up my pant leg and lifted my leg in his direction. The angle wasn't right so I rounded the desk and turned my back to him, lifting my lower leg and showing him the thin white bands of scar tissue cris-crossing my lower calf. He caught my foot in his hand and lifted it closer so he could see better. His finger tip traced each scar and I felt his touch in a much different place.

"Hey Ranger! We were just wondering if we could steal Tiny Dancer over here, we're heading out for an early lunch. We're booked solid from 11 till 5." He'd dropped my foot like a hot potato when Les had interrupted us.

"Ranger?" Seriously? Couldn't they have come up with a more inventive nickname? I guess if fitted him though.

"Yeah, it's what all these knuckleheads call me." He jumped up and put my mug on the table. "Thanks for the coffee babe, I gotta get going, I'll see you soon." He gave me one last intense look and took off. My eyes followed him out the door.

"Whoo! There was some serious tension in here just now! What's going on with you and the captain?" Lester said looking back and forth between my face and the captains retreating back. He was going to be a giant ball buster on this, I just knew it.

"Nothing! He just wanted a cup of coffee and we got to talking." I looked them straight in the eye. I really didn't want them to think I'd developed a massive crush on my very first patient here…even if it was true!

Oh boy!