Chapter 10
Ryan POV
I ripped my hand away from her wrist as if the skin of her palm had caught fire.
The metal examination table shrieked against the concrete as I stood up, the sudden torque sending a white-hot flare of agony straight through my bruised ribs.
The air in my lungs turned to ash. My bare chest felt freezing where her small, warm hand had just been pressed flat over my thudding heart.
"Get your things," I snapped, my voice harsh, cracked at the edges like broken glass.
Nylah was still sitting on the high table, her legs parted, her cream sweater rumpled, her lips swollen and parted as she stared at me with dark, dilated pupils.
"Ryan—"
"I said pack your shit, Collins." I grabbed my clean black hoodie off the rolling cart, hauling it over my head with a vicious jerk that pulled viciously at the butterfly bandages across my brow.
I didn't care about the pain; I needed the sharp bite of it to burn the memory of her touch out of my skin.
"It's past two in the morning. The campus shuttles stopped running three hours ago, and the storm is coating the roads in black ice. I'm driving you back."
She didn't argue. She slid off the table, her boots hitting the rubber runner, her small hands shaking as she shoved her diagnostic cables into her leather bag.
We walked out of the arena in brutal, suffocating silence.
The nor'easter had turned the coastal air into an unyielding wall of freezing sleet. It whipped across the deserted parking lot, driving sharp needles of ice against the exposed skin of my neck. I unlocked my black F-250 with the remote, caught Nylah’s elbow to steady her as her boots slid on the glazed asphalt, and hauled her up onto the passenger running board.
I slammed the heavy steel door behind her, the latch catching with a concussive thud.
By the time I climbed into the driver’s side, my lungs burned from the bitter draft. I shoved the key into the ignition; the heavy diesel V8 roared to life, sending a deep, low-frequency vibration through the chassis that rattled the plastic trim.
I slammed the defroster on high. Hot air blasted out of the vents, smelling of dry dust and coolant, carrying that clean, suffocating scent of winter mint and rain straight from her damp coat into my throat.
My hands clamped around the leather-wrapped steering wheel, my knuckles turning bone-white, the tendons in my forearms standing out like steel cables.
She had her hand on your chest.
The thought hammered against the inside of my skull with the force of an errant slap shot.
My molars ground together until the masseter muscles ached beneath my ears.
For four years, I had kept a wall fifty feet high between my skin and the rest of the world.
I had let nobody close enough to see the guilt eating away at my bones.
And in less than twenty minutes on a stainless-steel table, she had dismantled every brick with a bottle of iodine and a soft touch.
I threw the truck into reverse, the tires biting through the frozen slush, and headed out toward the deserted coast road.
* * *
The wiper blades slapped a frantic, rhythmic tempo across the iced windshield, fighting the sleet.
The cab was too small. The air felt thick, starved of oxygen, pressurized by the silence sitting between the bucket seats. Nylah sat rigid against the passenger door, her leather bag clutched tightly against her ribs, staring out into the blinding white swirls of the storm.
A dark, vicious urge rose in my throat—the desperate, animal need to push her away before she could dig any deeper into the rot I kept hidden.
"Don't let tonight go to your head, Collins," I said, my voice flat, dripping with cold, calculated cruelty.
Her head turned sharply, the green glow of the dashboard instruments illuminating the sharp line of her profile. "What did you say?"
"You heard me," I muttered, keeping my eyes fixed on the slick black road ahead. "Playing field medic in the back room doesn't mean anything. You put those butterfly strips on my face because if I don't skate on Saturday, Hayes shreds your data project and your fellowship goes up in smoke."
Nylah went dead still.
For three seconds, the only sound was the howling of the gale against the truck cab.
"Pull over," she said.
The words weren't loud, but they were coated in pure, concentrated venom.
"We're a mile from your dorm," I replied, pressing my foot harder against the accelerator.
"I said pull this damn truck over, Owen!" Her voice cracked through the cab like a whiplash. "Pull over right now, or I swear to God I will kick this door open and roll into the ditch."
She reached for the chrome door handle.
A spike of raw panic drove through my sternum. I stomped on the brake pedal; the heavy truck skidded sideways on a patch of packed slush before the four-wheel drive caught, violently sliding the rear axle into a gravel turnout overlooking the black, frothing water of the sound.
I shoved the transmission into park, the lever slamming into place with a mechanical crunch.
Before the truck had even settled on its suspension, Nylah unbuckled her seatbelt and whipped her body around to face me, her amber eyes blazing with an incandescent, lethal fury.
"You pathetic, cowardly bastard," she whispered, her chest heaving beneath her coat.
The vein at the side of my neck throbbed violently against my collar. "Watch your mouth, Nylah."
"No, you listen to me!" she snapped, leaning across the console, her small fists clenching so hard her fingernails bit into her palms. "You sit there pretending you're some tragic, untouchable martyr carrying the weight of the entire world on your battered shoulders.
You bleed on the ice, you skate on cracked ribs, you treat your body like disposable garbage, and then you have the audacity to sit there and act like everyone around you is just using you for leverage! "
"You don't know a single damn thing about what I carry," I growled, my control fraying at the edges.
"I know you're terrified!" she shouted, her voice breaking slightly on the cold air.
"You're terrified that if you let someone look at you without that stupid captain's armor, they'll see how broken you actually are!
You use your brother's ghost as an excuse to lock yourself in the dark so you never have to risk caring about anyone again! "
The red line detonated.
* * *
My seatbelt tore free with a violent metallic click.
I lunged across the center console in a single, concussive surge of movement. Nylah gasped, scrambling backward, but the passenger door stopped her dead.
I boxed her in.
My massive frame blotted out the dashboard lights, the frosted side window, and the howling storm outside.
I slammed my left hand flat against the headrest right beside her ear, the leather groaning under the force of my palm, while my right forearm pinned the door handle down, trapping her in the narrow pocket of space between my body and the door.
The cab went dead quiet, save for our ragged, violent breathing.
The physical heat pouring off my chest collided with the freezing air, trapping us in a microclimate that smelled of raw cedar, athletic tape, and her mint-scented skin.
My right hand left the door.
My fingers shot out, wrapping roughly around the back of her neck, tangling in the soft, dark strands of hair at her nape. My calloused thumb pressed firmly into the delicate groove of her jawline, forcing her face up toward mine.
I dragged the pad of my thumb across her bottom lip.
The skin was soft, damp, trembling beneath my touch.
"You think I'm hiding?" I rasped, my voice dropping into a ruined, gravelly whisper that shook with a raw, terrifying hunger. "You think I want to be sitting in this truck, losing my fucking mind every time you take a breath?"
Her breath hitched in a sharp, shuddering gasp. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly against the front of my black hoodie, brushing the battered bone of my sternum with every inhalation. Her pupils were blown wide and pitch-black, swallowing the gold in her irises.
She didn't push me away. Her small hands came up, her fingers knotting into the thick fleece of my hoodie right over my bruised ribs, holding me against her instead of shoving me off.
"Then stop fighting it, Ryan," she breathed, her lips parting, her warm breath washing over my mouth in sweet, dizzying waves.
Her mouth was a millimeter from mine.
Every nerve in my body, every ounce of blood screaming through my veins, ordered me to close the gap. To crush my lips against hers, to drag her small, defiant body across the console onto my lap, and tear away every shred of fabric until there was nothing left between her skin and mine.
My mouth hovered over hers. I could taste the mint on her lips. I could feel the heat radiating from her tongue.
Buzz. Buzz.
The heavy, violent vibration of a phone against the hard plastic of the cup holder shattered the silence like a dropped plate.
The bright blue screen lit up the footwell, flashing with cold, clinical clarity:
INCOMING CALL: DAD.
The name burned into the dark.
A bucket of freezing saltwater couldn't have hit me harder.
My muscles locked up into rigid stone. The ghost of thin pond ice cracking four years ago roared through my ears, deafening, cold, and absolute.
I froze, hovering an inch from her lips, my thumb still pinned against the trembling contour of her jaw.
Nylah stared up at me through the dim blue glow, her chest heaving, her eyes wide with the realization of just how close we had come to the edge.
Slowly, deliberately, my fingers uncoiled from the back of her neck.
I didn't apologize. I didn't say a word. I pulled my weight back across the console, dropping into the driver's seat, my knuckles digging into the leather upholstery until the stitching groaned under the strain.
I threw the truck into drive, stepped on the gas, and pulled back onto the frozen road.
Act I was over. The rules were dead. And the next time I put my hands on her, not a single damn thing in this world would be able to stop me.