Chapter 15
Nylah POV
The Great Hall of the St. Jude Alumni Center smelled of white hothouse lilies, roasted tenderloin, and expensive French perfume.
Two hundred guests filled the room beneath soaring timber arches hung with brass chandeliers.
The light bounced off crystal champagne flutes and silver flatware, throwing sharp reflections across the polished oak floor.
Across the hall, three local sports reporters with heavy broadcast cameras were clustered near the varsity donor wall, their flashes illuminating the dark wood panels in bright, blinding bursts.
I stood by the entrance archway, clutching a glass of seltzer water like a weapon.
My emerald green silk dress felt like a layer of tissue paper against the draft coming off the main foyer.
The gown was cut high at the throat, skimming the curve of my collarbones, but the sleeveless design left my shoulders fully exposed to the room.
The silk hung straight down to my ankles, split up the right side just past the knee to allow for walking in three-inch heels.
My thumb turned the silver band on my right hand over and over against the bone.
You're here as technical director, I reminded myself, my throat contracting on a dry swallow. You sit at Table Three, smile for the athletic council, answer questions about the telemetry pilot, and go home.
Then the crowd parted near the center bar, and the air left my lungs in a sharp, defensive hitch.
Ryan Owen stood beside Athletic Director Hayes.
I had spent two weeks looking at him stripped to his skin, bruised, bloodied, and wrapped in grey athletic gear. Seeing him in a tailored midnight-black suit was a physical shock that rooted my heels to the floor.
The black wool was cut sharp, hugging the massive width of his shoulders and the dense curve of his chest with exacting precision.
His crisp white dress shirt was buttoned tight to his throat beneath a black silk tie, the stark white cotton contrasting with the tanned, rough line of his jaw.
His dark hair was styled back, away from his brow.
The butterfly bandages were gone, leaving a thin, jagged pink line along his right cheekbone that only made the silver scar cutting through his left eyebrow look more dangerous.
He looked like an aristocrat who had learned how to kill with his bare hands.
As if feeling the sudden spike in my pulse, Ryan turned his head.
Across forty feet of crowded floor, through a shifting sea of trustees, faculty deans, and varsity athletes, his pale grey eyes locked onto mine with terrifying, unblinking accuracy.
He didn't smile. He didn't nod. He simply stopped mid-sentence with Director Hayes, his gaze sweeping slowly down the length of my emerald silk gown, tracking the fabric over the curve of my hips to the exposed skin of my lower leg, before rising back to pin my pupils.
The heat in his eyes was raw, heavy, and unapologetically possessive.
My fingers tightened around the glass until the crystal groaned. I turned my shoulder, breaking the contact, and walked toward the head tables with my chin held high.
* * *
Head Table Three was positioned directly beneath the central chandelier, covered in a heavy white damask cloth that fell all the way to the floorboards.
I pulled out my assigned chair, setting my small beaded clutch beside my water goblet.
To my left sat Dr. Albright, wearing a rumpled tweed jacket and nervously checking his pocket watch.
To my right, the mahogany chair scraped against the wood.
Ryan sat down.
The space between our chairs shrank to two inches.
His massive frame dominated the table, the scent of crushed winter pine, clean cedar starch, and skin heat rolling off his wool suit to swamp the floral perfume of the room.
He didn't look at me as he sat; he pulled his chair in, unbuttoned his suit jacket with a flick of his scarred fingers, and nodded politely to Harold Sterling, the senior athletic trustee seated across from us.
"Collins," Ryan murmured, his gravelly baritone smooth, professional, and distinctly detached.
"Owen," I replied, keeping my eyes fixed on my empty bread plate.
Director Hayes clinked his spoon against his champagne flute at the center of the table. "Harold, you remember Miss Collins from the engineering department. She’s the lead technician running the telemetry tracking we authorized last month."
Sterling, a man in his late sixties with silver hair and an embroidered university crest on his lapel, peered at me over his half-moon spectacles.
"Ah, yes. The load-management project. Tell me, Miss Collins, are these little computer chips actually preventing soft-tissue tears, or are we just buying expensive toys to placate the NCAA compliance board? "
I smoothed my silk napkin over my lap, plastering on the composed, deferential smile my father had spent eighteen years drilling into my skull.
"The predictive algorithms have reduced secondary hamstring and groin strain by fourteen percent across the first line, Mr. Sterling," I said, my voice steady, articulate, and devoid of tremor.
"By monitoring eccentric output in real time, we can pull an athlete before micro-trauma results in structural failure. "
"Fascinating," Sterling mused, cutting into his beef. "And Owen here has been compliant with your... oversight?"
Beneath the heavy drape of the damask tablecloth, out of sight of the trustees and deans, Ryan moved.
His left hand remained resting beside his water glass, holding a silver fork.
His right hand dropped below the table line.
I felt the sudden displacement of air against my bare leg an instant before his palm made contact with my skin.
His large, calloused hand clamped down over my bare knee through the slit in my emerald dress.
My lungs seized.
The skin of his palm was scorching hot, rough with hockey calluses, spanning the entire width of my knee. His fingers splayed wide, pressing firmly into the sensitive muscle just above the joint.
I didn't flinch. I couldn't. Sterling was watching me across the linen, chewing his steak, waiting for my assessment of the varsity captain.
"Captain Owen has been... exceptionally cooperative with the data protocols," I managed to say, every word forced out past the sudden constriction in my windpipe.
Beside me, Ryan took a sip of his ice water. His face was a mask of polite athletic deference, his jaw relaxed, his grey eyes fixed innocently on Director Hayes.
Then his hand moved.
Slowly, deliberately, his heavy fingers slid upward from my knee, dragging the emerald silk along the inside of my thigh.
The friction was agonizing. His rough thumb traced a burning path along the soft, pale skin of my inner thigh, pushing higher with a slow, rhythmic cadence that made the blood roar in my ears.
My toes curled hard inside my heels. The flush started at the base of my neck, a violent, creeping heat that threatened to break through the makeup on my cheeks.
I reached beneath the table, my fingers catching his wrist, trying to shove his hand away.
His wrist was an iron bar. He didn't budge.
Instead, his long fingers shifted, wrapping around the meat of my inner thigh, his thumb pressing with quiet, immovable authority into the sensitive crease below my hip. He squeezed, just enough to part my knees another inch beneath the heavy linen drape, neutralizing my resistance.
"He understands the stakes of the postseason," Ryan said smoothly to Sterling, his voice perfectly level, not a single trace of strain in his gravelly baritone. "We all want to ensure the roster stays intact for the regional final."
His thumb stroked once, twice, against the heated skin of my thigh, inches from the hem of my lace underwear.
My fingernails dug into the fabric of his dark suit trousers beneath the table, pinching the wool in a silent, desperate plea for him to stop.
Ryan’s thumb pressed harder into my skin in response, his knuckles brushing the edge of my silk hem, claiming my body beneath the eyes of the university president while the hall buzzed with polite applause.
* * *
By the time the university president stepped to the podium and the main chandeliers dimmed for the athletic highlight reel, my nerve endings were screaming.
The room darkened to a soft amber glow.
I pulled my hand from Ryan’s wrist, snatched my clutch from the table, and leaned toward Dr. Albright. "Excuse me for five minutes, Doctor. I need some air."
I didn't wait for his answer. I stood up, smoothing the emerald silk over my trembling thighs, and walked swiftly toward the arched side exit before Ryan could move.
The gallery corridor outside the Great Hall was deserted, lit only by small brass sconces casting long, amber shadows across the dark parquet floor. The sound of the speech was a muffled drone behind heavy mahogany doors, punctuated by distant claps.
My heart was knocking violently against my ribs. The skin along my inner thigh still felt blistered, humming with the phantom pressure of his fingers.
At the far end of the gallery, a tall French window looked out over the black, ice-choked waters of the bay. Flanking the glass were heavy, floor-to-ceiling crimson velvet drapes.
I slipped behind the heavy fabric into the cold, shadowed pocket between the curtain and the glass, pressing my burning forehead against the freezing windowpane.
Breathe, I told myself, clutching the sill. Just breathe.
The velvet curtain rustled.
The heavy fabric was shoved aside, and a broad, dark shadow stepped into the alcove, blotting out the ambient light from the gallery.
The curtain dropped shut behind him, sealing us into pitch darkness.
The air in the small space vanished, replaced instantly by the scent of fresh cedar, starch, and boiling heat.
"Running again, Collins?"
Ryan’s gravelly rasp rumbled in the dark, centimeters from my ear.
Before I could turn around, his massive frame crowded me from behind, pinning my hips forward against the wooden window sill. The rough wool of his suit jacket pressed hard against my bare shoulder blades, his body heat radiating through the silk of my gown like an open furnace.
His large hands came up, clamping over the curves of my waist, dragging me back until my spine was molded flush against his chest.
His face dipped down into the curve where my neck met my shoulder.
His rough stubble scraped against my sensitized skin as his lips brushed the burning hollow beneath my ear. His breath was hot, ragged, and heavy, washing over my throat in rhythmic bursts.
"You're driving me out of my fucking mind in this dress," he growled into my skin, his hands tightening on my hips with bruising strength.
A helpless gasp caught in my throat, my head falling back against his shoulder as his mouth moved lower, dragging across the exposed tendon of my neck.
"Ryan... someone will see," I whispered, my voice trembling as my fingers reached back blindly, clutching the lapels of his suit jacket.
"Let them," he rumbled, his lips brushing the base of my throat, his gravelly voice thick with a dark, commanding approval that shattered the last of my composure. "Good girl, keeping that straight face while my hand was between your legs. You took it so well."
Outside the heavy velvet drape, the sharp click of leather shoes echoed on the parquet floor, accompanied by the low, approaching murmur of two varsity coaches.
I froze, my breath locking behind my teeth, trapped against his chest in the dark.