Chapter 17
Nylah POV
The high-pitched wail of the coastal emergency horn sounded across Penobscot Bay, its mechanical groan rising and falling against the roar of thirty-knot winds.
Inside the cab of Ryan’s truck, both of our phones lit up the console with a synchronized, harsh vibration:
The heavy tires ground through a three-foot drift of fresh snow, turning sharply into the narrow driveway of a three-story red-brick warehouse at the edge of the old shipyard district. Ryan shifted into park, cutting the engine.
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the violent rattling of snow pellets against the steel roof.
"My flat is three miles away," I said, my teeth clicking together as a fresh wave of cold seeped through the floorboards. "Tess will be waiting."
"Your road is an unplowed sheet of coastal ice, Nylah," Ryan said, his voice flat, gravelly, and leaving zero room for debate.
He unbuckled his seatbelt, reaching into the back seat to grab his duffel bag and my heavy coat.
"The county plows won't even hit the shipyard until tomorrow afternoon. You're staying here."
He didn't wait for an answer. He climbed out into the storm, rounded the hood with his head down against the blinding white squall, and opened my door.
Before my bare heels could touch the glazed asphalt, his large hands clamped around my waist. He lifted me out of the cab, tucking my small frame against his chest to shield me from the horizontal gale, and carried me up the covered iron exterior staircase to the third-floor landing.
He unlocked the heavy wooden door with a brass key, shoved it open against the draft, and set me down onto the dark slate floor of the entryway.
The apartment was a vast, open loft flanked by exposed brick walls and twelve-foot ceilings held up by rough-hewn pine beams. A wall of massive multi-paned industrial windows looked out over the black, frothing waters of Penobscot Bay, though right now they were coated in a thick crust of driving white snow.
The air smelled of cedarwood, rich roasted coffee beans, dark leather, and the faint, clean scent of unscented soap.
Against the far brick wall, an enormous cast-iron radiator clanked twice and hissed a steady, comforting plume of dry heat into the room.
Ryan stepped inside, kicked the solid oak door shut with his boot heel, and turned the heavy brass deadbolt.
Click.
The mechanical snap echoed through the loft with terrifying finality. He tossed his truck keys into a dark ceramic bowl on the entry table, sealing the world, the gala, and the university out in the blizzard.
* * *
Ryan dropped his duffel on the floor, shrugged out of his tailored suit jacket, and tossed it over the back of a leather armchair.
He turned toward me, his pale grey eyes narrowing as he took in my shivering frame. The bottom six inches of my emerald silk gown were soaked with freezing slush, clinging wet and heavy to my ankles, and my bare shoulders were covered in goosebumps.
"Go into the bathroom," he commanded, his gravelly voice dropping into that quiet, authoritative cadence that brooked no defiance. "Get out of that wet silk before you get sick."
"Ryan, I don't have—"
"Go," he repeated, stepping into my path, his large frame towering over me in the dim entryway. "I'll bring you dry clothes."
I walked down the short brick hallway into the bathroom. The room was lined with dark charcoal slate tiles, warmed by radiant heat from beneath the floor, and dominated by an open glass shower stall.
With shaking fingers, I reached behind my back, dragging the delicate zipper down the curve of my spine.
The damp emerald silk slid from my shoulders, pooling at my feet on the warm stone.
I stood in my black lace underwear, my arms wrapped tightly across my chest as the lingering chill from the terrace made my ribs ache with every breath.
A sharp knock sounded on the wood door.
"Nylah."
I opened the door three inches. Ryan’s large hand reached through the gap, setting a folded stack of dark fabric onto the slate counter. "Wear these."
The door pulled shut again.
I reached for the clothes. On top lay a thick, charcoal-grey fleece hoodie with the faded navy block letters of ST. JUDE HOCKEY printed across the chest, paired with a pair of black flannel sweatpants.
I pulled the hoodie over my head.
The sensory assault was instantaneous. The fabric was massive, heavy, and lined with brushed cotton that trapped the heat against my skin like an open furnace.
The shoulder seams hung four inches past my collarbones; the ribbed hem dropped past my hips to the middle of my thighs, and the sleeves swallowed my hands fully until only the very tips of my fingers peeked out from the cuffs.
Worse than the size was the scent.
The fleece was saturated with him—with the smell of winter pine, crushed cedar, clean soap, and the dark, intoxicating warmth of his bare skin. It settled over my shoulders like a physical weight, claiming every inch of my body in his name.
I pulled on the sweatpants, rolling the thick elastic waistband twice to keep the hem from dragging over the floorboards, and exhaled a long, shuddering breath against the mirror.
My pupils were dilated wide, the flush on my cheekbones dark and feverish.
I pushed the bathroom door open and stepped out into the main loft.
The overhead lights were off. The only illumination came from the low amber glow of a cast-iron gas hearth stove in the corner and a single brass floor lamp beside the sofa.
Ryan was standing by the kitchen island, pouring water into an electric kettle.
He had stripped off his white dress shirt and black silk tie.
He wore a fitted black short-sleeve crewneck that stretched tight across the massive breadth of his chest, emphasizing the thick ropes of muscle corded through his neck and shoulders.
His forearms were bare, vascular, the dark hair on his skin catching the amber firelight.
Along his left ribs, the purpling hematoma stood out in stark, violent relief against his pale skin.
He turned around, a ceramic mug in his hand.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
His slate-grey eyes tracked from the top of my disheveled dark hair, down the oversized grey fleece swallowing my frame, to the rolled waistband of his sweatpants, and finally to my bare toes curled against the dark hardwood floor.
The kettle began to whistle, a low, rising hum that went wholly unheeded.
His jaw tightened, the masseter muscle jumping beneath his dark stubble as his chest expanded with a slow, heavy breath. The predatory heat in his gaze was so thick it felt like a physical pressure pressing against the room’s oxygen supply.
* * *
Ryan set the mug onto the island with a dull, measured click.
He didn't say a word. He walked across the hardwood with slow, grounded strides, stopping two feet in front of me beside the leather sectional.
"Come here," he said softly.
The command was low, gravelly, stripped of the harshness he used on the ice.
I took the step, my bare feet sinking into the thick wool pile of the area rug.
Ryan dropped his large frame onto the corner of the couch, extending his hands toward me. "Sit."
I lowered myself onto the leather cushion beside him, tucking my legs beneath me. The chill from the storm still lingered deep in the marrow of my hands; my fingers were stiff, pale, the knuckles aching with cold.
Ryan reached out.
His large, calloused palms enveloped both of my hands, lifting them between our chests. His skin was blistering hot, rough with the scars of hundreds of hockey practices, holding my small fingers securely.
Slowly, methodically, he began to rub his thumbs back and forth over my frozen knuckles, using the friction of his skin to force the circulation back into my veins.
"Arthur Vance won't touch you, Nylah," he murmured, his eyes staying locked on our joined hands.
"I spoke to the university legal counsel after skate yesterday. His family’s booster trust has two active compliance violations pending with the NCAA.
What you did out there in the foyer... you backed him into a corner he can't buy his way out of. "
"I didn't do it to manipulate the board, Ryan," I said, my voice barely louder than the hissing radiator.
Ryan’s thumbs stilled against my knuckles.
He lifted his head, his pale grey eyes pinning mine in the amber glow of the hearth. "I know."
The air between us grew thick, pressurized by the silence of the storm raging outside the panoramic glass.
"No one has ever done that for me," he whispered, the gravelly rasp in his throat thick with an unvarnished, ruined honesty that knocked the breath straight out of my lungs. "I'm the one who takes the hits so other people don't get broken. That's my job."
"You don't have to be a martyr every second of your life," I murmured, my fingertips curling into the warmth of his palms.
Ryan’s gaze dropped to my mouth.
His hands shifted, sliding up the long, baggy sleeves of his hoodie, his thick fingers wrapping firmly around my forearms. With one slow, effortless motion, he exerted a steady, unyielding pressure, lifting me off the cushion and pulling me across his lap.
My breath hitched in a sharp, shallow gasp as my hips settled onto the dense, hard muscle of his thighs.
My left arm came up on reflex, my hand resting flat over the solid, unmoving width of his shoulder. The heat of his body soaked through the thick fleece of the sweatshirt, creating a wall of suffocating warmth that made my heart hammer against my ribs.
He reached up, his rough, scarred thumb tucking a loose tendril of dark hair behind my ear. His fingers lingered on the curve of my jawline, tilting my face upward until my lips were millimeters from his.
His pupils were dilated wide, black swallowing the grey until only a razor-thin crescent of steel remained.
"The storm isn't stopping until tomorrow afternoon, Collins," he growled, his voice a dark, velvet rumble that vibrated straight through my collarbones.
His breath washed over my parted lips, hot, heavy, and tasting of cedar and raw hunger.
"There’s nobody coming through that door.
There are no cameras, no trustees, and no rulebooks left. "
My heart battered itself against the front of his shirt, racing at a wild, frantic tempo that gave away every shred of my surrender.
"Ryan..." My voice was a broken, breathless whisper.
"I am done pretending I can let you walk out of my sight," he murmured, his thumb dragging across my bottom lip, parting the soft flesh with rough, agonizing slowness. "You're in my house. You're wearing my clothes. And you are not leaving this couch tonight."