Chapter 23
Nylah POV
Fifty feet below, the ice of The Foundry was an arena of violence and speed. It was the open scout practice before the regional tournament weekend, and the air in the barn was thick with the scent of shaved frost, ammonia exhaust, and the bitter draft off Penobscot Bay.
Ryan was running the three-on-two breakout drill.
He moved with terrifying, fluid power. His black practice jersey was plastered to the dense muscle of his back, dark hair soaked with sweat, his broad shoulders dropping as he leaned into an outside edge.
He caught a cross-ice feed on the backhand, transitioned to the forehand in a fraction of a second, and unloaded a slapshot from the high slot.
The carbon-fiber shaft flexed, cracking against the vulcanized rubber like a rifle shot. The puck blasted past the goaltender’s ear, denting the iron crossbar with a concussive PING that rattled the chain-link netting sixty feet up into the rafters.
Two rows below me, four men in heavy black windbreakers leaned forward in unison.
Their jackets bore embroidered NHL franchise shields: the oil drop of Edmonton, the teal shark of San Jose, the Roman centurion of Ottawa. Each man held a black leather binder, a digital stopwatch, and a tablet displaying high-speed kinematic video feeds.
"Edmonton has the cap room," the scout with the Oilers patch muttered, his gold pen scratching rapidly across a draft card.
"They take him at four if the medical files stay clean through the Frozen Four. A two-way center with that kind of reach and an edge that vicious? He’s on a plane to Alberta by July on an entry-level max. "
The scout beside him grunted in agreement. "He’s a franchise cornerstone. Put him on the second line and let him clear the crease."
A sudden, sharp wave of cold nausea rolled through the pit of my stomach.
My throat constricted, the sour, metallic tang of bile rising to the back of my tongue. A dizzying wave of exhaustion washed over my temples, making the wooden rafters tilt by three inches. My hand flew to my sternum, my fingers pressing hard against my ribs as I fought the urge to gag.
Just low blood sugar, I told myself, pulling my stainless-steel water bottle from my bag with trembling fingers. Three cups of black coffee, five hours of sleep, and eighty pages of doctoral thesis data.
I forced two mouthfuls of freezing water down my throat, but the icy liquid did nothing to dislodge the heavy stone sitting behind my breastbone.
July.
Alberta was two thousand miles from Colorado Springs. Three time zones away, cut off by international borders and an eighty-two-game professional road schedule.
I looked down at Ryan as he skated backward into the defensive circle, his chest rising and falling in deep, measured intervals, unbothered by the violence he’d just delivered.
He was heading for an eight-figure rookie contract, private jets, and arena spotlights across North America.
I was heading for an unpaid biomechanics research fellowship in an empty lab on the Front Range.
We were living on borrowed time inside his apartment, pretending the real world couldn't reach us through the blizzard.
The regular season had just wrapped, and the single-elimination regional tournament began in forty-eight hours. And when the final horn blew, the lease on our sanctuary would expire with it.
* * *
At six-fifteen, the dusk was thick and bruising over the shipyard.
The heater in Ryan’s black F-250 was blasting dry, cedar-scented warmth across the dashboard, but my fingers remained stiff and bloodless inside my wool mittens. The diesel engine rumbled beneath the floorboards with a low, bone-deep vibration that rattled the plastic door panel.
Ryan sat behind the wheel, his dark hair still damp from the varsity showers, wearing his grey team crewneck. He smelled of pine soap, cold wind, and the dark, familiar heat of his skin.
He turned the steering wheel with his left hand, navigating the icy ruts of Harbor View Lane.
His right hand left the console.
His large, calloused palm settled heavily over my right thigh, just above my knee. His thick fingers squeezed through my trousers with warm, absent-minded possessiveness, his thumb stroking the denim with the steady rhythm of a man who believed his claim was absolute.
My quadricep locked up.
The muscle went rigid beneath his touch. I pulled my leg back by half an inch, my boots pressing flat against the rubber floor mat, my eyes locked on the frosted passenger window.
Ryan’s hand stilled.
The cab went dead quiet. The masseter muscle along his jawline twitched once beneath his dark stubble, his knuckles whitening against my leg before he slowly lifted his hand and returned it to the steering wheel.
He didn't say a word as he pulled into the gravel lot of the warehouse.
He slammed the transmission into park, cut the ignition with a sharp, violent twist of the key, and threw his seatbelt off.
The silence in the truck was suffocating.
Ryan turned his massive torso toward me in the bucket seat, his broad shoulders blotting out the dim amber glow of the exterior streetlamp, caging me in the shadow of his frame.
"What is it, Nylah?"
His voice was a low, gravelly scrape that sounded like two stones grinding together in the dark.
I stared at the leather glove compartment, my fingernails digging into the leather strap of my messenger bag until the stitching groaned.
"You haven't said four words since I picked you up at the arena doors," he rumbled, his grey eyes narrowing to slits of cold slate. "You flinched when I touched your leg at the light. What happened?"
The dam broke.
"Four NHL scouts were sitting two rows in front of me during your scrimmage, Ryan," I said, my voice shaking with an anger born of pure, suffocating terror.
Ryan didn't flinch. "I know who was in the building."
"The Edmonton scout said they’re drafting you fourth overall." The words spilled out of my mouth, sharp and ragged, tearing at my throat. "They’re offering a maximum entry-level signing bonus. They expect you in Alberta before the snow melts."
"Nylah—"
"The regular season has just wrapped, Ryan!
" I cried, turning my body to face him, the tears I had been fighting all afternoon burning hot behind my eyelids.
"Our entire future comes down to the single-elimination tournament this weekend.
One loss against BU, and the season is finished.
And then graduation. And then you pack a duffel bag, board a flight to Western Canada, and this...
this whole fantasy vanishes into thin air. "
My chest hitched on a sharp, shallow breath that tasted like iron.
"I know what that contract means for Leo," I whispered, my voice breaking down the middle.
"I know you need that signing bonus to pay for his clinic in Ann Arbor.
I am not going to be the pathetic anchor holding you back from your future.
But I can't keep sleeping in your bed every night knowing there is an expiration date stamped on my forehead. "
* * *
Ryan’s control detonated.
He didn't answer with words. He kicked the driver’s side door open with a violent shove that sent the steel frame groaning on its hinges.
He was out of the truck before I could blink. He rounded the hood in three concussive strides, yanked the passenger door open, and reached inside.
His large hands clamped around my waist, lifting me straight out of the bucket seat into the freezing sub-zero wind.
"Ryan, put me down!" I gasped, my boots scrambling for purchase on the glazed gravel.
He ignored me. He hauled my weight against his chest, kicked the truck door shut with his boot heel, and carried me up the exterior iron stairs with terrifying, effortless power.
He shoved the heavy oak door of unit 3B open, stepped inside, and slammed the deadbolt home with a brutal, metallic snap that echoed through the empty loft.
He didn't carry me to the couch.
He backed me against the solid wood of the front door, his massive frame caging me in, his chest heaving against mine with ragged, violent power.
His hands left my waist and shot upward.
His broad, calloused palms framed the sides of my face with rough, desperate urgency. His fingers tangled deep into the hair at my temples, his thumbs pressing with bruising pressure into the hollows beneath my cheekbones, forcing my chin upward until my lips were millimeters from his.
"Stop it," he growled.
The voice was a low, furious rasp that vibrated straight through the bone of my sternum.
His slate-grey eyes were wild, black ink drowning the irises, swimming with a terrifying, unyielding intensity that knocked the breath from my lungs.
"Stop writing endings we haven't agreed on, Collins," he snarled softly, his face hovering so close his rough stubble brushed my nose. "Look at me. Good girl. Breathe for me, Nylah. Match my chest."
My lungs hitched, my chest expanding against the solid, unmoving wall of his ribs as I forced my breathing to slow under the commanding weight of his stare.
"You think I give a damn about Edmonton?" he whispered, his voice cracking with a raw, ruined desperation that made my heart hammer against my ribs. "You think a logo on a sweater or a few million dollars matters more to me than having you in my bed every night?"
My lips parted, but no sound came out.
"I told Dan Bradley yesterday to cross Edmonton off the list," Ryan rasped, his thumbs stroking my flushed cheeks with fierce, unyielding devotion.
"I told him to cross out Calgary, Vancouver, and San Jose.
I told him Colorado Avalanche at the top of the board, or the Northeast corridor. Nowhere else."
The air left my body all at once. "What?"
"You're going to Colorado Springs for your fellowship," he growled, his mouth dipping until his lips grazed the trembling contour of mine.
"Which means I am playing in Denver, or I am playing an hour's flight away in Boston.
I am not letting you go, Nylah. Not after this weekend.
Not in three years. You're in my perimeter, and you are never getting out. "
Before my brain could process the magnitude of what he had sacrificed, Ryan crushed his mouth down on mine.
The kiss was fierce, desperate, and starved of air. It tasted of cedar, cold wind, and absolute claiming, his tongue sweeping deep, silencing every fear I had ever carried.
My arms flew around his neck, my fingers knotting into the thick hair at the base of his skull, holding on for dear life as the room spun away into the dark.