Chapter 30
Ryan POV
The smell of fresh black friction tape, skate wax, and warmed cedar filled the quiet air of the loft.
It was nine-forty-five on the eve of the regional championship final against Boston University. Outside the tall factory windows, a bitter maritime gale was screaming off Penobscot Bay, battering the brick facade and rattling the heavy glass panes in their iron frames.
I sat on a low wooden stool beside the coffee table, a spare composite stick braced across my knees.
Slowly, methodically, my thumbs pressed the cloth tape flat against the carbon blade, overlapping each wrap by exactly three millimeters from the heel to the toe.
I took a hard vulcanized puck from my gear bag, dragging the rubber edge back and forth across the weave to smooth the wax, sealing the tape against moisture.
For four years, the night before an elimination game had been a waking nightmare.
My mind had always been a slaughterhouse of rage, panic, and bile.
I used to sit in the dark of my dorm room, taping five sticks until my fingers bled, my skull trapped in the horrific memory of Michigan pond ice fracturing beneath Leo’s skates.
I had skated to punish myself. I had stepped onto the ice to absorb hits and deliver violence, convinced that if I bled enough, the crushing weight of my guilt might quiet down for sixty minutes.
Now, the noise in my head was dead.
The violence had found an immovable anchor. Tomorrow night’s game wasn't about penance. It was about execution. Sixty minutes to dismantle Boston University’s neutral-zone trap, lift the regional trophy, and secure the top-five draft position that would guarantee Leo’s specialized care for life.
And more than that—it was about building an impenetrable wall around the woman sitting fifteen feet away.
I looked up from my stick.
Nylah was curled in the corner of the leather sectional, wearing my heavy grey knit wool sweater.
The ribbed collar was pulled high, framing her pale face, her dark hair falling loose around her shoulders.
Her knees were drawn up to her chest beneath a heavy wool blanket, her small hands clasped tight around her shins.
She was staring into the amber firelight of the hearth stove, her profile rigid, silent, and unnervingly still.
A fierce, protective warmth expanded behind my sternum, loosening the lingering ache in my bruised shoulders.
* * *
I set the taped stick against the exposed brick wall, tossed the wax into my duffel, and wiped my palms on a clean towel.
I crossed the hardwood floor in slow, grounded strides.
I sat down on the leather sofa beside her, slid my arms beneath her thighs and back, and lifted her effortlessly onto my lap.
Nylah didn't resist. She melted into my chest, her arms looping loosely around my neck, her forehead resting in the warm crook where my jaw met my throat.
The contact sent a sharp spike of concern straight into my bloodstream.
She was trembling.
A fine, continuous tremor ran through her limbs, her small hands cold as river stones against the back of my neck.
Her skin was an unnatural, fragile paper-white, with dark purple shadows bruising the delicate hollows beneath her eyes.
Her breathing was shallow, rapid, catching on the air as if she were carrying a weight too heavy for her frame.
My heart tightened against my ribs.
She was terrified for me.
I knew the pressure she had been under. She had spent the week running server checksums, watching the athletic board circle my eligibility like vultures, listening to the rumors about the anonymous compliance complaint.
She had seen the scouts in the stands on Thursday; she knew that one whistle, one dirty hit, could end my career before it started.
I wrapped my thick, corded arms around her waist, anchoring her small body flush against the dense wall of my chest.
"Look at you," I rumbled, my voice dropping into that low, gravelly rasp that always softened the tension in her jaw.
My hand moved to her spine, my broad palm smoothing down her back in long, heavy, rhythmic strokes, using my body heat to drive the chill from her skin.
"Shaking like you're the one taking the opening draw against BU tomorrow night," I whispered into her hair, pressing a warm kiss to the sensitive curve beneath her ear.
She didn't answer. Her face pressed deeper into my neck, her small fingers curling into the black cotton of my thermal shirt, clutching the fabric over my ribs with a desperate, white-knuckled grip that bordered on pain.
"Good girl," I murmured, my jaw relaxing against the crown of her head. "Breathe with me, Nylah. Match my chest. I've got you, sweetheart."
I drew in a long, deep breath, feeling my ribcage expand with slow, immovable power.
Nylah’s chest hitched against mine, a shuddering gasp tearing from her throat before she forced her lungs to match my cadence. With every shared breath, the frantic flutter in her pulse began to slow, soothed by the heavy, familiar weight of my hands.
* * *
I shifted my right hand.
My calloused, scarred palm cupped the side of her face, my fingers splaying across her jawline, my thumb gently tilting her chin upward into the amber glow of the lamp.
Her amber-flecked eyes met mine.
They were swimming with a dark, unshed sheen of tears—wide, dilated, holding a profound, heartbreaking sorrow that hit me straight in the solar plexus.
"Listen to me, Nylah," I said, my voice rough with an absolute, unyielding conviction that brooked no doubt.
She swallowed dry, her lips trembling slightly beneath my thumb.
"Tomorrow night, this all ends," I murmured, my eyes holding hers captive. "We beat BU. We take the regional title. And the second the final horn sounds, the hiding is over."
A sharp, ragged breath hitched in her throat.
"I am done letting you sneak through side doors," I growled softly, my thumb stroking the soft crest of her cheekbone.
"I am done watching you sit in the upper bleachers pretending you don't belong to me.
When that game is over, I am walking off that ice, finding you in the concourse, and taking your hand in front of every camera, every scout, and every trustee in that building. "
Her lower lip quivered, a single tear breaking free to track hot and silent down the side of her nose.
"Ryan..." My name was a broken, reedy whisper on her lips.
"I mean it, Collins," I rumbled, leaning down until my mouth brushed the corner of hers, my breath washing hot and possessive over her skin.
"I don't care about Arthur Vance. I don't care about compliance.
I don't care about a single damn soul outside that glass.
You are my home, Nylah. After tomorrow, I'm putting your name on my life, and nobody on this earth is ever going to take you away from me. "
Nylah didn't speak.
She couldn't.
A second tear spilled over her eyelashes as she surged upward in my lap, her arms locking around my neck with a fierce, starving intensity that took the breath straight from my lungs.
Her mouth crashed onto mine.
The kiss was desperate, flooded with the salt of her tears and the raw, scorching heat of her lips.
It was a kiss of absolute claiming, her hands knotting deep into my dark hair, her body arching off my lap to press flush against my chest, holding on as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff in a hurricane.
I took her mouth with deep, unhurried dominance, answering her desperation with the steady, immovable certainty of an enforcer who had already won his battle.
I groaned into her mouth, pulling her tighter against my ribs, sealing my vow in the quiet dark of the loft.
The gale wind shrieked against the brick walls outside, but inside, my world was invincible.
Tomorrow night, I would win the championship.
Tomorrow night, I would give her everything.
I held her in the dark until her breathing slowed into sleep, wholly confident that our fortress was impenetrable—unaware that the fuse was already lit, and the explosion was twelve hours away.