CHAPTER 3
The starch in the collar bit a raw, red line into the frantic pulse throbbing at the base of his throat.
Seventy beats per minute. Eighty. Ninety.
Dorian stared straight ahead, his vision tunneling until the only thing in focus was the chipped varnish on the edge of the municipal podium.
The room smelled of wet wool, floor wax, and the stale, recycled breath of a thousand desperate legal transactions.
Outside, the early morning Chicago rain battered the reinforced glass of the Cook County Clerk’s Office in a relentless, ugly rhythm.
Water distorted the city skyline into a smear of bruised grays and dull yellows.
He couldn't draw a full breath. The charcoal suit he wore had been tailored for his draft day three years ago, back when his shoulders were a half-inch narrower and his chest hadn't been packed with the dense, heavy muscle required to survive the PHA.
Now, the fabric restricted his lats, pulling tight across his ribs like a physical cage.
He welcomed the discomfort. It was a tangible, grounding pain.
It kept his mind from fracturing into a million terrified pieces.
To his right, Everett Kane occupied the space like a monolith.
The captain wore a heavy black wool overcoat that fell to his mid-thigh, the dark fabric absorbing the miserable fluorescent light buzzing overhead.
Everett wasn’t moving. He didn’t shift his weight, didn’t adjust his cuffs, didn’t check the heavy steel watch strapped to his wrist. His stillness was absolute, commanding, completely devoid of the suffocating panic gnawing at Dorian’s internal organs.
Dorian risked a peripheral glance. Everett’s profile was carved from brutal, unyielding angles—a hard jawline covered in dark, meticulously maintained stubble, the flat, indifferent line of his mouth.
He looked less like a man about to commit federal perjury and more like a tactical commander overseeing the execution of a hostile takeover.
"Pursuant to the laws of the State of Illinois," the magistrate droned, a heavy-set woman who hadn't looked up from her clipboard since they handed over the emergency filing fee.
Her voice was flat, bored, scraping against the quiet room.
"We are gathered to unite these two individuals in civil matrimony. "
In the back corner of the room, Agent Sterling Reid shifted his weight. The wet squeak of the agent’s leather shoes against the linoleum sounded like a gunshot. Dorian flinched, a violent jerk in his shoulders.
He was drowning. The administrative detachment he had worn like a second skin ever since the deportation notice was peeling away, exposing raw, bleeding nerve endings.
Falsification of documents. Immediate revocation.
The Russian club’s betrayal had been executed with signatures and stamps in a room exactly like this one.
Institutional violence dressed up as protocol.
Now he was committing his own fraud, binding his legal existence to a man who possessed enough inherited power to crush him without a second thought.
"Please join hands," the magistrate instructed, finally lifting her eyes to look at them over the rim of her reading glasses.
Dorian froze.
The command hit his brain, but his motor functions completely short-circuited.
Join hands. The phrase demanded a level of willing participation his nervous system violently rejected.
He kept his arms locked at his sides, his fingers curled inward, the knuckles turning a stark, bloodless white.
If he touched him—if he physically bridged the gap between them—the horrific, surreal nightmare of this room would become irreversible reality.
Two seconds of dead silence ticked by. The magistrate frowned, her pen hovering over the document.
Everett didn't wait for a third second.
The heavy wool of the captain’s overcoat rustled. Everett shifted his immense frame, turning his body slightly to box Dorian in against the podium. A massive hand reached out, entirely bypassing the polite, tentative space between them.
Everett’s palm collided with Dorian’s rigid knuckles, sliding down to pry the goalie’s clenched fingers apart.
The physical impact was jarring. Everett’s skin was rough, heavily textured with the thick, leather-like calluses of a defenseman who spent thousands of hours gripping a composite stick and absorbing the brutal kinetic shock of the ice.
He wrapped his massive hand completely around Dorian’s cold, trembling fingers.
The grip was not gentle. It was a suffocating, heavy pressure that crushed the icy panic out of Dorian’s joints.
The sheer heat radiating from Everett’s palm seared through Dorian’s icy skin, an unyielding, aggressive warmth that demanded immediate submission.
Dorian’s breath hitched, a harsh, jagged sound escaping his chest. He tried to pull back, a micro-movement driven by pure defensive instinct, but Everett’s thumb clamped down hard over the back of his hand, locking him perfectly in place.
"I, Everett Thomas Kane," the captain began, not waiting for the magistrate to feed him the lines.
His voice was a dark, heavy rumble. It didn't just fill the sterile air of the civil room; it bypassed Dorian’s eardrums entirely, reverberating through the dense bone of his sternum.
"Take you, Dorian Aleksandr Pike, to be my lawfully wedded husband."
Dorian stared at their joined hands. The stark contrast was sickeningly intimate.
Dorian’s skin was pale, his fingers long and precise, built for the high-speed geometry of the crease.
Everett’s hand was dark, battered, swallowing Dorian’s hand whole in a display of absolute physical dominance.
The word husband hung in the air, a heavy, jagged object that Dorian couldn't swallow.
The magistrate nodded, gesturing to Dorian. "Your turn. State your vows."
Dorian opened his mouth. His throat was completely dry, the vocal cords paralyzed.
He felt the heavy, expectant silence of the room pressing down on his shoulders.
A muscle ticked in Everett’s jaw. The captain shifted his stance, his broad shoulder brushing deliberately against Dorian’s bicep.
The contact was a silent, blunt force warning. Do not break the line.
"I..." Dorian started. His accent, usually buried beneath layers of careful media training, bled heavily into the single syllable. He dragged oxygen into his lungs, forcing his eyes to meet the magistrate’s bored stare. "I, Dorian Pike. Take you... Everett Kane. To be my husband."
It felt like swallowing glass. The words tasted like a lie, but the devastating heat of Everett’s hand holding his felt terrifyingly real.
"Do you promise to support each other, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?" the magistrate asked, rushing through the mandatory statutory requirements.
"I do," Everett stated flatly. The conviction in his tone was staggering. It sounded like a threat leveled at the entire federal government.
"I do," Dorian whispered.
"By the authority vested in me by the State of Illinois," the magistrate said, stamping a heavy gold embosser down onto the thick parchment paper. The metal slammed into the desk with a heavy clack. "I pronounce you legally married. You may seal the document with a kiss."
Dorian’s stomach plummeted.
The air vanished from the room. A kiss. They hadn't discussed this. In the law office, it had all been theory, paperwork, and tactical executive maneuvers. There was no clause in Everett’s strategic defense plan for the physical reality of a municipal marriage requirement.
Dorian stiffened, his entire body locking into a rigid, defensive block, ready to turn his head, ready to offer a sterile cheek to satisfy the bureaucratic theater.
Everett let go of his hand.
Before Dorian could even process the sudden absence of heat, Everett stepped directly into his personal space.
The captain’s massive chest bumped against Dorian’s ribcage, completely crowding him against the wooden edge of the podium.
Dorian had to tilt his head up, his eyes widening in raw, unfiltered shock as Everett’s towering frame eclipsed the overhead lights.
Everett’s right hand lifted. Rough, calloused fingertips slid over the tight collar of Dorian’s shirt, dragging upward along the sensitive, erratic pulse point of his neck.
The captain’s wide palm cupped the back of Dorian’s skull, his thick fingers weaving possessively into the short, dark hair at the nape of his neck.
The grip was absolute. It offered zero avenue for escape.
Dorian let out a breathless, fractured gasp, his lips parting in protest.
Everett’s mouth crashed down over his.
There was no hesitation. No performative, polite peck for the state.
Everett kissed him with the heavy, unbridled aggression of a man planting a flag in conquered territory.
The pressure was hot, deliberate, and entirely overwhelming.
Everett tilted Dorian’s head to the side, exposing the line of his throat, deepening the angle until their mouths were completely slotted together.
Dorian’s mind went entirely blank. The complex, terrifying calculus of his deportation warrant was instantly incinerated by the sheer carnal weight of the embrace.
He tasted the sharp, dark burn of black coffee.
The scent of Everett flooded his senses—crushed pine needles, the damp, heavy smell of the Chicago rain clinging to the wool overcoat, and a sharp, expensive soap that screamed of inherited wealth.
The sensory input was a violent overload.
Dorian’s hands, suspended uselessly in the air for a fraction of a second, instinctively reached out to brace himself.
His palms hit the solid, muscle-dense wall of Everett’s chest.