Chapter 13
Marie POV
My knees gave way the instant his lips left mine.
It wasn't a slow release of tension; it was a sudden, physical drop, as if the tendons behind my kneecaps had turned to liquid. My boots slipped half an inch on the damp concrete floor of the supply annex, my balance tipping sideways toward the steel shelving.
Chosen caught me before my shoulder could hit the metal upright.
His left arm locked around my waist like an iron band, his thick bicep flexing against my ribs as he hauled my weight back against his chest. The heat coming off his bare shoulders was blistering, scorching through the starched cotton of my lab coat.
I couldn't draw oxygen into my lungs. My chest rose and fell in shallow, jagged hitches, the air in my throat tasting of cold copper, peppermint, and the dark, bitter tang of black coffee from his mouth.
My lips throbbed, swollen and raw, stinging where his stubble had scraped the sensitive skin around my mouth. My hair, stripped of every steel pin, hung in heavy, tangled waves over my shoulders and down my back, cold Adirondack dampness clinging to the ends.
"Steady," he rasped.
The word was a low, gravelly vibration that shuddered against my cheekbone. His chest was heaving, his ribs expanding in deep, uneven surges that pressed hard against my breasts.
I pushed against his sternum with both hands.
My fingers were supposed to shove him away, to re-establish the four feet of clinical space that kept my life from unraveling.
Instead, my knuckles betrayed me, bunching the damp black fabric of his compression shirt into tight knots, clutching him as if the floor beneath my boots were collapsing into an abyss.
"Let go," I whispered.
The command was ruined before it left my mouth—fragile, breathless, lacking even a fraction of the razor-sharp authority I had spent four years practicing in front of lecture halls.
Chosen didn't release his hold. His arm tightened around my waist, his large palm splaying across the small of my back, anchoring me against the hard, unyielding line of his hips.
With his free hand, he reached down, his blunt fingers catching my chin. He tilted my face upward into the dim amber wash of the exit sign, forcing my eyes to meet his.
His pupils were dilated into vast black pools, the amber flecks in his irises completely swallowed by darkness.
He was staring at my face with a terrifying, microscopic focus, his heavy brow drawn low as he tracked the violent, erratic thrumming of the carotid artery jumping against the pale skin of my throat.
His thumb moved, brushing over my lower lip. The contact made my breath hitch so sharply my vision swam at the edges.
"Look at you," he murmured, his voice dropping into a rough, bewildered register that made my stomach contract. "You're shaking."
* * *
"I'm not shaking," I lied, my jaw clenching so hard the back molars ground together.
I tried to pull my chin out of his grip, but his fingers held firm—not hurting me, but immovable as cured granite. A flush was crawling up from my collarbone, hot and suffocating, staining the skin beneath my white coat.
"Your hands are trembling against my chest, Marie," he said quietly.
His dark gaze dropped to where my fingers were still locked in his shirt.
He didn't mock me. The arrogant smirk he used in the hallways, the sneer he reserved for administrators and rival defensemen—none of it was there.
His features were stripped bare, carved into harsh, severe angles by the amber gloom.
He reached down with his right hand, his large, calloused fingers wrapping gently around my right wrist.
He didn't pull my hand away. He held it against his sternum, feeling the fine, violent vibration humming through my bones. His thumb stroked the inside of my wrist, right over the radial pulse that was hammering at a hundred and forty beats a minute.
"Your heart is running like you just sprinted two miles in the snow," he rasped, his face dipping closer, his breath hot and uneven against my lips. "Your pupils are blown wide. And you can barely stand on your own feet."
"You shoved me into a metal shelving unit, Black," I breathed, trying to retreat behind anger, trying to find the cold intellectual distance that had protected me since freshman year. "You ambushed me in a locked storage closet. That's a sympathetic nervous system spike. It's adrenaline."
"No," he said, the single syllable flat and absolute.
He stepped closer, his heavy thighs bracketing mine, pressing me back against the shelf until my spine met the steel frame. He didn't lean on me, but the sheer physical mass of him boxed out the room, swallowing the cold air, leaving only his scent—crushed cedar, sweat, and friction-heated iron.
His thumb moved from my wrist to the side of my neck, tracing the delicate curve beneath my ear, feeling the heat radiating off my skin.
"I've kissed women before, Freeman," he whispered, his voice dropping into a dark, gravelly rasp that scraped straight across my raw nerve endings. "They don't tremble like this. They don't look at me like they've never had a man's hands on them."
My ribs seized. The air trapped in my lungs turned to ice.
I looked away, staring fixedly at the rusted iron latch of the annex door, my fingers curling into tight, bloodless balls inside my pockets. The antique silver signet ring on my pinky cut sharply into my skin.
"Don't," I whispered, the word tight and thin.
Chosen went completely motionless.
The silence that fell between us was suffocating, heavy with the smell of rubber tubing and old limestone. I could hear the faint drip of condensation from the brass steam pipes overhead, could hear the harsh, rhythmic drag of his breathing.
"Marie," he growled, the gravel in his tone tightening with an edge of dangerous, disbelieving intensity. His fingers on my jaw shifted, turning my head back until I was forced to face him. "Tell me I'm wrong."
I kept my teeth locked together, but the heat burning in my face gave me away. My throat worked on a dry, painful swallow.
"I had a full-tuition academic grant to keep," I said, the words spilling out in a rapid, defensive blur that tasted of shame and defiance.
"I worked thirty hours a week in the biomechanics lab.
I spent my nights grading kinematics papers and cleaning the arena deck after midnight so I could pay for textbooks.
I didn't have time to let entitled athletes practice their lines on me in fraternity basements. "
* * *
Chosen stared at me for three long, agonizing seconds.
His chest rose on a slow, shuddering inhale that expanded his broad frame until his shadow blotted out the remaining light from the exit sign. The masseter muscle along his hard jaw knotted, jumping beneath his stubble.
A low, guttural curse tore from deep in his throat.
"Jesus Christ," he rasped, his voice cracking on the syllables.
He didn't let go of me. The rough, combative demand that had driven him into the annex dissolved, replaced by a sudden, terrifying shift into something far more dangerous.
Reverence.
He closed the remaining inch between us, his massive frame folding over mine with slow, deliberate care.
He didn't crush me against the shelves; he gathered me against his chest, his thick arms wrapping around my shoulders and waist, pulling me flush against his body until my face was buried in the warm crook of his neck.
The heat of his skin was overwhelming. The three-inch surgical scar on his left collarbone pressed against my cheek, smelling of salt and cedar.
"Chosen," I gasped, my hands coming up against his ribs, but the fight was gone from my limbs. My fingers uncurled, flattening against the hard muscle of his back, holding on.
"Quiet," he commanded, his voice a low, rough rumble that vibrated straight through my cheekbone into my skull.
His large hand came up to the back of my head, his thick fingers tangling gently in the dark waves of my hair, pressing my face deeper into the hollow of his shoulder.
His other arm locked around the small of my back, lifting me slightly until my boots were barely grazing the floor, taking my entire weight onto himself.
"Breathe, Marie," he whispered against my temple, his lips brushing the damp hair at my hairline. "Just breathe. I've got you."
A ragged, fractured breath broke from my chest, my forehead sinking into his warm neck. My knees went entirely soft, trusting the iron bar of his arm to hold me upright.
"Look at me," he murmured.
The command was quiet, gravelly, but brooked no refusal.
I lifted my head from his shoulder, my cheek dragging across his warm skin.
He was looking down at me with an intensity so fierce, so possessive, it made my pulse stutter in my throat. His dark eyes were soft at the edges, tracking every line of my flushed face, his thumb rising to wipe a stray tear of pure sensory overload from the corner of my eye.
"You're done hiding behind that clipboard," he rasped, his thumb dragging across my bruised lower lip with agonizing, reverent slowness. "And you're done thinking you have to carry this alone. You belong to me now, Marie. Every inch of you."
My heart hammered against my ribs, a wild, trapped rhythm. "Chosen, this is crazy. The fellowship, the compliance board—"
"I don't give a damn about the compliance board," he cut in, leaning down until his lips hovered a fraction of a millimeter from mine, his breath hot, heavy, and consuming. "Nobody else touches you. Nobody else looks at you. You let me take care of you, understand? Good girl. Say it."
The praise hit my nervous system like an open flame on dry birch.
A soft, broken gasp slipped from my lips, my eyelids fluttering shut as my fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, anchoring myself to the only solid thing in the room.
"Yes," I whispered, the surrender tearing through the last shred of my defenses.
Chosen let out a low, rough groan against my mouth, his lips claiming mine again—not with the wild hunger of before, but with a slow, deep, terrifying devotion that branded my soul to his forever.