Chapter 14
Chosen POV
The ice at six-thirty on Tuesday morning was black glass beneath forty-eight-degree air, scarred only by the silver cuts of our warm-up laps. A low, freezing mist hung two feet above the deck, churning as twelve skaters cycled through Vance’s neutral zone forecheck.
My right skate bit into the ice on a tight inside edge.
The carbon-fiber hinge brace held firm against the medial collateral ligament, but the joint barely registered. The sickening, grinding ache that had lived behind my kneecap for three weeks had leveled out into a dull, manageable thrum.
My pulse sat low and even in my throat—fifty-two beats a minute, measuring out a cold, steady rhythm that had nothing to do with the wind chill and everything to do with the fact that for the first time since November of my freshman year, the static in my skull was dead quiet.
I caught a crisp breakout pass off the half-boards, settled the rubber flat with the heel of my stick, and cut through the center circle.
Knox Davies came charging across the blue line to challenge the lane.
Instead of bracing for an impact or dumping the puck into the corner, I shifted my weight two inches to the left, dropped my shoulder, and dragged the puck around his reach with an effortless, fluid sweep of my wrists before roofing a backhand over the goalie’s glove into the top right mesh.
The puck hit the water bottle with a sharp crack.
"What the hell was that?" Knox skidded to a halt beside the net, snow spraying over the goal line.
He leaned on his stick, his chest heaving under his maroon practice sweater, his visor fogged with sweat.
"You haven't moved that fast laterally since December.
Did Thorne inject you with horse liniment? "
"Thorne didn't touch it," I said, gliding past him toward the bench.
Knox followed me, his skates cutting quick, irritated strides into the ice. When I took off my gloves and reached for a squeeze bottle on the dasher rail, he leaned his hip against the boards, his light eyes scanning the side of my face with suspicious intensity.
"You look different," Knox muttered, wiping his chin with a wet sleeve. "You're not grinding your teeth. You didn't try to take Calhoun’s head off in the scrimmage yesterday, and you're skating like you actually give a damn about living past twenty-five. What happened in The Vault last night?"
My jaw didn't tighten. My pulse didn't jump. I set the water bottle back on the rail, picked up my stick, and turned my head slowly until my eyes locked onto his.
"Keep your focus on the Boston rematch, Knox," I said.
The words came out quiet, smooth, and flat as cured iron. There was no venom in the delivery, none of the feral anger I usually had to choke down, but the absolute, immovable certainty in my voice made Knox’s mouth snap shut.
He held his hands up, took two strides backward onto the ice, and left me alone.
I leaned against the dasher board, letting the cold air fill my lungs.
My mind wasn't on the power play. It was on the narrow, dark annex beneath the concrete foundations.
I could still feel the fine, uncontrollable tremor in her wrists when my hands held hers against my chest. I could still smell the rain and sweet almond oil in her dark hair as it spilled across my knuckles, still hear the broken, breathless surrender in her voice when she whispered yes.
She had never let another man touch her. She had spent four years starving herself of warmth, carrying the weight of textbooks and tuition grants, building an intellectual fortress so high nobody could see how soft she was underneath.
That fortress belonged to me now.
I wasn't fighting the obsession anymore. I wasn't running drills at two in the morning to burn her out of my blood. She was in my perimeter, and I was going to strip away every remaining lie she told herself about professional boundaries.
* * *
At eight-fifty, the Adirondack fog was thick enough to swallow the granite spires of the Science Annex.
I stood at the base of the wide stone steps, leaning one shoulder against the cast-iron railing, my hands shoved deep into the pockets of my black wool coat. The collar was turned up against the damp, sub-zero breeze blowing off the lake.
A stream of undergraduate students in heavy parkas began spilling through the heavy oak double doors, their breath puffing white into the mist.
Marie came out last.
She had her dark hair twisted back into a low knot, but three loose curls had escaped, framing the sharp, pale line of her cheekbones.
She wore a heavy forest-green wool coat buttoned to her throat, her canvas satchel slung across her chest, stuffed to bursting with two thick anatomy volumes and her aluminum clipboard.
Her head was down, her boots picking their way carefully over the salted stone steps, her fingers buried in her pockets.
She looked tired, the faint violet shadows beneath her dark eyes visible even through the morning gray.
I stepped away from the railing, cutting a straight line through the foot traffic.
She didn't see me until my shadow fell over her boots.
Her head snapped up, her dark eyes widening with a sharp, sudden flare of alarm that caught in the hollow of her throat. Her boots halted on the third step from the bottom.
"Chosen," she said, the syllable small, breathless, puffing like smoke between us. Her gaze flicked nervously to the students brushing past us on either side. "What are you doing on this side of campus?"
"Waiting for you," I said.
Before she could adjust her grip on her bag, I reached out. My hand caught the heavy canvas strap of her satchel and lifted the entire twenty-pound load off her shoulder with a single, effortless motion.
"Hey!" Her small hand shot out, grabbing for the strap, her fingers brushing against the back of my bare knuckles. Her touch sent a surge of solid, grounding heat straight up the inside of my arm. "Give that back. I have office hours in forty minutes."
"I have your bag, Marie," I said, shifting the strap over my own broad shoulder. "Walk."
"Chosen, stop it," she hissed, her voice dropping into that fierce, clipped register she used when she felt cornered.
Her cheeks were already flushed pink from the wind, her small frame going rigid as iron.
"People from compliance walk across this quad every ten minutes.
If someone sees the team captain carrying a research assistant's books—"
I didn't argue.
I stepped in until the front of my coat brushed hers, reached around her waist, and planted my large, bare palm flat against the small of her back.
The heat of my hand pressed through the wool of her coat, firm and immovable.
Her breath hitched sharply. The defiance in her eyes flickered as I applied a steady, gentle forward pressure, guiding her down the remaining three steps toward the curb where my black pickup truck was idling with the hazard lights flashing.
"Keep your voice down," I murmured, my head dipping until my lips were inches from her ear. "And keep moving your boots."
"You are infuriating," she whispered, but her legs obeyed the command. Her small boots fell into rhythm with my long strides, her shoulder tucked tight against my side as my palm remained locked against her spine, steering her through the mist.
* * *
I opened the passenger door of the truck, took her by the elbow, and lifted her onto the high leather seat before she could find another argument.
I dropped her satchel onto the floorboard, shut the heavy door with a solid thud that cut off the damp campus noise, and walked around the front bumper.
When I climbed into the driver's seat and pulled the door closed, the cab was already eighty degrees, warm air rushing from the dash vents, carrying the familiar scent of leather, cedarwood, and the faint traces of her peppermint from last night.
Marie was sitting with her back pressed flat against the passenger door, her hands clutched tightly in her lap, her dark eyes blazing with exasperation.
"You can't do that," she said, her chest rising and falling rapidly beneath her green wool. "You can't just hunt me down outside a lecture hall, take my property, and force me into your truck like I'm a freshman recruit."
I didn't reach for the gearshift.
I reached up, unzipped the front of my wool coat, and turned in the bucket seat, resting my left forearm across the top of the steering wheel. My right knee brushed against the center console, taking up the space, boxing her into her corner.
"Yes, I can," I said, my voice dropping into that low, unhurried baritone that left no room for debate.
"By what authority?" she demanded, her chin lifting, the antique silver signet ring on her pinky twisting rapidly under her thumb.
"We have an NCAA medical rehabilitation agreement, Chosen.
That's sixty hours of clinical observation in a basement.
It doesn't give you ownership of my morning schedule. "
"The old agreement burned in the annex last night, Marie," I said, holding her gaze with steady, deliberate calm. "You know it, and I know it."
She swallowed hard, the movement dragging the pale skin of her neck tight. A fresh wave of heat bloomed across her collarbone.
"Here is how this works from now on," I continued, my voice smooth, quiet, and absolute.
"You don't hide behind clipboards when I walk into a room.
You don't duck your head and look at the floor when we pass in the arena hallway.
When you have classes on the north quad before nine in the morning, you don't walk through three feet of snow while carrying twenty pounds of books. You wait for me."
"I am an independent adult, Black," she whispered, but the defiance in her voice was fraying, thin and breathless.
"I know what you are," I murmured.
I leaned across the center console, closing the space between us until the heat pouring off my chest enveloped her.
My right hand came up.
My fingers, thick and warm from the heater, curled around the delicate curve of her jaw. My thumb pressed gently against the soft hollow beneath her lower lip, tilting her face upward until she had no choice but to look directly into my eyes.
Her pupils were wide, black swallowing the dark brown, her lips parting on a soft, ragged inhale. The wild, frantic flutter of her pulse was jumping directly against the pad of my index finger.
"You're mine, Marie," I rasped, my thumb dragging across her bottom lip, feeling the tender, swollen edge where my mouth had claimed her twelve hours ago. "You let me carry your bag. You answer my calls. And you stop fighting the only person on this campus who gives a damn about keeping you safe."
Her breath shuddered against my skin, her eyelids fluttering as the tension drained out of her shoulders, her small frame softening into the leather seat.
"Chosen," she whispered, her lips brushing my thumb.
"Say yes, Marie," I commanded, my voice dropping into that dark, heavy register that sent a visible shiver down her throat.
She closed her eyes for one long second, her fingers rising to touch the back of my wrist, pressing my hand deeper against her jaw instead of pushing it away.
"Yes," she whispered.
A slow, deep warmth spread through my chest, settling heavy in my bones. I leaned in another half-inch, my lips grazing the soft, flushed crest of her cheekbone.
"Good girl," I murmured against her skin, feeling the sudden, breathless hitch in her ribs at the praise. "That's how it's going to be from now on."
I released her jaw, put the truck into gear, and pulled out into the morning fog, knowing that whatever rules were left to break, we were going to burn them together.