Chapter 15
Marie POV
The Grand Ballroom of the Lake Mistassini Resort was suffocating under the weight of three hundred donors, thirty-crystal chandeliers, and the cloying perfume of white hothouse lilies.
It was eight o'clock on Friday evening. Week six of the semester. Exactly fifty hours remaining on the compliance sheet locked in my desk. Nine weeks until the Frozen Four in Lake Placid.
The room hummed with the high-decibel chatter of alumni trustees, the clinking of silver forks against bone china, and the pop of vintage champagne corks.
At the perimeter of the parquet floor, I stood beside Tessa Rhodes, my fingers curled tightly around the stem of an untouched glass of sparkling water.
I had spent an hour in front of the cracked mirror in our flat, pinning my dark hair into an intricate French twist, letting two soft curls frame my jaw.
The dress was an emerald-green silk slip, modest in the front with a high cowl neckline, but cut low in the back to expose the line of my shoulder blades.
It was the only formal gown I owned, purchased second-hand two years ago for an academic honors symposium, and right now the thin fabric felt like tissue paper against the draft blowing off the frozen lake outside the French doors.
"Drink the water, Marie," Tessa murmured, adjusting the lapels of her tailored black tuxedo jumpsuit. Her sharp eyes scanned the room, cataloging compliance officers and athletic department boosters. "You're gripping that crystal like you're preparing to stab someone with the stem."
"I am preparing to survive two hours of Reginald Sterling’s fundraising speeches," I said, my throat dry.
A collective shift in the room’s volume rippled toward the double arched entrance.
The Carver University Men’s Hockey team had arrived.
They moved as a single, imposing unit through the crowd, twenty-two athletes in tailored black suits, but my vision tunneled instantly.
Chosen Black walked at the head of the roster.
My ribs locked around my lungs. The blood in my ears rushed with sudden, deafening velocity.
He wore a bespoke charcoal-gray three-piece suit that hugged the massive width of his shoulders and tapered sharply to his waist. His crisp white shirt was buttoned to his throat beneath a dark silk tie, the knot pulled tight against his hard collarbone.
His dark hair was combed back, exposing the clean, brutal angles of his jaw and the faint pink shadow of the cut I had sealed above his right eyebrow five days ago.
He didn't look like a collegiate center. He looked like an aristocrat who enforced his own laws with bare knuckles.
Beside him, Knox Davies grinned and shook hands with an athletic board member, but Chosen didn't look at the donors. He didn't look at the photographers flashing lenses near the ice sculpture.
Across sixty feet of crowded ballroom, over the heads of trustees and university deans, his dark eyes found mine.
The contact was an immediate, physical blow.
He didn't blink. He didn't offer a polite, social smile. His gaze locked onto my face, dropping slowly over the emerald silk covering my chest, tracking the bare skin of my shoulders with an unvarnished, heavy possession that made the breath catch behind my teeth.
Knox nudged Chosen’s elbow, whispering something behind his hand.
Chosen didn't acknowledge his linemate. His eyes stayed welded to mine, his jaw set in a line of quiet, absolute ownership, before Head Coach Garrison Vance caught his shoulder and steered him toward Table One.
* * *
"Freeman."
Coach Vance appeared at my side ten minutes later, smelling of bay rum and peppermint.
"Director Sterling wants you at Table One," Vance said, gesturing toward the circular VIP table directly beneath the center chandelier.
"The regional sports medicine trust is donating forty thousand dollars to the training facilities tonight.
Sterling wants you to answer the trustee's questions about our kinetic load-management protocol. "
My stomach dropped into freefall. "Coach, my credential is for clinical research, not fundraising—"
"Sit down and smile, Freeman," Vance said, his tone firm but not unkind. "It’s good for your fellowship."
I had no choice. I set my glass on a passing waiter’s tray, smoothed down the emerald silk over my hips, and followed Vance to the head table.
The seating arrangement was a disaster.
Reginald Sterling sat on the far side, flanked by a state senator and Carver’s lead orthopedic trustee. Directly opposite them, sitting with his broad back to the room, was Chosen.
The only vacant chair at the table was on Chosen’s right.
I slid into the seat, my spine rigid as rebar, my knees pressed tightly together. The scent of him enveloped me instantly—crushed cedarwood, cold winter air, and the dark warmth of his skin beneath the wool of his suit.
He didn't turn his head to look at me. He kept his attention on the athletic trustee across the table, nodding at a comment about Carver’s penalty-kill percentage, his profile carved from dark marble.
"Miss Freeman," Sterling said, leaning forward across the heavy floral centerpiece, his smile thin and corporate. "I was just telling Trustee Caldwell about your telemetry work with our captain. We expect full clearance for the ECAC playoffs, correct?"
"Captain Black’s joint stability is progressing according to our non-surgical protocol, Director Sterling," I said, my voice smooth, even, and detached. "We are maintaining thirty degrees of closed-chain stabilization."
Beneath the floor-length white damask linen tablecloth, something shifted.
A heavy, fabric-covered knee pressed firmly against the outside of my bare leg.
The heat of his trousers burned through the side of my knee, an unyielding, deliberate invasion. I kept my chin level, refusing to break eye contact with the trustee, and tried to edge my leg two inches to the left.
Chosen’s knee followed, pinning my thighs against the wooden leg of my chair.
Then his hand moved.
Beneath the white drape of the linen, out of sight of thirty trustees and the university athletic director, Chosen’s large, warm palm slid off his napkin and rested heavily on my bare kneecap.
The air evaporated from my chest.
His hand was massive, his fingers thick and calloused, heat radiating through the emerald silk like a hot iron.
"The donor board is particularly interested in the lateral shear forces," Trustee Caldwell said, leaning forward to inspect me. "How does the scar tissue hold up under full contact?"
"The... the collagen fibers align along the lines of stress," I managed to say, my throat tightening as Chosen’s hand began to move.
His fingers didn't stay on my knee.
With agonizing, deliberate slowness, his palm slid upward, slipping past the side slit of my dress, his calloused thumb making direct contact with the bare, sensitive skin of my lower thigh.
A violent, suffocating flush surged up my collarbone.
His skin was burning hot against mine. His blunt thumb began tracing slow, heavy circles into the soft flesh above my knee, his fingers splaying wide, pressing into the muscle with quiet, bruising authority.
I reached beneath the table with my left hand, my fingers wrapping around his thick wrist, trying desperately to pry him away.
His arm was iron. He didn't budge a millimeter. Instead, his fingers tightened, his thumb pressing a fraction of an inch deeper into my thigh, his knuckles brushing the underside of my dress.
"And you anticipate no setbacks before Lake Placid, Miss Freeman?" Sterling pressed, his eyes narrowing slightly at my posture.
"None, Director," I choked out, forcing my lips into a polite, professional curve while my heart detonated against my ribs. "The protocol... is absolute."
Chosen lifted his champagne flute with his free left hand, taking a slow sip, his face an unreadable mask of aristocratic composure while his right hand held me captive in the dark.
* * *
When the lights dimmed for the athletic department tribute reel, I pulled my thigh back with everything I had.
Chosen released his grip just enough for me to stand.
"Excuse me," I whispered to Coach Vance, my voice trembling. "I need some air."
I didn't wait for a response. I walked through the perimeter of the ballroom, moving with fast, controlled steps, keeping my back straight until I pushed through the heavy service doors into the stone corridor leading to the terrace.
The hallway was dim, lit only by low wall sconces. At the far end, a set of French doors stood behind a pair of heavy, floor-to-ceiling emerald velvet drapes.
I slipped behind the drapes, stepping into the freezing stone alcove.
The sub-zero Adirondack air seeped through the glass panes of the door, cooling the fever burning across my cheeks and throat.
I pressed both palms flat against the cold limestone wall, dragging ragged breaths into my aching lungs.
The velvet drape rustled behind me.
A broad shadow cut off the faint hallway light.
The curtain fell back into place, sealing the alcove in deep, secluded gloom.
Chosen was there.
He stepped directly into my space before I could turn, his heavy frame crowding me against the limestone. His tailored suit jacket was unbuttoned, the heat pouring off his chest trapping me against the freezing stone.
His large hands came down on my hips, his thumbs digging into the emerald silk, lifting me up onto my toes until my breasts brushed the front of his waistcoat.
"Chosen," I gasped, my hands flying to the lapels of his suit, clutching the fine wool. "Someone will see—"
"Nobody saw," he rasped, his voice dropping into a dark, gravelly vibration that sent a shudder straight down to my boots.
He leaned down, burying his face in the crook of my neck. His breath was hot, smelling of vintage champagne and dark cedar, searing across the bare skin of my shoulder blades. His lips brushed the frantic, hammering pulse point beneath my ear.
"You're driving me out of my mind in this dress, Marie," he murmured, his teeth lightly catching the sensitive flesh above my collarbone.
A soft, broken whimper slipped past my lips. My fingers curled into the wool of his lapels, holding him against me instead of pushing him away, my hips arching slightly into the unyielding press of his body.
His hand left my hip, his thick fingers tangling in the curls at the nape of my neck, his thumb tilting my jaw upward until my mouth hovered a millimeter from his.
His dark eyes were wild in the gloom, blazing with a terrifying, suffocating pride.
"Sitting there at that table," he whispered, his mouth brushing mine as he spoke, every word thick with gravel and dark possessive reverence.
"Looking like that. Answering their questions while my hand was between your legs.
Good girl. You kept that pretty, straight face the whole time, didn't you? "
A sharp, breathless sob caught in my throat at the praise, my eyelids fluttering shut as my body yielded to the heavy cage of his arms.
Outside the heavy velvet drapes, hard leather shoes clicked against the marble floor of the corridor.
Two voices stopped just on the other side of the fabric—Reginald Sterling and a man with a rough, low drawl.
Chosen didn't move. He held my jaw locked in his palm, his mouth pressed tight against my lips, freezing us together in the dark as the voices paused three inches from our breath.