Chapter 11
Nadia POV
The metal spoon clattered against the porcelain bowl, sending a spray of lukewarm oat milk across the cafeteria table.
Monday morning in the North Quad Dining Hall was an assault of damp wool coats, clattering trays, and industrial dishwashers groaning in the steamy kitchens.
Outside, the gray November light felt thin, bleached by forty-eight hours of persistent freezing sleet that had glazed the campus in sheet ice.
I picked up the spoon again, pushing the congealed oats into meaningless gray ridges. My stomach was a knot of cold lead. Every time I swallowed, the lining of my throat felt parched, raw from two days of sleepless vigilance.
Worse than the exhaustion was the phantom heat lingering on my skin.
If I closed my eyes, I was back in the front seat of his truck.
The smell of cold cedar and dashboard vinyl.
The heavy, unyielding weight of his hand tangled in the hair at my nape.
The rough, calloused pad of his thumb dragging down my lower lip, parting my mouth while his breath washed over my face like a furnace.
My knuckles tightened around the spoon until the thin metal bent under the pressure.
"If you stare at that cereal any harder, Nadia, it's going to catch fire."
Across the laminate table, Siobhan set her plastic tray down with a dull plastic clatter.
She had her dark hair pulled back into a severe athletic knot, wearing her navy Barrow soccer track jacket.
Her green eyes, sharp and dissecting, locked onto the dark purple semicircles bruised beneath my eyes.
"I'm reviewing kinematic models in my head," I lied, setting the bent spoon down with deliberate precision.
"You haven't looked at your tablet in twenty minutes," Siobhan countered, unpeeling a banana with two brutal tugs. "You jump every time the kitchen double doors slam, and you've touched your bottom lip six times since I sat down."
My hand, hovering inches from my chin, dropped instantly into my lap. My fingernails bit into the denim of my jeans.
"I'm fine," I said, my voice coming out tighter than I wanted. "The interim compliance audit took twelve hours out of my weekend. I'm behind on Dr. Morris's data verification."
"Right. And that explains why you stayed on our couch until three in the morning staring at the radiator like it was going to assassinate you.
" Siobhan leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table, her humor vanishing behind a wall of steady, grounded focus.
"What happened when he drove you back during the storm, Nadia? "
My chest constricted, the air turning thin behind my ribs.
I told him he was a coward, and he almost kissed me until my heart stopped.
"Nothing," I whispered. The word tasted of dust and copper. "He dropped me at the curb. We had a disagreement about the deceleration harness. That's all."
Siobhan studied me for three long seconds. Her eyes moved from the stiff line of my shoulders to the erratic flutter of the pulse beating at the base of my throat, visible above the high collar of my black turtleneck.
"You're a terrible liar," she said softly. "You look at the ice like you're standing on the edge of a drop-off. If that guy is doing anything to cross a line with you—"
"He isn't," I cut in, my voice sharp enough to draw a glance from a nearby table of cross-country runners. I gathered my satchel, sliding the heavy strap over my shoulder. "Thirty hours left, Siobhan. We're halfway through the mandate. I have everything under control."
I stood up before she could answer, leaving the cold oatmeal behind, and headed for the doors into the freezing Michigan drizzle.
* * *
The lower service corridor of the athletic complex smelled of chlorine, scorched floor wax, and the damp chill rising from the subterranean ice sheet.
It was eleven-fifteen. According to the master athletic schedule I had memorized down to the minute, the varsity men's hockey team was locked in the second-floor film theater for a mandatory two-hour special-teams breakdown with Coach Briggs.
The basement was supposed to be deserted.
I kept my head down, clutching a thick manila envelope against my ribs containing the signed compliance verifications for Dr. Morris.
My boots squeaked rhythmically against the grooved black rubber matting.
If I could slide the documents under the human performance lab door and get back to the library annex before noon, I wouldn't have to look at him until tomorrow's dawn session.
Avoidance was a sound clinical strategy. If we weren't trapped in an enclosed space, the air wouldn't turn to liquid fire. If I kept three feet of distance between our bodies, I could convince myself that the truck had been a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation and bruised quad tissue.
I rounded the corner past the Zamboni maintenance bay.
The hydraulic hiss of the locker room door echoed down the hall.
Laughter bounced off the concrete walls—loud, irreverent, and careless.
My boots froze to the rubber mats.
Walking toward me were Hayes Bennett and Killian.
Hayes was tossing a yellow roll of stick tape from hand to hand, wearing gray sweatpants and a backwards Barrow snapback, chattering about a neutral-zone turnover. Beside him, towering over the hallway like an encroaching shadow, was Killian.
He didn't have his coat on. He wore a fitted black thermal shirt with the sleeves pushed up to the meat of his forearms, the heavy silver scar through his left eyebrow stark against his skin.
His hair was damp, curled slightly at the nape from a shower, and his hockey duffel hung from his right hand by the webbing.
He wasn't laughing. His mouth was set in that cold, flat line, his dark eyes fixed straight ahead.
Until he turned the corner and saw me.
His stride didn't break, but his entire frame went rigid, the tendons in his neck tightening like thick wires. His pupils dilated instantly, black ink swallowing the amber in his eyes, locking onto my face with a heavy, physical focus that knocked the breath straight out of my lungs.
"Hey, Gregory!" Hayes called out cheerfully, completely oblivious to the sudden drop in barometric pressure between us. "You coming down to check on our boy's leg? He skated like a maniac this morning. Didn't even limp."
My throat was parched. "I have paperwork for Dr. Morris."
"Good luck finding her," Hayes said, jogging past me toward the equipment cage. "She's upstairs arguing with the travel coordinator about bus vouchers. Catch you later, Nadia."
Hayes turned the corner, his footsteps fading toward the training rooms.
I took a single step forward, intending to follow him toward the stairs.
Killian didn't follow.
He stopped directly in the center of the rubber runner, four feet away.
The corridor was narrow, barely wide enough for two people to pass without brushing shoulders. Killian dropped his heavy duffel to the deck with a dull, echoing slap that vibrated through the soles of my boots.
He didn't speak. He simply stood there, six-foot-four of stone-faced athletic mass, completely blocking the path to the exit.
* * *
My pulse hammered against my ribs, wild and frantic, a deafening drumbeat in my ears.
"Move, Castaneda," I said.
My voice was too thin. It lacked the razor-sharp clinical bite I had practiced in the mirror all morning.
Killian didn't budge. He planted his boots wide, crossing his thick forearms over his chest. The black cotton of his shirt pulled tight across the broad shelf of his pectorals, highlighting the bruised ribs beneath.
"Where are you going, Gregory?" he rasped.
The gravel in his voice was low, thick, scraping along the damp concrete walls. It was the same ruined register he had used in the cab of his truck, stripped of all polite restraint.
"I have a meeting," I lied, clutching the manila envelope tighter to my chest.
I took a step to the right, aiming for the two-foot gap between his shoulder and the painted cinder blocks.
Killian shifted his weight. His left shoulder moved with effortless, predatory grace, cutting off the lane before I could clear it.
I snapped my head to the left, pivoting on my heel to dart around his other side.
His right boot hit the rubber matting with a heavy squeak, his broad frame shifting instantly to shut down the opening.
I stopped three inches from his chest.
The heat radiating off him slammed into my face like an open oven door, thick with the scent of crushed cedar, black pepper, and the sharp iron of his skin.
My vision blurred around the edges. Up close, I could see the tiny pulse point throbbing violently at the base of his throat, right above the crew neck of his shirt.
His jaw was clamped so tight a muscle knot twitched in his cheek in steady, rhythmic spasms.
"Stop playing games," I breathed, my chin tilting upward to meet his gaze. "Let me through."
Killian leaned down.
Slowly, deliberately, he lowered his head until his face was inches from mine, his dark eyes boring straight into mine. He didn't touch me—he didn't have to. The physical mass of him boxed me in against the air itself, suffocating every rational defense I had left.
"You ran," he murmured, his voice a dark, rough vibration that settled deep in the hollow of my throat.
My breath hitched. "I didn't run."
"You practically broke the door handle getting out of my truck on Saturday," he said, leaning in another fraction of an inch until the heat of his exhale warmed my cheek.
"You didn't answer your phone when Morris called about the telemetry files.
And you've been ducking down the back stairs all morning to keep from seeing me. "
"I was doing my job," I whispered, though my lips were trembling so hard I could barely form the syllables. "I don't have time to hold your hand in the hallway."
"You weren't doing a job in that truck, Nadia."
The use of my first name was a blow to the sternum. His eyes dropped to my mouth, tracking the rapid parting of my lips, his pupils black voids of raw, unchecked hunger.
"You wanted my mouth on yours," he rasped, his voice dropping so low it was barely more than a friction of air against my ear. "You had your hands in my shirt. You were begging for it."
A furious, burning flush swept up my neck, scorching my cheeks. "I didn't beg for anything!"
"Not out loud," he whispered.
He reached out. His large, calloused hand came up, hovering a millimeter above the collar of my sweater. He didn't make contact, but the air between his skin and mine crackled with unbearable heat.
"Avoid me all you want out here in the light, Gregory," he murmured, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an unyielding, lethal promise that made my knees feel like water. "Run across campus. Hide behind Bennett. It doesn't matter."
He took a step back, retrieving his duffel from the floor with one fluid, powerful heave of his shoulder, clearing the path to the stairwell.
He looked down at me from his full height, his lips curved into a faint, dangerous smirk that promised total ruin.
"Tomorrow morning. Five-thirty AM. Sub-Basement Lab 04." His voice dropped into a commanding rumble that echoed down the empty corridor. "The door locks from the inside, sweetheart. Let's see how fast you run then."