Chapter 15
Nadia POV
The Great Ballroom of the Lakeview Alumni Center was an ocean of gold leaf, crystal chandeliers, and white damask linen.
At seven-fifteen on Saturday evening, the room was thick with the suffocating warmth of four hundred bodies packed into evening wear.
The air smelled of expensive gardenia perfume, roasted prime rib, and the sharp, effervescent bite of cheap champagne.
Around the perimeter, flashes from student press cameras strobed rhythmically against the dark oak wainscoting as wealthy alumni and athletic boosters shook hands with department chairs.
My fingers gripped the fluted stem of a sparkling cider glass so tightly the crystal threatened to snap.
I wore an emerald silk dress I’d found at a Duluth consignment shop two years ago.
The fabric was bias-cut, skimming my hips and falling just below the knee, the sleeveless neckline leaving my collarbones and the tops of my shoulders bare to the cold draft drifting from the service doors.
My chestnut curls were swept up into an intricate knot secured with bronze hairpins, but three stubborn tendrils had already pulled free, brushing against my neck.
"Stop holding your breath, Nadia," Siobhan murmured beside me, her voice low as she adjusted the lapel of her tailored navy blazer. "You look like you're waiting for a sniper."
"I am under scrutiny by the entire board of regents," I whispered back, my throat dry as chalk. "Palmer is watching the doorway, and Dr. Morris has my final grant disbursement sitting on her desk. If I trip, my tuition check doesn't clear."
"You won't trip," Siobhan said, turning her head toward the VIP terrace. "Though if you want an excuse to have a medical emergency, look at the twelve o'clock position."
My gaze followed hers across the sixty-foot expanse of the ballroom floor.
My breath stopped in the center of my chest.
Killian stood near the elevated dais, flanked by Coach Donald Briggs and two silver-haired men in tuxedoes.
The battered enforcer of Sub-Basement Lab 04 had vanished behind the razor-sharp lines of a bespoke charcoal three-piece suit.
The jacket was tailored with brutal precision across the massive, broad shelf of his shoulders, the dark wool narrowing down to a tapered waist and long, powerful legs.
A crisp white dress shirt was buttoned to the throat, framed by a slate-gray silk tie knotted with cold military symmetry.
His dark hair was styled back from his forehead, clean and sharp, emphasizing the brutal, carved angles of his cheekbones and the silver line slicing through his left eyebrow.
He was a lethal weapon disguised as a gentleman.
Midway through a sentence with a university trustee, Killian’s head turned.
He didn't search the crowd. He didn't scan the room.
His dark eyes cut through forty feet of glittering chandeliers, past dozens of socializing donors, and locked directly onto mine.
He didn't smile. He didn't nod.
His gaze dropped with agonizing slowness, tracking the dip of my collarbones, the sheen of the emerald silk over the curve of my breasts, and the bare expanse of my arms, before rising back to pin my pupils to the wall.
The raw, unvarnished possession in his face was so brazen, so unapologetically territorial, that a violent flush bloomed from the notch of my throat straight up to my temples.
The pulse behind my jaw flared into a furious, double-time rhythm.
"Holy hell," Siobhan breathed, tracking the exchange with her goalkeeper's precision. "The man is looking at you like he wants to eat you alive in front of the dean."
"Don't," I choked out, forcing my eyes down to the champagne bubbles in my flute.
"Table four," a crisp voice announced behind us.
Dr. Evelyn Morris appeared at my elbow, wearing black velvet, her reading glasses dangling from a silver chain around her neck. "Nadia, Derrick Palmer requested our presence at the head athletic table. We need to present a united front regarding the compliance metrics. Bring your portfolio notes."
My stomach plummeted like a lead weight.
* * *
Table four was positioned directly beneath the central chandelier, covered in a heavy white damask cloth that fell all the way to the carpeted floor.
The seating cards had been arranged with bureaucratic cruelty.
Athletic Director Derrick Palmer sat at the head. To his left sat Coach Briggs and Dr. Morris. To his right sat Killian.
And directly to Killian’s right was my seat.
When I pulled out the mahogany chair, Killian rose to his feet with an unhurried, heavy grace that made the gold buttons of his vest gleam under the lights.
The heat radiating off his body was an immediate physical wall, washing over my bare arm with the familiar, suffocating scent of crushed cedar, iron, and black pepper.
"Miss Gregory," he said.
His voice was a smooth, low baritone, perfectly polite, perfectly civilized. But beneath the polished surface, the gravel in his tone was an open dare, vibrating against my ribs.
"Castaneda," I managed, my voice flat as I smoothed the emerald silk over my thighs and sat down.
Killian settled beside me. The width of his shoulders was far too large for the banquet seating; the heavy wool of his tailored sleeve pressed flush against the bare skin of my left shoulder, a searing point of friction that sent a ripple of tension down my arm.
Across the floral centerpiece, Derrick Palmer cleared his throat, tapping a butter knife against a crystal tumbler. "Evelyn, the preliminary compliance report from Monday's walkthrough was exceptional. The regional board praised the behavioral redirection model."
"Ten hours remaining. Her kinematic tracking has yielded groundbreaking data on deceleration stabilization," Dr. Morris replied, smiling warmly across the table.
A man with slicked-back brown hair and a rumpled corduroy jacket hovered near the edge of our table, clutching a small voice recorder. Martin Cole. He had been lurking around the athletic complex for three weeks, his sharp rat-like eyes tracking Killian like a vulture waiting for a carcass.
"Care to comment on that, Castaneda?" Cole asked, leaning past Palmer’s shoulder, his voice oily. "Word on the beat is that your sudden compliance is less about biomechanics and more about avoiding a mandatory five-game scratch before the Montreal scouts arrive."
Killian’s jaw hardened, the muscle along his mandible bunching into a knot.
Before he could answer, his left hand vanished beneath the heavy damask tablecloth.
Under the table, out of sight of Palmer, Morris, and Cole, a broad, calloused palm settled flat against my bare knee.
My breath caught in my windpipe with an audible hitch.
The heat of his hand was scalding, burning through the thin air beneath the linen. His fingers were long, rough, and heavy, spanning the width of my patella with an unshakeable, possessive grip that pinned my leg to the chair.
"Mr. Cole," Dr. Morris interrupted smoothly, oblivious to the war beneath the cloth, "this is an academic fellowship, not a press conference."
"Miss Gregory can verify that," Palmer said, looking directly at me. "Nadia, the torque curves—did you observe any lingering resistance to the protocol?"
I opened my mouth to speak, but the words withered behind my teeth.
Beneath the linen, Killian’s hand moved.
Slowly, deliberately, his calloused palm slid upward. His fingers tracked the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, dragging the hem of the emerald silk up two agonizing inches. His broad thumb found the soft, burning flesh just below my hip, stroking slow, heavy circles against my sensitized skin.
A sharp, violent tremor rippled through the base of my spine.
I clamped my knees together, attempting to shift an inch to the right, but Killian’s fingers tightened, his grip firm and immovable, holding my thigh clamped firmly against the side of his tailored wool trousers.
"Nadia?" Dr. Morris prompted, her brows knitting with mild concern. "Are you alright? You look flushed."
I dug my fingernails into my palms until the skin broke, forcing my lungs to draw in a shallow, burning draft of air. I looked straight at Dr. Morris, willing my voice not to crack, willing the fire in my blood not to show on my face.
"The torque curves... are fully normalized, Dr. Morris," I said, my voice coming out an octave lower than normal, thick and strained. "The subject has... demonstrated total biomechanical compliance."
Killian’s thumb stroked deeper into the junction of my thigh, his knuckles brushing the edge of my silk hem. He didn't look down. He sat upright, calmly cutting a piece of roasted beef with his knife, his posture relaxed, his dark eyes fixed politely on Martin Cole.
"See, Cole?" Killian rumbled, his voice smooth as aged bourbon. "Total compliance. The lady has me on a very short leash."
Cole scowled, clicking his recorder off and retreating toward the bar.
Under the table, Killian’s thumb gave one last, bruising press against the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, claiming every drop of my blood, before his hand slowly withdrew, resting innocently on his linen napkin.
My heart was hammering so violently against my ribs I thought my dress would tear.
* * *
The university president took the podium at eight-fifteen, the sound of polite applause rippling through the massive hall as the house lights dimmed.
"Excuse me," I whispered to Dr. Morris, not waiting for a response.
I stood up, my knees trembling so violently under the emerald silk that I had to catch the edge of the mahogany table to steady my balance. I stepped backward, keeping my head down, and slipped through the side service doors into the quiet, dimly lit corridor that led to the alumni terrace.
The air in the hallway was freezing, carrying the sharp, sub-zero draft from the exterior French doors.
I turned into a deep architectural alcove flanked by heavy, floor-to-ceiling crimson velvet drapes, pressing my forehead against the frosted windowpane. The glass was ice, chilling my burning skin, but it did nothing to slow the wild, runaway train of my pulse.
He is insane. We are both utterly insane.
Behind me, the heavy velvet curtain rustled.
The fabric parted and snapped shut with a dull, heavy sweep, cutting off the golden light from the corridor and plunging the alcove into deep, velvet shadow.
The scent of crushed cedar, black pepper, and warm wool engulfed me in half a heartbeat.
Before I could turn around, two broad hands clamped onto my waist.
Killian lifted me off my feet with effortless, brutal power, spinning me around in the narrow space and pinning my back against the cold glass of the window.
His massive, suit-jacketed chest crowded into my space, his broad shoulders blocking out the world, his physical heat chasing the chill from my bare shoulders in a single breath.
My hands came up, clutching the satin lapels of his charcoal suit, my knuckles pressing against the hard plate of his pectorals.
"Are you out of your mind?" I gasped, my voice a ragged, breathless whisper in the dark. "Palmer was sitting three feet away! If he looked under that table—"
"Palmer wasn't looking at anything," Killian rasped, leaning down until his lips were a millimeter from the hollow beneath my ear.
His breath was a furnace against my sensitized skin, making the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end. His hands slid up my ribcage, his calloused thumbs brushing the sides of my breasts through the thin silk, holding me firmly against the window frame.
"You're driving me out of my mind in this dress, Nadia," he growled, the gravel in his voice scraping raw against my collarbone. "Sitting there looking like royalty, letting everyone in that room look at your skin."
"I was doing my job," I whispered, my head tilting back against the glass as his lips brushed the sensitive tendon of my neck.
"You sat there and took my hand under the table without a sound," he murmured, his teeth gently grazing the curve of my shoulder, sending a jagged lightning bolt of heat straight down into my thighs. "Didn't flinch. Kept that straight, pretty face while I had my fingers on your thigh."
His hand moved to the back of my neck, his fingers sliding into the bronze pins of my hair, loosening the curls with deliberate, possessive pressure.
"Good girl," he rumbled against my lips, the praise thick, dark, and heavy with absolute authority. "Such a good girl for me."
A broken whimper died in my throat as my fingers curled into the wool of his lapels, pulling his mouth down to mine.
Our lips were an eighth of an inch apart—our breaths mingling in frantic, starving gasps—when the sharp click of leather dress shoes echoed down the marble corridor outside.
Two voices paused directly on the other side of the crimson velvet curtain.
"I'm telling you, Briggs," Athletic Director Palmer’s voice cut through the fabric, sharp and suspicious. "The draft files don't match the bursar's records. Where did Gregory go?"
Killian went stone-still, his body an iron wall pinning me to the glass, his thumb resting against my lower lip in the suffocating dark.