Chapter 17
Nadia POV
In the distance, past the frozen granite bluffs of the lake, the municipal civil defense horn wailed its long, low warble against the whiteout.
The Upper Peninsula was under a red-line blizzard warning. Along the lower boulevard, two Barrow campus security cruisers sat parked across the asphalt with their amber light bars flashing, turning away all traffic as three feet of drifting lake powder erased the roads in blinding waves.
Killian jammed the truck into low gear, the tires churning through a fresh drift at the crest of the ridge before biting into the gravel of his driveway.
The house sat solitary beneath a stand of weeping hemlocks, a weathered two-story cedar-shake saltbox with dark eaves and yellow light spilling through the porch windows.
Hayes was stuck downtown at the alumni reception afterparty; the text on Killian’s console twenty minutes ago had confirmed the municipal plow routes were halted until daybreak.
We were stranded.
Killian killed the engine. The sudden death of the truck’s heater left the cab filled with the howl of fifty-mile-an-hour gusts battering the metal roof.
He didn't speak. He shoved his door open, stepped into knee-deep powder in his leather dress shoes, and rounded the hood with his head ducked against the driving sleet.
Before my boots could touch the snow, his arms slid beneath my knees and around my back, hauling me out of the cab against his broad chest.
I buried my face in the crook of his neck, his charcoal suit jacket wrapped tight around my shoulders, my fingers knotting into the crisp cotton of his dress shirt. The sub-zero wind lashed my bare ankles, the damp hem of my emerald silk dress freezing into stiff boards in five seconds flat.
He kicked the heavy front door open, carried me over the threshold, and kicked the door shut with his heel.
The brass deadbolt turned with a heavy, final clack.
The howling wind vanished, muted into a hollow vibration rattling the thick cedar walls.
The silence inside the house was absolute.
It smelled of seasoned birch logs, leather upholstery, boot wax, and clean laundry detergent. Cast-iron radiators clicked rhythmically along the baseboards, radiating a dry, steady heat that smelled of scorched iron.
Killian lowered my feet to the braided wool rug in the entryway, but his hands remained locked around my waist until my knees locked and my boots found their purchase.
"You're shaking," he rasped.
His dark hair was plastered to his forehead with melting slush, dark droplets tracking down the sharp line of his jaw. His tie was loosened, the top two buttons of his collar undone, exposing the corded hollow of his throat where his pulse hammered in heavy, slow thumps.
"My dress is wet," I whispered, the words coming out in a stuttering rattle as my teeth clicked together.
His dark eyes flicked down to the hem of the silk clinging to my shins, then snapped back to my face.
"Bathroom is the second door on the left," he ordered, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly command register that brooked no debate. "Get out of that wet fabric. Turn the hot water on. I'll get you dry clothes."
* * *
The bathroom was warm, smelling of peppermint soap and steam.
I reached around my back with numb fingers, fighting the delicate metal zipper of the emerald gown until the teeth finally parted. The damp silk slid down my hips, pooling around my feet on the slate tile like a discarded skin.
I kicked the dress into the corner, stripped off my sheer stockings, and braced my palms against the porcelain edge of the sink.
My reflection in the mirror was a stranger.
My dark chestnut curls were wild, half-spilling from the bronze pins, my cheeks flushed with a high, hectic rose from the wind, and my lips were bee-stung and dark from his thumbs on the terrace.
The hollow of my throat was pale, the blue veins stark beneath the skin, fluttering with a rapid, uneven rhythm that had nothing to do with the cold.
A sharp knock sounded on the wood.
The door opened just enough for a massive, scarred forearm to slide through the gap, dropping a thick stack of folded dark fleece onto the wicker hamper.
"Put those on," Killian rumbled from the hallway.
The door clicked shut.
I turned the brass handles in the shower, letting the scalding water run over my trembling hands until the blood returned to my knuckles with a stinging, prickly rush.
I scrubbed the last traces of gala makeup from my skin, dried my face on a rough gray towel, and pulled the clothes from the hamper.
His clothes.
The hoodie was a heavy charcoal pullover with BARROW HOCKEY #88 stitched in thick white tackle-twill across the chest. When I pulled it over my head, the soft fleece brushed against my sensitized skin, and the scent of him hit me with the force of an avalanche.
Cedarwood. Cold iron. Black pepper. The clean, unyielding scent of his skin was worked so deeply into the fabric that breathing it in made my knees feel loose.
The ribbed hem hung past the middle of my thighs. The cuffs swallowed my hands, extending three inches past the tips of my fingers.
I stepped into the dark gray sweatpants, yanking the heavy cotton drawstring until the waistband puckered tight enough to stay pinned above my hip bones, rolling the thick cuffs twice over my bare ankles.
I took a deep, steadying breath, pushed open the bathroom door, and stepped barefoot into the dim hallway.
The living room was illuminated only by the orange glow of the woodstove in the corner.
Killian stood by the hearth with his back to me, an iron poker in his right hand, stoking the birch logs until a shower of amber sparks swirled behind the glass door.
He had stripped out of his gala clothes.
He wore only a fitted black ribbed tank and dark athletic shorts, his broad back a landscape of dense, functional muscle, deep spinal grooves, and the silver traces of old contact scars.
The silver surgical line across his right clavicle gleamed in the firelight.
The floorboard beneath my bare foot gave a faint, rhythmic creak.
Killian froze.
He set the iron poker against the stone hearth with a dull metallic ring, rose to his full height, and turned around.
The air in the room contracted.
His dark eyes, dilated until the amber was almost swallowed in black, dropped slowly from my face down the length of my body.
He saw his heavy hoodie drowning my shoulders. He saw his number eighty-eight stretched across my chest. He saw my fingers peeking out from the long gray cuffs, and the bare, pale curve of my ankles where his sweatpants were rolled.
A slow, violent breath pushed out through his nostrils. The tendons in his thick neck tightened, his jaw knotting so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek in steady, rhythmic pulses.
He stood there in the firelight, towering and half-bare, looking at me like a starving man who had just watched his last defense burn to the ground.
"Nadia," he rasped, his voice so thick with gravel it seemed to scrape along the floorboards.
* * *
"The dress was soaked," I whispered, holding my ground by the bookshelf, my hands curling into the oversized fleece of his sleeves.
"Come here," he commanded softly.
He didn't wait. He crossed the pine floor with two long, unhurried strides, his bare feet silent. He reached out, his broad, calloused hands closing gently over my forearms, and guided me toward the deep wool rug laid out before the woodstove.
"Sit down," he murmured.
I sank onto the thick wool rug, tucking my legs beneath me.
Killian dropped down directly beside me, his large frame crowding the space, bringing an immediate wave of radiant heat that chased the last chill from my bones. He reached out, took my right foot in his broad hands, and lifted it onto his bare thigh without asking for permission.
My breath hitched.
His palms were hot, rough as sandstone, calloused from thousands of hours of iron and hockey tape. He wrapped both hands around my chilled arch, his thumbs digging into the ball of my foot with slow, deliberate pressure, rubbing warmth back into the numb skin.
"Your skin is like ice, Gregory," he rumbled, his voice low, steady, and mesmerizing in the quiet room.
"I'm fine," I breathed, though a heavy, sweet ache was already unfurling low in my belly, tracking the firm, rhythmic drag of his thumbs.
"You're not fine," he said, shifting his hands to my ankle, his fingers spanning the delicate joint with ease. "You were shivering so hard your teeth were chattering in the truck."
He traded my right foot for my left, repeating the slow, hypnotic friction. The contrast of his rough, burning skin against my sensitive arches was overwhelming, a localized fever that traveled straight up the inside of my calves.
I looked at his bowed head, at the damp dark curls falling across his forehead, at the stark silver line of the scar through his eyebrow.
"You didn't have to carry me through the snow," I murmured.
Killian’s thumbs slowed, resting against my heel. He didn't look up, but his voice dropped an octave, scraping raw against the hum of the stove.
"I'm not letting you ruin your feet on my driveway."
He fell silent for two beats, the only sound the crackle of birch bark behind the mica glass.
"You didn't have to do what you did tonight, Nadia," he said, the words quiet, heavy with an emotion he had spent three years trying to bury. "Standing in front of Cole. Throwing your academic credentials in Palmer's face to save my neck."
I leaned forward, my chest brushing against his forearm, my hand reaching out on instinct to touch the hard shelf of his bare shoulder. The muscle beneath my fingertips was hot as iron, twitching under my touch.
"I told you on the terrace," I whispered, my voice steady, stripped bare of every lie. "I'm not going to watch people treat you like an animal they can discard when the season ends. You don't have to carry the world alone, Killian."
Killian’s head snapped up.
His dark eyes locked onto mine, burning with a fierce, terrifying intensity that made my heart hammer violently against my ribs.
He released my ankle.
His left hand shot out, wrapping securely around the back of my neck, his calloused fingers tangling into my loose curls.
His right arm banded around my waist, his grip so powerful it lifted me clean off the rug in one fluid motion, pulling me across his thighs until I was sitting straddled in his lap.
My hands came down flat against his bare chest.
The heat of his skin burned through my palms. His heart was slamming against his ribs in heavy, deafening thuds that matched the runaway rhythm in my own chest.
Killian framed the side of my jaw with his hand, his thumb tilting my face up until our lips were a hair's breadth apart. His breath washed over my mouth—hot, mint-sharp, ragged with a desperate restraint that was shredding right before my eyes.
"The plows aren't coming until noon tomorrow, Nadia," he rasped, his voice a low, ruined whisper that vibrated against my lips. "The roads are closed. We're thirty miles from anyone who gives a damn about the rules."
His thumb dragged slowly across my lower lip, pulling it down, his gaze dropping to the pink, parted heat of my mouth.
"I'm done fighting this," he growled, the gravel in his voice shaking with absolute, terrifying conviction. "I am done pretending I can keep my hands off you."
My fingers tightened against the corded muscle of his shoulders, my breath catching in my throat as the firelight danced across his ruined, beautiful face.
The door was locked. The storm was howling.
And there was nowhere left to hide.