Chapter 26
Killian POV
The pale December sunlight filtered through the slit in the charcoal curtains, casting a narrow bar of silver across the dark navy sheets.
Outside, a steady winter sleet tapped against the double-paned glass overlooking the granite bluffs of Lake Superior, a quiet, rhythmic patter that made the warmth inside the saltbox feel like a fortified vault.
My resting pulse sat at forty-two beats a minute—slow, deep, and heavy against my ribs.
Nadia was asleep flush against my right side, her small frame curled into the curve of my body.
Her head rested in the crook of my shoulder, her dark chestnut curls a wild, tangled silk spilled over my chest and bicep.
She was wearing my faded black practice tank, the thin cotton hanging loose over her hips, the ribbed armhole gaping wide enough to expose the pale, soft curve of her ribs.
One of her bare thighs was thrown over my hip, her skin radiating a quiet, sweet fever that burned straight through my muscle to the bone.
I didn't move. I lay on my back, letting the heavy, steady rhythm of my breathing anchor her sleep.
My right hand rested on her bare shoulder, my scarred, calloused fingers curved gently around the delicate joint.
The contrast made something ache deep behind my sternum.
Out there, thirty miles south in The Pit, my hands were weapons.
I wrapped them in zinc oxide tape, gripped composite sticks until the carbon groaned, and used my two hundred and twenty-eight pounds to drive men through the dasher boards until the plexiglass rattled with violence.
Out there, Jared Holt waited in dark concrete underpasses with thirty-five-thousand-dollar promissory notes, Martin Cole hovered with microphones, and coaches demanded blood for the regional standings.
Out there, I was an enforcer. A blunt instrument designed to break and be broken.
In this bed, under this silver light, my hands didn't hurt anything.
I traced the smooth slope of her collarbone with the pad of my thumb, feeling the faint, steady pulse beneath her skin.
She had stripped away her defenses in the dark last night.
She had laid her soul bare, telling me about her father’s missing finger, the shipyard grease, and the terror of being disposable.
She had handed me her heart like an open wound, trusting me not to crush it.
A fierce, unshakeable vow locked into my marrow. I would break my own spine before I ever let this world make her feel small again.
* * *
A soft, sleepy sound vibrated against my collarbone.
Nadia stirred, her forehead nuzzling deeper into the hollow of my neck, her small hand creeping up to fist into the hair at my chest. Her eyelashes fluttered against my skin, dark and long, before her eyelids slowly dragged open.
Her honey-brown eyes were cloudy with sleep, heavy and soft as they looked up into mine.
A faint, rosy warmth blossomed across her cheeks, a delicate flush that traveled down the column of her throat. Over the past three weeks, her body had grown warmer, softer to the touch, carrying a subtle, lingering fatigue that made her sink into my chest like she belonged there.
"Morning, Castaneda," she whispered, her voice rough with sleep, the corners of her mouth curving into a slow, unguarded smile.
"Morning, sweetheart," I rumbled, my voice thick with gravel.
I didn't give her room to retreat into the morning light.
I shifted my weight, rolling onto my side, bringing my massive frame over hers with slow, unhurried authority. The mattress creaked beneath my weight as I settled between her parted thighs, bracing my forearms on either side of her head, trapping her beneath the dark heat of my chest.
Nadia gasped softly, her eyelids fluttering as the heavy, familiar friction of our bodies aligned. Her hands came up on instinct, resting flat against the thick muscle of my shoulders, her fingers tracing the scars on my back.
"Killian," she breathed, her pupils dilating until the amber in her eyes was a thin golden ring. "You have morning skate at ten."
"Briggs can run the first twenty minutes without me," I rasped, lowering my head until my mouth hovered a millimeter from hers.
I didn't rush. I brushed my lips over hers, slow and tasting, feeling the soft, swollen heat of her mouth. She parted her lips with a ragged sigh, welcoming the deep, lazy drag of my tongue, her fingers tangling into the short hair at my nape.
My right hand left the pillow, sliding down the side of her neck, tracing the dip of her collarbone, and catching the hem of the black tank top.
Slowly, deliberately, I dragged the cotton upward, stripping it over her arms and tossing it aside.
The cold bedroom air touched her skin for half a second before I lowered my chest onto hers, sealing our bodies together.
The contact was a scorching shock of raw friction.
Nadia arched off the mattress with a sharp, broken whimper, her thighs tightening around my hips, her heels digging into the backs of my calves. Her skin was fever-hot, slick and sensitive, trembling beneath the heavy, unyielding weight of my torso.
"Look at me, Nadia," I commanded, my voice dropping into that dark, low rumble that settled in the hollow of her throat.
Her dark eyes opened, wide, dazed, and drowning in the heat between us.
"Good girl," I murmured, my lips trailing burning, open-mouthed kisses along her jawline, down to the wild, frantic pulse point at her neck. "Look at you. So soft for me this morning."
I reached down, my broad, calloused hands sliding beneath her hips, lifting her slightly off the sheets.
I entered her with agonizing slowness.
A ragged, breathy sob tore from her throat, her fingernails biting deep into the meat of my shoulders as my body sank into hers, deep, heavy, and absolute.
The heat inside her was liquid fire, clamping around me in sweet, tight spasms that made my back teeth grind together to hold back the roar in my chest.
"Killian... please," she wept softly against my jaw, her hips rising to meet mine, her legs locking around my waist.
"I've got you," I rasped, holding her gaze as I began to move, my cadence slow, steady, and devastatingly deep. "Stay right here with me, sweetheart. Feel this. You're everything to me. You hear me? All mine."
Every stroke of my hips was a sacred, deliberate claiming. I poured my entire soul into the friction of our skin, driving away every doubt she had ever carried, replacing her fears with the heavy, unshakeable truth of my hands on her body.
Nadia came apart beneath me in long, shuddering waves of pure release, her head thrashing against the navy pillow, her breathless cries swallowed by my mouth as the climax rippled through her nervous system.
Her tight, rhythmic contractions clamped down around me, shattering the final thread of my restraint.
A low, guttural growl ripped from the base of my lungs. I drove deep into her heat one last time, sealing my hips flush against hers, burying my face in the crook of her neck as my own release tore through my frame in violent, shuddering surges that shook the wooden bedframe.
I held her suspended against my chest, her heart drumming against mine in a wild, frantic rhythm, both of us drenched in sweat in the cold winter air.
* * *
Forty minutes later, the room had cooled, but beneath the heavy flannel duvet, the air remained dense and warm.
Nadia lay tucked beneath my chin, her cheek resting against my left pectoral, her fingers tracing the silver surgical line over my collarbone in slow, absent circles.
Her breathing had fallen into a deep, languid cadence, her eyelashes resting against her cheek, her face glowing with the quiet, exhausted peace of the aftermath.
I wrapped both arms around her back, kissing the crown of her head, breathing in the scent of cedar, vanilla, and the salt of our bodies.
"In four weeks, the regular season is over," I murmured into the quiet room, my voice a low, steady vibration against her temple.
Nadia paused her tracing, her honey eyes lifting to look at my chin. "The Frozen Four qualifiers start in Minneapolis on the fifteenth."
"And after Minneapolis, the draft meetings open," I said, sliding my hand down her spine, resting my palm flat over the curve of her lower back.
"I told Briggs I'm not leaving the Midwest. Chicago or Detroit.
When you defend your capstone in January, we pick the city together.
I'll get an apartment near the hospital or the sports science institute.
You finish your fellowship on your terms. No more hiding. No more secret basements."
A soft, radiant smile touched her lips, her fingers pressing gently over my heart.
"You'd really do that?" she whispered, her voice full of an awe that made my chest tighten. "You'd pass on a higher draft pick just to stay near my research?"
"I don't give a damn about the draft pick, Nadia," I rasped, leaning down to brush my mouth against hers in a slow, lingering kiss. "I care about coming home to you. That's the only contract that matters."
She sighed, a long, sweet breath that relaxed the last trace of tension in her shoulders. She tucked her face back into my neck, her small hand splaying across my chest, anchoring herself to my heartbeat as she drifted back toward sleep.
I tightened my grip around her waist, holding her close against the cold.
My gaze shifted to the tall bedroom window.
Beyond the heavy drapes, the winter sky had darkened to a bruised, threatening violet, the sleet turning to heavy, wet snow that clung to the hemlock branches like lead.
A cold, primal prickle of unease rippled along the back of my neck.
The peace in this room was sacred. It was pure.
And out there, in the dark, the season was winding down to the wire.
Martin Cole had his notes. Jared Holt held a thirty-five-thousand-dollar promissory note. The regional compliance audit was breathing down our necks.
I looked down at the woman sleeping on my chest, feeling the quiet, fragile warmth of her body, and knew with grim, absolute certainty that the wolves were almost at the gate.
And when they came, I would burn the entire world to ashes before I let them touch her.