19
Johannesburg was sharp and white with morning light spilling through the frosted glass of the recovery suite, loaned to the Crusaders by their South African rivals. The whizz of the cryo chamber filled the space, a low, steady growl of cold air cycling.
Noah stood inside the chamber, stripped to shorts and socks, arms crossed over his tattooed chest as the temperature dropped around him.
Frost clung to the glass at his sides. His muscles, battered from the match, twitched and seized under the freezing air.
He’d booked the earliest slot possible – part punishment, part necessity.
His body was wrecked, but it was the rest of him that hurt more.
Claire entered quietly, tablet in hand, the soft patter of her tennis shoes on the tile breaking the uncomfortable silence. She didn’t speak at first, just adjusted the settings on the monitor beside the chamber. Her reflection caught his – a calm, controlled silhouette against his trembling form.
“You should’ve waited another hour before this,” she said finally, her voice even but cool. “Your body’s still in acute inflammation. It’s not smart to shock it this early.”
Noah’s breath came in fogged bursts. “Needed it,” he muttered. “Can’t feel anything otherwise.”
Her eyes lifted from the monitor to his face. “Maybe that’s the problem.”
The words hung between them, heavier than the cold.
Noah’s brow tightened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Claire set the tablet down, folding her arms. “You know what I mean. Yesterday – you weren’t just aggressive. You were reckless. You could’ve injured Jack. You could’ve injured yourself.”
He clenched his jaw. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you don’t care.”
Her tone wasn’t cruel, just brutally honest. He flinched as if struck, his shoulders tightening, the air crystallizing around him.
“Why do you care about Jack, anyways? Do you have feelings for him?”
His words were impatient and emotional.
“He’s a patient, Noah.” She let out a soft exhale.
Claire stepped closer, her breath visible in the chilled room. “You’re supposed to lead, Captain. Not unravel. Not drag the team down with you. Whatever’s going on – whatever’s eating at you – you need to deal with it before it destroys what’s left of the team’s trust.”
He didn’t respond, just stared straight ahead through the icy mist, his chest rising and falling. The temperature alarm beeped softly. She moved to the console to check the temperature. It was dangerously cold. She needed to turn it off. His voice came, low and rough.
“Leave it.”
She hesitated. “Noah–”
“Stop.”
She exhaled and hit the release. The chamber door hissed open, a plume of vapor spilled out. He stepped forward, skin flushed raw from the cold, stopping the cycle prematurely, muscles rippling under gooseflesh.
“Noah, you shouldn’t–”
But he was already closing the distance between them. Water from melted frost dripped from his hair onto the floor as he stopped inches away. His breathing was ragged, his eyes dark and burning.
“Do you have… any idea…” he said quietly in a firm whisper, “what it feels like to want something so incredibly bad? To have a yearning for that something? To only think about that something? Yet you can’t have it?”
Claire’s pulse jumped. “Noah–”
“There has not been a single night that has gone by where I have not dreamt about you, Claire Ashford. You haunt my life. It is infuriating. I hate everything about this, I do not need –” he paused, “I do not want to be like this.”
She stayed silent.
Noah broke.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, voice raw, unraveling. “I can’t pretend I don’t think about you every time you walk out of a room. I can’t pretend I’m ok seeing you with…him. I don’t care if it’s wrong. I don’t care if it ruins me. I just –” he stopped.
Before Claire could respond, before she could summon the rules or the distance or the carefully built walls, his hands were behind her head, in her hair, pulling her face to his.
Noah Wilson kissed her.
It wasn’t careful as his mouth was crashing in desperation to hers. It wasn’t asked for. It was the kind of kiss that came from restraint snapping under its own weight.
He tasted like sweat and adrenaline, like someone who lived in his body and trusted it completely. When he kissed her, it was instinctive, physical, as if his body had always known how to claim space, how to commit fully to impact.
For one terrible, intoxicating moment, Claire melted.
Her hands lifted on their own, fingers curling at the back of his neck, feeling the tension there, the way he leaned into her as though she were the only thing keeping him upright. His kiss deepened and her mind went blissfully, dangerously quiet.
This is what she had imagined.
This is what she wanted.
And then reality came crashing back.
Her breath caught. Her hands froze.
She shoved him away, hard enough that he stumbled a step back, shock flashing across his face as if he’d just woken up.
“No,” she said, the word sharp, shaken. “No.”
“Claire –” Noah pleaded, wrecked now, voice breaking as his hands fell uselessly to his sides.
She turned away before he could say anything else, heart pounding, hands trembling as she grabbed her tablet like it was a lifeline. Professional. She had to be professional.
“You need recovery,” she said, forcing steadiness into her voice. “Not regret. Take the rest of the morning off. And eat something.”
When she left, the door closed softly behind her.
Noah stayed where he was, chest heaving, the air still thick with her presence. His lips burned with the ghost of her, his heart aching for something forbidden – something he’d crossed a line for, and something he already knew he wouldn’t stop wanting.
“FUCK!” he screamed.
The plane took off with the soft, steady thrum of engines and exhaustion.
The seats were reclined, the cabin lights dimmed to muted gold.
After the loss in Johannesburg, no one had much to say.
The flight attendants moved quietly, offering bottles of water and whispered words that barely cut through the silence.
Claire sat by the window, her head resting against the cool pane, watching the endless expanse of clouds drift below.
Every muscle in her body ached with fatigue; but her mind wouldn’t rest. The image of Noah stepping out of the cryo chamber still played behind her eyelids: his body, stripped almost naked, covered in the designs of tribal tattoos, the rawness in his voice, the restraint in his touch.
The kiss. The most passionate kiss she has ever had.
She’d done the right thing. She knew that.
But it didn’t stop her heart from twisting anyway.
She thought that maybe she wanted him to kiss her again.
Across the aisle, Jack sat hunched over, headphones in but no music playing.
Every so often, he glanced her way, small, fleeting looks that he hoped went unnoticed.
He wanted to say something, anything. Apologize for the game.
Ask if she was okay. Tell her that seeing her on the sideline kept him grounded when everything else fell apart.
But each time he looked up, someone walked past, or she shifted, or Noah caught his eye from a few rows back.
Noah sat rigid and silent, his expression unreadable, the muscles in his jaw working as though he was fighting a war with himself.
His gaze was fixed somewhere beyond the cabin window, but the reflection in the glass betrayed him.
Sometimes, if the angle was just right, he could see the reflection of the doctor in the window.
Every thought he had seemed to be building toward something.
No one spoke. Only the steady noise of altitude filled the space between them, a fragile peace that could shatter with a single word.
By the time they landed in Auckland, the gray morning light had crept over the tarmac. The team shuffled through customs and collected their bags in a daze, still carrying the weight of the loss like a bruise.
Claire offered perfunctory check-ins to the players as they exited the terminal, all professionalism and measured tone. She kept her distance from Noah, who didn’t seek her out, and from Jack, who hovered close but said nothing.