Chapter 17
Tallulah POV
The emergency county siren sounded from the ridge behind the lake, a low, mechanical wail swallowed by forty-mile-an-hour gusts of driving powder.
The headlights carved two yellow tunnels through the swirling whiteout as the heavy tires climbed the unplowed gravel drive of a small, dark-stained timber house tucked into the hemlocks.
Coast killed the diesel engine. The rhythmic rumble died, replaced instantly by the concussive rattle of sleet driving hard against the windshield glass.
I sat wrapped in his charcoal suit jacket, the heavy wool hanging past my knees, but the cold was already seeping through the wet hem of my emerald dress where it had brushed the snow on the terrace steps.
My jaw was clamped tight to keep my teeth from clicking together; my nerve endings were buzzing with the aftershocks of the foyer confrontation.
Coast didn't wait. He stepped out into the knee-deep drift, walked around the hood, and pulled the passenger door open.
He didn't offer a hand. He hooked one arm behind my shoulders and the other beneath my knees, lifting me out of the high cab into his chest before my satin heels could touch the slush.
The wind hit us like an iron door, whipping loose strands of my dark hair across his cheek. Coast turned his broad back into the gale, sheltering my body with his mass as he carried me up the three steps of the covered porch, right past the clean wooden wheelchair ramp he had built for Julian.
He set me down on the dry floorboards, unlocked the heavy oak door, and ushered me inside.
The door shut with a heavy, vacuum seal.
Coast threw the deadbolt. The brass mechanism engaged with a sharp, heavy clack that echoed down the quiet hallway.
He dropped his truck keys into a ceramic bowl on the entryway console.
The silence inside the house was absolute.
No coaches. No compliance officers. No four hundred gala attendees whispering over champagne flutes.
The air smelled of cured cedar logs, clean laundry detergent, dark roast coffee beans, and the faint, familiar trace of his wintergreen liniment.
A heavy cast-iron stove in the corner of the open living room radiated a deep, steady heat, the red coals glowing behind the glass hatch.
Overhead, snow hissed against the skylights, sealing the roof beneath a heavy, impenetrable blanket of white.
"Callahan is stranded in Plattsburgh," Coast said, his voice a low, gravelly vibration in the warm entryway. "The team bus got grounded after the junior varsity match. He won't be back until Sunday afternoon."
My throat contracted on a dry swallow.
I looked down at the floorboards, my bare arms prickling with goosebumps beneath the oversized lapels of his suit coat. "Sonya will be wondering where I am."
"I texted her from the truck," Coast said, stepping out of his dress shoes, his height dominating the small foyer. "She knows you're off the road. She knows you're safe."
He reached out, his warm, bare fingers closing gently over my wrist. He didn't pull, but the heat of his touch cut straight through my frozen skin.
"You're shaking, Tallulah."
"It's just the wind," I whispered, though my pulse was hammering hard against his thumb.
Coast’s eyes swept over my pale face, the wet hem of the silk dress clinging to my shins, and the faint tremor in my jaw. His expression softened into that heavy, unyielding focus that left zero room for argument.
"Bathroom is down the hall on the left," he murmured, his thumb smoothing over the tendon of my wrist. "Get out of that wet silk. I'll get you dry clothes."
* * *
The bathroom was lined in warm tongue-and-groove pine, heated by an overhead infrared lamp that cast a deep amber glow over the slate tiles.
I stood in front of the mirror, my fingers clumsy as I reached up to unfasten the tarnished gold comb from my hair. The dark waves tumbled down over my shoulders, damp at the ends from melting snow.
A quiet knock sounded on the pine door.
It swung inward two inches. Coast’s scarred hand appeared through the gap, setting a neat, folded stack of charcoal fleece and soft flannel on the wicker hamper before closing the door again.
I peeled off his suit jacket, folding it over the edge of the sink.
Reaching behind my back, my cold fingers found the delicate brass zipper of my mother's emerald gown. The silk slid down my hips, pooling around my ankles on the slate floor like melted water. I stepped out of it, leaving the armor of the gala behind.
I picked up the clothes he had left.
The hoodie was thick, heavyweight gray fleece with GARRISON HOCKEY stamped across the chest in faded navy block letters, the collar frayed from years of post-skate washes.
I pulled it over my head.
The sensory impact hit my chest with concussive force.
The inside of the fleece was brushed and soft, catching against my sensitized skin with a warm, dense weight. The fabric smelled overwhelmingly of him—cold cedar shavings, fresh snow, and that clean, intoxicating male musk that had haunted my sleep for four weeks.
The hem fell past my mid-thigh, the ribbed cuffs completely swallowing my hands so only the tips of my fingers peeked out.
I pulled on the dark blue flannel sweatpants, cinching the thick cotton drawstring three times to keep the waistband from sliding down over my hipbones, rolling the heavy cuffs up twice so I wouldn't trip over the hems.
I caught my reflection in the glass.
The defiant, unyielding researcher who had dismantled Derek Mercer in the gala foyer was gone. In her place stood a woman drowning in Coast Stuart's clothes, her cheeks flushed a deep, feverish pink under the amber lamp, her dark eyes wide and heavy with an anticipation that made her ribs ache.
I unlocked the pine door and stepped out into the living room.
The only illumination came from the cast-iron stove and a single low-wattage lamp on the rough-sawn cedar coffee table.
Coast was standing by the stove, a poker in his right hand, adjusting a split log over the embers.
He had stripped off his dress shirt and tie. He wore a fitted black crewneck thermal that stretched tight across the thick, brutal breadth of his chest and shoulders. The sleeves were shoved high on his forearms, exposing the corded veins and the rough scars on his knuckles.
At the sound of my bare feet against the pine boards, he turned.
The iron poker stopped in mid-air.
Coast’s pale green eyes locked onto me, his gaze dropping slowly, heavily, tracking the oversized gray fleece hanging from my shoulders, following the line of the fabric down to where it swallowed my hips, before resting on my bare toes curled against the edge of the woven rug.
The air in the room seemed to vanish.
His jaw set into stone, the masseter muscle jumping in a violent spasm beneath his stubble. His chest rose in a slow, deep expansion that strained the black cotton of his shirt, his nostrils flaring slightly as he took in the scent of his own clothes draped over my skin.
He didn't speak. He set the iron poker against the stone hearth with a deliberate, slow click that echoed off the timber rafters.
The silence between us was suffocating, thick with an unmasked, territorial hunger that rooted my feet to the floorboards.
* * *
"Come here, Tallulah."
His voice was barely more than a gravelly rasp, but it held that low, quiet gravity that made my knees feel soft beneath the flannel.
I crossed the room slowly, the dry wood floor warm beneath my soles.
Coast didn't stay by the hearth. He moved to the deep leather sofa facing the stove, sitting down on the center cushion, his boots planted wide, his massive frame taking up the space. He patted the leather beside his thigh.
I sat down, keeping three inches of space between us, but the heat radiating off his body made the air between our shoulders feel like an open flame.
Coast reached out.
He didn't ask. He took my left hand in his, his calloused palm swallowing my knuckles, his fingers curling around my cold skin. With his other hand, he took my right.
Slowly, methodically, he brought my hands to his chest, resting them flat over his breastbone. His hands closed over mine, his thick palms rubbing slow, firm circles over my fingers, drawing the residual frost out of my joints.
Beneath my palms, through the black cotton of his shirt, his heart was hammering. It wasn't the slow, resting pulse of an athlete. It was a heavy, rapid pounding that matched the wild flutter in my own throat.
"Your hands are still like ice," he murmured, his head bowed, his thumbs tracing the line of my knuckles.
"They're warming up," I whispered.
He looked up, his pale green eyes dark and unreadable in the amber firelight. "You didn't eat anything at the gala."
"Neither did you."
"I was busy watching Mercer try to touch your hair." A dark shadow crossed his face, his jaw tightening again. "And then you stepped in front of him."
My fingers curled slightly against his chest, feeling the heavy plate of his ribs beneath the fabric. "I told you. I wasn't going to let him say those things about Julian. Or about you."
Coast went very still.
He dropped his hands from mine, but he didn't pull away.
His large right hand came up, calloused fingers sliding gently beneath my chin, tilting my face upward into the warm glow of the lamp. His thumb brushed slowly across the soft curve of my lower lip, his touch heavy with a reverence that made my breath hitch in my throat.
"Nobody has ever fought for me, Tallulah," he rasped, his voice breaking slightly on the syllables. "Not my old man. Not Hayes. Nobody."
"You deserve to be fought for, Coast," I breathed, my hands sliding up from his chest to rest against his neck, my thumbs feeling the hard thrum of his pulse beneath his jaw.
His green eyes flared, the pupils dilating until they swallowed the light, a raw, devastated devotion burning in the depths.
He shifted his weight, his large hands sliding down to my waist, gathering the thick gray fleece of his hoodie in his fists. With an effortless, unhurried pull, he lifted me across the leather, settling my thighs over his lap so I was straddling his hips, our chests pressed flush together.
The contact knocked the air straight out of my lungs.
His thighs were solid rock beneath mine, his hips locking against mine with a heavy, inescapable friction that sent a shudder through my pelvis.
Coast buried his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply, his warm lips pressing a slow, heavy kiss to the sensitive hollow beneath my ear. The stubble on his jaw grazed my skin, sending a wave of delicious, burning heat rushing down my spine.
"The snow is drifted five feet against the porch, sweetheart," he murmured against my throat, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that rattled straight through my collarbone.
"I know," I whispered, my fingers knotting into the thick dark hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer.
He lifted his head, his face inches from mine, his breath washing warm over my parted lips.
"We're stuck here until Sunday," he rasped, his gaze dropping to my mouth with an absolute, unyielding possession that took my breath away. "There are no clipboards. There are no scouts. There's no one to save you from me."
"I don't want to be saved, Coast," I whispered.
A low, guttural groan tore from his chest, his hands gripping my hips tight through his flannel pants, pulling me down against his heat as the storm raged on outside the glass.