Chapter 5
Kai
Kant was a sadist.
There was no other explanation for it. Immanuel Kant, with his Categorical Imperative and his obsession with duty, had clearly been a man who hated joy, hated women, and hated the concept of a center trying to balance a puck on a blade while simultaneously calculating the moral weight of a lie.
I rubbed my temples, staring at the cursor blinking on my laptop screen. It was mocking me. A steady, rhythmic pulse. Fail. Fail. Fail.
"You're frowning so hard your eyebrows are going to fuse together," a voice said from across the island.
I looked up.
Maeve was sitting on the high-top stool, her legs tucked up underneath her, wearing one of my oversized Bruins hoodies that she had "borrowed" (stolen) from the laundry two days ago.
It hung off her shoulder, exposing a strap of black lace and a terrifying amount of smooth, pale skin.
She was holding a red pen like a scalpel, and my latest draft of the essay was the patient she was currently dissecting.
"I am not frowning," I grunted, reaching for my water. "I am thinking."
"You're brooding," she corrected, tapping the paper. "And you're still doing it. The Robot Thing."
It had been four days. Four days of this new, bizarre purgatory.
By day, I was the Captain. I practiced until my lungs burned. I shouted drills. I slammed bodies into the boards. I kept the team focused because the scouts were swarming the arena like vultures, and every mistake was a mark against my future.
By night, I was... this.
A student. Sitting in my own kitchen, being lectured by a girl who looked like a Victoria's Secret angel and smelled like trouble.
"Define 'The Robot Thing'," I said, leaning back in my chair. The leather creaked.
Maeve sighed, a dramatic exhale that blew a strand of platinum hair out of her face. She spun the paper around and slid it across the granite toward me. It was covered in red ink. Again.
"Here," she pointed to the second paragraph. "You wrote: 'The moral worth of an action is determined by its motive, not its consequence.' That is technically correct. It is also the most boring sentence I have ever read in my life. It has no rhythm. No sex appeal."
I stared at her. "It is philosophy, Maeve. It is not supposed to have sex appeal. It is about ethics."
"Everything is about sex appeal, Volkov," she countered, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Or at least, everything is about desire. You have to make the professor want to agree with you. Right now? You're just bludgeoning her with facts. You need to seduce her."
I felt a twitch in my jaw.
Seduce.
The word hung in the air between us, heavy and charged.
We had been dancing around this for days.
The "deal" was strictly academic. I passed the class; she got a favor.
But the lines were blurring. They were blurring because she was living in my house, wearing my clothes, and looking at me with those violet eyes that seemed to see right through the armor I had spent twenty-two years welding together.
"I don't seduce professors," I said flatly.
"Metaphorically," she rolled her eyes. "God, you are so literal. Look at me."
I did. I hadn't really stopped looking at her since she walked in.
"When you're on the ice," she said, leaning forward, her voice dropping to that husky register that made the hair on my arms stand up. "Do you just skate in a straight line?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because the defense would kill me."
"Exactly," she smiled. It was a predatory smile. "You weave. You fake. You use your body to tell a story—I'm going left, I'm going right, catch me if you can. You make the crowd hold their breath. You make them feel something."
She reached out and tapped my hand, the one resting on the laptop. Her fingers were cool, but they left a trail of fire.
"Write like that," she whispered. "Write like you play. Stop trying to be 'correct' and start being dangerous."
I looked at her hand on mine. Then I looked up at her face.
Something inside me shifted. It was the same feeling I got right before a face-off. The narrowing of focus. The adrenaline spike. The realization that the game had just changed.
"Dangerous," I repeated slowly.
"Yes."
"And you think you know what dangerous looks like?"
Maeve laughed. It was light, airy, and completely dismissive. "Please. I grew up in this world, Kai. I know how to play the game better than you do. You're brute force. I'm strategy."
She was challenging me.
She was sitting in my kitchen, at midnight, wearing my clothes, and she was challenging my control.
The "Brat" was surfacing. She was bored with the studying. She wanted a reaction.
"Is that so?" I asked quietly.
I closed the laptop. The screen went black, cutting off the hum of the fan. The kitchen was suddenly very quiet, save for the low thrum of the refrigerator.
"I think," I said, standing up slowly, "that you confuse manipulation with power."
Maeve didn't back down. She tilted her chin up. "Power is getting what you want. I always get what I want."
"Do you?"
I walked around the island.
I didn't rush. I moved with deliberate, heavy steps. The "predator" walk, she called it.
Maeve watched me come. Her breath hitched—a tiny, audible catch in her throat—but she didn't move. She stayed perched on the stool, her legs swinging slightly, her eyes locked on mine.
"You're trying to intimidate me," she said, her voice wavering just a fraction. "It won't work. I'm your tutor. You need me."
I stopped right in front of her. I placed my hands on the edge of the counter on either side of her hips, trapping her.
"I need to pass a class," I corrected, leaning down until our noses were inches apart. "I don't need anything. Need implies weakness."
"Everyone has a weakness," she whispered. She smelled like vanilla and defiance.
"What's yours, Maeve?"
She bit her lip.
There it was. The tell. She did it every time she was nervous, or excited, or thinking about something she shouldn't be. She sank her white teeth into that plush, pink lower lip and dragged it into her mouth.
It drove me insane.
"I don't have one," she lied.
"Liar."
I reached up. I didn't ask for permission this time. I didn't hesitate. I slid my hand around the back of her neck, my fingers tangling in the silky strands of her platinum hair. I used my thumb to press against the pulse point under her jaw.
It was hammering. Thump-thump-thump. A frantic bird trapped in a cage.
"Your heart is beating so fast," I murmured, watching her pupils dilate until the blue was almost gone. "Why are you scared, Kotyonok?"
"I'm not scared," she breathed. Her hands came up, resting tentatively on my chest. She could feel my heart too. It was slow. steady. A war drum. "I'm... observing."
"Observing?"
"The subject," she said, her voice trembling. "For research."
"And what have you concluded?"
"That you talk a big game," she challenged, her fingers curling into the fabric of my t-shirt. "But you're all restraint, Kai. You're so terrified of losing control that you never actually do anything."
The tether snapped.
She wanted dangerous? She wanted to see the difference between correct and reckless?
Fine.
"Lesson one," I growled.
I crashed my mouth down on hers.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't a question. It was a claiming.
I devoured her. I slanted my lips over hers, forcing them apart, my tongue sweeping into her mouth with a possessive heat that tasted of coffee and pent-up frustration.
Maeve gasped, a soft, shocked sound that was swallowed by my kiss. For a second, she froze. But then, she melted.
She made a whimper in the back of her throat and surged up against me. Her arms wound around my neck, her fingers digging into my hair, pulling me closer, deeper. She tasted sweet, intoxicating, like forbidden fruit and expensive champagne.
I groaned, the sound vibrating in my chest against hers.
I gripped her waist, my hands spanning the curve of her hips, and lifted her. She was light, so incredibly light. I set her onto the granite countertop, stepping between her spread legs before she could close them.
She wrapped her legs around my waist instantly, her heels digging into my lower back, pulling me into the cradle of her thighs.
The friction was blinding.
"Kai," she gasped, breaking the kiss for air. Her lips were red, swollen, slick. Her chest was heaving. "I thought... the rules."
"We're writing a new rulebook," I muttered, attacking the sensitive skin of her neck.
I bit down lightly on the cord of her throat, soothing the spot with my tongue. She arched her back, throwing her head back, exposing the elegant line of her throat to me.
"You want passion?" I whispered against her skin, my hand sliding up her thigh, pushing the oversized hoodie up. "You want to know how to make someone feel something?"
"Yes," she choked out.
My hand found bare skin. Soft, warm, satin skin. I traced the line of her inner thigh, my thumb brushing closer and closer to the center of her heat.
She shuddered, her nails digging into my shoulders.
"This is voice," I murmured, my fingers teasing the edge of her lace panties. "This is rhythm."
"Kai, please..."
"Please what?" I pulled back to look at her.
Her face was a wreck. A beautiful, flushed, chaotic wreck. Her eyes were glazed, heavy with lust. Her lips were parted.
"Don't stop," she whispered.
The "Brat" was gone. The "Princess" was gone. This was just Maeve. Raw. Needing.
I slid my hand beneath the lace.
She was soaked.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. She was this wet for me? From a kiss? From an argument about ethics?
The beast in my chest roared in triumph. Mine.
I touched her. Just once. A slow, deliberate stroke over her center.
Maeve cried out, her hips bucking off the counter, seeking more. Her head fell forward onto my shoulder, hiding her face in the crook of my neck.
"God," she whimpered. "Kai. It's too much."
"It's not enough," I growled.
I found her rhythm. I moved my fingers with the same precision I used on the ice—calculating, relentless. I listened to her breathing, adjusting my pressure to her gasps.
"Look at me," I commanded.
She shook her head against my shoulder.
"Maeve." My voice was a whip. "Look. At. Me."
She lifted her head. Her eyes were swimming with tears of pleasure. Her face was flushed a deep, rosy pink.
"Good girl," I praised.
The words acted like a catalyst. Her eyes rolled back, her breath hitching into short, sharp pants.
"Tell me what you feel," I demanded, keeping the rhythm steady, not letting her go over the edge yet. "Use your words. Be descriptive."
"I feel..." she gasped, her hands gripping my biceps so hard I knew I'd have bruises tomorrow. "I feel like I'm burning. Like you're... everywhere."
"Good."
"Kai, please," she begged, her hips grinding against my hand. "Let me... I need..."
"What do you need?"
"You," she sobbed. "I need you."
I watched her face as I increased the speed. I watched the way her brow furrowed, the way her lips parted, the way she unraveled. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
I wanted to take her. I wanted to rip the panties off, unzip my pants, and bury myself inside her until neither of us remembered our own names. I wanted to breed her right here on the kitchen island, mark her so thoroughly that no other man would ever dare look at her again.
But I couldn't.
Not yet.
I felt the tension coil in her body, the way her muscles clamped down around my fingers. She was close.
"That's it," I whispered against her lips. "Take it, Maeve. Take it for me."
She screamed.
It wasn't a polite noise. It was a shattered, high-pitched cry that echoed off the high ceilings. Her body convulsed, bowing off the counter, trembling violently as the orgasm ripped through her.
I held her through it. I kept my hand there, soothing her as the waves crashed over her, grounding her as she came down.
She slumped against me, completely boneless. Her breathing was ragged, her heart racing against mine.
Silence returned to the kitchen. But it wasn't empty anymore. It was heavy with the scent of sex and musk.
I waited until her breathing slowed. I slowly withdrew my hand.
She made a small noise of protest, but didn't move.
I grabbed a paper towel from the roll on the counter and cleaned my hand. Then I stepped back, creating distance.
The loss of warmth was immediate and jarring.
Maeve blinked, looking around as if she didn't know where she was. She looked at me, confusion and vulnerability warring in her eyes. She pulled her knees together, tugging the hoodie down to cover herself.
"Kai?" she whispered.
I leaned against the opposite counter, crossing my arms to hide the fact that my own hands were shaking. My erection was painful, straining against my jeans, demanding release. But I forced it down.
I needed to maintain control. If I took her now, it would be chaos. It would be an addiction I couldn't break.
"That," I said, my voice rough, "is persuasion."
Maeve stared at me, her chest heaving. She looked stunned.
"You..." she started, then stopped. She licked her lips, tasting me.
"Write the essay, Maeve," I said. "Use that feeling. That intensity. Make the professor feel that."
"You're not staying?" she asked. Her voice was small. It cracked my heart a little.
"If I stay," I said, looking her dead in the eye, "we won't be writing anything. And I have a game tomorrow."
It was a lie. I wasn't leaving because of the game. I was leaving because if I stayed for one more minute, I was going to ruin everything. I was going to claim the Dean's daughter, break my probation, and lose my mind.
"Goodnight, Princess," I said.
I turned and walked away.
I walked down the hallway to my room, shut the door, and locked it.
Then I leaned my forehead against the cool wood and groaned.
I was in hell.
I was in absolute, excruciating, wonderful hell.
And I couldn't wait to do it again.
Maeve
I sat on the counter for ten minutes after he left.
My body was humming. My skin felt too sensitive, like I had been sunburnt. My center throbbed with a lingering, dull ache that was both satisfied and desperately empty.
I looked at the kitchen island. The scene of the crime.
Good girl.
The words floated in the air.
I picked up the red pen. My hand was shaking so badly I could barely hold it.
I pulled the essay toward me.
The moral worth of an action...
I crossed it out. I slashed a thick red line through the boring, robotic sentence.
Underneath it, in handwriting that was jagged and rushed, I wrote:
To understand duty, one must first understand desire. To deny the self is the ultimate discipline, but to yield... to yield is the ultimate truth.
I stared at the words.
I touched my lips.
I wasn't a marketing major anymore. I wasn't a virgin in a tower.
I was something else. Something new.
I was his.
And the terrifying part was... I didn't even care.
I hopped off the counter, my legs wobbling. I grabbed the laptop and the papers.
I had work to do.
But first, I needed a cold shower. A very, very cold shower.