Chapter 5
Atlas
Five days.
That’s how long it had been since we arrived at the cabin. Five days of snow, woodsmoke, and a slow, torturous unraveling of my sanity.
Routine had set in. A dangerous, domestic routine that felt too comfortable, too quickly.
0700: Wake up. I’d roll off the cramped sofa, my back screaming, and stoke the fire.
0800: Breakfast. I made eggs. She made toast (burnt). We ate in silence, but it was a companionable silence now.
0900: Study Hall.
That was where we were now. The "Schoolroom."
Aurelia was sprawled on the rug in front of the fire, surrounded by a fortress of textbooks, anatomy charts, and flashcards.
She was wearing leggings and one of my hoodies.
She had stolen it on day two because the cabin was "drafty," and I hadn’t had the willpower to ask for it back. Seeing her in my clothes—swimming in the black fabric, the sleeves covering her hands—did something to my brain that I couldn’t articulate without sounding like a caveman.
"Sternocleidomastoid," she muttered, staring at a diagram of a neck. "Origin: Manubrium and clavicle. Insertion: Mastoid process."
"Function?" I quizzed from the armchair where I was reviewing game tape on my laptop.
"Rotates the head to the opposite side and flexes the neck," she recited without looking up. She flipped the card over. "Boom. Nailed it."
"Good," I said. "Now do the Latissimus Dorsi."
She groaned, rolling onto her back. The hoodie rode up, exposing a strip of pale, smooth skin at her hip. My eyes tracked the movement instantly. I forced them back to my screen, but the image was burned in.
"I hate the Lats," she complained to the ceiling. "They’re huge and they do everything. Adduction, extension, internal rotation... it’s a needy muscle."
"It’s the powerhouse of the upper body," I corrected. "Without lats, you can't check, you can't shoot, and you can't pull yourself up."
"Or lift girls over your shoulder," she added slyly.
I looked over the top of my laptop. She was smirking at me, her head tilted back against the rug. Her hair was messy, escaping from her bun in golden wisps. Her lips were pink, devoid of the gloss she usually wore. She looked... real.
"Focus, St. James," I grumbled. "If you fail this final, I don't get paid."
"You and your money," she sighed, sitting up. She stretched her arms over her head, arching her back like a cat. The hoodie pulled tight across her chest. I saw the outline of her nipples pressing against the fabric.
I looked away, clenching my jaw until my teeth hurt.
"You know," she said, her voice dropping a register. "We’ve been studying for three hours. My brain is mush. I need a break."
"Take five," I said. "Get some water."
"I don't want water," she said. She stood up, moving with that fluid, dancer grace that made her seem weightless. She walked over to where I was sitting. "I want to move. I'm stiff."
"So do yoga."
"I want to skate."
I looked up. "Skate?"
"There's a pond out back," she said, pointing to the window. "I saw it when I was getting wood. It looks frozen solid. And I saw your gear bag in the closet. You have skates."
"My skates are size twelve, Aurelia. You're a size... what? Five?"
"Six," she corrected. "And I have my own skates."
I frowned. "You brought figure skates to a study retreat?"
"I bring my skates everywhere," she said defensively. "It's cross-training. Come on, Atlas. Please? Just for an hour? The ice looks perfect. If you don't let me burn off this energy, I'm going to start throwing anatomy textbooks into the fire."
I looked at the window. The snow had stopped falling. The sun was out, glittering on the white landscape. The pond was a sheet of black glass, windswept and inviting.
I hadn't been on the ice in a week. My legs were itching for it.
"Fine," I said, closing my laptop. "One hour. But if you fall through and I have to fish you out, I'm charging extra."
The air was crisp, sharp enough to freeze the breath in your lungs instantly.
The pond was perfect. Natural ice. Bumpy, imperfect, alive. It wasn't the dead, smooth sheet of the arena. This was hockey roots.
I laced up my skates on the dock, the familiar ritual centering me. Tighten. Pull. Loop. Snap.
Aurelia was already on the ice.
She was wearing her white figure skates, black leggings, and my hoodie. And she was... incredible.
I stood on the dock and watched her. She wasn't just skating; she was flying.
She picked up speed effortlessly, her blades carving deep, silent arcs into the ice.
She moved into a spin—a blur of black and blonde—spinning so fast she became a vortex.
Then she stopped, snapping out of the rotation with a flourish, her leg extended high, her arms thrown back.
She looked ecstatic. Free.
It hit me then, a punch to the solar plexus. I wasn't just attracted to her body. I was attracted to her discipline. I was attracted to the fact that beneath the spoiled princess act, she was an athlete. She understood pain. She understood the grind.
She saw me watching and skated over, stopping with a spray of ice shavings that coated my boots.
"Well?" she beamed, breathless, cheeks flushed red. "Am I terrible?"
"Your edge work is sloppy," I lied. "But your balance is decent."
She laughed, breathless clouds puffing from her lips. "Liar. That was a perfect layback spin and you know it."
I stepped onto the ice. It groaned under my weight, but held. I pushed off, taking a few long, powerful strides to test the surface. It was fast. Hard.
"Catch me if you can, Anvil," she taunted, spinning around and skating backward away from me.
The challenge hung in the air.
I grinned. A real grin. I couldn't help it. "You realize I'm the fastest skater in the conference, right?"
"In a straight line, maybe," she called out, picking up speed. "But can you turn?"
She darted to the left. I pivoted, my edges digging in, chasing her.
We played a game of cat and mouse on the frozen pond. She was agile, quick, turning on a dime. I was power and speed. I cut her off near the reeds, boxing her in. She shrieked, laughing, and tried to feint right, but I was already there.
I reached out and snagged the hood of the sweatshirt, hauling her back.
"Gotcha," I growled.
She spun into me, losing her balance. Her hands grabbed my biceps to steady herself. We collided, chest to chest, blades tangled.
The laughter died instantly.
We were breathing heavy, white plumes of air mingling between us. Her face was tilted up to mine, eyes wide, lips parted and red from the cold. The adrenaline of the chase was still coursing through my veins, mixing with something darker, heavier.
My hands settled on her waist. I meant to steady her. I meant to push her away.
Instead, I pulled her closer.
Her hips bumped against mine. I felt the heat of her body through the layers of clothes.
"You're fast," she whispered, her voice shaky.
"You're slippery," I murmured, my eyes dropping to her mouth.
The wind howled through the trees, but I didn't feel the cold anymore. I felt the electric current arcing between us. The "Enemies" script we had been following felt miles away. Right now, she wasn't the donor's daughter. She was just a girl on the ice. A girl I wanted to devour.
"Atlas," she breathed.
She rose up on her toe picks, increasing her height by two inches. Her hands slid up my arms, over my shoulders, tangling in the hair at the nape of my neck.
It was permission. It was an invitation.
I hesitated. Arthur St. James. The money. The scholarship. My mom. The entire deck of cards that was my life was stacked against this moment.
Fuck the cards.
I lowered my head.
Her lips were cold. Mine were warm. The contrast was shocking.
I brushed my mouth against hers—a soft, testing touch. She let out a small whimper, her fingers tightening in my hair.
That sound broke me.
I groaned and crushed my mouth to hers.
It wasn't gentle. It was months of repressed anger and desire exploding all at once. I devoured her. My tongue swept into her mouth, tasting mint and coffee. She tasted like trouble. She tasted like addiction.
She met me, stroke for stroke. She wasn't passive. She was hungry. She bit my lower lip, pulling it into her mouth, sucking hard.
I growled, a low, animalistic sound in my throat. I let go of her waist and grabbed her ass, lifting her up. She wrapped her legs around my waist instinctively, her skates hooking behind my back.
I carried her—still kissing her, still feeding off her—toward the edge of the pond, where a fallen log rested in the snow. I sat down on it, keeping her straddling my lap.
We were a tangle of limbs and heavy breathing. My hands were everywhere—under the hoodie, sliding up the back of her shirt, finding the warm, smooth skin of her back. She arched into my touch, pressing her chest against mine.
"Atlas," she gasped, breaking the kiss for air. "We shouldn't... we can't..."
"Shut up," I muttered, attacking her neck. I found the sensitive spot just below her ear and bit down gently.
She shivered violently. "I hate you."
"Liar," I whispered against her skin. "You love this. You love that I'm the only one who doesn't treat you like glass."
"You're treating me like... like..."
"Like what?" I pulled back, looking her in the eye. My hands were gripping her hips, holding her in place. "Like a woman? Like you can take it?"
Her eyes were blown wide, dark with lust. "Like you own me."
The words hung in the cold air.
Ownership.
That was the kink in the wire. That was the thing we were both dancing around. She wanted to be owned because she was tired of being responsible for everything. And I... I had a pathological need to control my environment.
"Maybe I do," I said.
I moved my hand from her hip to the front of her leggings. I palmed her center through the fabric.
She bucked against my hand, a gasp tearing from her throat.
"Atlas..."
"Tell me to stop," I challenged, rubbing my thumb over her clit through the lycra. "Tell me to stop, Aurelia, and I'll stop. Right now."