Chapter 5
Zoe
It was Rory Thorne.
He had a gravitational pull that warped the space around him. When he walked into a room, the air grew heavier. When he sat next to me, the world tilted on its axis, sliding everything—my focus, my breath, my common sense—toward him.
"Lower," he commanded.
I gritted my teeth, sweat stinging my eyes. The barbell across my shoulders felt like it weighed as much as a small car, though Rory insisted it was "light weight."
"I can't," I gasped, my legs trembling.
"You can," his voice rumbled from directly behind me. "Your mind is quitting before your muscles do. Drop the hips. break parallel. Do not fear the bottom."
We were in the private weight room at the Hive’s main house—a privilege Rory had apparently bullied the team captain into granting us access to.
It was midnight. The rest of the campus was asleep or partying, but here, the air smelled of chalk, iron, and the relentless, cedar-and-rain scent of the man spotting me.
I took a breath, bracing my core the way he had taught me. Intra-abdominal pressure. I descended.
My thighs screamed. My glutes burned. I hit the bottom of the squat, that terrifying moment where the weight feels like it’s going to bury you.
"Drive!" Rory roared.
His hands were hovering at my waist, not touching, but the heat radiating from his palms felt like a physical brand on my ribcage.
I pushed. I drove my heels into the rubber floor, fighting the gravity, fighting the weakness my father had always told me was inherent in my "delicate" frame.
I rose. The bar clanged back into the rack.
I slumped forward, gasping for air, clutching the metal uprights.
"Good," Rory said.
The word shivered down my spine.
It was becoming a problem. A serious, physiological problem. Every time he said "Good," my brain short-circuited. It wasn't just approval; coming from him, in that deep, gravel-grinding voice, it sounded like a reward. Like a pet receiving a treat.
It made my knees weaker than the squats did.
"That was... heavy," I panted, turning to face him.
Rory was leaning against the squat rack, crossing his massive arms over his chest. He was wearing a grey cutoff hoodie that exposed the cords of muscle in his arms and the dark ink of the tribal tattoos winding up his biceps.
He looked at me with those golden-flecked eyes, his expression unreadable.
"It was ten pounds heavier than yesterday," he noted. "You didn't collapse. You didn't shatter."
"I felt like I might."
"But you didn't." He reached out, grabbing a towel from the bench and tossing it to me. "You figure skaters... you're trained to be light. To float. But to jump, you have to be heavy first. You have to load the spring."
I wiped my face, watching him. "Is that a physics metaphor, Mr. Thorne? Have you been actually reading the textbook?"
A corner of his mouth ticked up. A microscopic smile. It was devastating.
"I listen to my tutor," he murmured. "Sometimes."
We had a routine now. A dangerous, intoxicating routine.
By day, we ignored each other on campus to keep up appearances.
By evening, we met. First, the gym. He destroyed my legs, rebuilding my posterior chain with a ruthlessness that my ballet-focused coach would have fainted over.
Then, we went back to the duplex. I showered (alone), he showered (alone), and then I destroyed his brain with biomechanical equations until his eyes glazed over.
It was transactional. It was professional.
It was the most intimate thing I had ever experienced.
"One more set," Rory said, pushing off the rack.
"Rory, my legs are jelly. If I go down again, I’m not coming up."
"Then I’ll catch you," he said simply.
He stepped behind me again. He moved into my personal space, his chest inches from my back. I could feel the heat of him, the sheer size of him enveloping me.
"Set your feet," he ordered, his voice dropping an octave. "Widen your stance. Point your toes out. Make room for the power."
I adjusted my feet, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. Thump-thump-thump.
He stepped in closer. His hands came up to my waist. This time, he didn't hover. His large, rough hands settled on my hips, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh above my hip bones.
I stopped breathing.
His grip was firm, possessive, and clinical all at once.
"Tighten here," he whispered, his breath stirring the loose hairs on the back of my neck. He squeezed my hips.
"O-okay," I stammered.
"And here." One hand moved up, his palm pressing flat against my lower stomach, engaging my core.
The contact sent a jolt of electricity straight to my groin. I clamped my thighs together, a reflex I prayed he couldn't see.
"Rory," I breathed, the word sounding more like a plea than a name.
"Focus, Zoe," he growled, his voice vibrating against my ear. "Don't think about me. Think about the lift."
Don't think about him? He was everywhere. He was holding me. He was the only thing in the universe.
"Down," he commanded.
I squatted. His hands moved with me, guiding the path of my hips. At the bottom, his chest brushed my back. For a split second, I was encased in him—wolf and man and muscle.
"Up."
I drove up, fueled by adrenaline and lust and terror.
I racked the weight.
Rory didn't step back immediately. He stayed there, crowding me against the bar, his hands still on my hips.
"See?" he murmured into my hair. "You're stronger than you think."
He squeezed my waist one last time—a lingering, heavy pressure—before pulling away.
The loss of his touch was a physical ache.
"Shower," he said, his voice rougher than usual. He turned and walked toward the exit without looking back. "Then physics. Don't make me wait, Princess."
The transition from the brutality of the gym to the domestic quiet of my kitchen was jarring.
Thirty minutes later, I was sitting at my small circular dining table. I was wearing leggings and one of Rory’s hoodies—I had "borrowed" it after the party and refused to give it back because it smelled like safety. He hadn't asked for it back.
My hair was wet, drying in wild waves around my face. The duplex was warm, the only light coming from the pendant lamp above the table and the glow of my laptop.
Rory sat across from me.
He took up too much space. His knees knocked against mine under the table. His shoulders seemed to span the width of the room. He was wearing reading glasses—black-rimmed spectacles that made him look like a sexy, dangerous librarian—and frowning at a worksheet I had created for him.
"This doesn't make sense," he grumbled, tapping the paper with the eraser of his pencil. "If the skater is spinning, and she pulls her arms in, the moment of inertia decreases. I get that. But why does the angular velocity increase? Where does the energy come from?"
I sighed, leaning forward. "Conservation of Angular Momentum, Rory. Energy isn't created; it’s conserved.
L
=
I
×
ω
L=I×ω
. If 'I' goes down, 'w' has to go up to keep 'L' the same."
He looked at me over the rim of his glasses. "Speak English, Zoe."
I chewed on the end of my pen, thinking. How to explain it to a wolf?
"Okay," I said. "Think about a fight on the ice. If you're spinning to punch someone—"
"I don't spin to punch," he interrupted. "I punch in a straight line. More efficiency."
"Fine. Think about… think about a whirlpool. Or a storm." I reached out, grabbing his hand.
He froze. His skin was hot, his knuckles scarred from years of hockey.
"Imagine you're the storm," I said softly. "You're big. You're spread out. You're slow but powerful. That’s you with your arms out."
I traced a line down his forearm. His breath hitched.
"Now," I whispered, "imagine you take all that power, all that storm, and you crush it into a tiny, tight ball. You don't lose the power. It just has nowhere to go but faster."
I squeezed his fist. "That’s the spin. You make yourself small to become dangerous."
Rory stared at my hand on his arm. His pupils were blown wide, swallowing the gold.
"Small to become dangerous," he repeated, his voice thick.
He looked up at me. The air between us crackled. The physics lesson was over; something else was beginning.
"Like you," he said.
My heart skipped a beat. "Me?"
"You make yourself so small, Zoe," he murmured. He turned his hand over, interlacing his fingers with mine. His hand engulfed mine completely. "You shrink yourself. You hide in your big coats and your silence. You think it makes you safe."
He squeezed my hand, pulling me gently toward him across the table.
"But underneath?" He shook his head. "You're spinning so fast I’m surprised you haven't drilled a hole through the floor. You're a storm in a glass jar."
I couldn't breathe. Being seen—really seen—was more terrifying than the ice.
"I have to be," I whispered. "If I break the jar… I don't know what happens."
"I do," Rory said.
He let go of my hand and stood up.
The chair scraped against the floor. He walked around the small table. I turned in my seat to watch him, my pulse thrumming in my throat.
He stopped in front of me. He reached down, placing his hands on the arms of my chair, caging me in. He leaned down until we were nose-to-nose.
"If you break the jar," he whispered, "you get free."
"Or I make a mess," I countered, my voice trembling.
"I like a mess," he growled.
He looked at my mouth. Then my eyes. Then my mouth again.
"Rory," I warned, though I didn't know what I was warning him about. "We have to study."
"I’m bored of physics," he muttered. "I want to study something else."
"Like what?"
"Biology."
He didn't give me a chance to answer. He didn't kiss me. Not yet.
He moved his hand from the chair arm to my knee. His palm was heavy, warm, and electric. He slid it up my thigh, slow and deliberate.
My breath hitched. My legs fell open—pure instinct.
"See?" he murmured, watching my reaction with dark satisfaction. "Action and reaction. I touch you, and you open for me."
"It’s… it’s a reflex," I gasped, clutching the edge of the table.
"Is it?"
He moved his hand higher, his thumb brushing the inseam of my leggings.