Chapter 13
Nola POV
The cold air of the Vault hit my wet lips like a slap.
Chase had only pulled back two inches, but the sudden absence of his mouth left the skin of my face burning as if it had been exposed to an open flare. My lungs seized, struggling to pull in a single functional breath against the tight band of constriction wrapping my ribs.
My thighs rested against the edge of the examination table, the black vinyl slick and cold beneath my palms. My knees knocked together in small, violent tremors that traveled straight up my femurs into my pelvis.
I tried to lock my joints, tried to force my body into the rigid, clinical alignment that had kept me upright through three years of university labs, but my nervous system was in total revolt.
A dark, stinging heat radiated across my lower lip, swollen and bruised from the unyielding pressure of his teeth. The skin along my neck and collarbones was flushed deep red, prickling with an autonomic surge that made the cotton of my scrub top feel coarse against my throat.
Chase stayed planted between my knees.
His chest rose and fell in heavy, deliberate strokes beneath his charcoal thermal, his broad shoulders blotting out the fluorescent lights. His gray eyes were black in the center, tracking the erratic rise of my chest with an intensity that pinned me to the table.
"That was—"
My voice failed on the first syllable. The sound that came out of my throat was a thin, ragged squeak that died in the dry hollow of my mouth.
I swallowed hard, forcing my jaw to set, digging my fingernails into the vinyl seams until the plastic groaned.
"That was an unacceptable breach of protocol, Guzman," I forced out, the words shaking with a tremor so obvious it made my teeth click together. "You need to step back."
I shoved my weight forward, trying to slide off the table, desperate to put three feet of concrete between my body and the heat rolling off his chest.
My boots hit the floor.
My knees gave way instantly, buckling like wet balsa wood.
* * *
Before my knees could strike the concrete, Chase’s hands clamped under my arms.
The grip was instantaneous, effortlessly lifting my weight and hoisting me back onto the table until my hips hit the vinyl with a dull thud.
He didn't step back. He stepped deeper into the notch between my thighs, using his bulk to trap my legs against the steel frame, his large hands sliding down from my ribcage to wrap around my wrists.
He didn't use force, but his fingers were an immovable ring of heat. His thumb settled directly into the soft depression beneath my radial bone, pressing into the skin.
The artery beneath his print was going berserk, hammering in a frantic, runaway tempo that vibrated straight into his callus.
Chase stopped moving.
The tension in his jaw shifted. His dark brows pulled low, his scarred eyebrow puckering as his gaze raked over my face. He tracked the dilated black of my pupils, the shallow, hitching rhythm of my ribs, the desperate way my fingers curled into tight fists inside his grip.
He was an athlete who read physical movement for a living. He knew deceleration curves; he knew the subtle micro-spasms of muscles pushed past their threshold.
And right now, he was reading every raw, unpracticed betrayal of my body.
"You've never done that before," he rasped.
The statement fell between us like an iron ingot, flat and absolute.
A sharp, defensive panic surged through my chest, heating the back of my throat. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm twenty-one years old—"
"Nobody has ever kissed you like that," he cut in, his voice dropping down into a dark, gravelly register that made the hair on my forearms stand straight up. "Nobody has had their hands on you."
I tried to wrench my wrists out of his grip, but his fingers didn't yield by a millimeter. "Let go of me, Chase."
"Look at me, Nola."
The command was quiet, stripped of the sneering arrogance he wore on the ice. In its place was something far more dangerous: a dark, heavy reverence that turned the air in my throat to liquid lead.
His fingers slid slowly from my wrists, trailing up the soft, sensitive skin of my inner forearms. The rough texture of his calloused thumbs dragged across my pulse points, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.
"You're shaking apart in my hands," he murmured, his eyes locked on mine with a focus so heavy it felt like physical weight pressing on my chest. "You were terrified."
"I'm not terrified of you," I breathed, though the words hitched on a ragged inhale.
"Not of me," he whispered, stepping closer until his charcoal shirt brushed against my scrubs, his hands rising to rest gently against the sides of my neck. His thumbs stroked the line of my jaw with an agonizing, reverent slowness. "Of what you wanted."
My eyelids fluttered, a hot prickle of tears stinging my retinas as the truth stripped away the last layer of my pride.
"Look at you," he murmured, his voice dipping into a low, hypnotic cadence that vibrated against my skin. "You took every bit of it. You opened your mouth for me like you've been waiting for it your whole life. Good girl."
The phrase slammed into my nervous system like a sedative.
A long, shuddering gasp broke from my lips, my head falling forward until my forehead touched the center of his chest.
* * *
My hands gave up the fight.
Instead of pushing against the solid wall of his chest, my fingers bunched into the dark cotton of his shirt, knotting the fabric in my fists to keep myself from sliding off the edge of the world.
Chase didn't pull back to mock me.
His arms wrapped around my back, thick and heavy as iron bands, lifting me slightly off the vinyl until my torso was pressed flush against the furnace of his body. He pulled me in so tight the air left my lungs in a soft rush, tucking my face firmly into the crook of his neck.
The scent of him was everywhere—cedar, bitter ice, clean skin, and the sharp tang of sweat from his morning skate. The heat radiating off his throat sank straight through the side of my face, cutting through the violent chill that had seized my limbs.
"Breathe, Nola," he ordered softly against my ear, his rough jaw scraping against my temple. "Match my chest. Slow it down."
I closed my eyes, letting my cheek rest against the hot, taut skin of his neck.
Under my ear, the heavy, rhythmic thud of his own heart was loud and steady—not racing like mine, but beating with the massive, grounded cadence of a machine built to endure punishment.
I forced my lungs to expand when his expanded, dragging air past the constriction in my throat, letting the immovable weight of his frame anchor my trembling joints.
Slowly, the violent spasms in my thighs began to subside.
His right hand rose, his fingers tangling into the loose hair at the nape of my neck, holding my head securely against his shoulder.
His thumb moved to the corner of my mouth, gently brushing across the swollen flesh of my bottom lip, soothing the sting with a light, repetitive touch that made my hips twitch against his belt.
"Nobody else gets to touch this," he whispered, his voice a low, possessive rumble that scraped against my ear.
I couldn't move. I couldn't pull away from the heavy, suffocating shelter of his arms.
"You hear me, sweetheart?" he murmured, his lips pressing a hard, burning kiss to the sensitive skin right behind my earlobe. "Nobody else gets to see you look like this. Nobody else gets to make you shake."
A helpless, ragged breath left my mouth, my fingers tightening in the fabric over his ribs, holding onto him because letting go meant falling into the void.
The professional boundary was dead. The academic firewall had burned to the ground.
I was locked in his arms in the dark of the basement, listening to the heavy thud of his heart, bound to a man who had the power to reduce everything I was to ashes.