Chapter 14
Chase POV
My left skate bit into the sheet, carving a crisp crescent of frost as I gathered the puck on my backhand.
I didn't rush the transition. I waited for the second-line defenseman to commit his weight to his right heel, then dropped my hips, cut hard across the high slot, and fired a wrist shot through his legs.
The puck snapped off the crossbar, burying itself in the upper twine behind the goalie before the kid could even raise his glove.
The sound of the iron echoed up into the empty girders of Kehoe Pavilion, sharp and clean.
I circled back toward the blue line, my breathing deep and measured from the diaphragm.
For the first time in five months, the muscles along my jaw weren't grinding my molars into dust. The torn labrum in my left shoulder was still there, but the dull, throbbing pressure had settled into an ignorable hum.
My chest felt wide, unconstricted, my resting pulse sitting steady in the low forties.
The suffocating fog that had lived behind my sternum since the night Declan went down had burned away.
Last night in the basement, holding Nola while she trembled against my chest, had broken the lock on the gate. Knowing she had never let another man touch her—knowing that the ragged, starving surrender on her lips had been pulled from her for the first time in her life—had rewritten my priorities.
The fear of losing control was gone. Possession was a different kind of discipline, heavier and far more dangerous, but it was solid ground.
She was mine. Not because of a department protocol or an administrative compliance stamp, but because her body answered my hands before her mind could construct an argument.
"Hey, Cap."
Silas drifted over to the dasher boards, his stick tucked under one arm as he popped the top of his water bottle. He had his helmet pushed back on his head, his dark eyes squinting at me with open suspicion.
"You're skating like you just bought the franchise," Silas said, taking a long pull of water. "Hastings ran four neutral-zone transition drills, and you didn't bark at the freshmen once. Who slipped the sedative into your morning oatmeal?"
I skated to the bench, stopping with an easy glide, and set my gloves on the top of the dasher. My voice was quiet, stripped of the brittle irritation that usually marked my mornings.
"Nobody."
Silas’s grin faded around the edges. He leaned his forearm on the glass, tilting his head to read my face. "You look different, Chase. Serious. More than usual."
I picked up my stick, looking him dead in the eye until his posture straightened. "Focus on your own edge work, Silas. We have Minnesota-Duluth on Friday."
Silas stared for two seconds, recognizing the hard line drawn in the ice, and held up his gloved hands in surrender before pushing off back toward the center dot.
I glanced up at the arena clock hanging above the center circle.
09:58 AM.
Her morning lecture in the Health Sciences annex let out at ten-fifteen.
* * *
A thick, freezing mist rolled off the gray surface of Lake Superior, cloaking the granite steps of the science quad in damp chill.
I stood at the base of the wide limestone staircase, wearing my black wool peacoat unbuttoned over a heavy dark henley, my leather-palmed gloves tucked into my pocket.
Students in parkas and knitted caps moved around me like water parting around a boulder, giving my shoulders a wide berth as they navigated the salt-dusted walkway.
At ten-sixteen, the heavy oak doors at the top of the landing swung open.
Nola walked out in the middle of the crowd.
She was wrapped in her dark gray coat, a thick wool scarf wound twice around her neck, her head ducked against the biting lake wind.
She carried a heavy leather shoulder bag loaded with binders, alongside an overstuffed laptop case that dragged her left shoulder down half an inch.
Her pale skin was flushed faint pink from the wind, her hazel eyes darting across the courtyard, wary and guarded.
I moved.
I cut through the foot traffic with three long strides, taking the bottom steps two at a time, stepping directly into her path before she reached the handrail.
She stopped dead. Her boots skittered slightly on a patch of wet salt, her eyes snapping up to mine, her pupils dilating wide behind her lashes.
"Give me the bags," I said, my voice low and level, cutting through the chatter of the students around us.
Before she could process the command, my left hand reached out, sliding the strap of the heavy leather bag off her shoulder without jostling her. The brush of my knuckles against the soft wool of her scarf was slow and deliberate.
Nola stiffened from her boots to her collarbones. Her fingers tightened on the strap of her laptop case, her chin tilting up into that familiar, defiant angle.
"Guzman," she whispered, her voice tight, checking the students streaming around our perimeter. "Give that back. We are not doing this out here."
"Doing what?" I asked, my voice smooth, quiet, completely unbothered by the crowd.
"Standing in the middle of the quad acting like you have an excuse to touch my things. People from my department are walking right behind me."
I didn't answer with words.
I stepped into her personal space, closing the gap until the heavy wool of my coat brushed against the front of hers. I reached out, my left arm sliding around her back until my flat, bare palm settled firmly against the curve of her spine, right between her shoulder blades.
The heat of my hand sank straight through the layers of her clothing.
A sharp, audible breath hitched in her throat, her lips parting as her eyes locked onto mine. The defiance in her face didn't leave, but the muscles in her neck pulled tight as a deep flush climbed up from her collar.
"Walk, Nola," I murmured, my voice a quiet rumble that only she could hear.
I turned her toward the north lot, keeping my palm anchored to the small of her back. The pressure was gentle, steady, and impossible to break without creating the very scene she was terrified of.
She tried to resist for two paces, her boots digging into the slush, but the calm weight of my hand guided her forward, step by step, steering her through the mist toward my truck.
* * *
I opened the passenger door of the Silverado, reached for her laptop bag, and lifted it from her grip before she could argue.
I tossed both bags onto the floorboard behind the front seats, then turned back to face her where she stood on the gravel.
She looked up at the elevated cab, then at my chest, her chest heaving beneath her coat. She knew what was inside that truck. She knew what had happened on the road forty-eight hours ago.
"Get in," I said softly.
She hesitated for two beats, her fingernails digging into the cuffs of her sleeves, then reached for the grab handle and climbed inside.
I shut the heavy door with a solid, pressurized thud, walked around the front grille, and slid into the driver’s seat.
The moment my door closed, the outside world vanished. The damp roar of the campus wind was replaced by the low, familiar hum of the cab and the immediate, suffocating scent of her—clean rain, vanilla cream, and the warm, rapid heat radiating from her skin.
Nola turned to face me instantly, her back pressed against the passenger door, her cheeks blazing crimson.
"What is wrong with you?" she demanded, her voice shaking with a potent mixture of fury and raw, breathless shock. "You can't just hunt me down outside my lecture hall and drag me across the parking lot. We had rules, Chase. We had boundaries."
"The rules are gone," I said.
I unclipped my seatbelt, letting the strap snap back against the pillar. I didn't raise my voice. I leaned across the center console, invading her space until my shadow blotted out the dashboard.
Her breath locked in her throat, her spine pressing flat against the door panel.
"Listen to me," I rasped, dropping my voice until the syllables rumbled through the leather between us.
"No more running through the concourse. No more ducking into stairwells when I walk by. When your class lets out, you wait for me. When I call, you answer. And when we’re in that basement, you don't pretend you aren't mine. "
Nola stared at me, her chest rising in sharp, ragged strokes, her hazel eyes flashing with a desperate, dying ember of resistance.
"You don't own me, Chase," she whispered, though the words lacked their sharp bite, her lips trembling under the weight of my stare. "What gives you the right to dictate my life?"
I didn't answer with an argument.
I reached out, my thumb hooking under the point of her chin, applying slow, firm pressure to tilt her face toward mine. My fingers splayed across the soft skin of her jawline, resting right over the wild, runaway flutter of her carotid artery.
I held her gaze, letting the silence fill the cab, letting her feel the absolute, immovable certainty radiating from my hands.
"You do," I murmured, my thumb sliding up to trace the swollen, sensitive curve of her bottom lip until it parted beneath my touch. "Your body does. Say yes, Nola."
Her breath stumbled on a ragged exhale.
She looked at my mouth, then back up to my eyes, the stubborn fire in her features flickering, softening, and finally surrendering to the heat pooling between us.
"Yes," she whispered into the quiet space.
A hot, dark satisfaction surged through my chest, settling deep into my ribs.
I leaned down, brushing my lips against the flushed curve of her cheek, my voice a low, gravelly scrape against her ear:
"Good girl. That's how it's going to be."