Chapter 23
Nola POV
I sat twelve rows above the glass, my digital tablet propped against my knees, logging the deceleration curves of the first-line power play unit.
Down on the ice, Kehoe Pavilion was illuminated by the blinding, unmerciful glare of the overhead floodlights, the white sheet scarred by dozens of sharp, fresh cuts.
Chase was a force of controlled violence.
He drove through the neutral zone, his six-foot-four frame dropping low as he shielded the puck with his body, absorbing a heavy shoulder check from a junior defenseman that rattled the glass all the way up to my row.
He didn't even wobble. He spun off the check, dragged the puck to his forehand, and snapped a rising shot into the top-right corner of the twine with a clean, concussive ping of the iron crossbar.
Steam rose off the broad shelf of his shoulders through his black practice sweater, his dark hair soaked with sweat, his jaw set in that familiar, unyielding line of stone.
Two rows below me, three men in dark matching parkas leaned over the brass railing.
On the back of their jackets, the gold and black crest of an NHL franchise gleamed beneath the arena lights.
One of them held an open leather scout’s ledger filled with color-coded depth charts; the other two were speaking in low, carrying voices that cut straight through the drone of the refrigeration pumps.
"Anaheim is ready to clear cap space for him," the scout on the left said, clicking his pen against his teeth. "Top-three lock. If they draft him, they’ll have him under an entry-level maximum contract before the rookie tournament in July."
"California will love him," the second scout agreed, scribbling a note in the margin. "Put him on a flight to the West Coast the second the Frozen Four wraps up. Get him away from the Duluth cold and into Newport Beach. Kid won't know what hit him."
My stomach gave a sudden, violent twist.
A sharp wave of sour, acidic nausea surged up from the base of my esophagus, hitting the back of my tongue like a mouthful of copper.
My vision swam, the white ice below blurring into a bright, sickening smear. I grabbed the cold plastic bottle of water beside my boot, twisting the cap with trembling fingers, forcing a small swallow of freezing water down my throat to knock the bile back.
Just coffee, I told myself, pressing my palm flat against my upper abdomen, waiting for the clenching sensation to subside. Four cups of acidic dining-hall brew and five straight nights of four-hour sleep cycles.
I drew in a slow, ragged breath through my nose, forcing my ribcage to expand against the tight wool of my coat.
The nausea faded, but the cold weight in my chest remained.
Newport Beach. Three thousand miles away. An entry-level contract worth more money than my family had earned in three generations. Press conferences and multi-million-dollar endorsements from franchises that didn't care about drafty off-campus lofts.
I looked down at my cracked plastic clipboard and my faded student ID badge.
In eight weeks, the spring semester would conclude and graduation would arrive. In eight weeks, my undergraduate fellowship would terminate, and I would be packing three cardboard boxes into my beat-up car to drive across the plains to a junior research desk in Colorado.
The distance between his world and mine wasn't a matter of miles. It was a chasm, wide and black, and every day we spent tangled in his dark sheets was just borrowed time ticking down to zero.
* * *
The heater in Chase’s black Silverado blasted hot, dry air across the floorboards, but the chill in my extremities refused to thaw.
Freezing rain mixed with heavy sleet pecked at the windshield in a dull, erratic rhythm as we moved through the dusk traffic along the bluffs. The streetlamps flickered to life, throwing sickly amber smears across the dirty slush banks piled along the curb.
The silence inside the cab was dense, suffocating, and thick with tension.
Chase drove with his left hand on the steering wheel, his knuckles still raw from the ice, while his right hand reached across the center console.
His large, calloused palm settled heavily on my left thigh, right over the denim of my jeans.
His skin was burning hot, his thumb tracing slow, rhythmic circles against the outside of my knee.
I didn't lean into the touch. My leg remained rigid, my joints locked, my eyes fixed firmly on the windshield wipers dragging gray slush back and forth across the glass. My hands were balled into tight fists inside the pockets of my coat, fingernails biting into my palms.
Chase’s thumb stopped moving.
The silence in the cab shifted, darkening until I could hear the slow, measured drag of his respiration through his teeth.
He didn't say a word on the bridge. He navigated the turn into the brick warehouse district, swung the truck into the subterranean garage, and slammed the transmission into park with a sharp metallic clunk.
He killed the ignition.
The sudden quiet was deafening, broken only by the rhythmic pinging of the hot exhaust manifold beneath the floorboards.
Chase unclicked his seatbelt. He turned his heavy shoulders toward me, his obsidian eyes black in the dim concrete gloom of the garage.
"You've been a thousand miles away since the second period," he rasped, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register that vibrated straight through the leather console. "Talk to me, Nola."
I swallowed hard, the muscles in my throat pulling tight against a dry ache. "I was watching the forecheck drills. Hastings needs the transition metrics by Monday."
"Stop lying to me." His hand tightened on my thigh, his thick fingers squeezing with firm, unyielding pressure that pinned my leg to the seat. "Look at me."
I didn't turn my head. I kept my eyes on the concrete pillar directly in front of the bumper, my teeth grinding together until my jaw throbbed.
"Nola."
The command was soft, scraped raw, and it shattered the last surviving piece of my discipline.
I turned on him, my chest heaving in rapid, ragged hitches beneath my coat, my voice breaking across the cab like a cracked pane of glass.
"The scouts from Anaheim were sitting in Section 104, Chase!"
He didn't flinch. His dark eyes remained fixed on my face, unblinking.
"They were talking about Newport Beach," I said, the words spilling out in a desperate, suffocating rush that tasted of old copper.
"They were talking about multi-million-dollar rookie contracts and flying you to California the second the season ends.
You're a top-three draft pick. You have an entire empire waiting for you. "
"And?" he growled softly.
"And we have eight weeks left!" My fingers tore out of my pockets, clutching the leather strap of my bag until the stitching strained.
"Eight weeks until graduation. Eight weeks until you get drafted to a coast and I move to a shared clinic in Colorado Springs to pay off my mother’s medical bills.
I am living in your apartment and sleeping in your bed, and every single second feels like standing on a frozen lake waiting for the ice to break beneath my boots. "
My vocal cords seized, a sharp, ragged gasp tearing from my lungs.
"I won't be an anchor around your neck, Chase," I whispered, the admission burning the lining of my throat. "I won't be the girl who held you back from your life. But I can't... I can't survive being an eight-week footnote that you leave behind in the snow."
* * *
The air in the cab detonated.
Chase didn't argue. He didn't offer a measured explanation.
His seatbelt was already off. He shoved his door open, stepped out onto the concrete, and rounded the hood in four violent strides.
He yanked my passenger door open with enough force to rattle the hinges.
Before I could draw breath, his large hands clamped around my waist. He hauled me out of the cab, lifting my boots off the running board, and slammed the heavy truck door shut with his hip.
He carried me three strides across the concrete and drove my back flat against the brick pillar of the parking bay.
The cold brick bit into my shoulder blades through my wool coat, but the impact was swallowed by the sheer, suffocating wall of his body pinning me to the masonry.
Two hundred and twenty pounds of athlete descended over me, his hips locking mine against the wall, blotting out the fluorescent lights overhead.
His large, scarred hands came up, framing both sides of my face with rough, desperate urgency. His thick thumbs dug into the soft curve of my cheekbones, tilting my chin up until my nose brushed the stubble on his jaw.
His breathing was ragged, harsh bursts of steam billowing past my cheeks in the cold garage air.
"Listen to me," he snarled, his voice a low, furious rumble that shook the marrow of my bones. "Stop writing the end of this before I give you permission."
"Chase—"
"Shut your mouth and look at me," he commanded, his fingers tightening in the hair at my temples, holding my skull captive.
I looked.
His pupils were blown wide, black swallowing the gray irises, burning with a feral, terrified rage that made my pulse hammer behind my ears.
"Look at me, Nola," he rasped, his voice dropping down into thick, ruined gravel. "Good girl. Breathe for me. Deep breaths."
My chest hitched, dragging in the sharp scent of his sweat, cedarwood, and the raw heat radiating from his throat.
"You think I'm going to California?" he growled against my lips, his breath scalding against my cold skin. "You think some boardroom in Anaheim matters more than having your hands on my chest? You think I'm letting you get in your car and drive to Colorado without me?"
My heart stalled in my ribs, a sudden, blinding rush of blood deafening my ears. "Chase... your draft—"
"I don't give a damn about California," he rasped, his thumbs stroking the wet curve of my lower lip until it parted beneath his touch. "I told Morrison yesterday to take Anaheim off the board. I told him Colorado, Chicago, or Minnesota. Nowhere else."
The breath left my lungs in a stunned, silent gasp.
"You did what?" I breathed.
"You're not an eight-week footnote, Nola," he whispered, his forehead dropping against mine, his large hands sliding down to wrap around the back of my neck, pulling me flush against his heaving chest. "You're the only coordinate I have left.
You don't get left behind. You come with me, or I don't go. "
Before my mind could process the gravity of what he had thrown away for me, his mouth crushed down over mine.
The kiss was desperate, bruising, and stripped of mercy.
He slanted his mouth across mine, his tongue surging past my lips, tasting of mint and possessive hunger, claiming every breath I had left in my body.
My arms flew around his neck, my fingers knotting into the damp wool of his jacket, clinging to the solid, immovable wall of his chest as the garage spun into darkness around us.
I leaned into the fire, desperate to believe every word he had spoken, blind to the storm gathering in the shadows of the arena we had left behind.