Chapter 6
Justin POV
The slatted rubber belt of the curved manual treadmill hissed beneath the soles of my training shoes, a relentless, punishing rhythm that burned through the calves and into the glutes.
I set the pace at an all-out sprint, driving my knees high, my left arm pumping hard while my right hung semi-fixed at my side, locked in place by strips of brown rigid strapping tape that pulled at the skin of my clavicle.
Sweat dripped from the tip of my chin, stinging the two-inch laceration through my left eyebrow.
One hundred and four days remained until the ECAC Championship game in Lake Placid.
Coach Hauer had barred me from the bench press and the squat rack until Vance saw ninety percent bilateral symmetry on the dynamometer. That left me with the track, the stationary bike, and this curved machine on the mezzanine concourse overlooking the rink.
Down below, the ice sheet was empty, slick and white under the high halogen banks. But forty feet across the open concourse, pale November sunlight sliced through thirty-foot panes of industrial glass, illuminating the student commons and the glass-walled entrance of the sports medicine clinic.
My lungs burned. The air smelled of burnt espresso, rubber matting, and the cold, metallic ozone drifting up from the Zamboni pit.
I drove my feet harder, trying to outrun the pressure crawling up the back of my skull. It didn't work. The physical strain did nothing to burn out the memory of last night in Lab 04.
My mind was locked on the image of Penny Correa pinned against the edge of that stainless-steel table.
I could still feel the heat radiating off her neck.
I could still feel the violent, frantic hammering of her pulse point beneath the pad of my thumb, and the breathless defiance parting her lips when she told me she wasn't afraid of the edge.
She had looked at me with those gold-flecked hazel eyes and seen straight through the armor I had spent five years welding shut.
She's a trainer, I told myself, teeth grinding until a dull ache shot behind my ears. She's an assignment. She's eighteen grand of broken equipment and four hours a day in a basement.
The rationalization was thin as pond ice.
A flash of dark green caught the edge of my peripheral vision.
My stride faltered on the slatted belt. My hands caught the curved steel rails of the treadmill, bringing the rubber treads to an abrupt, screeching halt.
Penny had just stepped through the double glass doors from the library walkway into the sunlit concourse.
She wore a heavy forest-green wool sweater that swallowed her narrow frame, dark jeans, and black leather boots.
Her hair was bound in that same dark tortoiseshell clip, loose curls spilling over the collar of her coat.
She carried a paper coffee cup in one hand, her black satchel slung across her chest, moving with that hurried, efficient stride that made everyone else look like they were walking in slow motion.
My internal radar locked onto her with a sudden, violent intensity that knocked the remaining breath from my chest.
She was seventy yards away, walking toward the clinic entrance. She had no idea I was standing on the mezzanine above her. She didn't look up.
Then a figure stepped out from behind the concrete pillar by the athletic department trophy cases, cutting directly into her line of travel.
Garrett Shaw.
Our senior alternate captain was wearing his navy Garrison varsity letterman, his blond hair slicked back, a protein shaker held casually in one hand.
Garrett planted his frame squarely in front of Penny, forcing her to stop so abruptly her coffee sloshed against the plastic lid.
My knuckles turned white against the powder-coated handrails. The metal groaned under the force of my grip.
Down on the floor, Garrett was smiling—that smooth, entitled smirk he used when he wanted something from the coaching staff or a booster’s daughter. He leaned in, closing the distance between them until his chest was barely six inches from her face.
Penny didn't smile back. Her posture stiffened instantly, her shoulders locking into a rigid, defensive line. Her chin tilted up, exposing the pale hollow of her throat in that sharp, defiant angle I knew too well.
She took a step to the left, clearly attempting to brush past him.
Garrett shifted his feet, cutting her off again. He said something that made his grin widen, leaning down until his mouth was uncomfortably close to the side of her temple.
Penny’s mouth flattened into a thin, severe line. Her fingers went to the silver signet ring on her left thumb, spinning it in rapid, agitated circles.
Then Garrett reached out.
He didn't touch her shoulder. He dropped his hand to her forearm, his fingers wrapping around the green wool of her sleeve just above her wrist, his grip casual, familiar, and encroaching.
Something inside my chest snapped clean through.
A blinding surge of heat flooded my bloodstream, roaring in my ears like a collapsed wall of ice. The concourse, the sunlight, the hum of the Zamboni—all of it vanished behind a suffocating tunnel vision that narrowed the entire world down to Garrett Shaw’s hand on her arm.
The masseter muscles in my jaw knotted so hard my molars clicked. Adrenaline tasted like bitter copper on the back of my tongue.
I didn't think about my grade-two separation. I didn't think about Coach Hauer’s warning, or the Boston scout arriving in two weeks, or the disciplinary probation hanging over my head.
I let go of the treadmill rail and moved.
* * *
I cleared the mezzanine stairs three at a time, the steel risers clattering beneath the heavy tread of my shoes.
Students sitting at the lounge tables scattered out of my line of sight, clearing a wide, panicked berth as I hit the concourse tiles. I didn't look at them. I didn't slow down.
Garrett was still talking, his fingers still wrapped around her sleeve, ignoring the way Penny was trying to wrench her arm from his grip.
"I'm not interested, Garrett," Penny was saying, her voice sharp as broken slate as I closed the final ten yards. "Let go of my coat."
"Come on, Correa," Garrett chuckled, his fingers tightening. "I just asked for ten minutes in Vance's—"
I didn't give him a warning.
I closed the gap in two strides, dropped my left shoulder, and drove my forearm straight across the center of Garrett’s chest.
Two hundred and twenty-eight pounds of moving mass hit him like a blindside check on open ice.
Garrett’s breath left him in a sharp, wet wheeze as he was thrown backward off his feet.
His heels skidded four feet across the slick concourse tile before his spine slammed violently against the concrete pillar behind him.
The plastic protein shaker flew from his grip, hitting the floor and rolling away with a hollow clatter.
The sound of the impact echoed off the thirty-foot glass windows.
A dead, ringing silence fell over the concourse.
I stepped into the empty space, planting my body directly between Garrett and Penny. I didn't face him fully—I stood at an angle that sealed Penny behind the wall of my back, cutting off her line of sight, cutting off his access, taking up every inch of the perimeter.
Garrett leaned against the pillar, clutching his ribs, his face flushed an ugly, mottled red as he fought for air. His pale eyes flicked up to mine, widening with sudden, panicked comprehension when he realized who had hit him.
"What the hell is your problem, Ibarra?" Garrett choked out, pushing off the concrete, his hands curling into fists. "Are you out of your mind?"
I took half a step forward. I didn't raise my voice. I didn't posture.
I let the enforcer take the wheel, letting the low, gravel-scraped pitch of my voice drop into a frequency that vibrated straight through his sternum.
"Touch her again," I said, the words flat, cold, and final as a burial slab, "and I will tear your arm out of the socket and beat you with it in front of the entire athletic board."
Garrett flinched. The bravado drained out of his posture, his jaw trembling faintly as he registered the sheer, unhinged deadness behind my eyes. He knew me. He had shared a locker room with me for three years. He knew that when my voice went quiet, people ended up in the emergency room.
"She's a student trainer, you psycho," Garrett spat, his voice shaking around the edges as he took an unsteady step sideways, looking for a way out. "She's not your property."
"She's working my case," I growled, crowding him back another inch until his heels hit the baseboard of the trophy case. "Which means she doesn't have time for a third-line winger who can't hit an open net. Clear out, Shaw. Now."
Garrett’s chest heaved. He looked over my shoulder at Penny, then back at the lethal stillness in my face. He knew he was outmatched. With a venomous sneer that did nothing to mask the fear in his throat, he snatched his shaker bottle off the floor and stalked away toward the locker room tunnel.
* * *
I didn't watch him leave.
I spun on my heel, rounding on Penny, the heat in my chest burning through my ribs.
She hadn't run. She stood pinned between my massive frame and the granite pillar, her hazel eyes blazing with a fury so hot it rivaled my own. The paper coffee cup in her hand was crumpled from the force of her grip, the dark green wool of her sleeve slightly twisted where Garrett had held it.
"Are you completely insane?" she hissed, keeping her voice low, but the venom in it could have stripped paint from the walls.
Her chest was heaving under the wool, shallow and fast, the flush on her throat rising into her cheeks.
"He had his hands on you," I rasped, taking another half-step forward until the toe of my shoe touched the leather of her boot, boxing her into the cold stone.
"I was handling it!" she shot back, stepping into my chest, refusing to yield the ground. "I had it under control, Justin! You just checked an alternate captain into a pillar in broad daylight on the main concourse! Do you have any idea what happens if Dean Sterling sees that? If Vance sees that?"
"I don't give a damn about Vance."
"Well, I do!" Her small hand came up, planting flat against my sternum to shove me back.
She didn't move me an inch. The heat of her palm burned through my sweat-soaked compression top, scalding the skin over my heart. Her fingers curled slightly against my chest, her knuckles brushing the heavy cotton, and my pulse leaped beneath her touch like an uncoiled wire.
"You're going to get yourself thrown off the team," she whispered, her voice cracking around the edges with genuine panic. "And you're going to take my fellowship down with you. You have no right to do that, Justin. You have no right to touch him, and you have no right to police who speaks to me."
"I have every right," I growled, my control snapping down the center.
I planted my left hand flat against the granite pillar beside her ear, leaning down until my mouth was inches from her temple, surrounding her with my frame, my scent, and the raw heat radiating from my skin.
"He was cornering you," I murmured, my voice dropping to a low, possessive rumble that scraped against the sensitive skin of her ear. "You didn't want him touching you. I saw your hand. I saw you spinning that ring."
Penny’s breath hitched in a sharp, shuddering gasp. Her gaze locked onto mine, dark and dilated, her lips parting as her lungs struggled to pull in air.
"You were watching me?" she whispered, the fight suddenly draining into a thick, suffocating awareness that made the hair on my arms stand up.
"I'm always watching you," I admitted, the truth tearing out of my throat, rough and ugly and undeniable.
I leaned closer, close enough that my lips brushed the stray curls clinging to the side of her neck. I could smell the sweet almond soap on her skin, could feel the rapid, wild vibration of her pulse thudding against her collarbone.
"You're in my perimeter now, Penny," I rasped against her skin, each word a brand.
"You spend four hours a day with your hands on my body, putting me back together.
That means nobody else gets to touch you.
Nobody else gets to crowd you. If Shaw comes near you again, I won't just push him. I'll end him."
Penny shuddered, a soft, helpless sound catching in her throat. She didn't push me away. Her hand remained flat against my chest, her fingers clutching the fabric over my racing heart.
She looked up at me through the dark curtain of her lashes, her eyes burning with a terrifying mixture of defiance and surrender.
"You're crossing a line, Justin," she whispered, her lips hovering inches from mine.
"The line is gone, sweetheart," I rasped. "It burned the second you walked into my basement."