Chapter 10
Justin POV
I can't let you go.
My own voice rang in my ears, foreign and destroyed. I pulled my left hand away from her wrist as if the skin of her forearm had been coated in white phosphorus.
The heat of her palm lingered on the center of my bare chest, an invisible brand burning right through muscle and bone.
Penny stood frozen between my knees, her dark eyelashes trembling, her lips parted around a breath she couldn't seem to draw. The silence of the basement pressed down on us, heavy as wet slate.
I didn't give her time to speak. I shoved myself off the vinyl plinth, my bruised ribs screaming as my feet hit the cold concrete with a hard, flat slap.
"Get your coat," I rasped, my back turned to her, grabbing my dark thermal shirt off the counter and dragging it over my head with my left arm.
The cotton pulled against the fresh tape on my AC joint, sending a dull, sickening throb into my neck, but I welcomed the pain.
I needed the pain. Anything to drown out the sound of my own heart hammering like a cornered animal.
"Justin—"
"Get your coat, Penny," I cut in, my voice dropping into that flat, dead monotone I used on the ice. "It's past ten. The temperature is down to fourteen degrees, and the sleet is freezing on the asphalt. You're not walking across campus."
She didn't argue. Her sneakers made a quiet scuff as she retrieved her satchel from the desk, her movements stiff, her chin tilted at that familiar defensive angle.
We walked through the silent corridors of The Forge without exchanging another word.
The outside air hit us like an open hand.
Freezing rain fell in dense, diagonal sheets, driven by a howling northern gale off Lake Champlain that glazed the asphalt in black ice.
I walked half a step ahead, my shoulders broad against the wind, shielding her from the brunt of the draft until we reached my truck—an old, heavy-duty black pickup parked in the shadow of the equipment shed.
I unlocked the passenger door with my key, holding the rusted steel open until she climbed into the cab.
When I slid behind the wheel and pulled my door shut, the outside world was cut off, replaced by the mechanical shudder of the diesel engine turning over.
The cab was small. Too small. The blower sputtered to life, pushing lukewarm, dry air through the vents, smelling of old leather upholstery, cedarwood, and the wet wool of her coat.
Ninety-five days remained until the ECAC Championship in Lake Placid.
I stared through the frost creeping up the windshield, my hands locked onto the steering wheel at ten and two. My knuckles were white, the tendons straining against the skin.
A cold panic coiled in my gut.
Five years ago, I had lost my discipline for thirty seconds in Green Bay, and Mateo had paid for it with his legs. Now, twenty minutes ago on an examination table, I had handed my throat to a girl with a clipboard and a silver ring on her thumb.
If I softened, I lost my edge. If I lost my edge, I lost Boston. If I lost Boston, my family drowned.
I pulled the gear shift into drive, tires grinding over the packed slush as we rolled toward the exit gate.
* * *
We hit the dark avenue bordering the lake. The wipers swept a rhythmic, scraping arc across the glass, clearing sleet that instantly refroze at the edges.
The silence between us was suffocating, vibrating with the memory of my forehead pressed against hers.
I couldn't stand it. I needed the wall back. I needed the distance, the armor, the hostility that kept my blood from boiling over.
"Forget what I said back there," I said, my voice rough as unwashed gravel, eyes fixed on the taillights of a salt truck a quarter-mile ahead.
Penny turned her head slowly. The amber glow of the dashboard lights cut across her sharp cheekbones, illuminating the dark shadows under her eyes. "What did you say?"
"You know what I said." I tightened my grip on the wheel until the faux-leather groaned. "I was running on an hour of sleep, two bruised ribs, and an adrenaline crash from getting jumped in the scrimmage. You were doing your job. I took advantage of it."
She went dead still.
"You took advantage of it?" she repeated, her tone deceptively quiet, the syllables clipped and cold.
"You're a student trainer logging hours for a fellowship," I said, leaning hard into the lie, letting the cruelty coat the back of my tongue like bile.
"I'm a player trying to keep from getting benched.
Let's not make it into something poetic, Correa.
You felt sorry for a battered dog, and I was too tired to put my teeth away. "
A sharp intake of breath hissed through her teeth.
"Pull over," she said.
"No."
"Justin, pull this truck over right now."
The command wasn't a request; it was a blade drawn in the dark.
I checked the rearview mirror, yanked the wheel to the right, and slammed the brakes, the tires skidding slightly on the slush before the truck lurched to a halt on the gravel shoulder overlooking the frozen lake.
I jammed the shifter into park, killed the ignition, and ripped my seatbelt off, turning in my seat to face her.
"What?" I growled, the masseter muscle in my jaw jumping with enough force to make my back teeth ache.
Penny unclicked her belt with a violent snap, twisting her entire body toward me. She didn't shrink back against the passenger door. She leaned forward across the center console, invading the small space between our seats, her hazel eyes blazing with pure, scalding fury.
"You absolute coward," she whispered, her voice shaking with rage.
"Watch your mouth, Penny."
"No, you watch me!" She jabbed a finger toward my chest, stopping an inch from the heavy cotton of my shirt.
"You sit there and act like a martyr, carrying your family's bills like a cross, breaking yourself on the ice so nobody else has to hurt.
And the second someone sees you—the second someone touches you without wanting something from you—you run behind your mean, arrogant bullshit because you are terrified of being human! "
The blood roared in my ears, deafening as an avalanche.
"You think I'm scared of you?" I rasped, lunging forward until my chest was inches from hers, my shadow blotting out the dashboard light.
"I know you're scared!" she fired back, her breath hot against my mouth, her lips trembling with an intensity that stripped away every remaining lie.
"You looked at me back in that lab like I was the only thing keeping you breathing.
You told me you couldn't let me go. And now you're sitting here trying to tell me it was just an adrenaline crash? "
"You want the truth?" I roared, my hand slamming flat against the center console between us, the plastic cracking beneath the force of my palm.
"The truth is you're ruining me, Penny! I can't sleep.
I can't skate. I can't hit a drill without smelling your soap or wondering when you're going to touch my shoulder again! "
Her pupils flared black, swallowing the gold flecks in her irises. Her chest rose and fell in frantic, shallow gasps against the front of her coat.
"Then do something about it," she whispered, her voice breaking on the dare.
* * *
The dare hung between us, volatile as spilled gasoline.
My control shattered.
My left hand came up, my fingers sliding into the dark curls at the nape of her neck, my broad palm cupping the heated curve of her jaw.
Her skin burned against my calloused hand, silky and feverish.
I pulled her forward. She didn't fight me; her small hands came up to clutch the heavy fabric of my jacket, her fingers twisting into the wool over my collarbones, anchoring herself to my chest.
I leaned down until my lips were a hairsbreadth from hers.
The heat passing between our mouths was suffocating. Every instinct in my body was screaming to take her, to slant my mouth over hers and crush the defiance from her lips until she tasted like mine.
My thumb dragged across the soft, parted fullness of her lower lip, pressing with a slow, heavy pressure that made a soft, shuddering sound hitch in the back of her throat.
"You have no idea what you're asking for," I rasped, my forehead pressing against hers, my voice reduced to a low, ruined vibration that scraped over her skin. "If I kiss you, Penny, I don't stop. I don't give you back. I will tear down everything you built just to keep you in my corner."
Her breath plumed against my chin, sweet and warm against the winter chill. Her eyelids fluttered, heavy and dark with a hunger that mirrored the sickness in my own chest.
She tilted her chin up half a millimeter, closing the final sliver of space until her chapped lips grazed the rough stubble of my upper lip.
"Then don't stop," she whispered.
My eyes closed. My fingers tightened in her hair, my thumb sliding to the racing pulse point beneath her jaw, my mouth opening to take hers—
A sharp, violent vibration buzzed against the plastic tray of the console.
The harsh white glare of an incoming call illuminated the dark cab, casting sharp blue shadows across our faces.
CALLING: COACH HAUER.
The sound cut through the fever like an ice pick driven into my skull.
I froze.
Penny’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes opened, wide, dark, and dazed, staring into mine from two inches away.
Neither of us moved. The phone buzzed again, skittering across the plastic, the vibration rattling the cup holder.
The real world—the team, the league, the eligibility rules, the Boston contract—slammed back down around us like an iron gate.
Slowly, agonizingly, my thumb dragged off her lip.
I didn't let go of her jaw immediately. I held her face in my hand for three brutal seconds, watching the rapid, chaotic pulse jumping beneath her skin, memorizing the dark, ruined hunger in her eyes.
"We can't," I rasped, the words tearing out of my chest like jagged bone.
Penny looked at the glowing screen on the console, then back up at my mouth. A slow, shuddering breath left her lungs, misting the cold air between us.
She didn't look angry. She looked wrecked, her hazel eyes dark with an ache that matched the hollow ache spreading through my ribs.
She released my jacket, her small hands pulling back into her lap, her fingers curling into tight balls against her denim.
"I know," she whispered.
I pulled back, sliding my heavy frame back behind the steering wheel. My lungs burned as if I had just skated three consecutive penalty kills, my extremities tingling with the cold, heavy rush of adrenaline receding from my bloodstream.
I reached down, hit the red button on the console to silence the call, and gripped the wheel with both hands, staring out into the dark storm raging over Lake Champlain.
The boundary was dead. The lie of our hostility was buried under the ice.
We were standing on the edge of the drop, and the next time she looked at me like that, nothing on this earth was going to stop me from pulling her over with me.