Chapter 14
Justin POV
The blade of my Bauer skate bit into the fresh sheet of ice, carving a clean, razor-thin groove through the frost.
I took the pass from the half-wall in stride, gathered the puck on the heel of my stick, and drove my edges hard into the center-ice circle.
When Declan Ward tried to cut the angle, lunging with his stick extended to disrupt the passing lane, I didn't flinch.
I lowered my center of mass, used my left hip to absorb his momentum, and stripped the puck off his tape with a single, fluid sweep of my blade.
The collision barely registered. My right acromioclavicular joint held firm, the ligament gliding smoothly beneath the skin, clear of the sharp, stabbing catch that had crippled my shot three weeks ago.
It was 6:45 AM on Monday in Term Week 5. November 30.
Eighty-four days remained until the ECAC Championship in Lake Placid.
Outside The Forge, a freezing Adirondack mist hung low over Lake Champlain, coating the rusted iron beams of the arena in a slick sheen of damp frost.
My breathing was deep, slow, and rhythmic, my lungs pulling in the sub-zero air without the ragged burn of panic that had haunted my chest since the McGill scrimmage. The constant ache in my masseter muscles—the bone-deep habit of grinding my teeth until my jaw locked—was gone.
I knew what I had in my hands now.
Knowing she was untouched before me had detonated the final shred of hesitation in my blood. For four weeks, I had told myself lies about clinical compliance and academic boundaries, fighting the pull because I thought proximity would weaken my focus.
The opposite was true. Knowing she belonged to me settled into my ribs like cold iron.
Declan coasted into the corner, leaning heavily on his composite stick, his chest heaving under his saturated practice jersey as the whistle blew to end morning skate. He sprayed a fan of snow against the dasher boards and looked at me, his blue eyes narrowed in sharp, suspicious scrutiny.
"What the hell is with you today, Ibarra?" Declan asked, wiping sweat from his forehead with the cuff of his glove. "You didn't take a single penalty in the scrimmage, you didn't yell at Hayes once, and you just skated three twenty-minute periods like you were out for a Sunday jog."
I leaned my stick against the boards and reached up to unstrap my helmet, my face completely smooth. "I'm playing disciplined hockey, Ward. Hauer asked for under thirty penalty minutes. I'm delivering."
Declan snorted, stepping off the ice onto the rubber runway, his skate guards clicking against the concrete.
"Disciplined? You look like you just inherited the damn bank.
" He dropped his voice, leaning in with that obnoxious, crooked smirk.
"Did Vance’s little brunette down in Lab 04 finally fix your wiring? "
I stopped.
I didn't lunge. I didn't raise my voice. I turned my head slowly, letting my dark eyes fix on Declan’s face with a quiet, lethal stillness that froze the laugh in his throat.
The silence between us stretched for four long heartbeats.
"Don't ask about her again, Ward," I said, the words coming out in a low, gravel-scraped register that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. "Not in the locker room. Not on the bus. Not ever."
Declan swallowed hard, his throat working on a dry click. The smirk vanished from his mouth, replaced by a wary, sober nod. He held his gloved hands up, stepping back toward his stall without another syllable.
I unlaced my skates, stripped off my gear, and took a five-minute cold shower, the water washing the rink salt from my skin.
The old rules were dead. The fence she had built around her life was gone.
Now, I was going to make sure she understood that.
* * *
At 8:42 AM, the damp mist over the campus quad had thickened into a bone-chilling fog that swallowed the tops of the slate-roofed brick dormitories.
I leaned against the cast-iron railing at the base of the wide granite steps of Hudson Hall, the health sciences building. I wore my black wool Ironclads varsity coat over a dark gray thermal, my hands shoved deep into my pockets, my breath pluming in steady white clouds against the grey morning.
A stream of students poured through the heavy glass double doors, bundled in scarves and down parkas, rushing to beat the bell for their nine o'clock lectures.
Then she stepped out onto the granite landing.
Penny was practically buried inside her oversized charcoal coat, a thick cream scarf wound twice around her throat, her dark curls escaping the edge of a knitted headband.
She had her head down, marching with that hurried, fierce cadence, carrying an overstuffed canvas satchel on her left shoulder while clutching two massive biomechanics textbooks against her ribs with both arms.
She looked small against the stone facade, weighed down by thirty pounds of paper and the burden of trying to outwork the entire world.
I pushed off the iron railing, closing the distance in five long, unhurried strides.
I stepped directly into her path.
Penny pulled up short, her snow boots skidding half an inch on the damp granite step. Her chin snapped up, her hazel eyes widening in sudden, startled recognition as she registered the six-foot-four wall of black wool blocking her way.
The faint rose color in her cheeks deepened instantly, a flush crawling up the pale skin of her neck beneath her scarf.
"Justin," she whispered, her voice tight, darting a quick, nervous glance at the two medical students brushing past our elbows. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in film review."
I didn't answer.
I reached out with my left hand and smoothly caught the heavy canvas strap of her satchel. With one effortless tug, I lifted the bag off her shoulder, transferring the weight to my own arm.
Penny stiffened, her mouth falling open. "Give that back!"
Before she could pull away, my right hand reached down, sliding between her forearms and the heavy textbooks. My knuckles brushed the front of her coat, my palm cupping the spine of the volumes, stripping them from her grip before she could clamp her fingers shut.
"Justin, stop it," she hissed, her voice trembling with frantic agitation as she reached for the books. "Give me my bag! Everyone from Vance’s department walks down these steps. What is wrong with you?"
I shifted her books beneath my left arm, beside her satchel.
Then I stepped forward, closing the remaining foot of space between us until the front of my wool coat brushed hers.
My right hand rose. My palm, warm and heavy, flattened firmly against the small of her back, right over the curve of her spine.
The heat of my hand pressed through the wool of her coat, burning straight through to the thin cotton of her clothes.
Penny’s breath caught in a sharp, audible hitch, her eyes locking onto mine in pure, breathless shock.
"Walk, Penny," I murmured, my voice a deep, steady rumble that cut straight through the chatter of the passing students.
"You can't touch me like this in the middle of the quad—"
"I can," I said, leaning down until my jaw was two inches from her temple, applying a steady, irresistible pressure to the small of her back that nudged her down the granite steps. "And I am. Move your feet, sweetheart."
She tried to plant her heels, her chin tilting up in defiant rebellion, but the heavy, unyielding warmth of my hand on her lower back left her no room to maneuver.
She had to walk, or she had to lean into my chest to stop me.
With a sharp, furious exhale that misted the cold air, she turned, letting me guide her off the main walkway down the deserted gravel spur leading to the athletic complex curb, where my black pickup truck was idling with the heat blasting.
* * *
I opened the passenger door, took her elbow to help her up into the high cab, and tossed her heavy satchel and textbooks into the wide backseat.
When I climbed behind the wheel and pulled my door shut, the latch clicked home with that familiar, heavy finality, cutting off the Adirondack chill.
The cab was warm, smelling of cedarwood, old leather, and the steam rising from a cardboard tray resting on the center console. In the holder sat a large travel mug of hot peppermint tea and a warm, foil-wrapped toasted bagel with cream cheese from the bagel shop on Margaret Street.
Penny sat rigid in the passenger seat, her seatbelt unclicked, her hands knotted into tight balls on top of her denim-clad thighs.
Her hazel eyes were blazing with gold flecks, her chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow bursts.
"Are you completely out of your mind?" she demanded, turning on me the second the glass fogged over. "Dean Sterling’s office is on the third floor of that building! If Brianna Diaz saw you carrying my bag, she’d have an ethics report filed before noon!
You can't just ambush me in public and drag me into your truck! "
I didn't rush. I unbuttoned my varsity coat, rolling my shoulders back, letting the heat of the cab sink into my skin.
I picked up the foil-wrapped bagel, peeled back the silver paper, and laid it in her lap.
"Eat," I commanded softly.
Penny stared down at the food, then glared back at my face, her jaw locked tight. "I am not hungry."
"You haven't had breakfast since five this morning," I countered, leaning my left forearm against the top of the steering wheel, turning my torso to face her. "Eat the bagel, Penny. Then we talk."
"I don't take orders from you, Ibarra."
A slow, dark amusement curled in my chest, low and dangerous.
I unbuckled my belt, slid across the leather bench seat, and invaded her perimeter until my shadow covered her entirely.
Penny’s breath stuttered. Her hands flew up, flattening against my chest, her fingers curling into the dark gray thermal covering my sternum. She tried to push back, but her spine hit the door panel, leaving her completely caged between my heavy frame and the frosted glass.
"Let's establish the new ground rules, sweetheart," I rumbled, my voice dropping into that thick, gravel-scraped bass that vibrated straight through her fingers into my chest.
"There are no rules between us," she whispered, but the words lacked teeth, her pupils dilating until the dark brown swallowed the gold.
"There are," I said, leaning down until my lips were a breath away from the curve of her jaw. "Rule number one: the lie about professional distance is dead. You don't hide behind clipboards, and you don't pretend you didn't look at me in that basement like I owned every breath in your lungs."
A soft, shuddering gasp caught in her throat.
"Rule number two," I continued, my thumb coming up to hook beneath her chin, tilting her face upward into the dim light of the cab. "You don't carry thirty pounds of books across an icy campus when my truck is parked fifty yards away. You call me. I carry your bag."
"I can carry my own things," she breathed, her lips trembling, mere inches from mine.
"Not anymore," I rasped, my thumb smoothing with slow, deliberate pressure across her lower lip, parting the soft, chapped skin. "Rule number three: you answer my texts. You don't wait forty-eight hours. You don't lock your blinds. You stay where I can see you."
Penny’s hazel eyes searched mine, frantic and wide, caught in the suffocating gravity of the space between us. Her small hands remained twisted in my shirt, her fingers clinging to the cotton over my heart, her pulse hammering visibly in the hollow of her neck.
"And what gives you the right to dictate my life, Justin?" she asked, her voice cracking on a fragile, breathless edge.
I didn't answer with words.
I pressed my thumb deeper into the soft flesh beneath her chin, holding her gaze until the stubborn defiance in her eyes wavered, softening into a helpless, trembling surrender that set my blood ablaze.
I reached down with my free hand, picked up half the warm bagel, and brought it to her mouth.
"Take a bite, Penny," I commanded, my voice a dark, velvet rumble against her lips.
Her eyelashes fluttered. Her throat worked on a dry, difficult swallow.
She looked into my eyes, held my gaze for three agonizing heartbeats, and then slowly, delicately parted her lips, taking a small bite from the bread in my hand.
A heavy, scalding warmth spread across my chest, thick as molten iron.
I set the bread back down, my fingers sliding from her chin to cradle the heated curve of her jaw, my thumb stroking the rapid pulse leaping against her neck.
"Good girl," I murmured, the praise scraping low and raw against her ear, thick with dark satisfaction. "That's how it's going to be from now on."
Penny let out a long, shuddering breath, her forehead dropping forward to rest against the hard curve of my collarbone, yielding to the weight of my hands.
She had accepted the leash.
And neither of us was ever going to look back.