Chapter 15
Penny Correa POV
The Grand Ballroom of the Lake Champlain Hotel smelled of white pine, expensive gardenia perfume, and roasted tenderloin.
Suspended from thirty-foot timber trusses, cut-crystal chandeliers cast amber light across four hundred guests in black tie.
Diamond cuffs caught the glare; champagne flutes clinked in rhythmic, polite cadence against porcelain dessert plates; and through the floor-to-ceiling French doors lining the north wall, the black, frozen expanse of the lake stretched into the Adirondack night.
Eighty-one days remained until the ECAC Championship in Lake Placid.
I stood at the edge of the parquet floor smoothing down the skirt of my emerald-green silk slip dress.
The fabric was bias-cut, falling to my ankles with a slit on the left thigh that showed just enough skin to feel dangerous, the thin straps leaving my shoulders and collarbones bare to the cold drafts drifting off the terrace.
Chloe had spent forty minutes pinning my dark curls into an intricate, soft twist at the crown of my head, leaving a few loose ringlets to frame my jaw.
I had spent the first hour of the evening behind the check-in credenza with Dr. Marcus Vance, logging arrival credentials for university trustees and major donors.
Now, my fingers were cold, my knuckles aching faintly as I spun the silver signet ring on my left thumb.
Then the double oak doors of the foyer swung wide, and the room seemed to lose two degrees of temperature in an instant.
Justin walked in.
My breath caught in a sharp, dry knot at the base of my throat.
I had seen him bruised, bleeding, stripped to his shorts on cold concrete, and soaking in sweat after twenty-minute skating intervals. None of it prepared me for the sight of him in black tie.
His tuxedo was custom-tailored, black wool clinging to broad clavicles and an imposing, narrow-waisted frame that made every other varsity athlete in the room look like an unfinished draft.
The crisp white dress shirt was buttoned to the throat beneath a black silk bow tie, emphasizing the sharp, brutal cut of his jaw.
His dark hair was combed back with pomade, the faint wave tamed into ruthless order, while the two-inch jagged white scar through his left eyebrow stood out like a challenge against his bronze skin.
He was six-foot-four of unyielding mass, moving with that slow, predatory economy that turned heads the second he crossed the threshold.
Walking beside him was Coach Bradley Hauer and a tall, silver-haired man in a charcoal tuxedo with a gold Boston Bruins lapel pin: Raymond Cole, the Director of Player Personnel.
Justin didn't look at the photographers flashing lenses by the ice sculpture. He didn't look at the boosters reaching out to slap his broad back.
He turned his head toward the perimeter of the ballroom, his dark, hooded gaze cutting cleanly over forty tables of chattering donors.
His eyes locked onto mine.
Across fifty yards of crowded space, the impact was physical. His dark pupils dilated, black swallowing the brown, his gaze dropping from my face to the bare skin of my throat, tracing the emerald silk clinging to the swell of my breasts, down to the slit in my skirt.
He didn't smile. He didn't offer a polite nod of recognition.
He looked at me with an unblinking, heavy possession that set the skin along my breastbone on fire, warning me that the rules he had rumbled against my ear in his truck were active in this room.
* * *
"Penny, join us at table four," Dr. Vance said, appearing at my elbow with two glasses of mineral water. "Dean Sterling requested our department sit with the scouting delegation. They want a firsthand summary of our neuromuscular tracking protocols."
The blood drummed hard in my ears as Vance guided me through the maze of white linen tables toward the raised platform near the podium.
Table four was the Athletics Executive table.
Dean Arthur Sterling sat at the head, Coach Hauer to his right, Raymond Cole to his left. And directly between Vance’s assigned chair and Raymond Cole sat Justin.
I pulled out the chair between Justin and Dr. Vance, the silk of my dress rustling softly against the damask linen.
As I sat down, Justin didn't shift away to offer me room. His heavy shoulder, clad in black wool, brushed against my bare arm. The heat of his body burned through the fabric, an unrelenting wall of warmth that made my lungs seize on the floral air.
"Good evening, Correa," he murmured, his voice a low, gravel-edged baritone that didn't rise above the clatter of silverware.
"Captain," I replied, keeping my tone clipped, cool, and detached, staring straight ahead at my silver bread plate.
"Raymond," Dean Sterling said, leaning across the table, his wine glass raised. "This is Penny Correa. Top researcher in our kinesiology division. She’s been running Justin's post-collision kinematics."
Raymond Cole turned his sharp, calculating gray eyes onto me. "The boy's skating looks clean, Miss Correa. We were concerned about the joint laxity after that hit in the McGill exhibition. What are your numbers showing on the bilateral torque?"
Beside me, Justin took a slow sip from his crystal water goblet with his left hand.
Beneath the drape of the heavy white linen tablecloth—completely concealed from Dean Sterling, Coach Hauer, and the Bruins director—his right hand moved.
His large, calloused palm slid beneath the linen, moving across the narrow space between our chairs.
His fingers settled flat against the bare skin of my left knee, right where the slit in my emerald dress parted.
My breath locked behind my teeth. A violent tremor rippled through the muscles of my thigh.
I kept my chin level, forcing my voice to maintain the crisp, clinical rhythm of an academic defense.
"His isokinetic profile is tracking at eighty-two percent bilateral symmetry, Mr. Cole.
Scapulothoracic upward rotation is within five degrees of baseline, and we have eliminated the subscapular hitch on his follow-through. "
"Impressive," Cole noted, nodding slowly. "Hauer tells me he hasn't taken a minor penalty in two weeks. Disciplined habits on the ice translate to longevity in our system."
Beneath the table, Justin’s thumb moved.
He didn't keep his hand still. With slow, agonizing pressure, his thumb traced a heavy, deliberate circle across the sensitive skin above my kneecap, before his broad fingers slid four inches higher, gripping the soft flesh of my inner thigh under the silk.
The heat of his palm was scalding, his calloused skin dragging against my bare leg with an unhurried, devastating friction.
A flush crawled up from my collarbones, staining my cheeks pink. My fingers clamped down on the linen napkin in my lap, my nails digging into the damask until my knuckles turned white.
I discreetly shifted my leg two inches to the right, attempting to break the contact.
Justin’s grip tightened instantly.
His fingers pressed into my thigh with firm, quiet authority, anchoring my leg against the edge of his chair, refusing to yield an inch of territory.
Beside me, Justin leaned toward Raymond Cole, his face a mask of calm, polished professionalism. "I'm focusing on positioning, sir. Coach wants me controlling the blue line with leverage instead of drawing misconducts."
"That's what wins championships, son," Cole agreed.
Beneath the table, Justin’s thumb dragged another inch higher, brushing against the hem of my underwear beneath the silk.
My throat contracted on a dry swallow. A shudder ran through my lower back, my pulse hammering so violently in my temples that the clinking glassware around the room sounded muffled and far away.
I looked at him sideways.
Justin didn't turn his head, but his jaw clenched, the muscle along his masseter ticking once, letting me know that he was feeling every fraction of an inch of the friction passing between his palm and my skin.
* * *
"Ladies and gentlemen," Dean Sterling’s voice boomed over the public address system as he stepped up to the podium on the dais. "Please welcome the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for our annual endowment report."
The chandelier banks dimmed to half-power, spotlights sweeping across the stage as the ballroom erupted in polite, heavy applause.
The darkness was my only chance.
I leaned toward Dr. Vance, whispering that I needed to check on the student credential logs in the foyer. Before Vance could answer, I slid my chair back, pulled my leg out from beneath Justin’s grip, and stood up, smoothing the emerald silk over my trembling thighs.
I walked swiftly between the round tables, heading for the double French doors on the far north terrace.
The winter air hit my face like an icy slap as I stepped through the doors onto the stone loggia. The terrace was dark, deserted, and shielded from the driving lake wind by a thick set of floor-to-ceiling emerald-velvet blackout drapes that partitioned off the private smoking balcony.
I pressed my back against the cold granite pillar, my lungs pulling in the sub-zero draft, trying to extinguish the fire burning beneath my ribs.
My hands were shaking as I raised them to press against my flushed cheeks.
You're losing your mind, I told myself. You're going to get caught at an executive table in front of Boston's front office.
The heavy velvet drape rustled behind me.
A shadow cut off the faint ambient light from the ballroom.
The curtain fell back into place with a muffled, heavy thud, sealing the stone alcove in near-total darkness.
Before I could turn, a pair of large, warm hands settled firmly onto my bare hips, spinning me around and pinning my spine back against the granite pillar.
The heavy black wool of Justin’s tuxedo jacket brushed against my bare shoulders, cutting off the draft, trapping me in the familiar scent of cedar, mint, and scalding body heat.
"Running away, Correa?" he rumbled, his voice a low, ruined whisper that scraped across the sensitive curve of my throat.
My hands came up on instinct, clutching the black satin lapels of his jacket, my fingers twisting into the silk. "Justin, stop! Raymond Cole is forty feet away! If someone walks out here—"
"Nobody is coming out here," he rasped, leaning down until his lips brushed the heated skin beneath my ear.
His hand slid around to the small of my back, lifting me an inch off the stone, pressing my hips flush against his. The solid, heavy mass of his body was an unyielding furnace against the Adirondack frost.
His other hand rose, his thumb catching the angle of my chin, tilting my face upward into the gloom until our mouths were a fraction of an inch apart.
"You're driving me out of my mind in this dress," he whispered, his hot breath pluming white between our lips, thick with raw, possessive hunger. "Sitting there at that table... reciting my torque numbers while I had my hand between your thighs."
A soft, broken whimper slipped from my mouth.
His thumb dragged across my bottom lip, parting the slick fullness, his eyes burning black in the dim light.
"Good girl," he rumbled against my lips, the praise vibrating straight through my ribs like a physical blow. "Keeping that straight face while I marked you under the table. That's my girl."
My knees weakened, all the defiance in my chest dissolving into a breathless shiver that arched my back against the cold stone.
Justin leaned in, his lips grazing the corner of my mouth, his grip on my waist tightening until I couldn't pull in air.
Then, the heavy brass latch of the French doors rattled on the other side of the velvet drape.
Heavy, polished leather dress shoes clicked against the exterior stone.
"Arthur, let's take our cigars outside," Coach Hauer’s gravelly voice spoke, barely two feet away on the other side of the fabric. "Raymond wants to talk about Ibarra’s signing timeline before the second course."
The footsteps stopped directly outside our curtain.
I froze against the pillar, my breath trapped in my throat, my fingernails digging into the satin of Justin’s lapels.
Justin didn't step back. He didn't let go of my waist.
In the pitch-black alcove, he kept his body pressed flush against mine, his dark eyes locked on mine, his thumb resting over the wild, frantic pulse jumping at the base of my neck, waiting in the dark to see if the world was about to burn.