Chapter 17
Penny Correa POV
The municipal storm horn began its low, mechanical groan over Plattsburgh just as Justin’s truck cleared the drifts on Cumberland Avenue.
Eighty days remained until the ECAC Championship in Lake Placid.
Justin swung the wheel with one hand, the heavy-duty tires churning through an eight-inch drift as he navigated a narrow, tree-lined lane bordering the frozen bay.
He pulled into a short gravel drive fronting a detached, two-story converted carriage house of dark industrial brick and weathered slate.
"Out," he ordered, killing the engine.
The wind hit like an open palm the second I shoved my door open. The hem of my emerald-green silk dress whipped violently against my ankles, soaking up freezing slush from the drift, the Adirondack gale cutting straight through the silk to freeze the skin over my ribs.
Justin was already around the front of the truck. His heavy wool tuxedo coat fell across my bare shoulders, smelling of cedar and his body heat, his arm wrapping around my waist to haul me through the mounting powder toward the front porch.
He unlocked the thick timber door, ushered me inside, and stepped in behind me.
The door slammed shut against the gale.
Justin reached out and turned the heavy brass deadbolt, the mechanism seating into the steel frame with a solid, definitive clack. He dropped his truck keys into a ceramic tray on the console table.
The silence that followed was sudden and absolute.
Outside, sixty-mile-per-hour gusts battered the casement windows, but inside, the air was warm, smelling of cedarwood, leather upholstery, fresh laundry, and the dry mineral heat of cast-iron radiators ticking beneath the sills.
I stood on the dark hardwood floor, shivering in my damp dress, taking in his private world for the first time.
There was no college debris. No crushed beer cans, no discarded takeout cartons, no clutter.
The space was sparse, disciplined, and immaculately kept—a deep charcoal leather sofa fronting a low stone hearth where orange embers still pulsed from an earlier fire, a single pine dining table stacked with hockey playbooks and game film notebooks, and his dark canvas road duffel zipped shut beside the coat rack.
A sanctuary built by a man who kept the rest of the world locked outside the glass.
And now, the deadbolt was thrown, the roads were buried, and I was standing on the inside.
* * *
Justin shrugged off his suit jacket, tossing it onto the armchair, his fingers immediately moving to loosen his black silk bow tie. He ripped the knot free, pulling the collar of his white dress shirt open to expose the hollow of his throat and the corded muscle of his neck.
His dark eyes swept down my frame, taking in the wet, dark silk clinging to my calves and the violent tremor in my jaw.
"Bathroom is through that door," he said, his voice a low, gravel-edged command that brooked no argument. "Take off the dress."
My teeth chattered faintly as I looked at him. "Justin, I can just dry the hem—"
"Penny." He stepped forward, his knuckles brushing the freezing skin of my cheek, his palm hot as an open stove. "You're turning blue. Go."
He reached into a clean linen closet beside the hall, pulled out a thick gray bath towel and a folded stack of clothes, and shoved them into my arms.
I retreated into the bathroom, clicking the door shut behind me.
The room was clean, smelling of sandalwood soap and shave cream. I set the bundle on the counter and caught my reflection in the mirror above the sink.
My hair was a ruined tangle of dark curls escaping Chloe's pins, my cheeks flushed bright pink from the gale, my hazel eyes wide and dilated.
With shaking fingers, I reached behind my back, pulled the zipper down the spine of my emerald gown, and let the silk pool around my bare feet on the bathmat.
I picked up the clothes he had given me.
A pair of his charcoal flannel sweatpants and an oversized, heather-gray Ironclads training hoodie with the number four stamped in faded black across the chest.
I pulled the sweatpants on first. The waist was so wide on my hips that I had to cinch the cotton drawstrings until they were taut, rolling the thick waistband three times so the cuffs wouldn't drag beneath my heels.
Then I pulled the hoodie over my head.
The fleece fell over my frame, heavy, thick, and warm, the hem brushing the middle of my thighs. The ribbed cuffs swallowed my wrists, the sleeves hanging past my fingertips.
The fabric carried him. It didn't just smell like laundry; it smelled like his skin, like crushed cedar, cold rink ice, and the deep, steady heat that radiated from his chest.
A heavy, scalding warmth rushed beneath my cold skin, settling deep into the pit of my stomach.
I took a slow, deep breath, smoothing my hands down the fleece, feeling the phantom imprint of his name across my chest. The armor of my formal dress was gone. The clinical distance of my scrubs was gone.
I was wearing his clothes in his home, marooned by a blizzard that had cut us off from the rest of the earth.
I turned the brass knob, stepped out of the bathroom, and padded back into the living room on bare feet.
* * *
The only illumination in the room came from the amber glow of the hearth and a single, low-wattage iron lamp in the corner.
Justin was standing by the small galley kitchen counter, pouring steaming water from a kettle into two heavy ceramic mugs.
He had stripped off his tuxedo shirt.
He wore only dark flannel lounge pants and a fitted black sleeveless undershirt that clung to his wide chest, leaving the heavy, scarred muscle of his shoulders and vascular arms bare to the warm air.
The jagged white line through his left eyebrow stood out starkly in the firelight, his dark hair falling across his forehead, freed from the slick pomade he had worn at the gala.
When my bare feet scuffed against the hardwood, he turned.
His boots froze on the floor.
The ceramic mug hovered two inches above the counter. His dark, hooded eyes dropped from my face, traveling down the immense gray hoodie swallowing my frame, down to the rolled flannel waistband, down to my bare toes curling against the floorboards.
The air in the room grew thick, volatile, and heavy as lead.
His chest stopped moving. The muscle along his masseter twitched hard, his throat working on a slow, difficult swallow as his pupils dilated until the dark brown was swallowed by ink.
"Look at you," he murmured, his voice scraping out of him, raw as unpolished granite.
A flush rushed up my neck, coloring the skin above the gray collar, but I held his gaze. "They're a little big."
"They're perfect," he rumbled, the praise thick with a dark, territorial gravity that made my pulse hammer against my ribs.
He picked up the two mugs, crossed the living room in three silent strides, and set them down on the low cedar coffee table before the fire.
He sat on the leather couch, not on the far side, but directly in the center, leaving barely a foot of space.
"Come here, Penny."
I didn't hesitate. I crossed the floor, the wood cool beneath my arches, and sat beside him on the deep cushions.
The heat coming off his bare arms and chest was an unrelenting furnace, washing over me, driving the remaining chill from my bones.
Justin didn't reach for the tea.
He reached out with both hands, his large, calloused fingers sliding around my small, icy hands. He pulled them toward his chest, sandwiching my fingers between his broad, scalding palms, slowly rubbing warmth back into my skin with heavy, rhythmic strokes.
"Your hands are like ice," he murmured, his thumbs smoothing across my knuckles, tracing the outline of the silver ring on my left thumb.
"The wind came right off the water," I whispered, watching the contrast of his massive, scarred hands wrapped around mine.
The silence of the room settled over us, broken only by the howl of the blizzard throwing snow against the glass and the snap of birch logs in the hearth.
"You didn't have to defend me tonight," he said quietly, his gaze fixed on our joined hands, his voice dropping into that raw, stripped-bare register he only used when we were alone. "Arthur Shaw has been throwing his weight around this program for three years. I'm used to taking his hits."
"He was trying to break you, Justin," I said, my voice steady despite the rapid thudding of my heart. "He was using your brother to make you bleed in front of the people who hold your future. I wasn't going to sit there and let him do that."
Justin’s hands stopped moving.
He slowly looked up, his dark eyes burning into mine with an intensity so profound, so devastating, that it knocked the remaining air from my lungs.
"Nobody has ever stood in front of me like that, Penny," he rasped, his voice trembling faintly with an emotion he couldn't hide. "Not once in my life."
"Then they were blind," I whispered.
Justin released my hands.
His right arm rose, his large, warm palm cupping the side of my neck, his fingers sliding into the dark curls at my nape.
With a slow, undeniable pressure, he pulled me across the leather cushions until I was seated sideways across his lap, my thighs resting over his muscular legs, my chest pressed flush against the black cotton of his undershirt.
My hands came up on instinct, flattening against his broad shoulders, feeling the hard, coiled strength of the muscle beneath my palms.
The scent of him—cedar, fire smoke, and hot skin—surrounded me like a fortress, sealing out the storm, sealing out the world, sealing out every doubt I had ever carried.
He leaned down until his lips were a fraction of an inch from mine, his warm, mint-scented breath washing over my parted mouth.
His scarred thumb smoothed along the curve of my jaw, tilting my face upward, his hooded eyes searching mine in the amber firelight.
"The county is closed, Penny," he whispered, each word scraping over my sensitized skin like dark velvet. "The snow is three feet deep. There are no coaches out there. There are no scouts. There's no Vance, no Dean Sterling, and no rules."
My breath hitched in my throat, my fingers tightening in the fabric over his shoulders. "Justin..."
"I am done holding this leash, sweetheart," he rasped against my lips, his voice a low, ruined promise that set my entire nervous system on fire. "I am done pretending I can survive without you."
I looked into the dark, beautiful ruin of his face, and the last breath of fear left my lungs.
"Then don't," I whispered against his mouth.
And the blizzard outside faded into nothing.