Chapter 11
Kiyomi POV
The steam rising from my black coffee did nothing to cut through the chill settling deep into the marrow of my hands.
Eight o'clock on Saturday morning. Outside the galley kitchen window of our Preble Street flat, a thin crust of gray frost coated the power lines, shivering under a bitter northern draft coming off the harbor.
My lower lip stung with an invisible burn. Every time I drew a breath, the phantom pressure of Mauricio Leal’s calloused thumb brushing across my mouth in the cab of his truck flared hot and sharp against my skin.
I hadn't slept. Whenever my eyelids grew heavy, my mind dragged me straight back to the dark interior of that Ford F-150: the console plastic creaking under his knee, the scorching radiant heat rolling off his chest, and his gravelly voice whispering into the corner of my mouth, daring me to push him away.
I had wanted him to kiss me. The realization sat in my stomach like a block of frozen salt, heavy and toxic.
I spun the silver ring on my left thumb with mechanical ferocity, over and over, until the metal bit into the flesh of my knuckle. Across the small laminate table, Chloe Zhang set down her white ceramic mug with a muted click.
She was wearing her gray fleece robe, her dark hair pulled back into a loose knot, smelling of pool chlorine and almond soap.
Her hooded eyes swept over my posture, tracking the rigid line of my spine, the tight set of my jaw, and the blue clinical logbook clamped beneath my forearm like an infantry shield.
"You've rewritten the same heading on that spreadsheet three times, Kiyomi," Chloe said quietly.
I kept my eyes fixed on the black lines of the force-distribution grid. "The calibration coefficients from the Vermont series need to be cross-referenced before Monday."
"You didn't come home until past two." Chloe leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table.
Her gaze dropped to my left wrist, lingering on the faint red mark where Mauricio had held me still against the vinyl examination table while I dressed his brow.
"And you didn't take your boots off until three. I heard you pacing the floorboards."
My throat locked on a dry swallow. A cold wave of adrenaline prickled behind my collarbones.
"The team doctor wasn't available," I said, forcing each word to come out measured, flat, and clinical. "Mauricio had a laceration over his left eye that needed closure, and his ribs took a heavy stick check in the third period. I handled the basic wound dressing and drove back."
"He drove you back," Chloe corrected, her voice dropping into that quiet, unnerving register she used when assessing split-second race margins.
"I looked through the blinds when the truck pulled up to the curb.
He sat outside with the engine idling for four full minutes after you got out. Just watching the front door."
My fingernails dug into the edge of the blue binder. "He was making sure I got inside. It was freezing."
"Men like Mauricio Leal don't play chauffeur out of neighborly courtesy," Chloe said.
She reached across the table, her cool fingers catching mine, forcing my thumb to stop its frantic spinning.
"He is an enforcer, Kiyomi. On the ice, his entire job is to clear bodies and protect territory. Off the ice, he carries enough baggage to crush an entire line. If you let him crowd your space, he will pull you into whatever storm he’s running from, and your fellowship won't survive the wreckage. "
"I am not in his storm," I said, pulling my hand back and sliding the blue logbook into my canvas satchel.
"We have thirty-six hours of compliance monitoring left.
I am dropping this folder in Arthur Vance's departmental lockbox, and then I am spending the rest of the weekend in the library.
He is a subject in a study. Nothing more. "
Chloe watched me rise from the chair, her expression heavy with doubt. "You keep telling yourself that, Blake. Just make sure your boots are strapped on when the ice cracks."
* * *
The varsity athletic complex smelled of floor wax, powdered chalk, and the sour tang of damp rubber.
It was eleven-fifteen. The main concourse was empty, but the second-floor mezzanine hummed with the steady, metallic clang of the high-performance weight room.
To reach Director Vance’s administrative suite, I had to cross the elevated indoor walkway that ran parallel to the training floor, separated only by a waist-high railing and forty feet of open air.
I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead on the frosted glass doors at the far end of the corridor, my boots striking the rubber floor with brisk, rhythmic strides.
Drop the files. Walk out. Go to the library.
A sharp, familiar crash of heavy iron echoed from the free-weight pit below.
Against every rational instinct in my head, my steps slowed. My gaze slipped over the steel railing, dropping into the center of the training floor.
Mauricio was lying flat on the heavy bench press.
Three hundred and fifteen pounds of iron plates were loaded onto the Olympic bar, the steel bowing slightly under the mass.
He wore a dark charcoal compression shirt with the sleeves torn off, revealing the thick, corded muscle of his shoulders and the dark, raised veins branching down his forearms like topographical maps.
The white butterfly bandages I had pressed onto his left brow were still in place, stark against his olive skin.
Gabriel Thorne stood behind the bench, his hands hovering near the knurling, watching the lift.
Mauricio unhooked the bar.
His chest expanded in a massive, controlled draw of air. He brought the steel down with agonizing slowness, touching the bar to the center of his sternum—right over the spot where my hand had been flattened twelve hours ago—before driving it upward with brutal, explosive force.
On the third repetition, as the plates reached full lockout, his head turned.
He didn't look at the ceiling. He didn't look at Gabe.
His dark umber eyes looked straight into the wall-length mirrors lining the mezzanine, locking onto my reflection forty feet above him.
The air vanished from my lungs.
My feet froze on the rubber runner. A hot flush surged up the sides of my neck, burning across my cheekbones with dizzying speed.
He didn't break the stare. He lowered the three hundred and fifteen pounds again, his pectoral muscles bunching under the thin charcoal fabric, his jaw clenched so hard the masseter muscle jumped in his cheek.
He pressed the bar upward, his eyes boring through the glass, holding me pinned against the iron railing without a single word.
He knew I was watching. He had felt me enter the building before my boots had crossed the threshold.
Gabe shouted something over the clatter of weights, but Mauricio’s focus never wavered. He guided the bar back into the steel J-hooks with a concussive, echoing clang that reverberated through the soles of my shoes.
He sat up on the bench, his broad chest heaving, steam rising off his damp shoulders in the chilly gym air. He reached for a white towel, his gaze still locked onto mine through the mirror, his dark brows drawing together in a flat, dangerous challenge.
Panic hit my bloodstream like a shot of ice water.
I turned on my heel, clutching my satchel against my ribs, and broke into a fast, hurried walk toward the south stairwell exit.
* * *
My breath scraped through my throat in ragged, shallow pulls as I pushed through the heavy steel fire door into the stairwell.
The concrete enclosure was frigid, echoing with the sound of my hurried descent. My heart hammered against my ribcage like an engine running without oil.
You're running, my brain hissed. You're running from a look in a mirror.
I didn't care. The air around him was too thin; it stripped my defenses down to raw nerves. I needed to get outside into the twenty-degree wind, into my car, away from the heavy scent of cedar and sweat that seemed to coat the inside of this facility.
I reached the ground-floor landing, hit the horizontal push-bar of the exterior exit door with my shoulder, and threw my weight forward.
The door didn't open.
A massive, calloused hand slammed flat against the exterior face of the steel frame from the outside hallway, arresting the door’s swing with a dull, violent boom that vibrated through the metal.
The door was shoved backward into the frame, forcing me back onto the concrete landing.
Mauricio stepped into the doorway, completely blocking the exit.
He hadn't stopped to put on a jacket. He stood in his sleeveless compression shirt and shorts, a sheen of fresh sweat glistening on his collarbones, his chest rising and falling in deep, heavy draws.
The cold draft from the stairwell ruffled the damp edges of his dark hair, but his body radiated heat like an open furnace.
He pulled the heavy door shut behind him. The latch clicked into place with a sound that felt final.
The concrete stairwell shrank until there was no room left to breathe.
"You're in a hurry, Blake," he said. His voice was a low, gravelly rasp that scraped over the bare concrete walls.
I took a half-step back, my boots hitting the bottom riser of the iron stairs. I pulled my satchel higher on my shoulder, tilting my chin up four inches to meet his hooded, unblinking stare.
"I have work in the library, Mauricio. Move out of my way."
He didn't move an inch. Instead, he closed the four feet of distance between us in two slow, deliberate strides. He stopped when the toes of his black training shoes were inches from my boots, his towering six-foot-four frame blotting out the yellow glare of the overhead stairwell light.
The scent of him—crushed pine, cold iron, salt, and clean soap—swallowed my airspace.
"You didn't drop the logs in Vance's box," he said, his gaze dropping to the blue binder peeking out of my bag. "You saw me on the bench, and you turned around to run out the fire door."
"I don't run from anyone," I whispered, the lie trembling between us in the cold air.
"Liar."
He reached out, his thick fingers catching the nylon strap of my satchel, sliding it off my shoulder. He dropped the heavy bag onto the concrete floor with a dull thud.
Before I could protest, his large hand came up, his calloused palm wrapping around the back of my neck, his thumb settling firmly against the side of my jaw. His skin was burning hot against my freezing flesh, rough from hockey tape, anchoring my face upward.
My breath hitched sharply in my throat. My hands came up instinctively, my knuckles pressing flat against the hard, damp cotton over his ribs to push him away, but my fingers refused to shove.
They curled into the fabric instead, holding on as a dizzying rush of heat swept from my collarbones to the pit of my stomach.
Mauricio leaned down, his face inches from mine, his umber eyes dark as midnight, tracking the rapid, frantic beat of the pulse jumping in the hollow of my throat.
"You've been avoiding my face since I dropped you off at two in the morning," he growled softly, his voice vibrating through the bones of my jaw. "You think you can pretend what happened in that truck didn't happen?"
"Nothing happened," I breathed, my lips parted, my gaze trapped by the raw, dangerous hunger carved into his features.
"We were half an inch away from burning this entire building down, Kiyomi," he rasped, his thumb dragging slowly across the soft curve of my lower lip, parting it further. "And you know it."
His head dipped lower. His hot breath brushed against my mouth, smelling of mint and heavy exertion, making my knees go weak beneath my jeans.
"You aren't running from me anymore," he whispered against my lips. "We finish this."