Chapter 17
Kiyomi POV
The municipal storm warning horn sounded three long, low blasts from the harbor, its mechanical wail muffled by the roar of thirty-knot winds driving across Casco Bay.
Outside the passenger window of Mauricio’s truck, the world had disappeared into a blinding sheet of white.
A massive pine limb had crashed across the telephone wires on Preble Street, blocking the access lane to my flat by four feet of packed snow and live voltage.
Mauricio had swung the Ford F-150 south without asking.
He pulled the truck into the private gravel driveway of a converted red-brick carriage house nestled behind a row of wind-twisted spruce trees in South Portland. The engine died, the sudden silence inside the cab heavy and charged.
He didn't wait. He stepped out into the blizzard, rounded the hood in knee-deep drifts, and opened my door.
Before the sub-zero draft could freeze the breath in my throat, his heavy black wool overcoat was thrown around my shoulders, his large arm locking around my waist to haul me up the snow-choked porch steps.
He unlocked the heavy timber door and pushed me inside.
The heat of the apartment hit my face like a warm hand.
I stepped onto a wide braided wool rug in the entryway, shivering as the freezing wind died behind us.
The lock turned with a heavy, metallic thunk. Mauricio flipped the deadbolt, dropped his brass keys into a shallow ceramic bowl on the console table, and leaned his back against the solid wood.
The apartment was dark, illuminated only by the amber glow of a streetlamp filtering through panoramic leaded glass windows facing the storm.
The space was clean, austere, and deeply quiet.
It smelled of seasoned cedar logs, worn leather upholstery, floor wax, and the crisp, clean scent of fresh cotton sheets.
Against the far brick wall, two cast-iron radiators hissed a steady, clanking rhythm of steam heat.
Mauricio reached out, peeling his heavy coat off my shoulders.
I stood in the center of his living room in my emerald silk gown, the hem darkened and dripping from wet slush, my arms covered in goosebumps, my teeth clicking together behind my lips.
He didn't speak. He stared down at me, his dark eyes taking in my trembling frame, the damp hair clinging to my collarbones, and the bare skin of my back exposed to the room.
The world outside was fifteen degrees below zero and howling, but inside this room, every external excuse had been stripped away.
We were marooned.
* * *
Mauricio unbuttoned the top two buttons of his dress shirt, pulling his black silk tie loose and tossing it onto the arm of a leather armchair.
"Bathroom is down the hall on the left," he said. His voice was a low, rough rasp that vibrated against the quiet of the room. "Water heater is on. Take that dress off."
He didn't wait for my response. He walked down the short corridor into what looked like his bedroom, returning ten seconds later with a thick, folded stack of dark gray fabric. He placed it in my hands.
"Get dry, Kiyomi," he commanded quietly.
My fingers curled into the soft, heavy cotton. I turned down the hallway, pushed the wooden bathroom door open, and clicked the latch shut.
The bathroom was spotless, smelling of tea-tree soap and clean tiles.
I reached behind my back, unzipping the emerald dress with trembling fingers.
The cold silk slid down my hips, pooling around my bare ankles like melted leaves.
I kicked it aside, leaning over the porcelain sink to splash hot water across my wind-chapped face, scrubbing away the gala makeup and the bitter salt of the ocean terrace.
Then I reached for his clothes.
The garment on top was a faded heather-gray Sentinel hockey hoodie, broken in by hundreds of washings. I pulled it over my head.
The heavy fleece engulfed me. The fabric was thick and warm, dropping all the way to the middle of my thighs, the ribbed cuffs falling six inches past my fingertips.
It smelled so strongly of him—crushed pine needles, cold iron, clean soap, and the dark, musky heat of his skin—that drawing a breath felt like letting him inside my lungs.
Beneath it, I pulled on a pair of his black flannel sweatpants. They were impossibly wide; I had to fold the thick elastic waistband twice and yank the drawstring tight until it knotted against my hipbones, the hems pooling over my bare feet.
Wearing his clothes was an intimacy that made my pulse thrum against my ribs. It felt heavier than the emerald silk, like a visible declaration that I belonged in his space.
I took three measured, disciplined breaths to steady the tremor in my chest, unlatched the door, and walked back out into the living room.
Mauricio was standing by the kitchen counter, pouring two glasses of water from a glass pitcher.
He had stripped off his formal wear. He wore a fitted black sleeveless shirt and dark charcoal training shorts.
His massive six-foot-four frame was laid bare in the amber lamplight: the dense, vascular muscle of his shoulders, the thick ridges of his ribs, and the pale white line of the old skate scar cutting across his collarbone.
The sound of my bare feet on the hardwood made him pause.
He turned slowly.
The glass in his hand remained suspended two inches above the counter.
His dark umber eyes dropped over me. He took in the sight of my small frame drowned in his gray hoodie, his sweatpants bunched at my waist, my dark hair falling loose and damp around my shoulders, my toes peeking out from beneath the dark flannel.
His jaw locked. His chest stopped rising.
A heavy, dark heat flared in his pupils, blowing them wide until only a thin rim of gold caught the lamplight. The air between the kitchen island and the hallway grew suffocatingly dense, thick with an unspoken, predatory gravity that pinned my feet to the floorboards.
* * *
He set the glass down with a muted clink.
"Come here," he rasped.
The command was soft, but it carried the weight of an iron cable.
My feet moved on their own. I crossed the hardwood floor, my bare toes sinking into the deep pile of the braided rug beside the wide charcoal sofa. The cast-iron radiator beneath the window clanked, radiating a dry, scorching heat that warmed the air around our knees.
Mauricio sat on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. He reached out, his large, warm hands catching my cold wrists, and with a gentle, steady pull, drew me between his parted knees.
His hands were furnaces.
He brought my fingers up between his palms, slowly rubbing friction into my frozen knuckles. His skin was rough from friction tape and heavy composite sticks, the calluses scratching softly against the sensitive skin of my palms.
A molten rush of heat crawled beneath my chilled skin, loosening the tight, defensive knot behind my sternum.
"Your hands are like ice," he murmured, his eyes fixed on the small silver ring on my left thumb as he warmed it.
"The wind off the water was bitter," I whispered, my voice barely carrying over the rattling of the windowpanes.
Mauricio went still. His thumb stroked slowly across the back of my hand, his gaze lifting to meet mine. The unmasked, terrifying devotion I had seen on the terrace burned in his eyes, stripped of every protective barrier he had ever built.
"Cross won't touch you, Kiyomi," he said, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly vibration that rattled through the floorboards.
"He won't touch your fellowship, and he won't touch your grant.
I had Gabe copy the arena security footage from the foyer before we left.
If Cross takes one step toward Hayes, I'll hand the file to the conference board myself. "
An involuntary ache pulled at my throat. "You didn't have to do that."
"I did." He released my hands, his arms sliding around my waist, gathering the thick gray fleece of his hoodie in his fists. He pulled me forward, lifting me slightly until I was seated flush across his lap, my thighs resting over his muscular legs, my knees tucked against his side.
My breath hitched sharply. My hands flew up, coming to rest flat against the bare, warm skin of his chest, right over his hammering heart.
The contact was devastating. His skin was burning hot, smelling of clean salt and cedar.
Mauricio reached up with one hand, his fingers sliding into the dark hair behind my ear, his thumb tracing the soft curve of my jawline, tilting my face upward until my lips were inches from his.
"You defended me out there," he whispered, his voice cracking on a ruined, raw note that stripped the remaining air from my chest. "You stood in front of that bastard and put your name on the line for me. Nobody has ever done that."
"You deserved to be defended, Mauricio," I breathed, my fingers curling against the hard muscle over his ribs.
He leaned down, his forehead resting gently against mine, his hot, ragged breath brushing across my parted lips. Outside, the storm shrieked against the glass, burying South Portland in feet of impassable snow, sealing the world away behind an impenetrable wall of white.
"The roads are closed until noon, Kiyomi," he whispered against my mouth, his thumb dragging across my lower lip, parting it with intoxicating slowness. "There are no coaches here. No compliance officers. No clipboards."
His lips grazed the corner of my mouth, rough and demanding, sending a sharp, sweet shiver straight down into my pelvis.
"I'm done running from you," he rasped into my skin. "And you aren't leaving this room."