Chapter 19: Crossing the Blue Line

Asya's POV

I stood at the blue line, my hands rested lightly on the top of my stick, my breath blooming in soft mist clouds. "You're positioning your defense too wide on the power play, Coach. If I take the lane inside your left skate, you can't close the angle in time."

Vance was standing ten feet away at the center circle, stripped down to a heavy dark thermal shirt and his track pants, holding his own stick with a casual, broad-shouldered power. A slow, dangerous smirk tugged at the corner of his jaw.

"Is that a challenge, love?" his deep, gravelly voice echoed off the quiet glass walls. "Because I seem to recall intercepting three of your inside drives during yesterday's drill."

"Yesterday I wasn't feeling my toes," I shot back, a bright, electric spark of playful competition rising in my chest. I tapped the blade of my stick twice against the ice, a crisp, sharp clack-clack. "Put a puck on the red line. One-on-one. Breakaway drive to the net."

He let out a low, rich chuckle, the sound vibrating straight through the cold air. He reached down, hooking a stray rubber disk with his blade and flicking it to the center dot. "If I strip the puck before you hit the slot, you do twenty extra suicides at dawn."

"And if I score?" I asked, lowering my stance, narrowing my eyes as I locked my focus onto his broad frame.

"If you score," he murmured, his voice dropping into a quiet, rough register that made my pulse jump, "you get whatever you want."

"Deal."

Before he could even set his edges, I exploded forward.

The ice screamed beneath my blades as I dug in, taking three explosive, terrifyingly fast strides that brought me right into his zone. He reacted instantly, dropping into a low, heavy defensive posture, his massive frame cutting off the main lane. He stepped into my space, his long stick sweeping out to poke the puck away with clinical, professional precision.

I didn't try to out-muscle him. The moment his stick swung, I executed a sharp, fluid weight transfer to my inside edge, dragging the puck behind my back skate in a blind, razor-thin lateral move.

His dark eyes widened just a fraction as his weight committed half a second too late.

I sliced past his shoulder, picking up the puck on the other side, and drove hard toward the goal crease. With a sharp flick of my wrists, I snapped the rubber straight past the imaginary goaltender, ringing it off the back metal bar with a loud, triumphant PING.

"Goal," I gasped, spinning around on my blades with a breathless, brilliant laugh that echoed clear to the rafters. "You owe me, Sterling."

Vance didn't look angry. He slowly turned on his skates, leaning his weight onto his stick as he watched me, his dark eyes burning with a wild, mesmerizing mix of intense pride and pure, unadulterated hunger.

"You cheated on the entry," he growled softly, though there was zero heat in the accusation. He pushed off, gliding toward me with a slow, deliberate grace that made my breath catch in my throat.

"I utilized superior edge-work to exploit a defensive gap," I corrected, my chin tilting up as he came to a stop mere inches from my boots. The familiar scent of cedar wood, faint rain, and warm skin washed over me, completely shattering the chill of the arena floor. "That's just good hockey."

"You're unbelievable," he whispered. He reached out, his bare, calloused hand coming up to gently grab the collar of my heavy practice jersey, his knuckles brushing against the skin of my throat. "Reckless, arrogant, and completely lethal on the turn."

"You taught me the turn," I murmured, stepping even closer, the toes of my skates touching his. Everything vanished, replaced by the suffocating, magnetic pull that had been building between us since the first night of the blizzard. "So what's my reward, Coach?"

Vance stared down at me, his chest rising and falling in heavy, ragged breaths. The professional barrier he had spent weeks desperately defending wasn't just cracked, it was completely gone.

"You," he rasped, his hand sliding up from my collar to cup the side of my face, his thumb sweeping over my cheekbone with a fierce, trembling reverence. "Every single piece of you."

He didn't give me time to reply. He hooked his arm around my waist, lifting me effortlessly as he pushed off the ice, skating us toward the open Zamboni door at the side of the rink.

Before I could ask what he was doing, he stepped off the ice sheet and onto the heavy rubber matting near the emergency exit, pushing open the heavy steel door. A rush of crisp, clean, post-storm winter air filled our lungs. Right outside the door, sheltered by the high concrete alcove of the building, lay a smooth, untouched bank of soft, clean snow lit by the silver glow of the moon.

He stepped out into the quiet night, his boots sinking into the snow, and gently set me down against the high, sturdy wooden ledge of the exterior equipment locker.

"Vance—" I gasped, the sudden cold air making my skin tingle.

"Quiet, Volkov," he growled softly against my mouth.

He leaned in, his mouth slamming into mine in a deep, consuming kiss that took my breath away entirely. There was no hesitation left, no dark fears about the past or anxious calculations about the athletic board. It was a fierce, passionate claim, a total release of the suffocating restraint we had been enduring.

I let out a soft, helpless sound, my arms flying up to wrap tightly around his broad neck, pulling him down into me. I buried my fingers in the thick, soft dark hair at the nape of his neck, pressing my body flush against his massive frame. The biting cold of the winter night surrounded us, but where our bodies touched, it felt like white-hot fire.

Vance groaned low in his throat, his large hands sliding beneath the edge of my thick jersey to rest against my waist, his warm, bare palms pressing firmly into the skin of my hips. He lifted me slightly, settling me securely against the wooden ledge so he could deepen the kiss, his tongue tangling with mine in a slow, possessive rhythm that made my knees go entirely weak.

"Tell me this is real," I whispered against his lips when he finally pulled back an inch, both of our chests heaving, white clouds of mist swirling together in the moonlight. "Tell me we're not pretending when those double doors open tomorrow."

Vance rested his forehead against mine, his dark eyes locked onto mine with an unshakeable, terrifying intensity that shook me to my core.

"There's no more pretending, Anastasia," he promised, his rough voice vibrating through my chest as his thumb gently traced my lower lip. "Saraya can bring whatever hell she wants. The board can call a hundred hearings. I don't care anymore. You are mine, and I am not letting you go."

A breathless, radiant smile broke across my face in the dark. I reached up, cupping his jaw, feeling the rough stubble against my palm, and pulled his mouth back down to mine.