Chapter 6

Drake POV

My mind didn't process the crowd. It didn't process the whispers echoing off the glass or the stunned silence of my own teammates standing twenty feet away. The only thing registering in my central nervous system was the phantom ghost of Westbridge fingers wrapping around Rosa’s arm.

I dropped my stick, scooped her up as she slipped on the ice, and shoved her completely behind my back. My body automatically slotted into a protective barrier between her and the rest of the world.

When I turned back to face Cole Montgomery, the blood roaring in my ears sounded like a freight train.

Cole tried to recover, offering up that lazy, mocking grin of his, but the second he took a half-step forward, my gaze pinned him to the spot. I stepped up to him, invading his space until my chest plate pressed directly into his.

"You listen to me, Montgomery," I whispered, my voice dropping into a low, dead-eyed tone that cut through the cavernous chill of the arena. "You look at her again. You speak her name again. You even breathe in her direction. And I promise you, I won't wait for a referee or a whistle. I will take you apart right here on this ice, and they won't even need an ambulance to carry you off. I’m I clear?"

Cole’s smirk faltered. He looked into my eyes, saw the staring back at him, and realized he had poked a caged animal that was done playing by the rules. The arena was dead silent, the crowd sensing the shift in the air.

Cole swallowed hard, forced a stiff nod, and muttered, "Relax, Hayes. It was a joke."

"Not anymore," I snapped.

He didn't stick around to test me. He signaled his team, turning on his heels and skating off the ice with his tail tucked between his legs.

I didn't waste a second celebrating or playing to the crowd. I spun around, grabbed Rosa’s arm, my grip firm, fierce, but careful enough not to hurt her and practically dragged her off the ice. Behind us, the student section erupted into a deafening wave of wild gossip and camera flashes.

"Drake! What the hell was that?" Chloe stormed up behind us, her face flushed with fury as we reached the back tunnels. "Are you out of your f*cking mind? Both of you!"

"Shut up, Chloe," I bit out, pulling Rosa through the exit doors toward the parking lot without breaking stride.

---

The drive back to the house was suffocating.

Chloe rode shotgun, spending the entire ten minute trip tearing me with every curse word she knew, furious that I had let a harmless campus rivalry turn into a public spectacle involving her best friend. I kept my hands locked on the steering wheel, jaw clenched so tight my teeth ached, staring straight ahead through the windshield.

In the back seat, Rosa was entirely silent. She sat pressed on the back seat, staring out the window at the blurred asphalt, arms crossed over her chest. She was burning with a mix of humiliation from being dragged into the spotlight and a terrifying, unexplainable spike of adrenaline.

At a red light, my eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror. Instantly, my gaze crashed straight into hers in the overhead reflection.

Her brown eyes were wide, dark, and dilated, locked on mine with a raw, intense heat that completely undid me. For a second, the sound of Chloe’s voice vanished. The car felt like it shrank to the size of a cage, burning with a tension that had nothing to do with anger.

Rosa didn't look away. Her chest rose and fell in a sharp, shallow breath, her lips parting slightly as the electricity bounced between us in the mirror. I held her gaze until the light turned green, my foot slamming down on the gas a little harder than necessary.

The second we pulled into the driveway, Chloe didn't even wait for the engine to cut. She threw her door open, stomped into the house, and slammed her bedroom door shut upstairs to cool down.

Rosa slipped out of the back seat, hurrying up the front steps with her head down, trying to make a beeline for the guest room before I could corner her.

She didn't make it.

Just as her hand touched the handle of the guest room door, I closed the distance behind her. I threw my arm out, catching the edge of the wood just as she tried to slam it in my face. With a hard shove, I pushed the door wide open, backed her up against the wall inside the room, and stepped in after her, clicking the lock shut behind us.

Rosa pressed flat against the drywall, her chest heaving as she glared up at me, fire flashing in her eyes.

"What’s your problem?!" she snapped, her voice trembling slightly with pent-up frustration. "Why did you have to make such a massive, psychotic scene back there? I am not your responsibility, Drake! You didn't have to…"

I cut her off.

I caged her in, placing both palms flat against the wall on either side of her head, leaning down until my face was mere inches from hers. The air left her lungs in a sharp hitch.

"You want to know why I lost control?" My voice dropped into a rough, gravelly growl, vibrating straight through her skin. "Because I told you not to touch me, Rosa."

I watched her breath catch, my gaze burning down into her eyes as the space between us dissolved into pure, suffocating heat.

"I never said," I whispered, closing the last remaining inch between us, "I'd let anyone else put their hands on you.”