Page 4

Chapter four

Noah

T he quiet woke me. After a night of wind screaming against the cabin walls, the sudden stillness sounded like a held breath.

I'd made my way back to the guest room and lay there, sheets twisted around my legs, listening to the absence of the storm. My body ached in places I'd forgotten about from the stiffness of sleeping in a strange bed.

Micah moved into the other room. Cupboards opening, closing. The clink of mugs. His footsteps were deliberate, each placed with the care of a man trying not to wake someone.

Should I leave? The question surfaced like a stone breaking the surface of water. I'd come here for—what? Answers? Closure? The line between the two blurred more with each passing hour.

Still, something stubborn in me refused to retreat. I'd driven hours through endless forests to find this man. I wouldn't walk away simply because being near him felt like standing too close to a flame.

When I finally emerged from the bedroom, Micah stood at the kitchen counter. Coffee dripped into a pot, its rich scent filling the small space, earthy and inviting in a way Micah himself was not.

He didn't turn. Merely dipped his chin in the barest acknowledgment of my existence—except his hand stilled for half a second on his mug, knuckles whitening like he was holding something in check. I would have missed it if I hadn't been studying the curve of his neck and the set of his shoulders.

His spine was a warning—rigid, unyielding. Each vertebra was a reminder to keep my distance. Don't come closer . I hovered in the doorway, sleep-warm and uncertain, caught between retreat and advance.

"Coffee?" His voice was rough.

"Yeah." I crossed the threshold into his space. "Thanks."

He still didn't look at me, reaching into the cupboard, grabbing a second mug, and pouring without asking how I took it. Black. Harsh. No gesture of hospitality—only caffeine in a cup.

He slid it toward me across the counter.

"Sleep okay?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

His jaw flexed. "Didn't sleep."

"Because of me? Sorry about wandering out into the living room. I needed to be further away from the windows."

A long silence. Then, without turning: "Because of me."

That was it. Three words that cracked something under the surface. He wasn't offering comfort, but he wasn't deflecting either. It was the most honest thing I'd heard in weeks.

The raw admission triggered a memory—me at eleven, huddled against the wall outside my parents' bedroom. Dad's voice booming through the door: "Because of me, alright? Happy now?"

Mom was silent afterward. I'd learned then that admitting fault was rare. Most people would rather burn than confess.

I'd dozed off waiting for more words that never came, waking with carpet patterns pressed into my cheek and the knowledge that silence could be louder than the noise of any fight.

I stood near a window, mug warming my palms. The world outside had transformed overnight—pristine white draped over jagged branches, smoothing the landscape into something deceptively gentle.

The sun glinted off untouched snow, which was so bright it hurt to look directly at it. It was beautiful and unforgiving, like Micah himself.

Something moved in my peripheral vision. It was Micah yanking on his boots by the door. His flannel stretched across his broad shoulders, red and black checks that pulsed with each breath. He didn't look at me as he grabbed the axe propped by the door.

A slam echoed through the cabin, leaving behind a vacuum I couldn't stand. Three sips of coffee later, I pulled on my boots, borrowed a heavy coat hanging on a peg by the door—too large, smelling of pine and someone else's life—and followed.

The cold hit like a slap to the face. My lungs seized, breath crystallizing in front of me. Twenty feet from the cabin, Micah positioned a log on a stump and swung. The crack of splitting wood punctured the quiet, sharp and violent.

I stopped at the edge of the porch, the borrowed coat too big in the shoulders, with the hem whipping around my thighs in the wind. My fingers ached from the cold, even inside the coat pockets, but I didn't move.

His breath steamed in the air with each exhale, a dragon without fire. His swings were relentless as if splitting wood might silence something inside him. I counted the chops without meaning to. Eight. Nine. Ten.

I wondered what he saw when he closed his eyes. The moment of contact? My body hitting the boards? The aftermath?

I leaned against the porch railing, not hiding my presence but not announcing it either.

Swing. Split. Reset. Micah's rhythm was hypnotic. Each motion was fluid and practiced. His body knew the choreography by heart.

I watched the flex of muscle beneath his shirt—how his shoulders bunched, released, and bunched again. His thighs tensed with each downward arc. Sweat beaded at his temples despite the cold, turning his dark hair nearly black at the edges.

I'd seen him hit opponents with the same controlled power. I experienced it firsthand. Something twisted low in my stomach—fear, desire, memory.

It wasn't only the strength. It was the focus. That singular, terrifying concentration. Like he could break me apart piece by piece and somehow know where to leave the bruise so it would never fade.

As an enforcer, he'd built his career on violence, yet there was something strangely tender in how thoroughly he committed to each strike. No hesitation. No apology. Only pure intent.

What would it feel like, I wondered, to be touched with that same certainty? To be the focus of such undivided attention off the ice? The thought burned through me, inappropriate and insistent.

I'd been hit before by others. Hockey wasn't ballet. Micah's hit had been different—purposeful, like he'd seen through my jersey, pads, and carefully constructed persona, straight to something raw and unguarded.

No one had ever demanded anything of me before. They'd taken, expected, and assumed. They never looked me dead in the eye and said: I see you.

The axe stopped mid-swing.

Micah's head snapped up, eyes finding mine with unerring precision as if he'd known where I stood all along. His chest heaved with exertion, sweat trickling down his throat despite the bite of the freezing air.

His eyes narrowed. In that split second, I recognized the look—the same one he'd given me on the ice moments before impact. Assessment. Recognition. Decision.

The axe fell from his grip, embedding itself in packed snow with a muted thunk. His hands curled into fists at his sides, and he stalked toward me with predatory focus. Each footstep crushed virgin snow, leaving a trail of perfect imprints—evidence of his advance.

I considered stepping back and establishing a boundary between us. My body refused to obey, transfixed by his approach. My heart hammered against my ribs.

It wasn't fear. It was anticipation.

Ten feet away. Five. Two.

He stopped close enough for me to feel the heat radiating from his body and smell the sharp tang of his sweat. His breath was warm and intimate as it passed over my face.

"What are you looking at?" Micah's words were low, carrying hints of danger. It was a warning growl more than a question.

I didn't answer. Couldn't. My throat had closed, and my lungs refused to cooperate. Still, I didn't drop my gaze either. Defiance was all I had to offer, and I gave it fully, tipping my chin up to meet his stare.

"You've been watching me since you got here." His voice was a mix of gravel and ice. "Like you're waiting for something. What is it? What do you want from me, Langley?"

I swallowed hard, searching for words that wouldn't come. How could I explain what I barely understood myself? That I'd driven through a blizzard to find him because his violence was so breathtakingly honest? That the bruises he'd left had healed, but the moment of connection—that flash of seeing and being seen—hadn't?

"Answer me." Not a request. A command.

His hand shot out without warning, fingers curling around the nape of my neck. Not quite a choke but a claim. Possessive. Deliberate. His palm radiated heat against my skin, his thumb pressing against my pulse point hard enough to feel my heart's desperate rhythm.

Something fractured inside me at his touch—a wall, a restraint, something I didn't know I'd built. The sensation traveled like lightning from his fingertips through my body, igniting nerves that had been numb for years. I couldn't breathe. Didn't want to.

For a disorienting moment, I was fourteen again, pinned against the locker room wall by Coach Harmon, his thumb on my neck and his face inches from mine. "You feel that, Langley? That's fear. Use it."

His grip had been clinical, instructional. At home that night, I'd pressed my fingers to the same spot, trying to understand why the memory of his hold made me feel both diminished and seen. Why part of me had wanted him to squeeze harder and steal my breath, just to prove I could withstand it.

Micah's touch was different—electric, whereas Coach's had been mechanical. It wasn't instruction. It was barely leashed hunger, and it called to something primitive in me.

His grip tightened, and my eyes fluttered closed for half a second. When I opened them, his expression had shifted. I thought I saw hunger in dilated pupils.

I leaned forward, drawn by forces beyond conscious thought. I didn't think. I pressed my palms against his broad chest, fingers curling into the damp flannel. His heartbeat thundered against my hands, rapid and strong.

The distance between us narrowed to inches, then centimeters. Our breath mingled as visible puffs of white in the frigid air. I could taste him already—salt and coffee and winter. My body ached with want.

His free hand shot up, pressing against my chest. He wasn't pushing me away. He was holding me in place. Suspended. Waiting.

His eyes searched mine. Whatever he sought, he found something else—a hunger that matched his own, desperation that mirrored the tension in his jaw.

For one breathless moment, I thought he might close the distance between us. His gaze dropped to my mouth, lingering there.

Then, as suddenly as he'd grabbed me, he released me. Stepped back. His hands fell to his sides, fingers flexing like they'd been burned. The cold rushed into the space between us, a shock after the heat of his proximity.

His voice, when it came, was ragged. Stripped of its careful control. "Don't do that again."

His voice cracked on the last word, just barely. I caught it. I don't think he meant to let me hear.

Three steps backward. Four. He turned, retrieving the axe with mechanical precision, refusing to look at me again. The dismissal was absolute.

I didn't follow. Couldn't.

I rubbed the spot behind my ear where his thumb had pressed. The heat was already fading, but the impression remained—like a mark I couldn't wash off.

He could've kissed me. I'd seen, felt, and tasted it in the space between us.

But instead, he left me with breathless silence and snowflakes melting on my lashes.

I didn't know if I'd pushed too far or not far enough.

I stood there, heart still racing, skin still buzzing where he'd touched me. Marked me. I watched him walk away, his shoulders rigid with restraint.

And despite the rejection and warning, something dangerous unfurled in my chest. It was desire burning hot.

He wanted this, too. Wanted me. And was terrified of it.

When I finally moved, my fingers were numb, and my cheeks were raw from the wind. The heat he'd left behind on my skin had vanished, replaced by the kind of cold that settles deep into your marrow.

I flexed my fingers, feeling blood return painfully. On the ice, we played through worse discomfort every day. But this ache was different—it wasn't about endurance. It was about patience.

I was waiting for the right opening. Every good winger knows: you don't take the shot if the angle's wrong. You circle back and find another approach.

Inside the cabin, the coffee scent had dissipated, leaving the sharp tang of pine.

In the bathroom, I gripped the edge of the sink hard enough to whiten my knuckles. My reflection stared back, someone I barely recognized—flushed, intent, alive in a way I hadn't been in years.

My pupils remained dilated, and my lips still parted. I touched the back of my neck where his fingers had pressed. The skin was cool now, but my pulse hammered beneath it, an echo of his grip.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I whispered to the glass.

My reflection didn't pretend not to know. There was no room for lies between us.

I hadn't come here for closure, forgiveness, or answers. I'd come because when Micah Keller had slammed me into the boards, breaking my body, he'd shattered something else too—the careful facade I'd spent years constructing.

For one blinding moment on the ice, he'd seen past the practiced moves and the perfect stride straight through to the thirst underneath. The need to be truly seen.

And after more than a decade of performing, being the promising rookie and the dutiful son—being recognized felt like coming home.

I didn't want him to apologize. I wanted him to finish what he'd started.

I splashed cold water on my face, but it did nothing to douse the heat spreading through me. Outside, I heard the rhythmic thunk of the axe resuming. The sound vibrated through the cabin walls, deep into my bones.

Patience, I reminded myself. I'd spent years perfecting my timing on the ice.

I could wait him out.