Page 52 of Shattered Ice
I arch a brow. “I know I do.”
A pause. One beat. Then another. She looks away first. “One hour.”
I grin, a slow, dangerous curve of my lips. “One’s all I need.”
She mutters something under her breath, but her voice betrays her. Tight. Flushed. Her pulse flutters at her neck, high and fast. I keep walking beside her, counting her breaths, matching them to my own. Inside the library, the air is too warm, still. She leads the way, her boots striking fast against the stone floor. Her hands tremble almost imperceptibly as she pushes open the study room door.
She moves straight to the far table, pulling out her notes. A routine. It isn’t. She knows it. I know it. Her voice gives her away. “You gonna keep trying to make me flustered?” she asks, eyes locked on her folder.
I step closer, letting the silence stretch before I answer. “Depends.” My voice is softer now. Darker. “Is it working?”
She slams the folder down, harder than necessary. Her ears are pink. A flush creeps up her neck. She turns on her heel, and I follow, closing the distance until our shadows stretch and merge across the room.
I know, without a single doubt, she’s not getting anything done tonight. This was never about studying. It was always about tension on the verge of combustion.
It’s about me wanting to be the one to light the match, just to watch her burn.
Chapter 31
Clara
Thewalkfromthecafé to the library is the longest five minutes of my life, each second stretching into an eternity under the heavy cloak of his presence. The silence between us isn’t empty; it crackles with everything left unsaid, with the raw, possessive energy radiating from him like heat off asphalt. He stalks beside me, his stride perfectly matched to mine, a predator who has successfully herded his prey into the killing ground. The faint scent of rain and cold steel clings to his jacket.
He didn’t ask for a session. He told me. “You owe me,” he’d said, the words a cold promise. And now I’m marching toward my own execution in Room A312, my pulse a frantic, terrified drum against my ribs.
The library feels like a laboratory—controlled air, a steady hum of fluorescent lights, sound softened to a perpetual hush. But tonight, it doesn’t feel safe. It feels like a cage he’s led me into, the automatic doors sliding shut behind us with unnerving finality. He follows me to our usual room, the weight of his presence a heavy, suffocating heat at my back.
I drop my bag on the table with a thud that sounds like a gunshot in the quiet.This isn’t academics. This is armor.I pull out the materials I’d prepared for our next real session, the ones I’ve been working on since my breakthrough. Not the textbook. Instead, I lay out large-print worksheets with simplified diagrams and flashcards with single key terms in bold, black ink. It’s a completely different arsenal, and I arrange it on the table between us like a declaration of war.
My spine stays straight. My chin is up. My hands are flat on either side of my folder, anchoring myself to the solid wood of the table.Professional. Focused. Detached.That’s the lie I’m desperately trying to sell myself, the mantra of a girl pretending she isn’t walking into a fire.
And now, he’s sitting beside me. Not across the table. The old oak chair groans under his weight.Right. Fucking. Next to me.
His knee burns against mine under the table, not brushing—claiming. The deliberate, constant pressure is a silent declaration of ownership. His arm stretches across the back of my chair, fingers dangling so close to my shoulder I feel each one like a brand waiting to happen. The cage of him surrounds me, invisible but suffocating. I can smell his cologne, clean and sharp, layered over the masculine scent of his skin that speaks of ice and sweat.
His body radiates heat like a furnace, scorching through my clothes. I swear I can feel his pulse from here, hammering in time with mine, a violent duet neither of us agreed to play. I can’t look at him. If I do, I’ll shatter. But his gaze devours mewhole, dissecting me cell by cell with an intensity that is almost physical. The silence between us grows so dense it crushes the air from my lungs. Gravity has abandoned its post; everything in the universe, including me, is falling toward him.
When I finally speak, my voice is too calm to be natural. “I take it this session doesn’t involve the actual textbook you left in your dorm?”
“I don’t need it.” His voice is low and lazy, a scratch of sound in the quiet that slides down my spine like a physical touch.
I reach for the flashcards I made, my movements a little too sharp. “We’re doing this differently today.”
“Yeah,” he says, his eyes dragging over the chaos I’ve laid out. “I noticed.” He doesn’t move, but the air around him shifts, intensifies. “You’re changing shit,” he says quietly. “Why?”
I keep my gaze locked on the page, my own heartbeat roaring in my ears. “No reason.”
“Bullshit.” He says it too soft to be angry, but too sharp to ignore. When I don’t respond, he leans in. Just closer. His mouth is near my ear now, his breath a warm ghost against my skin. “What do you think is wrong with me, Clara?” He twists my attempt to help into an accusation, a blade. “You like that, don’t you? Finding the cracks in people.”
I flinch, an involuntary jerk of my shoulder. He feels it. Of course he does. “I don’t think—”
“Try again.” His voice is a silken threat.
I close my eyes for a second to gather my courage. My mind screams at me to run, but a darker, deeper part of me is rooted to the spot, hungry to see what happens if I poke the monster again. I turn toward him, just a fraction, my shoulder brushing the solid wall of his chest.
“I think,” I say, my voice brittle and precise, “you might have dyslexia.”
Silence slams into the space between us like a dropped weight. The only sound is the frantic thumping of my own heart. Adrian doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t seem to breathe. But I feel the change: the instantaneous, violent coiling of tension in his frame, so sharp I can almost hear it. His hand, resting on the back of my chair, tightens into a white-knuckled fist. His jaw locks. The warmth emanating from him turns ice-cold.
