Page 48 of Blades Out
But her gaze held mine, and for three seconds that stretched too long, we just… stared.
I watched recognition flicker across her face—the same recognition that had made her drop my coffee. Watched something else chase it. Something that made my pulse kick despite every logical reason it shouldn't.
Guilt slammed into me.
This was wrong. The heat in my veins, the tightness in my chest, the way my entire focus narrowed to her face in the half-dark—all of it crossed lines I'd spent my life respecting.
She was too young. Too fragile. Too tangled in my past for me to feel anything but distant responsibility.
And yet.
The protectiveness that surged through me wasn't distant. Wasn't professional. It was sharp and possessive and far too visceral for comfort.
I forced my expression flat. Wiped every trace of whatever the hell this was off my face before she could read it. Before I gave myself away completely.
Her lips parted slightly—like she wanted to say something, or maybe just breathe.
Break it. Now.
I tore my gaze away first, heart hammering harder than it had any right to. Turned back to the board with mechanical precision, jaw locked tight enough to ache.
The marker squeaked against the whiteboard. I drew a line that didn't need drawing, repositioned a player who was already in the right spot.
Anything to look busy. Anything to pretend the last ten seconds hadn't happened. But my pulse still raced. My chest still felt too tight. And I knew—with absolute certainty—that if I looked up again, I'd find her still watching.
So I didn't look up.
Because if I did, I wasn't sure I'd be able to look away a second time.
I gripped the marker until plastic bit into my palm.
You have no right.
The words beat steady in my skull, a mantra I needed tattooed somewhere visible. On my forearm, maybe. Across my knuckles, where I'd see it every time I reached for something I shouldn't want.
She was twenty-one. Twenty-two at most.
I was forty-three.
The math alone should've killed whatever this was. Should've smothered it before it drew breath.
It didn't.
She's not for you.
I knew her history—fragments of it, anyway. Knew what kind of home I'd pulled her from. What kind of fear she'd learned to carry in her bones. She needed safety. Stability. Someone gentle who hadn't spent twenty years turning himself into a weapon.
Not me.
Never me.
You'd ruin her.
That was the truth underneath everything else. Even if the age gap didn't exist, even if she wanted this—which she didn't, couldn't, shouldn't—I'd destroy whatever softness she'd managed to keep.
I was good at destruction.
The ice blurred in front of me. Players moved through drills I'd designed, executing plays I'd taught them, and I saw none of it. Just her face in the half-dark. The way she'd looked at me. Like maybe?—
