Roxy POV
The feeling of Jaxon’s scorching-hot, glove-free hand wrapping tightly around my freezing, trembling wrist to drag me up sent a shock straight through my system.
His palm was calloused, rough, and burning with heat, a stark and jarring different against my ice-chilled, numbed skin.
He pulled me up off the frozen floor with a single, effortless jerk of his thick arm, treating my weight as if I were nothing to him.
I stumbled blindly against his broad chest, my cheap canvas sneakers slipping uselessly on the slick surface before I managed to find an awkward, shaky footing.
Jaxon stood still, his chest a solid wall of muscle beneath his jersey.
I could feel the heavy, synchronized rise and fall of his breathing pressing directly against my sore shoulder.
He leaned his head down slightly, his stormy grey eyes tracking every single micro-expression on my face, waiting.
I knew exactly what he was looking for in that dark gaze.
He expected me to burst into tears.
He expected me to sob, throw my hands up in defeat, and crawl out of this freezing arena to pack my bags for the gray, foggy docks of Ashenvale.
Every single humiliating action he had taken tonight was designed to crush my spirit and force me to quit.
Instead, I gripped the cold shaft of his own hockey stick with my free hand, using his strength to stabilize my shaking legs, and stared him down without cowering.
I didn’t blink.
I didn’t let a single tear drop.
My jaw was clenched so tightly that my teeth ached, and my eyes burned with a fierce, stubborn hatred that defied the pain throbbing in my hip.
If he wanted a broken girl, he was going to have to try a lot harder than a bruised body and a missed shot.
Jaxon stared back at me, and a sudden, visible shift passed over his sharp features.
He looked electrified.
The harsh, dismissive coldness in his eyes sparked into something entirely different—a dark fascination that made his pupils dilate under the stadium lights.
His grip on my wrist didn’t loosen, if anything, his thick fingers tightened, his thumb pressing directly against the rapid beat of my pulse.
It was the look of a predator realizing his prey still had teeth and was willing to bite.
“You really don’t know how to give up, do you, Scholar?” Jaxon murmured, his gravelly voice dropping lower, echoing softly in the quiet, cavernous space of the empty rink.
“I told you,” I breathed, my voice shaking from exhaustion but still remaining sharp.
“I need this job. I am not letting a spoiled, arrogant brat like you ruin my entire life because you think you’re above the rules.”
Behind us, the clatter of steel blades sounded against the ice.
Nate Miller skated over from the player bench, stopping a few feet away with a spray of frost.
His expression was still calm and guarded, but he looked between Jaxon and me with a knowing look.
“She didn’t quit, Jax,” Nate said quietly, his voice a low baritone that bounced off the empty spectator seats.
“Most of them run by now. She’s still standing.”
Jaxon didn’t look back at his friend.
His focus remained entirely locked on my face, his eyes tracking the breath escaping my lips.
Slowly, he let go of my wrist, though the burning imprint of his hand remained seared into my skin like a brand.
He reached down to his waist, unzipping a small, concealed pocket on the side of his hockey gear bag sitting on the barrier.
“You’re right, Roxy. You do need this job,” Jaxon said, his voice losing its mocking edge and turning serious, cold, and calculated.
“And honestly? Right now, I need something from you, too.”
I blinked, the adrenaline-fueled anger in my chest briefly turning into confusion.
I shifted my weight onto my uninjured leg, keeping the hockey stick rooted in the ice.
“What are you talking about?”
Jaxon let out a short, humorless laugh, a thick cloud of white vapor rising from his lips.
“My father is Richard Montgomery. He doesn’t just fund the hockey team, Brooks, he owns half the real estate this university sits on. And right now, he’s breathing down my neck. He told the dean that if my behavior and my grades don’t show a ‘radical improvement’ before the winter qualifiers, he’s pulling the team’s entire multi-million-dollar funding block. He wants to teach me a lesson about accountability.”
He stepped closer, his shadow enveloping me again, cutting off the light.
“The athletic board doesn’t just want a tutor to fix my economics papers behind closed doors,” Jaxon continued, his grey eyes narrowing with a sharp, predatory gaze. You are reading on NovelPing, the official source.
“They want the public to think I have a respectable, stabilizing influence in my life. They want a distraction from the partying. Someone clean, someone with a perfect academic record who makes it look like I’m turning my life around. A charity-case scholarship student from a working-class town like yours is exactly the kind of sob-story PR the board loves.”
He pulled a crisp, white, folded paper out of his gear bag.
He unfolded it with a echoing snap, revealing a pre-drafted contract.
The text was tightly packed, legal, and formal.
He had planned this from the very moment he told me to meet him here.
“What is that?” I asked, my chest tightening as his hidden intentions fully revealed itself.
“A new arrangement,” Jaxon said, holding the white paper out between us, the legal text staring back at me.
“You failed the bet, Roxy. You didn’t score the goal, so you don’t get to dictate the terms of your employment anymore. You play by my rules now.”
I looked at the paper, then at the locked exit door.
Five thousand dollars.
The administrative fee was due, and if I didn’t get his signature on my tutoring hours, I was done.
He knew it.
He had researched me, found my weakness, and used his entire world to corner me.
Before I could even attempt to step back, Jaxon closed the remaining distance between us.
He stepped directly into my personal space until there was no air left between us, pressing his broad, hard chest directly against mine, pinning my shoulders against the cold wooden barrier behind me.
The size of his body trapped me completely, making it impossible to move.
I could feel the radiating heat of his body cutting through the sub-zero chill of the rink, and the scent of his mint gum filled my senses, making my head spin.
He leaned down, his lips brushing past the shell of my ear as his voice dropped to a low, gravelly purr that vibrated straight through my core and down my spine.
“You act as my adoring public girlfriend to trick the board, and I’ll let you tutor me in private so you get your five thousand dollars,” he whispered, his eyes flashing with a cruel, satisfied triumph as he pulled back just enough to look down into my eyes.
“Deal, Tutor?”