DRAKE

Two seconds. Three seconds at most. That’s the socially acceptable time limit for a guy to find himself pinned on top of his roommate before things get... weird.

We’d crossed that line about ten seconds ago.

Rose’s heart was hammering like a trapped bird beneath my palm, which was still firmly clasped around her waist. Damn, she was tiny.

Her exposed skin beneath that oversized, slipping T-shirt felt impossibly warm, and the sweet scent of vanilla mixed with the raw smell of charcoal paper was slowly, systematically scrambling my brain.

“Morvane,” Rose whispered, her voice hoarse and trembling slightly against my collarbone. “Could you please… get your hundred-kilo, human-ice-block body off of me? I can’t breathe.”

Sarcasm. Of course. The girl's defense mechanism always flared up at the most inopportune moments.

I cleared my throat, instantly releasing my grip and pulling myself up in one swift, athletic motion. I turned my back to her, pretending to be intensely focused on straightening my team jacket, which wasn’t even wrinkled, just to hide the fact that my chest was heaving as if I’d just survived a brutal three-period sprint.

“I don’t weigh a hundred kilos,” I grumbled, my voice dropping into a rougher, lower register than usual. “It’s pure muscle. And you should be thanking my captain’s reflexes for saving your skull from cracking open against the coffee table.”

Rose pushed herself up on the rug, hurriedly yanking her shirt back up to cover her collarbone. Her face was still flushed a violent, beautiful shade of crimson, but her hazel eyes glared at me with that familiar spark of pure defiance.

“Oh, thank you so much, Your Majesty,” Rose sneered, quickly snatching her sketchbook and clutching it to her chest like a bulletproof shield. “Your reflexes are elite. But next time, give a girl a warning before you slide over here like a damn penguin on ice.”

A penguin? Did this girl really just compare the top NHL draft prospect to a fat, flightless bird?

I spun around, narrowing my eyes as I stepped back into her space. “You were drawing me.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a cold, hard fact.

Rose immediately stiffened. Her gaze darted to the industrial ceiling, then toward the kitchen island—anywhere but my face. “I wasn’t drawing you. I was working on an anatomy assignment for my illustration class. It just so happens the model is a hockey player. And it just so happens his jersey number is seventeen. That’s… my lucky number. Yeah. That’s it.”

“Your lucky number?” I took another step forward, deliberately looming over her until she was completely engulfed by my shadow. “In Toronto, number seventeen belongs to me, Rose. You drew me. In exact, agonizing detail. Right down to the curve of my shoulder when I grip the stick.”

Rose swallowed hard, but she refused to back down. She stood up, forcing me to tilt my head down to maintain eye contact, making the stark height difference between us painfully obvious again.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Morvane. Your ego already takes up half the square footage in this loft,” she snapped, her voice shaking just enough to betray her nerves. “If I were actually trying to draw you, I’d make sure to add horns to your head.”

She lifted her hand, her index finger, stained black with charcoal soot—pressing firmly into the center of my chest to push me back. It barely budged me, but it left a distinct dark mark right over my heart. Without another word, she swept past me, her shoulder brushing mine as she retreated toward her bedroom.

The moment her door clicked shut, I finally exhaled the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

I looked down at the black smudge on my black T-shirt. My fingers traced the spot where her finger had just been, before wandering up to brush against my own lower lip.

Damn it. This was wrong. This was so incredibly wrong.

I wasn’t interested in her. No way. She was messy, loud, ruined the clean aesthetics of my apartment with her chaotic art supplies, and she didn’t even know what an offside trap was.

She was just a girl who accidentally got caught up in a housing glitch with me. The electric jolt in my veins just now? Pure adrenaline because I’d almost witnessed a bad accident. Yeah. Just a routine athlete’s reaction.

I was a professional. I was the captain. I wasn't going to let a girl who barely reached my chin mess up my championship season.

I walked over to the kitchen island to grab my phone, intending to text Marcus about tomorrow's practice. But as my eyes swept across the counter, I froze.

In her rush to escape, Rose had left her phone face-up on the granite surface.

And right there on the screen, a new text message preview from a contact named 'Leo 🕊️' popped up, shattering the quiet apartment.

Leo: Hey Rosie, I know you just moved, but my flight to Toronto just landed. Can I sleep in your bed tonight?

My eyes locked onto the screen, the glowing letters burning straight into my retinas.

Leo. With a dove emoji. And he wanted to sleep in her bed. Tonight.

A sudden, violent wave of heat rushed up my neck, completely overriding the cold logic I’d been trying so hard to force into my brain. My jaw clenched until it ached, my fingers tightening around the edge of the granite counter so hard my knuckles turned white.

Who the hell was Leo? A boyfriend? An ex? Some guy from her hometown who thought he could just roll into Toronto and claim a stake in my apartment?

The sheer absurdity of my anger should have alarmed me. I had known Rose Murphy for less than twenty-four hours. I didn't want a roommate, I didn't want a distraction, and yet, the mere thought of another man walking through my front door, putting his boots on my floor, and crawling into a bed under my roof made me want to put someone through a glass partition.

It's about security, I lied to myself, my heart hammering a chaotic, furious rhythm against my ribs. Yeah, that's it. I'm the captain of this space. I can't have random, unverified guys crashing on my turf during the season. It’s a liability.

But as I stared at her closed bedroom door, the image of Rose smiling at her phone, texting this Leo guy, and letting him get close enough to share a bed filled me with a toxic, unfamiliar bitterness.

I picked up her phone, my thumb hovering over the screen, every protective—no, possessive, instinct in my body screaming at me to read the rest of the thread.

Just as I was about to put it down, the doorknob to her room rattled.

I barely had time to slide the phone back onto the counter before the door swung open, and Rose stepped out, her hazel eyes scanning the floor.

"Hey, did I leave my—" She stopped, her eyes dropping to the phone right in front of me, and then snapping up to my face.

She froze, noticing the rigid line of my shoulders and the absolute ice in my stare. The air in the loft instantly turned volatile again, but this time, it wasn't just tension.

It was war.

ROSE

“Hey, did I leave my phone at—”

My sentence trailed off the second I saw Drake standing frozen in front of the kitchen counter.

The atmosphere inside the loft had shifted completely. If just a few minutes ago the tension between us had been thick and heavy, now the air had instantly turned to ice. Drake’s untouchable, terrifying captain persona was back in full force.

His jaw was clenched so hard the veins in his neck were popping, and his eyes were locked onto my phone as if it had just committed an international crime.

I stepped closer, my hand reaching out hesitantly. “Morvane? You good?”

Drake didn’t answer. Instead, he folded his massive arms across his chest, looming over me with a judgmental gaze that was a hell of a lot more intense than usual. There was a strange, dangerous flash of anger burning behind his icy blue eyes.

“Who’s Leo?” he demanded. His voice was low, cold, and completely unyielding.

I furrowed my brow, my hand freezing mid-air. “What?”

“You heard me, Rose.” Drake took a sharp step forward, completely erasing the distance between us until I could feel the heat radiating off his body, a wild contrast to his freezing stare.

“Your phone lit up. There was a text from some guy named Leo. Said he just landed in Toronto and asked if he could sleep in your bed tonight.”

I blinked. It took my brain a hot second to process what he was saying before reality smacked me in the face. He read my notifications? And he looks… pissed? Why the hell would he be pissed?

“How dare you read my private messages!” I snapped, my irritation instantly scorching away whatever awkwardness was left from the living room. I snatched my phone off the granite counter and clutched it to my chest like a shield. “And why are you interrogating me? It’s none of your business!”

“It becomes my business when some random guy tries to crash in my apartment,” Drake fired back, bracing his large hands on the kitchen island and leaning in until we were practically nose-to-nose. “

We made a deal, Rose. No one on this campus can find out we’re living together. I am not letting you bring some guy from your past to stay here, mess with my peace, and spark a massive wave of campus gossip.”

I stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. A guy from my past? Just some guy? Did he hear the ridiculous accusations flying out of his mouth right now?

“Yeah. So before he knocks on my door, tell him to go find a hotel,” Drake snapped, his eyes narrowing as if he were a predator guarding his territory.

I stared at his frustrated, rigid face, watching the rapid rise and fall of his chest. He was restlessly waiting for my answer, his eyes darting all over my face. The next second, the corner of my mouth twitched. The anger in my chest evaporated, replaced by an unstoppable urge to laugh.

Drake Morvane, the grumpy hockey captain who claimed he didn’t care about my existence and viewed me as a literal computer glitch, was currently having a mini existential crisis over a text message.

“Why are you smiling?” Drake growled, clearly insulted by my reaction. “I’m being serious, Rose.”

“You know, Morvane…” I stepped even closer, meeting his glaring eyes at point-blank range, deliberately dropping my voice to a mocking whisper. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were jealous right now.”

Drake completely froze. His pupils dilated, and for a fraction of a second, his icy facade cracked wide open, revealing pure, unfiltered shock before he violently ripped his gaze away.

"No, I don't."

"Yes, You are."

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped, a rare note of panic bleeding into his tone. “I’m not jealous. I’m just protecting my focus for Friday’s game.”

“Oh, really?” I chuckled, flipping my phone over and tapping the screen.

“Too bad your little theory about the ‘dangerous stranger’ is dead wrong. Leo is my cousin. He’s in town for an internship interview, and he’s actually the idiot who accidentally messed up my housing application and caused this double-booking in the first place.”

I turned the screen around and shoved it right in front of his face. I’d just sent the reply: ‘Are you kidding me? Thanks to you, I’m currently sharing a loft with a polar bear. Find a hotel or you’re dead to me.’

Drake stared at the screen, then slowly looked back up at me. An incredibly loud, awkward silence swallowed the kitchen. Slowly, a faint, dark red flush began to creep up his neck, staining his ears.

He cleared his throat softly, straightening his spine, and suddenly became profoundly interested in the tips of his own sneakers.

“Cousin,” he muttered, his rough voice softening. Was that... relief?

“Yes, my actual blood cousin,” I said, slipping the phone into my pocket. “So, Captain, do you still need to interrogate me about the security of your precious turf?”

Drake didn’t say another word. He turned stiffly on his heel, grabbed his hockey bag from the floor, and started walking toward his bedroom without a single backward glance.

But just as his hand wrapped around his doorknob, he muttered something that made my heart do a violent, chaotic flip.

"There’s one more thing."

The sudden change in his tone sent a shiver straight down my spine. The heavy, protective warmth from a second ago vanished as his face went cold and rigid. He took a slow, deliberate step toward me, effortlessly erasing the remaining space between us.

"One thing I need to make sure of," he murmured, his voice dropping an octave.

I glared up at him, trying to look defying, but my heart was throwing a literal tantrum against my ribs. Before I could even draw a breath to snap back, he moved. Fast. In one fluid, predatory motion, he guided me backward until my knees hit the cushions, crowding me right down onto the sofa.

The sheer, towering weight of his massive frame was over me in an instant, pinning me beneath him.

"You shouldn't have drawn that, Rose," Drake growled, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly register that vibrated straight through me.

His eyes locked onto my lips, and I could practically feel the heat radiating off his skin. Whatever strict, rational walls he normally kept up had completely crumbled, leaving behind something raw, dark, and possessive.

"I already told you, I was just... admiring your proportions. For art," I choked out, trying to sound defensive, but my voice betrayed me, coming out in a breathless, uneven stammer. It was a pathetic excuse, and judging by the dark glint in his eyes, he knew it too.

"Art, huh?" A dark, dangerous smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

He shifted his weight, pressing his heavy frame a fraction of an inch deeper against me, burying me into the plush cushions. It was pure, unadulterated torture.

The friction of my bare thighs against the rough denim of his jeans sent a jolt of liquid heat straight to my gut. His large hands, still securely anchored at my waist, slowly slid upward underneath the hem of my oversized shirt.

When his rough thumb brushed the sensitive skin along my ribs, a sharp gasp caught in my throat, my back arching instinctively into his touch.

"So, does this 'art project ' include the way you're looking at my mouth right now?" he murmured, leaning down until the tip of his nose brushed against mine. He smelled intoxicating, like melting ice, expensive cologne, and a sharp hit of pure adrenaline. "Like you want me to kiss you?"