Yearner | Kian

Snow fell in thick, unhurried flakes, muffling the distant laughter from the main hall into something ghostly and far away.

The balcony overlooked a frozen world. Kian stood at the railing with his forearms braced against the wood, breath unfurling in slow white plumes that the wind tore apart.

He'd found this spot on the first night—a third-floor balcony accessible only through a maintenance stairwell everyone else had overlooked. Three days of team bonding, of forced proximity and scheduled activities, and this was the only place that didn't feel like drowning. The lake stretched below, a black mirror rimmed with snow-heavy pines. The mountains rose beyond, their peaks lost in cloud.

He heard her footsteps on the stairs.

He didn't turn. He knew the rhythm of her walk by now, lighter than the trainers and equipment staff, slower than Asher's chaotic bounce, more hesitant than Jax's confident stride. She emerged onto the balcony with two mugs in her hands, snow already catching in her hair like tiny white stars.

Hot chocolate. He could smell it.

She didn't announce herself. Just crossed the balcony and settled beside him at the railing, close enough that her shoulder nearly brushed his arm. She held out one of the mugs. He took it. Their fingers didn't touch.

For a while, neither of them spoke. The snow kept falling.

She was underdressed again. No gloves. Coat half-zipped, like she'd grabbed it in a hurry. The cold had flushed her cheeks and the tip of her nose, and when she ducked her head to sip from her mug, a shiver ran through her shoulders that she tried to suppress.

His hand moved before his brain caught up.

Just the backs of his knuckles, feather-light, brushing the curve of her cheekbone. Her skin was freezing. Silky and freezing, and beneath the cold he felt the warmth of her blood, the evidence of life, the impossible proximity of someone he'd spent two years watching from a distance.

"Cold?" His voice came out rougher than he meant.

She didn't pull away. Her eyes lifted to his—questioning, or maybe just startled—and the flush on her cheeks deepened in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature.

He dropped his hand. Stepped back half a pace. The railing pressed cold against his spine.

"Jax is looking for you."

Not a reminder for her. A leash for himself. Jax, who had brought her here. Jax, who was downstairs right now, probably scanning the main hall with that easy grin, asking if anyone had seen his date. Jax, who had no idea she kept finding her way to the quietest corner of the lodge, to the quietest man in it.

The outdoor pool was tucked behind the lodge's east wing, fed by a natural geothermal spring that kept the water steaming even as the air temperature plunged below freezing. Stone-lined and irregularly shaped, it looked less like a resort amenity and more like something the mountain had offered up on its own. Snow gathered on the boulders circling the edge, and the vapor rising from the surface blurred the boundary between water and air.

Kian had been there since midnight. This was his third night in a row—the only time the pool was empty, the only time he could float in the dark with the snow falling and pretend, briefly, that the world wasn't full of noise and other people and her.

He heard the soft crunch of boots on snow.

She appeared through the steam like a figure resolving out of fog. Wrapped in a lodge robe, arms crossed against the cold, hair already dusted with flakes. She stopped when she saw him, and for a moment he thought she'd turn back. Most people would. But she wasn't most people—he'd learned that much over the past two years, and the past two days had only confirmed it.

The robe came off. She was wearing a simple swimsuit underneath, practical and unadorned, and it still hit him like a cross-check to the ribs. She stepped into the water without a word, hissing softly at the heat, and settled onto the submerged stone ledge across from him. The steam curled between them. The snow kept falling.

Kian didn't move. Didn't speak. His arms rested along the pool's edge, and the water lapped at his chest, and every nerve in his body was suddenly, acutely aware of how little fabric separated her skin from the dark water.

The silence stretched. It wasn't uncomfortable—that was the dangerous part. Silences with her never were.

"You followed me." His voice was low, roughened by the steam and the hour. Not an accusation. An observation.

The water rippled. She'd shifted on the ledge, or maybe it was just the spring's current. He couldn't look at her directly. If he did, he'd see the way the heat had flushed her skin, the way the steam had curled the hair at her temples, the droplets tracing paths down her throat. He was already cataloging it from peripheral vision alone.

"Jax is asleep." A pause. He flexed his catching hand beneath the water. "Third door on the left. Second floor."

The words were a reminder. For him. Jax, who'd spent the evening with his arm draped over her chair, leaning in to whisper things that made her smile. Jax, who hadn't yet noticed that her smiles never quite reached her eyes when she looked at Kian instead.

The snow landed on Kian's shoulders and melted instantly against his overheated skin. He watched a flake dissolve on the back of his hand. Still didn't look at her.

"You should go back inside." His voice cracked on the last word. "It's late."

He didn't mean it.

While the retreat ended on a Thursday. Jax's car didn't.

Kian was loading his duffel into the back of his black SUV when he heard Jax cursing across the parking lot—something about a dead battery and roadside assistance taking three hours and the team bus already gone. He didn't think much of it until he saw her standing beside Jax's disabled sedan, duffel bag at her feet, scarf wrapped up to her chin, watching the situation unfold with quiet patience.

Jax spotted him loading his car. Jogged over. "Hey, man—any chance you could give her a ride? I gotta wait for the tow, and she's got work tomorrow. I'll owe you."

Kian should have said no. Every rational instinct told him to say no.

"I'll take her," he heard himself say.

Jax clapped him on the shoulder, already turning back toward his car. "You're a lifesaver, Voss. I'll text you."

Ten minutes later, she was in his passenger seat. The SUV hummed down the mountain road, snow tires gripping fresh powder, the lodge shrinking in the rearview mirror. The heater blasted on low. Her scent—something just her and clean—filled the cabin despite the cold.

Neither of them spoke for the first hour.

The storm hit without warning. One moment the sky was overcast but manageable; the next, the world disappeared behind a wall of white. Wind buffeted the SUV sideways. Visibility dropped to near-zero, headlights reflecting off a solid curtain of snow. The road vanished beneath fresh drifts.

Kian's hands tightened on the wheel. He'd driven in worse. But the speedometer had already dropped to twenty, and the nearest town was still forty miles away.

"There's a turnout ahead." His voice was calm, controlled—the same tone he used on the ice when the defense collapsed and he was the last line. "We're pulling over."

The turnout was little more than a widened shoulder with a snow-covered picnic table, but it was off the road and sheltered by a dense stand of pines. He killed the engine. The wind howled against the windows, and the car began to cool immediately.

"Whiteout," he said, unnecessarily. "Could last an hour. Could last three."

He reached into the back seat and pulled out an emergency blanket, the silver thermal kind that crinkled loudly in the quiet cabin. He handed it to her without meeting her eyes. Then he stripped off his heavy coat—the grey wool one he'd had for years—and draped it over her lap on top of the blanket.

"I don't get cold."

A lie. But the alternative—watching her shiver while he stayed warm—wasn't an option.

The windows fogged. The world outside became a white void. Inside the car, the silence was dense, charged, nothing like the easy quiet of the library nook or the balcony. This was different. This was two years of unspoken words pressing against the glass.

Kian stared straight ahead at the snow accumulating on the hood. His jaw was tight. The flush on his cheeks, visible even in the dim light, had nothing to do with the dropping temperature.

She shifted in her seat. The emergency blanket crinkled. His coat rustled against her lap.

His hand was still on the center console. He didn't remember putting it there.

"You should sleep," he said. "I'll wake you when the storm passes."

He didn't look at her. If he looked at her—sitting in his passenger seat, wrapped in his coat, close enough to touch—the fragile control he'd been maintaining would shatter. And Kian Voss had spent four years learning exactly how much force it took to break a wall. He wasn't ready to find out what happened when he stopped holding it up.