
Cold Enough To Burn
kdamilola713 · Ongoing · 104.1k Words
Introduction
At nineteen she is on the edge of the career she has fought her entire life for. The last thing she needs is a complication. The last person she should want is her manager… the cold, controlled, impossibly distant Beckett Hargrove.
But one night changes everything.
A celebration that goes wrong. A version of Beckett she has never seen before. A decision she can never take back.
Weeks later Neve is staring at two pink lines and the walls of her carefully built life are cracking.
Beckett doesn’t remember that night. He doesn’t know what she did. He doesn’t know the child she’s carrying has his grey eyes and his stubborn blood.
When the scandal breaks and both their reputations are on the line, Beckett does what he does best, he takes control. A marriage. Clean. Practical. A business arrangement to protect them both.
Neve says yes.
Not because she has a choice.
Because she has a secret she is terrified he will never forgive.
And Beckett? He has secrets of his own. Ones that are about to drag them both into a war they never signed up for.
He doesn’t remember that night.
She’s terrified of the moment he does.
Cold Enough to Burn… because some things are too dangerous to feel and too impossible to stop.
Chapter 1
“Again.”
I say it out loud even though nobody is here to hear me.
That’s the thing about 5am. The rink belongs to me and nobody else. No coaches with clipboards. No other skaters warming up in my peripheral vision. No noise except the hum of the overhead lights and the sound my blades make against the ice.
I push off from the boards and go again.
The combination I’ve been working on for three weeks… a triple lutz into a triple toe loop, has been fighting me all morning. My left landing keeps pulling wide. Coach Darren would tell me it’s my hip angle. My old coach before him would have told me to feel the ice before I commit. My mother would tell me to eat something first.
None of them are here.
So I go again.
My name is Neve Delaney. I am nineteen years old. I have seventeen dollars in my checking account, a crack in my right skate boot I’ve been ignoring for two months, and one dream that I have been feeding every single thing I have since I was eleven years old.
I don’t come from money. My mother cleaned houses in the suburbs of Chicago so I could afford rink time.
I’ve skated in borrowed costumes and secondhand blades and competition venues where I was clearly the girl who didn’t belong. I’ve heard the whispers in changing rooms. Seen the looks.
None of that matters when I’m on the ice.
On the ice I am not the girl with the cracked boot and the empty account. I am exactly what I was made to be.
I hit the lutz. Land it clean. Follow it straight into the toe loop and come out of it steady, controlled, perfect.
“Yes.” I breathe it out into the cold air and watch it disappear.
Then I hear the door.
I don’t have to turn around to know who it is. I know his footsteps. Isn’t that embarrassing. Two years of Beckett Hargrove managing my career and I know the way his shoes sound on the rubber mat outside the rink entrance.
Measured and unhurried. Like a man who has never been late for anything in his life.
I keep skating. I’m not going to stop and look at him like I’ve been waiting. Even if some stupid part of me has been.
“You landed it.”
His voice carries across the empty rink. Low. Calm.
The same voice he uses whether he’s telling me I’ve qualified for a competition or telling me my sponsorship fell through. Beckett Hargrove doesn’t have volume settings. He just has that voice.
“I’ve been landing it,” I say without stopping. “For the last forty minutes.”
“Your left edge was pulling on the lutz.”
I stopped skating and turned around.
He’s standing at the boards in his coat. Dark wool.
Always the same dark wool coat this time of year. His hair is neat because of course it is. It’s five in the morning and Beckett looks like he stepped out of a meeting that hasn’t happened yet.
He is twenty seven years old and he manages four athletes. I am the youngest. He never lets me forget that. Not with words… Beckett doesn’t waste words.
Just with that look he has. The one that says he sees more than you want him to.
“My left edge is fine,” I tell him.
“It was fine just now. The first forty minutes is what I’m talking about.”
I skate to the boards and stop in front of him. There’s always this moment when I get close. This stupid, inconvenient moment where my chest does something I refuse to name. He’s my manager. He is older. He is the most controlled, unreachable person I have ever met.
And I have been in love with him for so long it’s embarrassing.
“You’re early,” I say instead of all of that.
“You’re always here at five.”
“And you’re never here at five.”
He doesn’t answer that. He looks at me the way he sometimes does when he thinks I won’t notice… like he’s calculating something that has nothing to do with my skating scores. Then it’s gone. Back to the flat, professional expression I know better than his actual face.
“How are you feeling about Thursday?” he asks.
Thursday. The regional qualifier. The one that determines whether I go to the invitational that could change everything.
“Good,” I say.
“Neve.”
“I’m ready, Beckett.”
He looks at me for a moment. “Your stamina in the back half of your programme dropped by eight seconds at the last practice session.”
“I know.”
“Eight seconds is not nothing.”
“I know that too.” I grip the board between us. “I’ll fix it.”
He holds my gaze. Something passes through his expression too fast for me to read. Then he straightens and looks down at his phone. Back to business. Back to the version of him that I am supposed to deal with.
“Good,” he says.
He starts to turn. I should let him go. I always let him go.
“Beckett.”
He stops.
“Why are you here at five in the morning?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. That alone is unusual. Beckett always has an answer. He looks back at me over his shoulder and something in his face is different.
Not different enough for anyone else to notice.
I notice.
“There’s something we need to discuss,” he says.
“About Thursday?”
“No.” A pause. “Tomorrow. My office.”
He walks away before I can ask anything else. His footsteps cross the rubber mat. The door opens. Closes.
I stand at the boards in an empty rink at five in the morning and stare at the space where he was.
Tomorrow. My office.
Four words and somehow every single one of them feels like a warning.
Last Chapters
#106 Chapter 106 At The Table
Last Updated: 7/8/2026#105 Chapter 105 He Comes To Her
Last Updated: 7/8/2026#104 Chapter 104 The Legal Battle Escalates
Last Updated: 7/8/2026#103 Chapter 103 Beckett Alone
Last Updated: 7/8/2026#102 Chapter 102 Separated
Last Updated: 7/8/2026#101 Chapter 101 What Beckett Said
Last Updated: 7/8/2026#100 Chapter 100 Her Mother’s House
Last Updated: 7/8/2026#99 Chapter 99 What He Means
Last Updated: 7/8/2026#98 Chapter 98 The Notification
Last Updated: 7/8/2026#97 Chapter 97 What He Remembers
Last Updated: 7/8/2026
You Might Like 😍
From Sacrificed Slave to the Dragon King's Obsession
His fangs glinted as he gripped my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. Dragon scales shimmered along his neck, breath scorching my skin.
"Your Majesty... I beg—" He shoved me onto the bed. Silk tore with a sharp rip, cold air rushing over my exposed body.
"Scared?" He smirked, palm sliding down my waist, fingers tracing slow, burning circles. "Yet you shiver... not from cold."
I lunged for the candlestick, but he caught my wrist, pinning it overhead. His knee forced my legs apart.
"When your father gave you to me," his lips brushed my ear, voice a dark rumble, "you were already mine."
On the eve of freedom after ten years of servitude, Lina Valeria stood one night away from reuniting with her betrothed. But Dragon King Augustus condemned her to the Abyss Mines on false charges—a trap forged from obsessive desire.
Augustus Ashenwing, Supreme Sovereign of Skyhold Citadel, is ruthless and feared by all races. His obsession stems from ancient grudges and dragonkind's most dangerous instinct: possessive desire. He demands her submission, binding her to his throne as his consort.
From prisoner to queen, Lina battles him through court intrigue and twisted passion—fighting for her mother, her freedom, her dignity.
Yet this cold-blooded tyrant reserves all tenderness for her alone. He indulges her temper, bends his pride, compromises without limit—anything to see her smile. Gradually, her heart wavers. But loving him means betraying Kain, who waited eleven years. Torn between duty and desire, she drowns in agonizing guilt.
Love and hatred intertwined—a forbidden dragon romance in a realm of oppression.
The Dragon's Last Fae Queen
“Prince? Dickhead? Asshole? Or stalker?” A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. “Maybe I should show you the one title I want you to use.” Before I could react, his hand closed around my chin, tilting my face up. His lips crashed into mine, hard, claiming, breath-stealing. When he finally pulled back, his voice was a rough whisper against my lips. “You could call me yours… because you are mine.”
From Substitute To Queen
Heartbroken, Sable discovered Darrell having sex with his ex in their bed, while secretly transferring hundreds of thousands to support that woman.
Even worse was overhearing Darrell laugh to his friends: "She's useful—obedient, doesn't cause trouble, handles housework, and I can fuck her whenever I need relief. She's basically a live-in maid with benefits." He made crude thrusting gestures, sending his friends into laughter.
In despair, Sable left, reclaimed her true identity, and married her childhood neighbor—Lycan King Caelan, nine years her senior and her fated mate. Now Darrell desperately tries to win her back. How will her revenge unfold?
From substitute to queen—her revenge has just begun!
Bound By Power, Torn By Love
She regards him as her only salvation, but he regards her as a pawn for revenge. When two enemies dance on the sharp knife, what will be the final outcome?
Omega Bound
Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life.
Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination
The Deadly Mafia Princess
Her gang take the matter in their own hands, to try to save their leader from the horror of her home. What none of them know, they wasn’t her real parents, and now Ro will be sent away to live with her real family. That makes her closest members in her gang pack up and move as well. They don’t want to be far away from their leader.
HER ALPHA, HER SAVIOUR
Kane Hellboud, charm and wealth personified, wanted only me in exchange for her treatment. No cameras, isolation, or noose-like rules were part of the deal. Behind his smile? Cold, violent possessiveness that destroyed our fake marriage.
Most of all, I didn’t know the supernatural walked among us, hiding in the cracks of ordinary life. Not until Abel Stone stepped into mine—dark-eyed, sharp-tongued, and oozing dangerous promises. He’s my new boss. He shouldn’t make my skin tingle or my pulse race. I shouldn’t feel this primal pull, this illogical recognition that tugs at something deep in my bones.
Around him, lights burst, electronics fry, and something ancient in me awakens.
Kane feels it. His grip tightens, punishments turn brutal, and he hides the truth of what I am.
Trapped between two powerful men, I’m no prey, no pawn—no helpless victim.
Prisons burn. Monsters bleed. As for me? I'm the storm in skin—deadly beyond suspicion.
Goddess Of The Underworld
When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
Accardi
“I thought you said you were done chasing me?” Gen mocked.
“I am done chasing you.”
Before she could formulate a witty remark, Matteo threw her down. She landed hard on her back atop his dining room table. She tried to sit up when she noticed what he was doing. His hands were working on his belt. It came free of his pants with a violent yank. She collapsed back on her elbows, her mouth gaping open at the display. His face was a mask of sheer determination, his eyes were a dark gold swimming with heat and desire. His hands wrapped around her thighs and pulled her to the edge of the table. He glided his fingers up her thighs and hooked several around the inside of her panties. His knuckles brushed her dripping sex.
“You’re soaking wet, Genevieve. Tell me, was it me that made you this way or him?” his voice told her to be careful with her answer. His knuckles slid down through her folds and she threw her head back as she moaned. “Weakness?”
“You…” she breathed.
Genevieve loses a bet she can’t afford to pay. In a compromise, she agrees to convince any man her opponent chooses to go home with her that night. What she doesn’t realize when her sister’s friend points out the brooding man sitting alone at the bar, is that man won’t be okay with just one night with her. No, Matteo Accardi, Don of one of the largest gangs in New York City doesn’t do one night stands. Not with her anyway.
Alpha VS Omega' Twin VS Twin (A Dark Werewolf Romance)
Stripped of everything, Callum is thrown into the Rookeries, where packless wolves go to die. But he survives. He builds a pack from the broken and the damned. He falls in love with Valentina, a dhampir hunted by the same vampire Parliament that destroyed his life.
In a city ruled by immortal aristocrats and controlled by ancient dragons, Callum learns the hardest truth: individual virtue cannot defeat systemic evil. But small victories matter. And some fights are worth losing everything
A pack of their own
Let Them Kneel
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.
But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.
Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.
When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.
For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.
Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.
But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.
And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.
Especially him.
She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.
Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.












