Magnus tilts his head, eyes flicking to me retreating down the hall, then back to Kyle. “Or what? You’ll protect him?” His voice drips mockery, but underneath there’s a flare of something else—territory staked, a warning. “You think you know what he needs?”
“I know he doesn’t need you,” Kyle says quietly.
Magnus chuckles, low. “Whatever, man. You’re making this more than what it is.”
That’s when I push through the stairwell door, cutting off the sound of their voices. The heavy door swings shut behind me with a thud that echoes down the concrete steps.
I stop in the stairwell, gripping the railing like I can crush it. Shame claws at me, sharp and suffocating, but beneath it—worse—is a pulse of pleasure. I liked it. I liked hearing him speak my name, liked seeing hunger flare in his eyes instead of disgust. He wanted it. He wantedmelike that.
And I wanted it too.
My cock stirs in my compression shorts, traitorous, hungry. I squeeze my thighs together, furious at myself, but it only makes the ache sharper. I sink onto the steps, elbows braced on my knees, dragging both hands down my face until my skin burns.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I can’t stop replaying it. The way he tasted—whiskey, sharp and bitter. The scrape of his stubble against my skin. The way his body pushed back against mine was solid and unyielding. And underneath the anger, underneath the rivalry, there was something else. Something dark, something electric.
The truth is, Magnus made me feel alive.
I’ve spent years locking myself in ice, burying everything under control—family expectations, team pressure, the constant whisper that I don’t belong here, that I only made it because of my father’s money. I’ve carried all of it like armor. Untouchable. Perfect.
And Magnus shattered it with a grin and a kiss. Maybe a little more.
I hate him for that. But I hate myself more, because I fucking let him defile me.
I drag in a breath, but it’s useless. My body won’t calm down. My cock is thick and aching now, pulsing with every memory. Him grinding against me, taunting me, saying I was hard just from his words. He was right. Heisright.
I slam my fist into the step, the crack of knuckles on concrete grounding me, pain spiking through my hand. It’s not enough. Nothing is enough to drown this heat.
The locker rooms are empty, most of the guys sleeping in the halls or downstairs green rooms. I strip my clothes off in a haze, leaving a trail to the stall. The shower is hot enough to sting, and I let it run over me until my skin is raw and pink. I scrub with practised aggression, soap foaming into the drain, as if I can scrub out the memory with lather.
Instead, every movement of my body brings it back: how his mouth found the hollow under my ear, the way he claimed my breath with his lips. The ache in my groin throbs, angry and constant; the denial he engineered sits like a coal at the base of me.
I sink to the tile and let the water wash me into small sobs that I keep boxed inside my throat. Rage and lust and humiliation tangle into something I cannot tease apart. For all my training, all my polished composure, this is what he’s done to me—left me raw and aching, furious and needing.
And yet even as I tell myself these things I can feel the ache still humming beneath my ribs. The memory of him—of how he denied me, then left me burning—will not let me go. The nearest, simplest truth sits in the back of my mind like a thumb pressing in a bruise:
He knows how to take what he wants. And I am terrified that I’ll want him to take it again.
I close my eyes and see him against the glass, lips red, eyes alight, whisperingSay it… say you want me.
I see the way his body shuddered when I tightened my grip on his throat. The way he gothardfor me.
The image makes my cock throb, hard and urgent now, and before I can stop myself, my hand is wrapping around it. Shame floods me even as a groan escapes my throat, echoing in theempty shower. I stroke myself fast, furious, chasing relief and hating every second of it.
I imagine him again. His laugh. His mouth. His voice taunting, filthy.You hate how my hand is about to make you come.
I imagine it’s his hand rubbing me so aggressively. That it’s his mouth making me wet and sticky and not from the lonely cum leaking from me.
His name ghosts my mouth.
My name isn’t a safe word, Hale.
I come hard, bracing against the tile, spilling down the drain as my body shakes. And then the shame drowns me. I sag against the wall, chest heaving, water sliding down, washing away the evidence but not the truth. My hands tremble. My throat burns with disgust.
I gave in to him in that room. And I gave in again here, alone.
Magnus owns me now. Not just my body, but my mind. He’s in me, under my skin, in my fantasies, in my shame.
