That’s progress, right?
* * *
I should be dead on my feet.
At practice this morning, Coach made us run suicides until my lungs burned, then we had film, then weights, then media. I should be comatose the second my head hits the pillow. Instead I’m staring up at the dark ceiling of my bedroom, sheets kicked to the foot of the bed, skin still vibrating like I just stepped off the ice.
I roll onto my back with a groan that sounds too loud in the quiet condo. My hand moves before my brain catches up—slides down my abs, under the waistband of my boxer briefs, cups the heavy ache that’s been there the entire damn day.
Because of her.
Because of the way Minerva’s eyes lit up on the balcony when she started explaining her new hydrogel prototype. The way her hands danced in the air like she was conducting an invisible orchestra made of polymers and peptide chains. The way her voice went breathy and quick, words tumbling over each other because she couldn’t get them out fast enough. She forgot I was a hockey player. Forgot I was her boss, technically. Forgot to be the careful, buttoned-up version of herself she thinks the world wants.
She was just… Min. Brilliant, electric, alive.
And so fucking beautiful it hurt.
I palm my cock and hiss at how sensitive I already am. One stroke, two, and I’m leaking, slicking the fabric. My hips jerk with a mind of their own.
I shouldn’t.
She’s right down the hall. She trusts me. I’m supposed to be the safe guy, the golden retriever who brings her coffee just how she told me she likes it, who pretends not to notice when she forgets to eat, who teases her about her color-coded planners but secretly loves how her brain works.
But right now I’m the guy picturing her climbing into my lap on that balcony, skirt rucked up around her thighs, glasses fogging as she sinks down onto me slow and tight. I imagine her nails scoring the back of my neck, her startled gasp when I fill her, the way she’d bite that plump lower lip to keep from moaning my name where the neighbors might hear.
She’s so fucking petite, barely comes up to my pec, and every time she reaches for something on a high shelf, I have to clench my fists at my sides so I don’t lift her by the waist and set her on the counter just to feel how light she is in my hands. I want to do it naked. Want to spread her out on my kitchen island and strip away every layer she uses to disappear.
She’s always binding herself, hiding those perfect tits under baggy shirts like they’re something to apologize for. I’d peel it all off slow, kiss every inch of skin she’s learned to distrust, tell her how insane it makes me that I can palm one breast completely, my thumb brushing a nipple that tightens the second I touch her. Like her body has been waiting for permission she never gives herself.
My hand curls around my cock, slow and hard, and I can’t stop thinking about how she hates what I crave most. How she flinches from softness, from attention, from the way I look at her like she matters. Because she does.
“Calisse… she’s gonna kill me.”
I want my hands on her ass, so small and firm I could hold her steady with one grip, pull her into me, and feel her tremble because she wants it even though she thinks she shouldn’t. She’d be so tight around me it would steal my breath, thighs shaking as I hold her up, my name breaking from her mouth like she doesn’t quite believe she’s allowed to want this.
I want to fuck her until every lie she’s ever swallowed loosens its hold, until she knows—deep in her bones—that nothing about her needs fixing. I want to ruin her for anyone who would ever make her feel small for the wrong reasons, and then spend the rest of my life proving that the things she tries to erase are exactly what make me fall apart.
“Fuck,” I speak into the dark, voice ragged. “I have no right to want her. I’m such a piece of shit.”
It doesn’t stop me.
I shove my briefs down just enough to free myself, wrap my fist around hot, aching flesh, and start stroking in earnest. Slow at first, pretending I still have control. Then faster, rougher, hips punching up into my hand because I can’t help it.
I think about her voice cracking on the word “viscoelasticity” like it was dirty.
I think about how supple her throat looked when she tipped her head back to laugh at something I said.
I think about spreading her out on my sheets, kissing every freckle across her collarbone while she explains quantum tunneling between filthy little moans. I want to watch her fall apart while she’s still trying to give me a lecture. I want to earn the moment she forgets words altogether.
My balls draw up tight. Too fast.
I slap my free hand over my mouth just as I come, teeth sinking into the meat of my palm to muffle the broken sound that rips out of me. Pleasure hits like a body check—sharp, blinding, leaving me shaking and gasping, cum striping my torso in thick pulses.
The ceiling swims back into focus.
I lie there panting, feeling like the worst kind of creep. Because it’s not just her body I want. I mean—Christ, I want that, bad—but it’s more than that. I want the way she looks at me when she thinks I’m not watching. I want her to trust me enough to be loud, to be messy, to be furious or silly or turned on or all of it at once. I want to be the person she never has to shrink for.
I want to be better than every asshole who ever made her feel like her passion was “too much.”
