“Fuck, yes, Cum for me, Si, that’s so fucking good,” Cal groaned, his voice wrecked, as his own release followed mine, leaving me covered in the mess of us both.
Breathless and barely able to move, Cal rolled off me and collapsed onto the mattress.
I still hadn’t come down fully; my ears felt muffled, my heart rate unsteady. I reached for the tissues on the nightstand, wiping the remnants of us off my stomach before tossing them into the trash. As soon as I leaned back, Cal draped his arm across my waist, pulling me closer and planting a kiss on the side of my head.
Part of me wanted to jump up, run to the other bed, or lock myself in the bathroom until Cal fell asleep. But I couldn’t. I was cemented here, in this feeling, in the safety, in Cal.
So I didn’t fight it. Neither did he. Without another word, we simply fell asleep.
7
MARCH - SHOWDOWN U.S. TOUR
Now playing: House Of Balloons // Glass Table Girls - The Weeknd
Iwokeupthemorning afterMan Overboardwith a mouth that tasted like chlorine and a mark on the side of my neck that looked like a violent crime.
It was a bruise. A sprawling, violet-red galaxy blooming right over my pulse point, just below the jawline where my beard stubble ended. I stood in the hotel bathroom mirror that morning in Miami, staring at it, my hands gripping the porcelain of the sink until my knuckles turned white.
It’s unprofessional,my brain screamed, the voice of my father echoing in the tile. It’s a breach of the brand. It’s evidence.
I braced myself against the counter, leaning in until my nose nearly touched the glass. I should be furious. I should be scrubbing at it with a washcloth until my skin was raw. I should be searching for a hoodie or a way to spin a story to the producers about a botched spot in the battle royale.
But as I traced the dark, jagged edges of the mark with my thumb, the panic didn’t come.
Instead, a dark, heavy heat settled low in my gut, coiling tight. It didn’t look like an accident. It looked like a claim. It looked like a receipt for the fact that I had completely surrendered control to Callum Kincaid, and he had taken it without hesitation. The sight of it, my skin, usually so pristine, now marred by his teeth, didn’t make me feel ashamed. It made me feel owned.
And god help me, I liked it.
When I finally walked out of the bathroom, I didn’t cover it. I didn’t put on a high collared shirt. I walked out shirtless, letting the mark scream in the fluorescent lights of the hotel room.
Cal was sitting on the edge of the bed, packing his bag. He looked up. His eyes locked onto the bruise instantly.
For a second, the air left the room. I waited for him to apologize. I waited for him to look worried about what management would say, or to make a joke to deflect the tension.
But he didn’t. He just smirked. It was a slow, arrogant curl of his lip, his eyes darkening as he admired his handiwork. He didn’t look sorry; he looked satisfied. He looked like a man who knew exactly what he’d done and would do it again in a heartbeat.
“Looks good on you,” was all he said.
That was sixty-two days ago.
I knew it was sixty-two days because I counted. I counted every morning I woke up alone. I counted every flight we took where his knee brushed mine, sending a phantom jolt of electricity up my thigh. I counted every time I caught him looking at my neck, checking to see if the mark had faded, and the disappointment that flashed in his eyes when it finally did.
We didn’t talk about it. We minimized it. That was the strategy. We were two high performance athletes living in a pressure cooker; the night in the pool was a pressure valve release. It was adrenaline. It was a fluke. It was a one-time lapse in judgment fueled by a pay per view high.
At least, that’s what I told myself as I sat in the rental car in downtown Chicago, watching the snow mix with the rain, waiting for Cal to come out of the gas station.
I had it under control. I was the strategist. I was the one that thought ahead.
But sixty-two days was a long time to starve.
Chicago in March was brutal. The wind coming off Lake Michigan cut through layers of wool like a knife, rattling the windows of the dive bar we were currently standing in.
We hadn’t planned on going out. We had just finished a grueling tag match onShowdown, and all I wanted was ice for my shoulder and a bed. But Jonathan Rockwell, one of the vets we were currently feuding with on TV, had extended the invite.
“Come on, rookies,” Rockwell had said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Whole crew is going. Don’t be antisocial.”
In the wrestling business, when a legend invites you out, you don’t say no. You show up, you pay your respects, and you pretend you aren’t exhausted.
