Page 20

My body goes still. Quiet. I try to breathe, but something foreign obstructs my lungs. It is pain and dread and a sudden stab that leaves me winded.

The moment oxygen reaches my lungs, I am moving, jogging up the stairs and shouldering my way through the mess of dancing bodies. I am not calm, nothing close to cool or collected, but there is no cautionary voice telling me to take a minute. I cannot think of a single damn reason to slow down when another man has his mouth and hands all over Aleks.

“Aleks!”

He turns his head toward my voice, and one tiny piece of me settles. The shifter keeps their bodies connected, his arms wrapped around Aleks’ waist, and he turns his icy blue eyes on me. I hold the stranger’s gaze even as he lowers his mouth to brush Aleks’ ear. “Who is he?”

“No one.”

Only then do I look, really look, at Aleks. He is clearly drunk, his eyes hazy and heavy, and there is a slack softness to his mouth I am not used to seeing. His lips are swollen, wet from the shifter’s tongue, and I fight the urge to wipe his mouth with the hem of my shirt.

He looks good. Gut-wrenchingly handsome, and full of youthful life. Muscles defined enough to cast shadows, and a trail of dark hair below his outie bellybutton. I do not let my eyes venture lower, to the place where his crotch is still pressed against the shifter’s thigh.

You are no one to him, I remind myself. He does not know what you do.

I crack my neck. “I am his coach, and it is past curfew. Come on.”

“I don’t have a fucking curfew,” Aleks protests, looking at me with an incredulous scowl.

“You do now,” I respond.

Something crosses Aleks’ face then, a flash of desperation I recognize, and I glance down. My body tightens, shoulders bunching and jaw clenching, like I am bracing myself for a fight. My hands flex at my side.

Little brat thinks he is being subtle, grinding on that thigh. He thinks I do not notice his breath hitching, the way his hips roll, chasing pleasure.

Absolutely not. I am willing to take a back seat to many things, to ignore everything I know with the goal of letting Aleks have a full, happy life.

But I refuse to stand by and watch him get off with another man. Absolutely the fuck not.

“Aleks,” I growl.

“What?” He snaps.

I see it, then. A bandana is tucked into his back pocket, hanging from his jeans. A flag. A visual communication of a need. A forest green hanky in the back right pocket cannot possibly be random.

The quiet, possessive rage in my head shifts. It is one thing to know Aleks is out trying to hook up with a stranger. But to see the green hanky, and know the kink he is flagging for is the complement to mine? It would be too perfect. A cosmic joke, to make the man I am coaching exactly my type.

But if I am honest, a part of me wondered. I have tried not to look too long at his body in the water, at the way he works his mouth when he is thinking too hard, but I am only human. I see how the fire in him burns unchecked, like he is daring someone to brave the flames and find him within. Sometimes he looks at me when something goes wrong, clearly waiting for me to step in.

Dios, I have not been giving him what he needs. The way I talk to him in the water, the way I have peppered him with questions, my whole approach to him—now, knowing this, changes everything.

I have spent the past two days watching him. How he practices, how he walks, how he leans so close to the bathroom mirror his breath fogs the glass. How sometimes he wraps his hands around himself, like he is starving for touch.

Even though I should not, I have thought about his body. Imagined his pale, muscular legs sprawled out on a mattress or quietly kneeling between my thighs. I have imagined his mouth swollen and wet with spit. Now, seeing him like this? I do not want to imagine anymore.

My mind made up, I shove every lingering doubt to the side, and take two steps toward him. Aleks watches me warily.

“Now, boy.”

His eyes go wide, and I smile, something inside of me settling when I see his reaction to my command. Those wet lips part, and I notice with pleasure that his body is frozen. His hips still.

I hold his gaze as I reach my hand toward him. “Now, boy.”

Aleks stumbles toward me. My hands are there to steady him, and for a moment I sink into the way his skin feels against my fingertips. Soft. Hard-earned muscle. I have never touched him before, and the realization hits me, sending a giddy rush to my head.

As soon as he is steady on his feet, I let go. I would love to hold him tight against me, but it is not time for that yet. Neither of us are ready for that.

I turn away and move through the crowd.