I should stop. I should think about anyone else. But no one else sticks like this. No one else lingers after the touch fades. My hips jerk up into my hand, a groan escaping before I can bite it back.
Images blur together—his thigh under my hand, his lips pressed in a hard line, the possibility of what would’ve happenedif I pushed even higher. Would he have stopped me? Would he have snapped? Or would he have let me break him right there, in front of everyone, silently unraveling under the table while nobody else knew?
I want more. I need more.
Leander’s eyes on me. The way his dick was hard and large in his pants just from my touch.
My hand strokes aggressively, replicating how I’d want to fuck him. Punishingly. Rough. Endless.
The thought makes me shudder. My body arches, my breath ragged, every muscle wound tight. I debate sending a video to Leander of what I’m doing to myself, but that’ll be another night. Tonight I want to imagine I’m coming on that pretty face of his.
When I finally come, it hits so hard I gasp, hand clenching, release spilling hot across my stomach. I lay there panting, staring at the ceiling, skin damp and sheets tangled. But the relief doesn’t last. It never does. Because my mind doesn’t let go—it circles back, always back, to him.
Why him? Why this rookie with his quiet stare and guarded walls? I’ve had plenty of bodies, plenty of rough flings where I didn’t even remember their faces after. But Leander? He’s different. His silence digs under my skin. His control makes me want to ruin him, and his restraint makes me want to cherish him.
And that contradiction—it hooks me deeper than anything else ever has.
My body refuses to sleep. It’s too restless and wired, pulsing with desire I can’t shake. My mind doesn’t want it either; it keeps circling back to him, dragging me down into thought after thought, picture after picture.
Leander.
How I’ll push him further.
How I’ll make him yield.
How I’ll take him completely.
And maybe, what drives me insane is the thought that he might already want me to.
4
LEANDER
Itoss my keys onto the counter and sink down onto the edge of the couch, my muscles aching from practice and the bar and—most of all—from trying too hard to keep everything together. I press my palms into my knees and exhale, but it doesn’t ease the coil in my chest.
The silence presses in, heavier than the noise of the bar, heavier than the laughter of my teammates. I should be relieved—I’ve been craving silence all night—but instead it makes me restless. I don’t know what to do with myself when everything slows down.
Phoenix.
His name alone tightens my throat. I can still feel him—the weight of his hand on my shoulder, the casual slide down my arm, the way his fingers lingered against my thigh under the table. Even now, hours later, the memory sparks across my nerves like live current. My skin burns where he touched me.
I hated it.
I wanted more.
Both truths sit there, locked together, pulling me apart.
God help me, I got hard sitting next to him. In the middle of everything—the laughter, the music, the stench of beer—my body betrayed me. The second his hand stayed there too long, warmth pooling under his touch, I felt myself react. And so did he.
The shame of it hits me fresh now, my stomach twisting as though the whole room had seen.
I shouldn’t want that. I shouldn’t crave the way he looked at me, like I wasn’t as invisible as I’ve worked so hard to be. And yet… some part of me is starving. Starving for something I’ve never let myself reach for.
I drag a hand over my face, trying to smother the heat creeping up my neck. I want to know what it feels like to let someone touch me without bracing for pain. To stop guarding every inch of myself. To surrender, just once, and not be punished for it.
But the second that thought roots itself, the past strikes back.
My chest tightens, breath cutting short. I don’t even need to close my eyes to see it—my father’s shadow filling the doorway, broad shoulders, that sharp silence before his voice lashed out. The disappointment etched deep in his face. His hand clamping down on my arm, fingers like iron, hard enough to bruise.
