"You're so fucking needy," I growl against his neck, feeling his pulse hammering under my lips. "Look at you. Grinding into my hand like you can't help yourself."
"I can't," he gasps, and there's something broken in his voicethat I want to break further. "Please-"
"Please what?"
"Don't stop, Jamie. God, just don't stop-"
I slow down again, just to watch him suffer, dragging my thumb over his slit, spreading the wetness, teasing. His whole body quivers, muscles coiling tight, he’s so close I can feel it in the way his cock throbs in my grip. I bring him right to the edge, feeling him shiver under my hand, his thighs shaking, his breath coming in ragged sobs. "Jamie-" he chokes out, and I know he's there, right there, about to tip over.
I stop.
My hand goes still, then releases him completely.
“Finish yourself off and remember whose name you were moaning,” I whisper.
I let go. I grab my towel and step out into the cold air, leaving him behind—undone under the spray. He won the first couple of rounds. But now? I’ve got the upper hand. I’ve got him exactly where I want him.
Chapter 29
Jamie
It’s been two weeks.
Two weeks of avoiding him.
Not in a subtle way. Not in a way that could be mistaken for anything else. I don’t look at him. I don’t talk to him unless I absolutely have to. I run drills on the opposite side of the ice. I leave the locker room early or late—doesn’t matter which, as long as it’s not the same time as him. It’s working.
Which is to say—it’s not working at all.
Because avoiding Rhys Callahan doesn’t make him go away. It just makes me more aware of him in a different way. Where he is. When he walks in. The exact second he steps onto the ice even when I’m not looking at him.
I hate it.
I hate that I know it.
I hate that I still haven't figured out how to stop it.
And now we have Westfield.
One of the bigger games of the season. Packed arena. The kind of game people talk about after. The kind of game that matters more than it should. The kind of game where we could change our luck. The kind of game I cannot afford to get wrong.
So I don’t think about him. I don’t think about any of it. The way he felt when I touched him. The soft sounds he made. Or the way he almost—
No.
I tape my stick and focus on the only thing that matters.
The game.
I’ve been doing this long enough to know how to shut everything else out. I need it to work tonight. Not just for the school. Not just for Fitch. We need it because this team has been bleeding for months and I can feel it—like a wound that either starts to heal or gets worse—and tonight feels like the moment it decides. I think about the game. Their goalie. Our coverage. The things that matter.
I’m very good at this. I’ve had to be.
The locker room empties out around me and I don’t register it until the noise drops and it’s just him.
It’s always him.
Fuck.
