“Show us what you found,” I say, but I don’t let go of Madeline. I can’t. Not yet. I need to hold on a little longer to get my fill so I can make it through the night.
She shifts in my lap, settling in, right where she belongs. The friction of her ass against my jeans sends more blood rushing south. She has to feel it, the rigid, hard line of my cock pressed against her, but she doesn’t pull away. Just goes still for a second, breath catching, and then shifts again. Testing. Teasing.
I grip her hip harder, fingers digging in, holding her still when she gives another wiggle. “Stop moving.”
“Then stop poking me,” she whispers. She doesn’t sound annoyed, and her cheeks turn even pinker.
“I can’t help it.” I lean in and brush my lips against her ear. “You’re in my lap. What did you expect?”
She doesn’t answer. Just settles deeper. I slide my hand up her thigh, claiming territory. She pretends she doesn’t notice, but her breath comes faster. I want her to feel what she does to me. Want her to know she’s mine, even if she won’t say it yet.
“Okay,” Georgia says, pulling up a chair closer to the table. “So I found some stuff. Coach Murphy’s social media is mostly locked down, but I got into her old posts from before she went private. Lots of ice skating content, motivational quotes, normal coach stuff. But then there’s this gap from last year where she deleted a bunch of stuff. And there’s one account she interacts with a lot that’s completely private.”
She turns her laptop so we can see. “I can’t get in. It’s private, and I don’t know how to?—”
“May I?” Grant interrupts, already reaching for the computer.
Georgia hesitates, then nods. Grant snags the laptop, fingers flying across the keys. A few commands, a screen flash, and suddenly we’re looking at private messages.
“Holy shit,” Georgia breathes. “How did you?—”
“I have skills,” Grant says and gives her a wink. If I thought Madeline could blush, Georgia has her beat.
The messages load. Lana and Coach Murphy, going back months. Lana asking for things—extra rink time, changing grades, and excusing absences. This started toward the end of the last school year.
Murphy says yes to everything, sometimes throwing in hearts, X’s, declarations of love. Lana’s responses are short, transactional, occasionally flirtatious when she wants something.
“She’s using her,” Madeline says quietly. I could have guessed that. Lana is queen bee of the girls of Kingmakers Prep for a reason. She slithered her way to the top. Her specialty is finding out your secrets and then using them to get what she wants.
“Look at this,” Grant says, scrolling up. “Same pattern. Different girl.”
The name hits me:Emily P.She’s now graduated. Same kind of shit from Murphy. Same hearts and X’s and desperate devotion. Emily is a little nicer to her.
“She’s done this before,” Georgia whispers. “It’s not just Lana. It’s a pattern.”
Madeline reaches for the journal and flips it open. Photos fall out—Lana in her uniform, Lana at practice, Lana sleeping in Murphy’s car. Notes in the margins:She looked at me today. She loves me. She just can’t say it yet.
“She was obsessed,” Madeline says, her voice hollow.
I stare at the photos and the neatly scripted handwriting. I know this feeling. The inability to think about anything else. That need to possess and keep. It starts off small but quickly becomes uncontrollable. I feel it every time Madeline walks into a room, every time another guy looks at her too long. I feel it the most when I can’t have eyes on her.
But I’m not Murphy. I’m not some predator using my position to take what I want. I’m just a guy who knows what he wants and won’t let go. Madeline’s not some student I’m grooming—she’s mine, and I’m hers, and that’s different. That’s real.
I move my hand to spread wide across her stomach, and I don’t feel ashamed about any of it.
“And Lana knew exactly how to play her,” I add.
We sit there, the evidence spread between us.
“Coach Murphy was a predator.” Madeline is the first to finally say it out loud.
“And someone wanted her dead,” Georgia mutters.
“But what I don’t get is why Lana would want her dead. She was still using her. If anything, it seems more likely Coach Murphy would snap and kill Lana. Not the other way around.”
“Maybe it was a past victim,” I suggest.
“It could be a lot of things,” Madeline says with a heavy sigh.
