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The worst part is that when I picture her in Cruz’s stupid hypothetical—her, and Eli, and the heat of that scene—I put myself in. Her soft, plump lips wrapped around my hard cock.

And it doesn’t feel wrong. It just feels like the beginning of something I have no bearing to navigate by.

I get in my car and drive home, and I can’t stop thinking about being part of an orgy with Dakota in the middle, Cruz fucking Eli while Eli fucks her.

6

DAKOTA

Iwrap my hands at the edge of the mat, watching the room fill up. Cruz comes in first, all six-foot-two of him, beard freshly trimmed, tattoos climbing his neck above the collar of his gray training shirt. He drops his bag by the wall with the kind of thud that shakes the floor a little, stretches both arms over his head, and catches me watching.

“Morning, gorgeous,” he says.

“Morning, enormous.”

He grins so wide his eyes crinkle. “You say that like it’s an insult.”

“Purely descriptive.”

Dante follows him in about thirty seconds later, which I’ve noticed is always how it goes. Dante’s got a coffee in each hand. He gives one to Cruz without being asked. Cruz takes it without acknowledging the gesture.

I file that away.

Dante catches my eye and tips his chin. “Fisher.”

“Jackson.” I reciprocate.

Brady comes in after, hoodie half-zipped, dark-brown hair perfectly styled for so early in the morning. He sees me, does asmall double-take he clearly didn’t mean to do, and then looks somewhere slightly to my left. His ears go pink.

I find that endearing and mildly inconvenient because he’s so shy around me.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey yourself.”

He drops his bag next to mine along the wall.

Then Eli walks in.Coach.

I need to be very clear with myself about something: I noticed Eli Morgan the moment I stepped into this gym four days ago, and I have been waging a quiet internal war about it ever since. He is forty years old, silver-haired, green-eyed, and built like someone who hasn’t stopped training since he was twenty. He carries himself with the authority of a man who’s been in charge for a long time. He’s also my coach, which means I need to get my shit together around him.

He crosses the mat with a clipboard and doesn’t look at me immediately, which is something he does. Intentional avoidance. He addresses the room at large, makes eye contact with Cruz and then Dante and then Brady, and then finally me—and there it is, that fraction of a second where his jaw tightens slightly and he shifts his weight back half a step.

He does it every time. I don’t think he even knows he does it.

“Alright.” He sets the clipboard on the bench. “First session together. I want to see how you all move as a unit before I design anything around it. We’ll start with a circuit, then I want live rounds. Dakota, since you’re new to the group dynamic, I’ll be watching your positioning relative to the others. That’s all.”

Cruz raises his hand like we’re in high school.

Eli’s mouth twitches. “Cruz.”

“When you say watching her positioning…”

“Don’t,” he warns.

“I was going to say it’s a great coaching strategy.”

“You absolutely were not,” he bites back.