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“Come on in.”
For some reason, uneasiness prickles along the back of my neck as I slip inside and push the door shut behind me with a final-sounding clunk. Tate’s room has a queen bed instead of a king, and a small couch to fill the extra space. He only turned a few lamps on, and I can just see his silhouette at the desk, messing with his laptop. I clear my throat. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Do you want a drink or anything?”
“I want to spend as little time as possible with you.”
He gestures toward the couch. “Alright then. Take a seat.” His voice sounds different, calm and firm. I can’t tell if it’s uncomfortably warm in here or just my imagination. The air smells like his shampoo, and I can see his stuff scattered across the bed in a way that feels too intimate. Fidgeting, I drop onto the edge of the couch.
Without looking at me, he straightens up and taps play on a video on his laptop. “I quickly spliced together all the clips.”
I squint at the footage of me poised on the block, my shoulder aching with the memory. Tate lets the first two dives play, then pauses it and watches me expectantly. “They look fine to me,” I grumble. “Why are we even doing this? I’m faster than you.”
“Because,” he points at the screen, “you’re a mess, and if you cleaned up you could be much faster. This bullshit isn’t going to fly in relay races.”
“What bullshit?” I snap.
“No two dives are the same. Your elbows are all over the place, your toes aren’t pointed, and your angles suck. It’s painfully obvious you don’t practice your starts enough.”
“Okay.” I scramble to my feet. “I don’t have to stay here and take this shit from you.”
“Sit down.” He sounds casual, but for some reason my ass hits the couch cushion faster than if he had shouted at me. Threads of panic and adrenaline trail through my chest. “Let’s see the rest before you storm out.”
Rolling my eyes, I cross my arms and wait. Tate stays standing next to the laptop with his back to me, watching in silence as my tiny figure dives eight more times. The fucked up thing is that he’s right; now that he pointed it out, I can’t unsee my inconsistent form. I’ve never had a coach that cared about me enough to correct me, and now the man I’ve obsessed over for years is watching me make a fool of myself. I can feel a strange, heavy throbbing low in my belly, something sick and sweet at the same time. Something like shame.
A soft groan yanks my eyes back to the laptop. My mouth goes dry as I take in the sight of my own dick, rigid and glistening, with my fist wrapped around it. The cell phone ads weren’t kidding–all those extra camera lenses really do capture every tiny detail, from the way it gets darker near the tip to the bead of precum on my slit.
When I glance at the back of Tate’s head, he doesn’t move or look away from the screen. He’s completely relaxed, with his arms slung loosely across his broad chest.
The spot where my palms rest on my bare thighs starts to get sweaty. My ears are ringing a little, but not enough to drown out the sound of my ragged, whiny panting coming from the laptop speakers. I had no idea how pathetically needy I sound when I’m jerking off, not alpha at all.
This was supposed to be a quick and dirty sext for Ali, but I forgot how fucking long it took me to come, five excruciating minutes that feel like a thousand hours now in the thick silence of the hotel room. I look ridiculous, flushed and slutty and struggling because no matter what I imagined doing with Ali, it didn’t work. In the end, I had to ignore the painful chafing and do my best to strangle an orgasm out of my sore shaft. When I finally come in the video, gasping in miserable relief, the knot of shame in my core breaks open and creeps through my whole body in a wave of aching, tingling heat that makes my toes curl into the carpet and my dick throb.
After the video ends, there’s a long, heavy silence. Someone clomps down the hall, laughs, then slams the door to their room.
“You are your own worst enemy,” Tate comments, shutting the laptop. “I can’t tell if you’re undisciplined or you just don’t give a shit. Either way, that was a piss-poor performance.”
I genuinely have no idea which one he’s talking about, so I just keep my mouth shut as he turns around and looks at me–no, looks me over. He slides his hands into his pockets and tilts his head as he examines the thin tank top that exposes most of my chest, my parted thighs, my shaky hands gripping my knees. I can’t read his dark eyes at all in the half-light.
“You’re a healthy young man drowning in pussy, and that’s what you have to offer them? I’m not surprised they didn’t come down to Vancouver. Is there something wrong with you, or are they the problem?”
I start to protest, but a weird, half-finished sound comes out instead. I cough and try again. “There’s no problem.”
“Oh. I apologize.” I twitch when he walks around the coffee table and sits down on it facing me, his knees bumping mine. “Since you included it with your training footage, I assumed that it was your best attempt. Something you were proud of.” His voice has gone stern and low, something I’ve only heard in my wet dreams, and it’s everything I always and never wanted. Heat starts to collect between my legs, my cock mercilessly hardening against my shorts. Tate’s going to figure out how sick I am any second now, because this tight scrap of nylon doesn’t hide a damn thing.
I want to move, to sit up straight or at least close my fucking legs, but I can’t make my muscles obey. The door is locked, no one here but him and me and this feeling of falling. “I can do a lot better,” I whisper.
His brows furrow as he sits back. “So you were just wasting everyone’s time.”
No one has ever talked to me like this in my life. They shove me into their molds and then tell me I’m good enough, handsome and smart, and go back to ignoring me. “I’m sorry,” I croak, fixing my eyes on the blatant shape of my erection.
“I didn’t hear you.”
Pulling in a shaky breath, I raise my voice. “I’m sorry for wasting your time. I can do better.”
“If you want feedback, I need to see your best attempt.” He watches me like I’m an object. My heart pounds as I reach for the waistband of my shorts, then give up, squeezing my hands into fists against my thighs.
“I can’t,” I plead hoarsely. Tate was right–sleeping with more women can’t make me more straight. But it can keep me safe from myself. I’ve never touched a man, no matter how relentlessly the desire haunted me until I thought I’d go mad.
