Chapter 6
The text message burned a hole in my pocket for three days.
I look forward to seeing you focus on ice again. Until then.
It was a command. A promise. A threat. And I obeyed. The next practice, I'd been a demon. All sharp turns and harder shots, my focus laser-like, fueled by a cocktail of humiliation, need, and a desperate desire to prove him wrong or maybe right. My lungs screamed and my muscles turned Jelly.
Coach had granted his approval. Shay had clapped me on the helmet. “Welcome back, Holt.”
But the reprieve was temporary. This silence from the unknown number was its own form of torture.
Every buzz on my phone was a jolt of adrenaline, followed by a crashing wave of disappointment when it was just Shay sending memes or Felix asking about video games.
Henry had said his piece. He yanked my chain, witnessed the effect from afar via my shitty practice and my subsequent rebound, and now he was waiting. Patient. Sure.
I hated it. I craved it.
It was after another grueling practice, one where I had managed to keep my head in the game, that the other shoe dropped.
I was one of the last in the locker room, taking my time.
The post-practice adrenaline was fading, leaving behind the usual pleasant ache.
Steam curled from the shower room, and the space was mostly empty, just the low hum of industrial dryer in the back and the distant clang of our janitors’s cart in the hall.
I was sitting on the bench in just my towel, scrolling mindlessly through my phone, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in my gut. I heard the main door to the locker room swing open, assuming it was the janitor finally coming to mop up.
The footsteps that echoed on the tile were all wrong. Too measured. Too confident. Too clean.
My head snapped up.
Henry Emerson stood just inside the doorway, his hand still on the heavy door, pushing it shut behind him with the soft, definitive click.
He was a stark, impossible vision in the heart of my world.
A custom-fit navy suit, crisp white shirt, no tie.
He looked like he’d just walked out of a board meeting and into a swamp.
His gaze swept the room, the discarded tape wads, the sweaty gear piled in bins, the puddles of water on the floor, before landing on me.
On me, sitting in a towel, my hair wet, my skin flushed from the shower.
Every coherent thought in my head evaporated. The air vanished from my lungs. We were alone. Utterly, completely alone.
“Mr. Emerson,” I said, my voice a dry croak. I stood up, my fingers clutching the knot of the tower like a lifeline. “The team’s...everyone's pretty much gone.”
“I know,” he said, his voice calm, as if he regularly took strolls through locker rooms after hours. He took a few steps inside, his expensive dress shoes silent on the damp tile. His eyes didn’t leave me. “I had a meeting with the GM. Saw the light was still on down here.”
A lie. It had to be a lie. He'd known i was here.
He stopped a few feet away, close enough that I could smell the faint, clean scent of his soap or cologne, something citrus and sharp, cutting through the thick air of sweat and steam.
His eyes did a slow, deliberate inventory of me: from my damp hair, down my bare chest, over the towel slung low on my hips, to my bare feet on the cool floor.
It was the same assessing look he’d given me that first day, but now it was intimate. Personal devastating.
“I see you found your focus,” he remarked, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. “ coach was pleased with your performance this week.”
The way he said ‘performance’ made it sound dirty. My heart was hammering against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. I should say something. I should get dressed. I should get the hell out of here.
Instead, i just stood there, pinned by his gaze.
“Thanks to you,” I heard myself say. The words were out before i could stop them, raw and honest.
His eyebrows lifted a fraction. “Oh?”
“Your text.” I swallowed, my throat tight. “It was a pretty good motivator.”
“Was it?” He took another step closer. Th space between us crackled with tension. “And what, precisely, did it motivate you to do, Charlie?”
He knew. He knew exactly what it motivated me to do. The memory of it, the cold locker room, the frantic beat of my own heart, the blinding release, flooded back and a hot flush spread across my chest. I saw the moment he registered it in the slight darkening of his eyes.
He was close enough to touch now. I could see the fine weave of his suit jacket, the glint of a platinum watch under his cuff.
The contrast was surreal. Him, in his thousand-dollar suit.
Me, in a damp towel, smelling of cheap body wash.
The power dynamic wasn’t just implied; it was a physical, tangible thing between us.
The silence stretched thick and heavy. The hum of the dryer seemed to grow louder. I was drowning in it, in him. All pent-up frustration, the confusion, the sheer, undiluted want of him last few days coalesced into a single, reckless impulse.
I didn’t think. If I thought, I'd stop. And I didn’t want to stop
My voice, when it came out, was low, rough, barely recognizable. “I want to suck you off.”
The words hung in the air, vulgar and shocking. A direct contrast to his polished restraint.
Henry went perfectly still. For the first time since I'd met him, i saw a flicker of genuine surprise in his steel gray eyes.
It was there and gone in a heartbeat, replaced by something hotter, infinitely more dangerous.
His controlled mask slipped, just for a second, and I saw the raw hunger beneath.
It was the most powerful I'd ever felt.
He recovered instantly, his expression smoothing back to its unreadable calm. But his eyes remained locked on mine, intense and focused.
“Is that so?” he said, his voice dropping to a husky murmur that vibrated straight through me.
“Yeah.” My own confidence was a shaky, brittle thing, but I held his gaze. This was me choosing. Me taking a silver control in his carefully orchestrated game. “Right here. Right now.”
I expected him to say no. To remind me of the rules, the danger, the sheer insanity of it. To put me back in my place.
He didn’t.
He simply nodded, once, a slow, deliberate dip of his chin. “Then do it.”
The command given so coolly, so effortlessly, sent a jolt of pure lightning through my system.
My hands trembled as I reached for the knot on my towel.
It fell away, pulling at my feet on the dirty tile.
I was naked, exposed, in the middle of the room.
He was still fully dressed, impeccable. The visual was the most erotic, degrading thing I'd ever experienced.
I dropped to my knees.
The cold of the floor seeped into my skin, a sharp contrast to the fire burning inside me. I looked up at him from my knees, the perspective dizzying. He was a giant, a god in a suit, looking down on me.
He didn’t move. He just watched, his breathing a little deeper than before, the only sign that he was affected.
My fingers fumbled with his belt buckle, the cold metal a shock against my skin.
I got it open, then the button of his trousers, the zip of his fly.
I pushed the fabric aside. He wasn't wearing boxers.
Of course he wasn't. He was already hard, thick and heavy in my hand.
The skin was smooth, hot. I could feel the powerful thrum of his pulse against my palm.
I leaned forward and took him into my mouth.
The taste of him was clean, male, uniquely Henry. A low, guttural sound escaped him, I rambled from deep in his chest. It was the first truly uncontrolled sound I'd ever heard him make, and it went straight to my own dick, which was hard and aching between my legs.
I set the rhythm, slow and exploratory at first, then deeper, more sure. I used my tongue, my lips, my hand at the base of him. I wanted to be good at this. I wanted to unravel him. I wanted to make the powerful Henry Emerson lose his fucking mind.
His hand came up and buried itself in my damp hair. It wasn't rough, but it wasn't gentle either. It was possessive. A firm anchor point as my head bobbed in his lap. His grip tightened, guiding my pace, not harshly, but with an authority that made me moan around him.
“Look at you,” he murmured, his voice thick with a desire he wasn’t even trying to hide anymore. “On your knees, so eager.”
The words should have shamed me. Instead, they fueled me. I took him deeper, until my eyes watered, until I could feel him at the back of my throat. I was a mess of sensation, the cold floor, the heat of his skin, the taste of him, the sound of his ragged breathing above me.
His control was a thin veneer now. I could feel it in the tension of his thighs, in the way his hips gave a tiny, involuntary trust. I could feel it in the way his fingers tightened almost painfully in my hair.
“Charlie.” My name was a warning and a prayer on his lips.
I redoubled my efforts, hollowing my cheeks, sucking him down like he was the only thing that could keep me alive. I was drunk on it, on the power of reducing this man to this state, on the dizzying danger of what we were doing.
His climax hit suddenly, a sharp intake of breath, and then he was coming down my throat, his body tensing, a low, raw groan tearing from him. I swallowed everything, my own body trembling with the force of his release and a strange, fierce pride.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of our harsh breathing in the empty locker room.
Slowly, gently, he pulled himself from my mouth. His hand stayed in my hair, stroking almost absently. I stayed on my knees, looking up at him, my lips swollen, my mind blissfully blank.
He tucked himself back into his trouser, his movements slightly less precise than usual. He fastened his pants, his eyes never leaving mine. He looked... satisfied. Undone, but in control again. More in control than I'd ever be.
He reached down, his fingers under my chin, tilting my face up to his. His thumb stroked over my bottom lip, wiping away a stray drop of moisture.
“Stand up,” he said, his voice soft but firm.
I rose on unsteady legs, suddenly, acutely aware of my own nakedness. He reached down and picked up my towel, handing it to me. That gesture was oddly courteous, yet it felt like being handed a uniform after an inspection.
As I took it, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He didn't even flinch. He just kept looking at me, his gaze intense.
“I have to go,” he said, as if commenting on the weather. He smoothed a hand down his suit jacket, straightening a lapel. It was like watching a switch flip. Henry Emerson, the billionaire owner, was back. The man who had just groaned my name was receding behind a wall of impeccable composure.
He turned and walked towards the door. He paused with his hand on the handle and looked back at me.
“Good game today, Charlie,” he said, and then he was gone.
The door sighed shut behind him, leaving me standing alone in the silent, steamy room, naked and holding a towel, the taste of him still on my tongue.
The whiplash was brutal. From the most intimate act of my life to a dismissal so casual with stale air from my lungs.
He'd given me what I'd asked for. He'd let me take the initiative. And in doing so, He had proven, once and for all that he was still the one holding all the cards.
I wrapped the towel around my waist, my legs shaking. The euphoria was already fading, replaced by a colder, sharper understanding.
This wasn't getting out of my system.