Chapter 16 Theo
THEO
I’m not stalking him. At least that’s what I tell myself as I sit in my Audi across from Victor’s fight club, the engine off and a cooling coffee between my fingers. The bitter liquid has gone lukewarm, but I sip it anyway, eyes never leaving the building’s entrance.
This is... pathetic. I don’t do this. I don’t pine. I don’t wait. I’ve always been the one pursued, not the pursuer.
Yet here I am.
A fighter exits—not Victor, just some kid with taped hands and a gym bag slung over his shoulder. He laughs at something on his phone, oblivious to my scrutiny. The glass door swings shut behind him.
I imagine Victor inside—all raw power and focus. Muscles strain as he pushes his fighters past their limits. That deep voice barking commands. Those hands adjusting someone’s stance with surprising gentleness.
How is it possible to want someone this much? It’s fucking absurd. I have people lined up around the block for a chance at my bed. Beautiful people. Important people. People who don’t have existential crises after making me come.
I take another sip, grimacing at both the cold coffee and my own sentimentality. There’s something about watching him in his element—that brutal grace, the absolute confidence—that makes my chest ache in ways I’d never admit aloud.
“Embarrassing,” I mutter to my reflection in the rearview mirror.
But I don’t start the car. Don’t pull away. Instead, I keep watching the door, knowing I’ve crossed some invisible line from interest to obsession. I’m hooked on him—the contradiction of him. The tenderness buried beneath all that aggression. The vulnerability he tries so hard to hide.
I never expected Victor Kaine to be more than a conquest. A challenge. Another supposedly straight man to add to my collection of experiences.
Now I’m sitting outside his gym like a lovesick teenager, just hoping for a glimpse.
I take a deep breath and send the text.
“Come outside for five minutes.”
The response comes faster than I expected.
“I’m working.”
Predictable. I smile at my phone, typing back:
“I know. Come outside anyway.”
The message shows as read, but there’s no immediate reply. I watch the seconds tick by on my dashboard clock. One minute. Two. Three. My confidence wavers slightly, but I keep my eyes fixed on the entrance. Four minutes in, the door swings open.
And there he is.
Victor fills the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest like a bouncer denying entry.
His biceps strain against his t-shirt sleeves, and I allow myself a moment to appreciate the view.
His face is set in what he clearly hopes reads as annoyance, but I catch the slight uptick at the corner of his mouth—the tiniest betrayal of interest.
I push my door open and step out into the crisp morning air, raising the second coffee cup in silent offering. It’s still hot, steam curling from the small opening in the lid.
Victor stares at the cup, then at me, like he’s weighing the cost of this small surrender. Something shifts in his expression—resignation, maybe, or acceptance—and he walks over with that predatory grace that makes my pulse quicken.
He takes the coffee without a word, our fingers brushing for the briefest moment. The touch sends a current up my spine, but I maintain my composure, leaning back against my car.
We stand there on the pavement, drinking coffee at eleven in the morning. Not touching. Not talking. The silence between us feels charged, dangerous in its potential. I watch him from the corner of my eye as he takes a careful sip, his throat working as he swallows.
I’ve never worked this hard for anyone before. Never wanted to.
The minute stretches between us, filled with everything we’re not saying.
“You’re unhinged.” Victor’s voice is low, rough at the edges as he stares at me over the rim of his coffee cup.
“Completely,” I agree cheerfully, not bothering to deny what we both know is true. I take a slow sip of my lukewarm coffee, letting the moment stretch between us.
“Why?” The question is simple but loaded, hanging in the air with unexpected vulnerability.
I look at him sideways, taking in the hard lines of his profile, the tense set of his jaw. “Because you’re worth being unhinged about.”
Victor’s breath catches, a tiny hitch that most people would miss. But I’m not most people, and he’s not just anyone. His knuckles whiten around the coffee cup.
“I have fighters inside waiting,” he says, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t step away.
“And yet here you are.” I shift slightly, letting my shoulder brush against his arm. The contact sends a visible shiver through him. “With me.”
His eyes darken. “This is a bad idea.”
“The best ones usually are.” I lean closer, my voice dropping to a whisper. “I can still feel you, you know. From last time. Every time I sit down.”
A flush creeps up his neck, his pupils dilating. “Theo—”
“I wonder if your fighters would recognize you,” I continue, enjoying the way he swallows hard. “If they could see what Daddy looks like when he’s buried inside his boy.”
“Fuck,” he breathes, glancing quickly toward the gym entrance. “You can’t say shit like that here.”
I grin, all innocence. “Why not? Afraid you might get hard in those gym shorts? Not much hiding place there, Daddy.”
Victor’s free hand shoots out, locking onto my hip. “You’re playing with fire.”
“Good thing I like getting burned.”
The air between us crackles as Victor’s hand remains locked on my hip, his grip tight enough to leave marks. I lean into it, enjoying the flash of conflict that passes across his face—desire warring with caution.
“What exactly is your endgame here?” he growls, voice dropping to a dangerous register that makes heat pool in my stomach.
“Maybe I just wanted to see you,” I reply, reaching up to brush an imaginary speck of lint from his shoulder, letting my fingers linger against the solid muscle beneath his shirt.
Victor’s pupils expand as he tracks the movement. For a moment, I think he might kiss me right here in broad daylight. His body shifts infinitesimally closer, the coffee in his hand forgotten as his attention narrows to the point where our bodies connect.
Then, abruptly, his head jerks up. A car pulls into the lot, and reality crashes back over him like a bucket of ice water.
He steps back, breaking our connection so suddenly I almost stumble forward.
“Fuck,” he mutters, running a hand over his close-cropped hair. His eyes scan the parking lot, panic replacing desire. “You need to go.”
“Victor—”
“No.” He cuts me off, voice firm but quiet. “You can’t be here. These people...” He gestures toward the gym, expression hardening. “They can’t see me with you.”
I arch an eyebrow, challenge rising in my chest. “With me specifically, or with any man?”
His jaw clenches. “You know exactly what I mean. Look at you, and look at this place.”
I glance down at my designer clothes, then back at his fight club. Point taken.
“This isn’t—” Victor stops, struggling. “This isn’t who I am here.”
The words sting more than they should. I keep my expression neutral, though something must show in my eyes because his face softens momentarily.
“Just go,” he says, but there’s no real heat in it. “Please.”
He steps further away, creating deliberate space between us as the car parks and two fighters emerge.
“Get out of here, Theo. Now.”
I watch Victor as he moves away from me, every muscle in his body tense. It’s not just fear I see—it’s conflict. The way his eyes darkened when I touched him, how his breath caught when I mentioned our last encounter—all of it betrays the war raging inside of him.
He’s terrified of who he is when he’s with me.
I’ve seen it before in men like Victor. That desperate clinging to an identity built on pure testosterone and bravado.
The alpha male who can’t reconcile his desire for another man with the image he’s constructed of himself.
Every touch, every kiss, every moment of pleasure becomes a threat to the fortress of masculinity he’s spent a lifetime building.
But Victor isn’t straight. Not entirely. The evidence is written in the bruises he left on my hips, in the possessive growl of “Daddy” that escaped his lips when he was buried inside me. You don’t fuck a man the way he fucked me if you’re just experimenting.
No, Victor Kaine is bisexual at minimum, with deeply repressed gay desires; he’s probably spent years burying it under protein shakes and testosterone. The irony is almost beautiful—how his hyper-masculine environment has become both his shield and his prison.
I slide back into my car, watching him retreat toward the gym. His shoulders are set in that rigid line I’ve come to recognize as his defense mechanism. This isn’t just about me, or even about being seen with a man. This is about Victor facing a part of himself he’s never allowed to exist.
It would be easier to walk away, to find someone less complicated. But I’ve never been interested in easy. And beneath all that repression and denial is a man who made me feel things I’d forgotten were possible. A man whose hands shook with want even as his mind screamed in protest.