Chapter 16 #2
The lie tastes bitter even in my head, but it’s enough to get me moving. I follow the stream of students toward the stadium, hand wrapped tight around the strap of my bag.
The late afternoon sun slants low over the bleachers, turning the metal rail warm under my palms when I climb the steps and find a seat halfway up and far enough from other spectators.
There are girls with painted cheeks, a couple of guys from my ethics seminar, some random freshmen wearing Volkov jerseys that make my stomach twist with a feeling I don’t want to name. I sit down, slip my bag between my feet, and stare out at the field like this is normal for me.
It’s so not normal.
I know enough about football from existing on this campus and having a cousin who plays for Blackthorne U to understand the basics.
My eyes immediately find him, and oh, my good God.
From the stands, he looks exactly like the image the school sells: six feet four inches of controlled aggression; all muscle and flow. Black hair pulled back into a messy tie at the nape of his neck.
He’s in compression pants that cling to every line of his thighs and ass and a white tank top plastered to his chest with sweat.
Even from here, I can see the defined cut of his shoulders and the ink climbing up his biceps and over his collarbone, hints of it peeking from under the tank near his ribs.
“That’s obscene,” I mutter to myself, dragging my eyes away, then failing instantly and looking back. “Compression pants should be illegal. That’s definitely in Leviticus somewhere.”
When he jogs back to the huddle with his helmet under his arm, the compression pants stretch across the curve of his ass in a way that makes my brain short out. I stare like an absolute creep—heat rising up my neck into my face—the noise of the stands fading into a dull hum.
“This is my Devil,” I think helplessly. This is the Hell I’ve always been warned about, except nobody at church mentioned it would be six-four, tatted, and wearing a white tank that sticks to his stomach every time he wipes sweat off his forehead with the hem.
If Hell is real, I’m definitely booked, because there is no version of a righteous life where your Devil looks like that.
Golden boy. Coach’s dream. Campus god.
Daddy.
My brain decides to be a traitor and replays that one moment from last night—how his face changed when I said it. How his eyes went dark, and his hand tightened in my hair.
“Stop,” I mutter under my breath, jaw clenching. “You’re in public. Be normal for five seconds.”
I drag my eyes away again, forcing myself to look at anything else. The scoreboard. The sky. The girl two rows down, twirling her hair and very obviously staring at Dominic’s ass. The urge to lean forward and tell her to look somewhere else is both irrational and so strong it scares me.
Really, Lane? I scold myself. You had one night of being a whore for him, and suddenly you’re jealous?
I watch him move through drill after drill, calling plays, arguing with Keller, patting backs, swearing at someone who drops a pass. He’s in his element out here. It’s weird seeing him fully in that role while knowing what his hands did last night.
The same hands pointing receivers into motion were tangled in my hair. The same mouth calling plays, whispered filth while I was on my knees for him.
“You’re going to Hell,” I mutter under my breath, not sure if I’m talking about him or myself.
Below me, a group of girls in Lakehaven hoodies and black leggings is already in full commentary mode.
“Oh my God, look at him,” one breathes. “His back. Jesus.”
“Dom could literally do anything to me,” the other says, half laughing. “Anything. I’d say thank you.”
Jealousy hits so fast I almost choke on it.
It’s ridiculous. They’re just talking. They’re allowed to.
He’s the star quarterback—this is part of the job description.
But possession rears up in me anyway, snarling at the idea of them picturing him like that when I had his hand in my hair last night, his voice in my ear, his cock on my tongue.
I was the one who woke up with a sore throat and his mark still on my wrist. I was the one he fed afterward, the one he drove behind to make sure I got home.
I also know none of them saw the look on his face in the kitchen when he realized I was dropping, that none of them have seen the way his brow furrows when he’s trying very hard not to be a monster.
Dominic lines up for the next play: helmet on now, hands under center. The ball snaps, he drops back, scanning the field, feet light on the turf.
He’s poetry in a way my high school English teacher would’ve killed to analyze—all power and precision and timing—arm cocking back as he sends the ball arcing downfield. The receiver catches it clean, and the stands around me erupt in cheers, even though this is just practice.
I track him automatically, watching him jog back to the huddle, tapping one lineman’s helmet and clapping another on the shoulder.
The leadership is effortless; he moves as if he owns the field. Nobody here has any idea he also owns the way my knees hit the floor for him, or the way my throat opens when he tells me to.
Jesus, Lane.
I sit there, small and anonymous in the stands, and feel pride settle in my chest. I have no right to it. He’s not mine, not out here. Out here he belongs to the school, the team, and the millions of people who will eventually scream his name in stadiums I’ve only seen on TV.
But I’ve seen him when the stadium lights are off and the monsters come out.
I know what his hands feel like on my throat, what his voice sounds like when it’s not filtered through press conferences and mic’d-up segments.
I know he has lectured me about subdrop in a kitchen that smells like bleach and pasta.
That has to count for something.
The girls in front of me keep up a running commentary that makes my teeth itch. They talk about his arms, his jawline, the way he looks when he throws deep. One of them mentions his children's home work, all breathless and impressed.
“He’s so good with kids,” she says, sighing like she’s just read the world’s most manipulative PR blurb.
Yeah, he’s good with kids. He’s also good with knives. I’ve seen both.
“You’re insane,” I mutter under my breath, this time clearly to myself. “You’re watching him practice and getting mad that other people have eyes.”
I’m bratting at myself now. Great. This is healthy.
Then, he suddenly looks up as he’s putting his helmet on. It’s small, just a flick of his head toward the stands while he waits for the next call, but his gaze skims over the crowd, and those blue eyes lock onto mine.
He stalls for half a beat, but it’s enough that the timing of the play stutters. He hesitates on the snap, eyes still on me, but the linebacker coming off the edge doesn’t hesitate at all.
The hit smashes into his blind side; a full-body collision that sends him sprawling.
The collective sound from the stands is a sharp inhale, a rush of ‘oh shit’ and ‘is he okay,’ and my body reacts before my brain.
I bolt halfway to standing, one hand flying to the rail in front of me, the other clamped around my cross so hard it digs into my palm.
He hits the turf hard, rolls, and for one horrifying second he doesn’t get up. The linebacker stands over him, hand extended in apology.
The panic surges up, hot and choking, and then, just as fast, it breaks.
I force myself to sit down again, fingers white-knuckling the edge of the bench, my nails digging into the metal.
He’s been hit a million times; it was not even that hard compared to what he takes in real games. Rationally, I know this.
But rationality left the building the second he looked at me and got flattened.
He rolls onto his side, tucks the ball in, and pops up as if nothing happened, shoving the linebacker in the helmet. He says something that makes half the offense laugh, and Keller shouts his name.
“Eyes up, Volkov! You lose focus like that on Saturday and you’re done!”
“I’m good, Coach!” Dominic calls back, shaking his shoulders out. “Got distracted by something shiny.”
My face goes hot. That bastard.
One of the linemen claps him on the back, and another smacks his shoulder. He swats them away with a grin, adjusts his tank, cracks his neck, and shakes out his arms like he’s shedding the hit.
Before he shoves his helmet back on, his eyes flick up to the stands again—almost like he can’t help it—and they find me.
Within that heartbeat, it feels like the whole world narrows down to that line between us. His gaze pins me there and holds me before he looks away, and for the first time all day, he smiles.
Not the smirk he gives reporters, or the wolfish grin he tosses at girls on the sidelines when they squeal his name. Not even the mocking twist of his mouth he aims at opponents before he buries them.
He smiles.
It rolls over his face slowly, starting in his eyes, softening the edges and pulling the corner of his mouth up. For a second, the Beast drops away, and I see the boy under it. The one who carried me to his kitchen, fed me, watered me, watched my hands shake, and said ‘You did well.’
My chest hurts, expands, and hurts more.
I duck my head, like that will hide the fact that my entire body just lit up. When I look back up, he’s turned away, helmet fully on now, back in motion and barking out the next play.
I sit there through the rest of practice, heart still pounding, cross warm in my fist, cuff snug on my wrist. The drop I kept waiting for never hits. The shame doesn’t swallow me. The only thing I feel guilty about is that when I close my eyes, my prayers don’t come out as neat, memorized lines.
They sound a lot like his voice.
And at the center of it all, my Devil is standing on a field in compression pants and a white tank, smiling up at the stands because I came to watch him.