Chapter 3
Alaric
Glass and fluorescents and the cold press of the arena hum around us, but none of it reaches me. All I can feel is the hard plane of the conference table beneath me and Magnus over me, grin raw and predatory, like he’s been tracking me every second since the puck slipped.
He pushes me back until the papers scatter—strategies and sponsorship sheets flutter like broken leaves. They fall across my chest, a ridiculous, impotent shroud for the man who’s climbing on top of me. For a second, I care about the paper; then his weight settles and everything else becomes noise.
“You don’t get to walk away this time,” he says, voice low, dangerous. His hands are at my shoulders, then sliding under my shirt. The touch is rough, immediate. There’s no gentle testing here, no tentative asking. There’s only deliberate possession.
My first instinct is to shove, to break him off with the same force I used earlier.
I push, hard enough to surprise him, and his laugh is a deep sound that vibrates through my bones.
He catches me before I can push him off, though; his one-handed grip on my wrists is iron.
When he pins my hands down to the table it is not cruel—yet—but it is absolute.
He is saying, without words, that he owns this moment.
“Stop,” I tell him, voice thin. I mean it. This is a mistake. I am a mistake. My mouth tastes of him and adrenaline and something ugly, and all I can think of is my father’s voice—Hales don’t make scenes—chiseling around my ribs.
Magnus leans in, his breath warm on my ear. “Do you really want to say that?” he murmurs. “After the way you kissed me? After you shoved me and made me moan like a whore?” The insult is meant to bruise; instead it lights some part of me on fire I don’t want anyone to see.
I thrum with fury and a darker hunger. I clamp my jaw, trying to shape a refusal that will feel like a victory. Instead my body answers him. It always does in ways my mind refuses to name.
He drags his mouth along my neck, slow, punctuating his words with pressure against my skin.
The contact is shameless, like a claim made in ink that will not wash out.
He moves with a confidence that says he’s given this plan thought—how to unmake me, how to make me confess with my body what I won’t with my mouth.
“Say it,” he demands, quiet but absolute. “Say that you want me.”
I can’t. I won’t. My arms strain beneath his hold; threads of outrage coil in my chest. But the desperation underneath that anger is a greedy thing.
My awareness fragments into two jagged halves: the part of me that must be composed, respectable, untouchable—my father’s son—and the part that wants to tear all that away.
“Not here,” I snap, but the sound is soft and helpless even to my own ears.
His grin widens. “Exactly.” He takes his time then, intentionally, like he’s carving a memory into me. There’s no hurry—only the slow, cruel patience of a man who knows he can keep pulling me toward the edge.
When his hand moves to my thigh, I press my knees together instinctively.
He laughs again, low and pleased. His fingers press lower, right at the place that betrays me.
I shove him, yanking loose, and he stumbles back for a heartbeat.
He doesn’t fall. He never falls. He just watches me with an expression so pure and rewarded that it makes bile rise.
I snarl and shove him again, this time out of habit, out of a primitive need to hurt, to reassert whatever control I still have.
My hand finds his collar and claws at it.
For a moment we wrestle, bodies up close and frantic, and there’s a heat to his skin that I hate and crave in the same breath.
We tumble to the floor, the chairs crashing around us.
Then he pins me—this time with a force that’s brutal, and he drags me until my shoulders scrape the polished wood.
He perches himself astride my thighs, higher than I expected, setting his weight with the kind of certainty that makes the room tilt.
His hands trap mine above my head; the act is humiliating and oddly safe, like surrender disguised as punishment.
“Listen,” he says, voice rough. “Tonight’s not a thing you walk away from. Not after you flinched when I whispered. Not after you shoved me like a coward.”
“Fuck you,” I spit. My voice barks with fury that overlays something slick and ashamed. I try to make the anger a shield.
He leans down and kisses me, not tenderly, but with a driving insistence that steals my breath.
Tongue, teeth, pressure—he takes no prisoners.
He is precise, mapping the softness of my mouth like territory.
The kiss is a question and an answer and a verdict.
My resistance dissolves—because it always does, and that fact is the part I punish myself for later.
I rub my cock against his thighs, my hips shamlessly grinding into him.
When he pulls back, his grin is triumphant. “You taste like a liar,” he says, and I want to throw the table at him and beg him at the same time.
Then he moves in a way that makes my stomach drop.
He sets a hand at the base of my neck, fingers splayed, and leans down so his chest presses against mine.
His other hand finds the edge of my shorts with a confidence that leaves no room for ambiguity.
His hand works with a slow, deliberate patience, not immediately granting release but leading, teasing, testing.
He is performing the cruelty with an artist’s hand.
I gasp at the sudden intrusion, but I don’t push him away like last time. No, his hand feels too good wrapped around me. His thumb wipes a bead of precum down my shaft, making my cock twitch.
“Flint—stop.” I groan, but I’m panting like a dog in heat. “I’m gonna—”
“Not yet,” he whispers, and there is no question in his tone. “You don’t get to come until I say you can.”
The denial is sharp and hot and unfair. It folds the air out of me. A ridiculous, furious laugh escapes me, half-plea and half-curse. He’s going to make me wait. The thought lashes me to the bone with humiliation and a bloom of want that makes my vision spotty.
I claw at his shoulder. “You’re—” My sentence dies, dissolving into an angry, aching sound. He smiles into my hair as if he’s won something intimate and private.
He toys with me in a way I’ve only ever read about in the language of humiliation in locker rooms and old, whispered stories. He takes his time—slower than logic should allow—bringing me near and then easing away, knitting a raw tension into me like rope. I grit my teeth until my jaw hurts.
When he speaks, it is to mock and to dominate at once. “You hate this, don’t you?” he murmurs. “You hate that you want it. You hate that my hand is about to make you come.” His words are threaded with a heat that bites.
“Shut up,” I manage. But I can’t keep him from hearing it as acquiescence.
My hands pull at his sleeves, needing more friction. My hips buck restlessly into his hand.
He catches my mouth again, harder, and his hands are everywhere: steady, demanding, not cruel but intentionally overwhelming.
He keeps me on the edge, building a pressure so fine I feel like I’ll split apart.
The denial is the point. He is the architect and I am his unfortunate building, buckling under the load.
Magnus sucks and bites at my neck, signing his name with the marks he leaves. He slides my joggers down to my knees.
“Wait—shit!” My voice cracks.
He slides his mouth over my cock, sucking it deep into his throat. He hums against me, making stars burst behind my eyes.
“Flint. God, Flint.” I pant, knotting my fingers in his hair.
He chuckles, letting the head of my cock pop from his mouth. “My name’s not a safe word, Hale.”
Jesus, this guy is demented, and it’s working on me.
He pops open his jeans, dick straining against his briefs. “Knees up, Ice Prince. I need to warm you up a little.”
The nickname makes the blood rush from my head. “Why—?”
Magnus pushes my knees to my chest, making me yelp. I hear him spit in his hand and then he’s shoving his large cock between my muscled thighs. The head of his dick is almost purple as it grazes against my balls.
“Fuck...” His voice is gravely, making heat spike in my core.
The slickness, the stickiness, the euphoric look on his face. It’s too much. “Please.”
“Not yet.” His hips slap against the back of my thighs, chest heavy on my knees. “God, Alaric...You’re so warm.” He pants my name before coming all over my dick and stomach with a groan.
He pulls away from me, smirking down at the mess he’s made. “Couldn’t help myself.”
I lay there, breathing hard, humiliation and relief braided tight. I want to run and hide from his steady gaze.
Magnus slips himself situated and buttons his jeans. He stands, smoothing back his curly dark hair.
He watches me with a lazy smile, like I’m a trophy and also the puzzle he’s solved. “Go,” he says finally, not unkind, but utterly in control. “Get yourself cleaned up.”
The word is a courtesy and a dismissal. I readjust my clothes, fingers clumsy, as I yank my pants up, trying to hide the achingly large hard-on I’m still carrying.
My hands shake. My mouth is dry, my pride shredded into something I cannot yet sift into order.
I want to look at him, to savor the echo of his laugh or to curse him, to rip his grin off his face—something.
But I do as he says. I push away, planting my feet with purpose as if determination can make me solid.
The door slams behind me like a gunshot.