Chapter 6
Tate
Her voice is everywhere. Fucking everywhere.
Echoing out of my headphones. I turn the volume up, her stream is running in the corner of my setup, split screen with her last match playback on loop.
I’ve already watched her smoke that game-winning headshot five times, and it still makes my dick ache.
Five times is excessive. I know that. I clock things like that, patterns, repetition—it’s how I stay sharp—but this isn’t that.
This is me rewinding because I like the way she looks right before she pulls the trigger, that half-second of stillness where everything about her lines up.
I watch the way she shifts in her chair, the way her voice pitches slightly higher when chat floods with compliments.
Her chat’s been thirsty. I shouldn’t give a shit.
They’re strangers behind screens, throwing out garbage takes for attention, and normally I’d scroll right past it without a second thought.
But this is her, and suddenly every comment feels personal, like they’re reaching into something they don’t understand and trying to put their hands on it.
I smile a toothy grin to myself and grab my phone.
Me: chat doesn’t know you were begging last time I touched you, maybe I should stream a 1v1
Let them hear what her moans sound like for real.
She doesn’t answer, but I see her glance at her phone between matches.
The way her hand stutters slightly on her mouse, the heat climb up her throat, coloring her cheeks that fucking perfect shade of mine.
God, I want to ruin her focus completely. I type another text.
Me: how’s your pussy doing? miss me yet?
No response, but she loses the next round. Anyone else watching would blame lag, bad timing, whatever excuse makes it easier to swallow—but I know the difference between a bad play and a distracted one. She felt that. She just won’t admit it out loud.
I close her stream just long enough to pull up the tournament bracket again to scope out the fuckhead. There he is, and according to Haven he’s using the same gamer tag he’s always used, loser’s still coasting on fifteen-year-old COD clout.
I clench my jaw, zoom in on his match replay, and scrub through it at 2x speed.
That’s him? That’s the guy? I was expecting something…
more, I guess. Something that justified the space he took up in her head.
Instead it’s this sloppy, predictable, nothing I haven’t seen a hundred times before. And somehow that pisses me off more.
That little detail Carter conveniently dropped on me yesterday, like I wouldn’t want to find him and knock his fucking teeth in.
I swear to god, it took everything in me to not hunt him down.
Just show up on his doorstep and remind him, very clearly, that there are consequences for cruelty like that.
Twisting something that she loved until it felt like a trap.
She trusted that space, her game, her world.
He poisoned it. But she wouldn’t want that, not from me.
Not from someone who thinks violence is the only language that gets heard.
I didn’t even say the things I wanted to say.
Still, every part of me itches with it. She wouldn’t look at me the same if I did.
That’s the only thing that actually stops me, if I’m being honest about it.
Not morality, not consequences—her. The way she sees me now is still… clean.
Shaking my head I scrub back through the footage of Dylan’s last match and watch the way he positions himself when he’s not on the objective, how he talks on mic. My hand curls into a fist, not worth the energy right now though so I go back to texting her.
Me: dylan’s aim is trash, tell him next time he opens his mouth I’ll give him a real reason to stutter
Still no reply. She’s queued up with someone else now. Focused, steady and crushing her opponents without even flinching. There’s this gleam in her eye, one I’ve only ever seen right before she lets go completely. She hasn’t cracked yet, but she will. I tap out one more message.
Me: when this game’s over, I’m going to let you choose which hurts more, your pussy or missing me
I watch her lean back, bite her lip, try not to react. Try being the key word. Her camera flickers, she clears her throat, says something about needing a break. Chat spirals. People assume it’s lag again. Idiots.
I close my phone, kill the monitor. Shut off the feed, the glow of her face on my screen.
Cutting the feed should help. It doesn’t.
If anything, it makes it worse—no visual, no distraction, just my brain filling in the blanks with whatever it wants.
And what it wants is her, apparently, on repeat.
Clawing at my fucking self-control like she owns it, which to be fair she almost does.
I stand, needing something to do with my hands, I drag them through my hair as I pace toward the corner shelves.
My masks stare back at me. This used to be enough.
Structure, control, clear lines between who I am on-screen and who I am off it.
Now it all feels a little thinner, like something’s bleeding through the cracks and I’m the only one who notices it. Or maybe I’m the only one who cares.
Half on stands, half leaned against books, one still lying flat from the last time I ripped it off mid-stream and forgot to put it back. I pick it up, adjust the straps and wipe down the visor.
I’ve got a half-dozen of them, each one more custom than the last. Neon-trimmed, matte black, tactical-grade ones, the whiteout one that makes my fans feral. The one she likes best is hanging off my desk chair, the one she tugged on when she wanted to see my face when I fucked her.
The edge of my desk gets wiped, I straighten my monitor angles. My keyboard cable gets coiled and tucked behind the second screen. I rearrange the three knives next to my headset dock until they’re evenly spaced. All that and the restlessness doesn’t go away, not even close.
So I call for Carter.
He drags his feet from the hallway like he was mid-scroll and couldn’t be bothered. Typical. “What?”
I don’t look at him when I ask it. I keep adjusting the masks, pretending I’m not dying to know. “She say anything to you yet?”
He pauses. “About what?”
I look over my shoulder, one brow raised. “About when we’re seeing her again.”
He shrugs, shaking his head. “No, not yet.”
“Let me know when she does.”
Carter leaves, mumbling something about leftovers, and I let the quiet settle again.
I don’t like waiting. Never have. I’m good at it when I need to be, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it. This—this in-between where I don’t know what she’s thinking, what she’s going to do next, it sits wrong under my skin, like I’m missing a piece of information I should already have.
I go live again before it pisses me off. A late-night stream, like the old day. No overlays, no music. Just gameplay and my voice.
The chat barely has time to catch up before I’m dropping into ranked solo queue.
“Let’s play,” I mutter, shifting into predator mode.
Every kill is cleaner than the last. The aggression in my movements makes the chat spiral, but I don’t read it, barely even acknowledge it.
I’m not doing this for them. I’m doing it because my hands won’t stop shaking unless they’re on a keyboard or in her hair and right now, one of those isn’t an option.
“Headshot,” I grin when the final round ends in a perfect collapse.
The silence afterward feels like a bruise and I wonder if I’m gonna be that guy tonight. Apparently I am because I’m hitting call, it rings twice. She answers on the third.
Her voice is sleepy, caught between curiosity and suspicion. “T-Tate ?”
I grin. “Surprised?”
She laughs softly. “A little, you don’t call. You text, or say something that makes me blush in the middle of a live match.”
I lean back in my chair, letting her voice wash over me. “Thought I’d switch it up.”
There’s a pause, not a bad one. A Haven pause, the kind where she’s smiling, even if I can’t see it. “You calling to say goodnight, or to make it worse?”
“Both,” I say. “Maybe I just needed to hear your voice, or maybe I wanted to imagine the way it’d sound if I slipped my hand under your shirt while you were half-asleep…”
Her breath catches. Gotcha.
“Bet you’d whimper,” I dip my voice lower, “even if you were too tired to move. Bet you’d let me ruin you right there, soft and slow, one hand over your mouth just to keep you quiet. You’d take it, wouldn’t you?”
“Tate —” It’s barely a whisper.
“You thinking about me tonight?”
She doesn’t answer, she doesn’t even have to. I close my eyes, the sound of her breath in my ear doing more damage than anything I’ve watched all day. “Goodnight, pretty girl,” I murmur. “Dream something filthy.”
I hang up before she can say a word. I toss my phone on the desk, and just sit there, but I can’t fucking breathe. Not with the sound of her still in my head, the the phantom rasp of her voice wrapped around my name like she’s already underneath me.
I shove my chair back and push to my feet.
The hoodie she left here is still on the edge of my bed.
I grab it, fist it in one hand. Drag it to my face and breathe her in like I’m starving.
I can still picture her, the flush in her cheeks, the way her breath stalls when I told her what I’d do to her.
I drop onto the mattress, legs spread, cock aching as I stroke it through my sweats. I don’t even try to go slow. This isn’t about pleasure, it’s about need.
I shove my waistband down and wrap my fist around my throbbing dick, I leak precum across my thumb.
“Bet you’re wet right now,” I whisper into the dark. “Bet your thighs are sticky and your sheets are ruined.”
I stroke harder, faster. Hips lifting off the mattress, her name half-groaned between my teeth. My other hand curls around her hoodie, dragging it over my face.
“Gonna make you scream for real, angel,” I say, voice tight. “Gonna fuck that attitude right out of you. You’ll beg, you’ll break. You’ll love every fucking second.”
The pressure builds hard, low in my spine, rushing toward that edge like it’s trying to drown me in it. I squeeze tighter, stroke faster-the slap of skin on skin echoing off the walls.
“Mine,” I grit. “All fucking mine.”
I come—hot and violent, spilling over my fist and across my stomach, the hoodie clenched tight in my grip. For a second, all I can do is lay there. Heart racing, my chest heaving, the taste of her still in my mouth.
I wipe my hand on a towel, toss the hoodie back onto the bed, and stare at the ceiling like it’s going to offer me salvation. I think about pulling back, creating distance, shutting it down before it turns into something harder to manage, but I’m starting to think I won’t.