Chapter Eighteen
The smell of chlorine usually pumps me up.
It’s the scent of victory, of my domain, of the one place where I don’t have to try so damn hard to be the best because I just am.
Today, though, the chemical sting in my nose is barely masking the phantom scent of winter air and sex that seems permanently etched into my pores.
I hiss through my teeth as I wind the kinesiology tape around my shoulder, pulling it tight. Too tight.
"Easy, man. You trying to cut off circulation?"
I glance up at Seungchan, who’s shoving his feet into his slides on the bench next to me. I force a grin, though it feels brittle.
"Just making sure it holds," I say, smoothing the beige tape over the angry, purple-black bruise shaped distinctly like a set of human teeth right where my neck meets my shoulder. "My PT says the rotator cuff needs extra stability."
"Rotator cuff," Seungchan repeats, shaking his head. "You sure you didn't just sleep on it wrong? You’ve been ghosting us all weekend. I thought you had the flu."
"Flu inflamed the... joint," I lie smoothly. It’s a garbage lie, medically speaking, but I say it with enough confidence that Seungchan just shrugs.
I've been keeping the shoulder bandaged constantly the last few weeks during meets and practice to hide the permanent raised scar of the original bond mark.
I told coach and the team I've been having shoulder trouble and my PT insists on keeping it wrapped when I swim for support.
They're buying it for now, and if someone pushes I can always get a note from one of the docs on my father's payroll.
I finish the taping job, checking the mirror.
The beige strips cover the worst of it—the fresh claim marks Donghwa left on me during his rut.
The guy is a creature of habit; he always goes for the left side, like he’s trying to bore a hole through my trapezius.
The rest of my torso is thankfully clear, mostly because I spent the last forty-eight hours face-down in a mattress while he used my ass like a stress ball.
I wince as I stand up. My lower back screams. My hole feels like it’s been stretched two sizes too big and then stuffed with sandpaper. I have to lock my knees to keep from waddling.
God damn him.
"Let's go," I bark, grabbing my goggles. "I’m not losing to Hangul Tech. Those nerds swim like they’re afraid of getting wet."
The humidity hits me first, thick and heavy, followed by the roar of the crowd.
It’s a wall of sound that makes my chest swell, the kind of validation I could hook up to an IV drip and live off of for weeks.
I stride out onto the pool deck, chin up, chest out, letting the lights glare off my skin.
I know I look good. I spent twenty minutes shaving down last night—before getting dragged to a penthouse and mauled—so I’m aerodynamic and gleaming.
"Let's crush these chumps," Seungchan yells, slapping his own chest hard enough to leave a handprint.
"Focus," I tell him, snapping the elastic of my goggles against the back of my head. It stings, a sharp little wake-up call. "Lane four is mine."
I step up to the block, shaking out my arms. My triceps are tight, my lower back is a disaster zone, and I’m pretty sure my asshole is currently filing a grievance with HR, but the adrenaline is doing a decent job of masking the damage.
I scan the stands, a habit I can’t break.
I need to know who’s watching. I need to see the omegas leaning over the railings, the envy on the faces of the beta guys, the—
I freeze.
My hands drop to my sides.
There, front and center in the bleachers reserved for the Visual Design department, is a void in the universe.
Kang Donghwa.
He sticks out like a sore thumb—or a bruise, which is fitting considering he gave me plenty of those.
He’s wearing a black long sleeve and a jacket, looking completely overdressed for a humid natatorium, sitting with his legs crossed at the knee.
He looks like he’s attending a funeral for his own patience.
The guy hates noise. He hates crowds. He hates "pointless displays of physical exertion," as he called it when I mentioned going to work out to burn off stress yesterday.
So what the hell is he doing here?
As if he feels my gaze—or maybe he smells my confusion, who knows with this bond crap—his head snaps toward me.
Our eyes lock. The noise of the crowd doesn't fade, and time doesn't slow down—I hate those clichés—but the air definitely gets heavier. He’s not looking at the pool. He’s not looking at the scoreboard.
He’s looking right at me. His expression is bored, but his eyes are dark, heavy, and tracking my every move.
A jolt goes through me, hot and electric. It’s not fear. It’s definitely not the nausea I get from omegas now. It’s a challenge.
You came to watch? I think, a smirk tugging at the corner of my mouth. Fine.
He thinks he owns me because he pinned me to a mattress for twelve hours? He thinks because I whined and took it that I’m weak?
I turn away, facing the water, and bite down on the inside of my cheek. The pain in my body suddenly feels less like an injury and more like fuel. I’m the King of this campus. This is my water. My lane.
I crouch on the starting block, fingers gripping the edge until my knuckles turn white.
Watch this, you arrogant prick.
The buzzer screams, and I launch.
For a split second, I’m airborne, suspended in that perfect, weightless gap between the noise of the deck and the silence of the pool. Then I shatter the surface. The cold shock of the water hits me like a slap to the face, instantly numbing the ache in my lower back and the throb in my shoulder.
I stay under as long as my lungs allow, dolphin-kicking with a violence that feels personal. Power. That’s what I have. I might not have Donghwa’s effortless, annoying "functional strength" or his lean leverage, but I have horsepower. I have mass.
I break the surface and tear into the freestyle stroke.
My arms are pistons. Dig, pull, push. Dig, pull, push.
The water churns around me, a chaotic white noise that drowns out everything—the crowd, the humiliation of the last forty-eight hours, the memory of my legs shaking in a penthouse bedroom.
Here, I’m not the guy who got pinned and knotted.
I’m the guy who eats distance for breakfast.
I see the splash of the swimmer in lane three out of the corner of my fogged-up goggles. He’s close. Too close.
No.
I grit my teeth around the mouthpiece of air I snatch during the rotation.
My shoulder screams in protest—the rotator cuff straining against the tape, the bite mark beneath it pulsing with every rotation—but I shove the pain down into the furnace in my gut.
I use it. I use the anger. I use the embarrassment.
Watch me, I think, slamming my hand into the wall for the turn. Look at this.
I tuck, flip, and push off with enough force to crack the concrete.
My quads burn, but it’s a good burn. It’s the burn of exertion, not submission.
I stream past the guy in lane three. I’m thrashing, maybe not graceful, maybe "lacking natural elegance" like that judge told me years ago, but I am fast. I am forcing the water to get out of my way.
The final stretch is pure agony. My lungs are screaming for oxygen, my lat muscles feel like they’re shredding, but I don’t slow down. I speed up. I imagine the finish wall is Donghwa’s face and I want to punch it.
I slam my hand against the touch pad.
I surface, gasping, ripping my goggles off my face as I whip my head around to the scoreboard. The red numbers blaze overhead.
1. OH SIHWAN - LANE 4
TIME: 22.14
A roar goes up from the stands, but I barely hear it over the pounding of my own heart. Personal best. I didn't just win; I crushed it. I shaved nearly a full second off my time.
I hook my arms over the lane line, chest heaving, water streaming down my face. I feel huge. I feel invincible. The adrenaline high is better than any drug, better than alcohol, maybe even better than sex—okay, maybe not that sex, but it’s close.
I don't look at my teammates. I don't look at the coach.
I look up.
My eyes cut through the crowd, ignoring the cheering students and the waving banners, locking instantly onto the dark figure in all black.
Donghwa hasn't moved. He’s still sitting there, legs crossed, chin resting on his knuckles. But he’s leaning forward now. Just an inch.
I tilt my head back, sucking in air, and let a wide, arrogant grin split my face. I flex my arms on the lane line, letting my triceps pop, making sure he sees the width of my shoulders, the power in my chest.
See that? I project the thought at him, fueled by the bond and my own massive ego. That’s an Alpha. That’s me.
I’m not just some soft thing he can roll over in bed. I’m a champion. And for the first time in weeks, I feel like I’m actually the one on top.
The noise of the main natatorium fades as I push through the double doors into the warm-up pool area. It’s quieter here, the air thick and muggy, the water a flat, glass-like sheet compared to the churned-up violence of the competition lanes.
I’m still buzzing. My skin feels tight, sensitive, the chlorine stinging in a way that usually annoys me but right now feels like a badge of honor. I scrub a towel over my hair, water dripping down my back.
I round the corner, intending to do a few cool-down laps to flush the lactic acid from my quads, and stop dead.
Donghwa is standing by the edge of the empty pool.
He looks ridiculous. In a room full of humidity, condensation dripping down the tiled walls, and the smell of bleach, he’s standing there in immaculate black trousers and long sleeves, hands shoved into the pockets of a thick coat.
He looks like he took a wrong turn on his way to an art gallery or a funeral.
He watches me approach, his expression unreadable.