Chapter 3
Seventy-two hours.
My palm still felt the phantom slickness of Jax’s cum, a ghost sensation on my skin, as the front door’s finality echoed in the apartment’s sudden emptiness.
Seventy-two hours of the apartment holding its breath, the air thick with unspoken commands.
Each creak of the floorboards under my weight felt like a transgression.
My groin had become a taut string, vibrating with a dull throb that had sharpened into a blinding pressure.
It shot down my inner thighs, a white-hot current, with every shift of my weight, every hesitant step across the living room carpet.
Rule Number Three: You don’t cum unless I say so.
The words had felt like a feint, a lash of verbal dominance meant only to sting in the moment.
But Friday night, the front door had opened and shut without a greeting.
Jax moved through the apartment, a shadow of stale beer and a foreign, cloying perfume clinging to him.
He hadn’t spoken. His footsteps paused outside my bedroom, a breath held.
His nostrils flared, a bloodhound searching for a trace.
Then the floorboards groaned under his weight as he continued to his own room, the silence stretching taut behind him.
The weekend had passed in a blur of empty space between us, his touch a memory that faded with each passing hour.
The air itself felt thin, my skin a raw nerve.
An invisible hunger gnawed at me, a hollow ache that tightened in my belly and spread through my limbs.
Monday night. Eight-fifteen. The apartment swallowed the last vestiges of daylight, leaving behind a deep indigo gloom.
Streetlights painted stark lines across the blinds, and the television hummed a forgotten blue glow into the shadows.
I sat on the couch, a textbook splayed open on my thighs, my gaze fixed on the same block of text for twenty minutes, the words blurring into meaningless shapes.
My skin felt stretched taut over bone, a drumhead about to burst. The whisper of boxer briefs against my cock became a relentless sandpaper rasp, each movement a fresh agony.
Every nerve ending screamed for attention: the coarse weave of the couch digging into my thighs, the refrigerator’s distant, mechanical hum, the insistent thrum of my own blood rushing in my ears.
My muscles had coiled, ready to spring, yet held rigid by an invisible leash.
A bitter taste coated my tongue. I was a scholarship student, my brain a honed instrument.
My body, a defensive lineman’s frame, could deadlift five hundred pounds, a testament to its brutal power.
Yet, here I sat, dwarfed by the dark, a tremor running through my limbs, every fiber of me humming with a desperate, singular need.
I waited for the turn of a key, for Jax to walk through that door, to weigh me, to decide if I held any use.
The lock tumbled.
My head snapped up. The textbook slid off my lap, hitting the floor with a heavy thud.
The door pushed open.
A gust of cold, damp wind swept through the entryway, carrying the sharp scent of ozone and exertion.
Jax stepped in, trailing the raw, unpredictable energy of a brewing storm.
His face was a mask of strained muscle, his jaw a sharp, unyielding line, a small tic feathering near his ear.
Sweat-matted strands of hair escaped from beneath his backwards baseball cap, clinging to his temples.
He wore his team track pants, the fabric stretched taut across his thighs, and a gray hoodie, the collar dark with sweat.
He didn't look at me.
He dropped his duffel bag in the entryway. It hit the floor with a wet, heavy sound that made me flinch. He kicked his shoes off, sending them skittering across the hardwood, and stalked toward the kitchen.
I remained pinned to the couch, a statue carved from apprehension. Rule Number Two: No questions. Simply absorb the atmosphere, bracing for impact of whatever noxious mood he carried through the threshold.
He opened the fridge. The light spilled out, casting his sharp profile in relief. He grabbed a gallon of water, unscrewed the cap, and drank straight from the jug. He downed half of it in one go, his throat working, water escaping the corner of his mouth and tracking down his chin.
He slammed the jug down on the counter.
He leaned over the island, gripping the granite edges with white-knuckled force. He hung his head, breathing hard through his nose.
The silence stretched, thin and brittle.
"Rough practice?" I asked. The words slipped out before I could stop them.
Jax’s spine went rigid. His head pivoted with agonizing slowness, his gaze snagging mine over his shoulder. His eyes, dark pools under heavy brows, held the dull glint of a banked fire, an inferno of frustration barely contained.
"Did I give you permission to speak?" he barked.
My mouth clicked shut. I shook my head.
He swung around completely, bracing his hips against the counter’s edge, arms crossed tight over his chest. His eyes raked over my body, a cold, clinical appraisal, stripping me bare in the dim light.
"Coach is riding my ass," he said, answering the question I wasn't supposed to ask. "Says my head isn't in the game. Says I'm playing distracted."
He huffed a laugh, devoid of humor.
"He's right. I am distracted."
He pushed off the counter and started walking toward me.
My heart hammered against my ribs, a desperate bird trapped in a cage. I pressed deeper into the couch cushions, my shoulder blades digging into the fabric, a futile attempt to shrink my defensive lineman’s frame into something less visible.
Jax stopped at the edge of the rug. He stood over me, blocking out the light from the kitchen. He smelled of the rink—that sharp, chemical ammonia smell mixed with the deep, earthy funk of a man who had pushed his body to failure for three hours.
"Stand up," he said.
My legs felt like lead weights, each joint protesting as I pushed myself upright. My six-foot-four frame usually dwarfed others, yet Jax, standing before me, seemed to absorb all the vertical space, an immovable pillar against the dim light.
He reached out and grabbed the front of my t-shirt. He bunched the fabric in his fist, pulling me a step closer until our chests brushed.
"You're shaking," he noted.
"I'm..." I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. "I haven't..."
"Haven't what?"
"I haven't touched myself. Since Friday."
Jax’s eyes narrowed. He let go of my shirt and dropped his hand to my crotch. He squeezed.
A choked gasp tore from my throat, my knees giving way beneath me.
My cock sprang to attention, a blindingly rigid column, stretching the material of my briefs to its limit.
His grip was a vice, a crushing pressure that sparked a white-hot current, a simultaneous jolt of searing pain and dizzying pleasure.
"Good," he muttered. "That's good. Means you're desperate."
He shoved me backward. I stumbled, catching my balance.
"Bedroom," he ordered. "Now."
He didn't wait for me. He turned and walked down the hall, entering his room.
My feet dragged, each step a leaden weight, carrying me down the narrow hall. My breath hitched, a knot tightening in my stomach. Was this the precipice of my undoing, or the long-awaited release? My body didn't know which, only that it moved forward.
When I entered the room, Jax was already stripping.
He pulled his hoodie over his head, tossing it onto the floor.
He wasn't wearing an undershirt. His torso was flushed, a map of exertion.
Sweat glistened in the hollow of his throat and ran down the center line of his chest hair.
He unlaced his track pants and shoved them down, kicking them away.
He was left in black compression shorts.
The bulge was prominent, straining against the lycra.
"Strip," he said.
My fingers, clumsy and thick, fumbled with the buttons of my shirt. Each movement felt sluggish, uncoordinated. I wrestled the fabric over my head, then shucked my sweatpants and boxers in a single, desperate motion. I stood naked in the center of the room. The air was cool, but my skin burned.
Jax walked over to his bed. He sat on the edge, leaning back on his hands, watching me.
"Turn around," he said.
I turned.
"Hands on the bed. Feet on the floor. Ass up."
The words sliced through the air, precise and devoid of warmth, stripping away any illusion of tenderness, leaving only the stark mechanics of the order.
My feet carried me to the bed’s edge. My palms pressed flat against the navy duvet, the fabric cool beneath my skin.
I bent at the waist, spreading my feet wide for balance, my ass pushing high.
A gasp escaped me as the cool air kissed my exposed hole, a sudden, mortifying chill.
My cheeks burned with shame, the posture a raw, public display of submission.
I heard Jax move. The rustle of fabric. The snap of elastic.
Then I felt him behind me.
The heat radiating off his body was immense.
He stepped into the space between my spread legs.
His thighs brushed against mine—solid, hairy, and hot.
He didn't touch me with his hands. He just leaned forward, his chest pressing against my back.
His weight was heavy, crushing me down into the mattress.
"You know why you're here, right?" he whispered in my ear.
"Yes," I choked out.
"Tell me."
"To... to help you."
"Wrong," he growled. He bit my shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark. "You're here because I need to fuck something, and you're the only thing in this apartment I own."
Own.
The word vibrated through my spine, a deep, resonant thrum.
He reached around with one hand and grabbed my cock. He didn't stroke it. He pulled it down, out of the way, gripping it tightly against my thigh.