Chapter 9 #2
My fingers slipped off the buckle again, metal clattering, useless. The shake started in my wrists and rolled through every muscle until my teeth nearly chattered.
Jax stood motionless, staring. His eyes burned with something vicious, something starved. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to ruin me or devour me; the difference had vanished somewhere between one heartbeat and the next.
I shoved my jeans and boxers down to my ankles, the denim catching on my shoes. I couldn't get them off in time. I was trapped, hobbled, my legs bound by the fallen fabric, vulnerable.
Jax didn’t care. With one sweeping arm, he cleared the worktable. Screwdrivers, visors, rolls of tape, pucks, and spare cage masks went flying, clattering and skittering across the floor, adding to the general chaos.
He grabbed my hips, his fingers digging in with bruising force, and hoisted me up onto the cold laminate surface of the table.
The surface was cold, gritty with dust and dried epoxy.
Jax stepped between my spread legs. The table height would have been perfect, but on his skates, he was too tall. He had to crouch, widening his stance, a primal, animalistic pose that made his massive pads seem even more monstrous.
He fumbled with his hockey pants. The laces were knotted, stubborn. He ripped at them, a guttural curse tearing from his throat, and snapped the string. He shoved the heavy padding down just enough to free himself.
He was hard. Rock hard. A weapon, forged in the crucible of stress and adrenaline, burning with a frantic, desperate heat.
He didn't use spit. He didn't use lube. He didn't check if I was ready.
He grabbed my thighs, his fingers sinking into the muscle so hard I knew, with sickening certainty, that dark bruises in the shape of his hands would bloom there within the hour.
“Take it,” he growled, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. “Take the failure. Take the loss.”
Then he slammed into me.
“Fuck!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat, raw and agonizing. He entered me dry, forceful, and deep, a brutal invasion. It felt like being stabbed with a blunt object, splitting me open. The friction was immediate, intense, a burning stretch that made my vision spot white with pain.
He didn’t stop. He didn’t slow down, not a fraction, to allow me to adjust. He started pistoning immediately, driving his hips forward with a brutal, punishing rhythm.
Thud. Crunch. Thud. The sounds filled the room, the impact of his body against mine.
His pads slammed against my chest, knocking the air from my lungs. His hip guards bruised my inner thighs with each violent thrust. The smell of him was overwhelming—ammonia, sweat, and the acrid tang of pure rage.
“You like this?” he shouted in my face, his breath hot, smelling of Gatorade and desperation. “You like ruining my game? You like making me look like a fool out there?”
“No,” I sobbed, clutching at his shoulders. The plastic pads were slick with sweat, my fingers slipping on the rigid surfaces. “Jax, please, it hurts—”
“Good! It should hurt! I’m hurting!”
He fucked me like he hated me, each thrust a deliberate act of destruction.
He fucked me like he wanted to sand away his own existence inside of me, to grind his shame and frustration into my very core.
Every impact was an accusation, every drive a punishment for the hold I had over him, for daring to exist in his head.
The table shook violently beneath us, its legs screeching against the rubber floor. Tools rattled on the shelves, a metallic percussion accompanying his furious rhythm.
He reached down, his fingers tangling in my hair, and yanked my head back until my neck cracked with a sickening pop. He stared down at me, his face a grotesque mask of contorted fury and pain.
“You did this,” he snarled, his voice thick with accusation. “You made me weak.”
He slammed deep, hitting my prostate with zero mercy.
My body betrayed me. Despite the searing pain, despite the anger radiating from him, the sheer, overwhelming stimulation was too much.
My cock, trapped between our stomachs, began to leak, a shameful, involuntary response.
My hips bucked up to meet him, an instinctual, animalistic craving for the fullness, for the relentless pressure.
“Yeah,” he sneered, his lips curling back from his teeth. “That’s it. Take it, slut. Be my cum bucket.”
He shifted his grip, one hand releasing my hair to fasten around my throat, his thumb pressing hard into my windpipe. He cut off my air.
Panic flared, hot and sharp, a desperate, clawing thing in my chest. I clawed at his wrist, my nails scraping uselessly against the thick fabric of his glove.
He didn’t let go. He stared into my eyes, his own unblinking, as I gasped, as my face flushed with the struggle for breath.
He wanted to see the life flicker, to witness the fading light.
He wanted total, absolute control in a night where he had none.
“I own you,” he rasped, his voice a ragged whisper, close to my ear. “I own your breath. I own your ass. I own your fucking scholarship.”
He released my throat just as my lungs began to burn, a searing agony. I sucked in a ragged, desperate breath, coughing, my body convulsing with the effort.
He used the moment, the raw gasp of my recovery, to drive harder, faster. He was close. I could feel the tension ratcheting up in his massive frame, every muscle coiling. His quads, massive in the hockey pants, trembled with the sheer effort.
“Fix me,” he begged, the anger cracking, splintering to reveal the raw, desperate plea underneath. “Tom, fuck, fix me.”
He buried his face in my neck, the rough stubble of his chin scraping my skin raw. He bit down on the sensitive cord of muscle, a muffled groan tearing from his throat.
His rhythm started to stutter, breaking from its brutal pace. He hammered into me—three, four, five fast, shallow strokes—and then slammed home with a final, shuddering impact.
He bottomed out, grinding his pubic bone against me, the sensation raw and intense.
He came with a roar that shook the very walls of the equipment room, a violent, guttural sound of release.
It was a violent release, a convulsion that shuddered through his entire body. I felt the pulses, hot and thick, flooding me, filling me to the brim. He emptied himself, pouring all the frustration, the fear, and the shame of the game, of the night, into my body.
I came too. Hands-free. The intensity of his climax, the crushing tightness of his grip, the sheer, brutal sensory overload triggered a dry, racking orgasm that left me shaking uncontrollably, seeing stars behind my tightly squeezed eyelids.
He stayed locked deep, grinding, emptying every ounce of rage and hunger into my gut while his teeth sank into my shoulder. The place reeked of sweat, chlorine, and the sharp, unmistakable stink of a hate-bred load shot so deep I’d feel him for days.
He didn't pull out. He leaned his heavy, sweat-drenched weight on me, his forehead resting against the cold laminate of the table beside my head. His breathing was harsh, sawing in and out of his lungs, gradually slowing to a ragged pant.
The silence returned to the room, heavier than before, thick with the aftermath. The distant roar of the crowd, muted before, now seemed miles away, a sound from another dimension.
I lay there, legs spread, my jeans and boxers tangled around my ankles, filled with him, the evidence of his desperation still inside me. My lower back throbbed with a dull, persistent ache. My neck stung where he’d grabbed my hair, then my throat.
Slowly, imperceptibly, the suffocating tension began to bleed out of the room.
Jax’s breathing softened, evening out. The rigid, coiled tension in his shoulders seemed to melt away, leaving them slumped, exhausted.
He lifted his head.
He looked at me. Not just glanced, but really looked at me, his gaze sweeping over my face, the torn shirt, the mess.
The madness was gone from his eyes. The angry red rim was still there, but the pupils had focused, the wildness replaced by a weary clarity. The predator was sated, leaving only the man.
His gaze dropped to my torn shirt, then lingered on the dark bruises already blooming on my hips, circular imprints of his fingers. He saw the tears, dried tracks on my temples, and the fresh ones still tracing paths from the corners of my eyes.
He didn’t apologize. Jax Carter didn’t apologize. The words simply weren't in him.
But he did something else.
He pulled out, slowly, the thick warmth receding. The sudden loss of him was a cold, hollow ache.
He adjusted his gear, tucking himself away with practiced movements, but he didn’t step back, didn't create distance.
He reached out. His hand, usually so rough and calloused from years of gripping a stick, cupped my cheek. His thumb brushed away a tear, a gentle, tender gesture that felt utterly alien after the preceding violence.
He leaned in until our foreheads touched, his skin burning hot, damp with sweat.
“I can’t play without you,” he whispered, the words a raw confession.
The admission hung in the chemical-laced air between us, heavier than the insults he’d hurled, more terrifying in its vulnerability than the rage that had just consumed him.
“I tried,” he said, his voice rough, quiet, almost hoarse. “I tried to block you out. I tried to be the machine. But the machine is broken, Tom. It doesn’t work anymore.”
He closed his eyes, resting his weight against my forehead, a silent plea.
“I need you in my head. I need you in my veins. If I don’t have this… if I don’t have you… I’m nothing out there.”
My heart, which had been hammering with fear just moments before, suddenly clenched with something painful and sharp, a surprising mix of sorrow and a strange, fierce pride.
I reached up. My hands rested on his chest, on the hard, unyielding plastic of his shoulder pads. I could feel his heart beating underneath the armor, a frantic rhythm. It was racing, just like mine.