Chapter 5
Nick
The problem with chaos is that it is insidious.
It starts small—a spilled glass of wine, a missed rent payment—and before you know it, you are sitting on your five-thousand-dollar Italian leather sofa, watching a woman eat pepperoni pizza with the ferocity of a starving badger while wearing your favorite cashmere sweater.
And the worst part? You don't hate it.
"You're staring," Jess said, not looking up from the slice she was currently dismantling. A string of cheese defied gravity, connecting her lip to the crust in her hand.
"I am observing," I corrected, closing the file on my iPad.
I had been trying to review the Chicago Blackhawks' defensive schemes for the last hour.
I had read the same paragraph fourteen times.
"I am observing the structural integrity of that pizza box, which is currently threatening to leak grease onto a rug that costs more than your entire tuition. "
Jess rolled her eyes, a gesture she had perfected in the four days since we had struck our "deal."
"The rug is safe, your Highness. And stop worrying about the furniture. It’s the first time this apartment has smelled like actual food instead of kale and despair."
She licked a smudge of sauce off her thumb.
My eyes tracked the movement. It was involuntary. A biological reflex. The pink tongue darting out, the slight suction sound, the way her throat moved as she swallowed.
I felt a familiar tightening in my groin. It was becoming a permanent state of being.
"We have a schedule," I said, standing up and walking to the kitchen to get a water. I needed cold water. A lot of it. "It is 8:00 PM. Stretching time."
"Let me finish my crust," she mumbled, but she was already wiping her hands on a napkin.
It had been four days. Four days of the "New Normal." Publicly, we were the campus power couple. We ate lunch in the quad, where I made a point of holding her hand and glaring at anyone who looked at her for too long. We walked to class together. I carried her dance bag.
The rumors had shifted overnight. The "Sugar Baby" narrative had been replaced by something far more potent: The Taming of the Shrew. Or rather, The Melting of the Ice King. People whispered that Vance had finally found someone he couldn't bully. They weren't wrong.
Privately, however, we existed in a strange, liminal space. She was my roommate, my nutritionist (she had replaced my kale with actual carbohydrates, claiming my glycogen stores were depleted), and my physical therapist.
Every night, she put her hands on me.
It was torture. It was ecstasy. It was the only reason I was walking without a limp.
"Ready?" she asked, appearing at the kitchen island. She had tied her hair back in a messy bun, loose tendrils escaping to frame her face. She looked soft. Touchable.
"Gym," I said, my voice tighter than I intended.
We walked down the hall to the home gym. The routine was established now. I stripped off my shirt. She laid out the mats. I lay down. She hurt me. I thanked her.
It was a ritual of pain and submission, though I would never admit that out loud.
I pulled my t-shirt over my head, tossing it onto the bench. I heard Jess’s breath hitch. Just slightly. It was a micro-sound, but in the acoustically treated room, it was loud.
I looked at her. Her gaze was fixed on my abs, tracing the line of hair that disappeared into my compression shorts. Her pupils were dilated, swallowing the green iris.
She wanted me.
The realization hit me with the force of a body check. It wasn't just me suffering in silence. She was fighting it too.
"Take a picture, Monroe," I murmured, stepping onto the mat. "It lasts longer."
She snapped her eyes up to my face, her cheeks flushing a brilliant crimson. "I wasn't staring. I was... assessing the inflammation. You look puffy."
"I am not puffy. I am hydrated."
"Lie down," she ordered, pointing at the floor. "And stop talking. Your voice stresses my chakras."
"Your chakras are a myth."
"Your flexibility is a myth," she shot back. "Now down."
I lowered myself onto the mat, lying on my back. The rubber was cool against my skin. I stared up at the ceiling, trying to empty my mind. Focus on the breath. Focus on the draft. Focus on anything but the feeling of her hands.
She knelt beside me. She smelled like the pizza she’d just eaten, mixed with that vanilla shampoo and her own unique scent—something warm and spicy, like cinnamon.
"Left leg first," she murmured, all business now.
She lifted my leg, placing my ankle on her shoulder. She leaned forward, using her body weight to drive my leg toward my chest.
Pain exploded in my hamstring. It was a sharp, searing heat.
"Breathe," she commanded.
I gritted my teeth. "I am breathing."
"You're holding it. Inhale. Exhale. Let the muscle go, Nick. Stop fighting me. You always fight."
"I am built to fight," I grunted. "It is an occupational requirement."
"Not in here," she said softy. She pressed harder. "In here, you surrender."
The word hung in the air. Surrender.
It was a dangerous concept for a man like me. I didn't surrender. I conquered. I controlled. But with her... with her, the lines were blurring.
She moved through the routine efficiently. Hamstrings. Glutes. IT bands. Her hands were strong, deceptively so for a dancer. She dug her thumbs into the insertion points of my muscles, finding the tension and ruthlessly ironing it out.
"Okay," she said, sitting back on her heels. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. The room was getting warm. Or maybe it was just us. "Adductors. Butterfly stretch."
I hesitated.
This was the dangerous one. The intimacy of it was... aggressive.
"Nick," she warned.
"Fine."
I brought the soles of my feet together, letting my knees fall open. It was a vulnerable position. Exposed.
Jess moved between my legs.
She placed her hands on my inner thighs, just above my knees. Her palms were hot. The heat seeped through my skin, straight into the blood that was already rushing south.
"I'm going to press down," she said, not looking at my face. She was looking at my chest, watching the rapid rise and fall of my breathing. "Tell me when to stop."
She leaned in. Her weight pressed my knees toward the floor. The stretch in my inner thighs was intense, burning.
But it was nothing compared to the sensation of her proximity.
She was kneeling right in the cradle of my hips. If she leaned forward six inches, her chest would brush my erection. If I sat up, our mouths would collide.
"Is that okay?" she whispered.
"Yes," I choked out.
She pressed harder. Her thumbs began to knead the tight, ropy muscles of my inner thigh. She moved higher. Closer to the groin.
My breath hitched. My hips bucked involuntarily, a microscopic movement, seeking friction.
Jess froze. Her hands stopped moving, but she didn't pull away. She stayed there, her thumbs resting inches from the hem of my shorts.
She looked up.
Her eyes were dark, heavy-lidded. Her lips were parted.
"You're tight here," she whispered. The double entendre was so loud it deafened me.
"Jess," I warned, my voice a low growl. " careful."
"Why?" she challenged. A spark of that bratty defiance lit up her eyes. She moved her thumbs again, a slow, deliberate circle. "Am I making you nervous, Captain?"
"You are making me... agitated."
"Good." She leaned closer. "Maybe you need to learn to handle agitation. You can't control everything, Nick."
"I can control you," I said. The words bypassed my brain and came straight from the lizard part of my mind that wanted to own her.
Her eyes flashed. "Try it."
It was a dare. A line in the sand.
She pushed down on my thighs again, harder this time, a test of dominance.
That was it. The cable snapped. The dam broke.
I moved faster than thought.
I reached up, grabbing her hips, and flipped us.
In one fluid motion, I rolled, pinning her beneath me. The world spun and settled with her back against the rubber mat and my body looming over her, caging her in.
Her eyes went wide, shock registering for a fraction of a second before it morphed into something else. Thrill.
"What are you doing?" she gasped, her hands coming up to rest on my chest. She could feel my heart hammering against her palms. It was beating a war drum.
"You wanted to see control," I rasped, leaning down until my mouth was hovering over hers. "Be careful what you ask for, Little One."
I saw the shiver ripple through her. I felt it against my body.
"Are you going to evict me?" she whispered, breathless.
"No," I said. "I'm going to ruin you."
I crushed my mouth to hers.
It wasn't a gentle kiss. It wasn't tentative. It was a collision. It was weeks of repressed anger, annoyance, and lust exploding all at once. I devoured her. I bit at her lower lip, demanding entrance, and when she gasped, I swept my tongue inside, claiming the territory.
She tasted like pepperoni and mint. It was the best thing I had ever tasted.
She made a noise—a high, mewling sound in the back of her throat—and wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me down harder. Her fingers tangled in my hair, gripping, pulling.
She wasn't passive. She kissed me back with the same fire she used to argue with me. She met my aggression with her own.
I ground my hips down. The friction was electric. I could feel her softness against my hardness, the layers of clothing between us suddenly feeling like miles of lead.
I broke the kiss, trailing my mouth down her jawline, biting the sensitive spot beneath her ear.
"Nick," she panted, her head falling back against the mat. "Nick, we can't... the contract..."
"Fuck the contract," I growled against her skin. "I'll rewrite it."
I moved my hand down her side, tracing the curve of her waist, the dip of her hip, until my hand rested on her thigh—the same place she had touched me.
"You like to play games," I whispered, lifting my head to look at her. Her face was flushed, her lips swollen and red from my beard burn. She looked wrecked. She looked perfect. "You like to push me. You like to see if I'll snap."