Chapter 19
I'd worn a groove in the carpet by the time the door opened.
I’d spent two hours pacing, watching the medal ceremony on mute while my whole body buzzed with energy that had nowhere to go. The burger Natalia told me to order sat cold on the desk because I couldn't eat, couldn't sit still, couldn't do anything but wait.
The door beeped. The handle turned.
Joel walked in still wearing the costume, black and sweat-damp, stuck to every line of him. The gold medal hung against his chest. His hair had come loose, dark strands plastered to his temples, his forehead, the back of his neck.
He smelled like work. Like hours under arena lights. Like a body I wanted to get my mouth on.
The door clicked shut. He dropped his bag and looked at me, and everything he wasn't saying was right there on his face.
Then he crossed the room in three strides and shoved me against the wall.
The impact knocked the wind out of me. His hand closed around my jaw, forcing my head back, his thigh shoving between my legs hard enough that I groaned before I could stop myself.
"Finally," he said, low and wrecked, and licked up the side of my throat.
I grabbed his shoulders. His thigh ground up, and I was hard, had been half-hard since he walked through the door.
“Why are you here, Red?” he murmured against my throat.
“Your manager gave me a room key.”
“Not that. In LA. Why didn’t you fly back with your team?”
My eyes fluttered closed as he kissed my throat. “You know why.” His grip on my jaw tightened, and I swallowed against it. "You kept me waiting two hours while you did press."
His mouth curved, and he leaned in, lips brushing my ear. "You want an apology?"
"I want you to act like it matters that I stayed."
He pulled back just enough to look at me. The amusement in his expression made me want to shove him off and drop to my knees in equal measure.
"You came to me," he said. "You sat in my arena and watched me win and then you came up here and waited. That's what you wanted to do." His thigh pressed harder. "Wasn't it?"
My jaw locked. He was right, and that was the worst part.
"It matters." He said it against my throat, already moving on, his mouth working down toward my collarbone. "You're here. I noticed."
That wasn't the same thing. But his teeth scraped my skin and my hips bucked forward before I could stop them, grinding on his thigh like I had no pride left.
Then I remembered Salt Lake. The bite mark. The fight.
"Wait." I grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. "Not where they can see."
His mouth was wet, his face flushed. He just nodded once.
"Where, then?"
"Anywhere else. Chest. Thighs. Anywhere under the pads."
He leaned in and pressed his mouth to my collarbone, right above the neckline of my shirt. "Here?"
"Lower."
He bit down hard through my shirt, right over my left pec, and my whole body jerked. The pain bloomed, mixing with the pressure of his thigh between my legs until I couldn't separate them.
He kissed me like he was trying to take something, tongue in my mouth, hand fisted in my shirt, the medal cold and sharp between us. I yanked at his hair and he growled against my teeth. I was leaking already, soaking through my boxers, and I hated how easy I was for him.
I dropped to my knees.
The carpet was rough against my skin. I was eye level with his hips, with the way the costume left nothing to the imagination. His fingers caught my chin and jerked my face up.
"I haven't showered." His chest was heaving. "Been sweating in this for hours."
I turned my head and mouthed at his hip through the fabric. Salt and heat soaked through onto my tongue.
"Red."
"Yeah, I heard you." I ran my lips along the outline of his cock and it twitched against my mouth. "Don't care."
"I'm disgusting right now."
"Joel." I looked up at him. "I've been sitting in this room losing my mind for two hours.
I watched you do that thing on TV where you touched yourself and winked at the camera.
I'm so hard I can't think straight." I pressed my mouth against him again, open and wet through the costume.
"I want you disgusting. I want to taste it. "
His head dropped back. "Jesus Christ."
"That a yes?"
He didn't answer with words. He just peeled the costume down enough to free himself, and I breathed him in. He smelled like sweat and skin and hours of exertion, the raw animal scent of a body that had just done something extraordinary. My mouth watered.
"Look at you." His voice had gone dark. "Desperate for it."
"Shut up and let me suck your dick."
His laugh came out sharp, startled out of him, and I took him in my mouth before he could say anything else.
The taste flooded my tongue, salt and musk and the bitter edge of pre-cum. I groaned around him and his hand found my hair, gripping hard enough to sting. I worked him slow at first, then took him deeper until my throat spasmed around him.
His hand tightened, but he didn't thrust. He let me have this, let me set the pace, and the trust in that made my cock throb against my thigh.
I pulled back to breathe and looked up at him. His face was slack, his lips parted, his chest heaving under the damp costume. The medal swung with each breath, catching the light.
"You're good at that," he said. His voice had gone hoarse.
"I’m good at a lot of things." I licked the head.
He pulled me off by the hair.
I made a sound of protest that I'd be embarrassed about later. My lips were swollen, my chin wet with spit, and I was breathing hard through my nose.
"Not yet," he said. "Not like this."
"Joel—"
"Bed." He was already stepping back, peeling the rest of the costume off as he moved. "I've been on my feet for six hours. I've earned the right to lie down."
He crossed to the bed and collapsed onto his back, arms spread, the medal pooling in the hollow of his throat. He was all long lines and golden skin, except for the way his cock lay hard and wet against his stomach.
"Well?" He raised an eyebrow at me. "I'm waiting."
I stripped as I crossed the room. By the time I reached the bed, I was naked and he hadn't moved an inch, just watched me with that satisfied look like I was exactly where he wanted me.
"The medal," I said. "Keep it on."
His mouth curved. "Planning to."
I climbed onto the bed and straddled his thighs. The medal was cold against my palm when I braced my hand on his chest. He sucked in a breath as I dragged it across his skin, the ribbon pulling taut around his neck, the edge of the gold scraping over his nipple.
"Prep's in the drawer," he said. "You can do it yourself. In fact… I think I’m just going to lie here and watch you ride me tonight."
I stared at him. "Are you serious?"
"I just landed four clean quads." He folded his arms behind his head. "I think I've earned the right to watch you fuck yourself on my cock."
"You're such an asshole."
"You like it." He nodded toward the nightstand. "Drawer."
I grabbed the lube and slicked my fingers, and his eyes tracked every movement as I reached behind myself. The first finger slid in easily enough, but I was impatient, pushing too fast, and the stretch burned. I added a second before I was ready and my breath caught.
"Slower," Joel said. "I want to see your face when you open yourself up for me."
I worked myself on my own fingers while he watched, his hands still behind his head, his cock twitching against his stomach every time I made a sound.
My thighs were already shaking when I added a third, the stretch burning bright at the edges, and he still hadn't touched me.
My cock hung heavy between my legs, leaking onto his stomach, and I wanted to wrap my hand around myself so badly my teeth ached.
"Don't," he said, reading my mind. "You don't get to touch yourself."
"Joel—"
"I said you were going to do all the work. That doesn’t mean you get to be in charge." His eyes were dark, fixed on where my fingers disappeared inside my own body. "Make yourself ready for me and don't you dare touch your cock."
I pulled my fingers out and reached for the condom, my hands unsteady. He let me roll it onto him, let me slick him up, his hips barely lifting to help. When I positioned myself over him, his hands finally moved to my hips, but loosely, just resting there.
"Go ahead," he said. "Take what you came for."
I sank down onto him in one slow slide.
The stretch punched the air out of my lungs. He was so deep like this, filling me completely, and when I bottomed out I had to stop and breathe through it. His hands stayed loose on my hips, not guiding, not controlling.
"Go on," he said. “Ride my cock, Red.”
I started slow, lifting up until just the head was inside me, then sinking back down in one smooth roll. The angle was different from this position, and I had to brace both hands on his chest to keep from collapsing. The medal bit into my palm, and I didn't care.
Joel watched me with half-lidded eyes, his body relaxed beneath me. “Fuck you’re so sexy when you have to work for it.”
My hips stuttered. I ground down harder, trying to find the angle that would hit right, and his mouth curved.
"That's it. Earn it."
"Fuck you."
"You are." His hands tightened on my hips finally, and he thrust up to meet me. The angle shifted, and I cried out, my cock jerking between us. "There?"
"There, fuck, right there—"
He did it again, and my whole body shuddered. I was close already, the pressure building at the base of my spine, my cock throbbing with every thrust. I reached for myself without thinking, and his hand shot out, closing around my wrist.
"I said no." He pinned my wrist to his chest, right next to the medal. "You'll get it when I decide you've earned it."
He thrust up again, and I sobbed, actually sobbed, my cock leaking steadily onto his stomach. The friction wasn't enough, would never be enough, and he knew it. He kept going at that perfect angle while denying me the one thing that would push me over.