9. Preston
PRESTON
I’m not gay.
I mean it. Serious.
Cross my heart and hope to be struck by lightning.
Like, not even kidding. I don’t look at men the way I look at girls.
I’ve spent my whole life sharing naked time with the guys in the locker room, and not once have I ever looked at any of them and gotten an unwanted boner.
Not once.
And while we’re on the subject, I also happen to think my body is better than theirs. I’m the guy who starts a dick-measuring contest just to remind everyone I’m the reigning champ. Except Jude. We don’t talk about Jude. Jude is a tough competitor with the ladies whom I refuse to discuss.
Toxic masculinity, blah, blah. Classic straight-guy nonsense.
And straight guys do not get turned on by other guys. That’s literally Rule Number One in the Bro Bible.
Which makes it extremely concerning that I, a certified Totally Straight Dude, just got an astronomical hard-on from being manhandled by the motherfucking rival I hate with the fire of a thousand suns.
And now, with his hand on my hip, my brain is glitching so hard, it’s practically smoking.
This makes zero sense.
I’ve been checked, slammed, tackled, and folded like laundry for years, and I’ve never gotten even a pity twitch.
So why the fuck—
Hello? Brain? Would love a memo. A sticky note? A pop-up ad? Literally any form of communication would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Silence.
Because, apparently, my body has seized the controls, and my mind has switched its status to—offline, good luck, bitch.
The hand disappears, snapping me out of whatever spell I just fell under. I whip around, then freeze when Marcus tugs his glove off with his teeth, his helmet and stick abandoned on the ice.
And once again, I’m staring at the bruises I gave him the other day.
My mark.
No. Who cares about that?
Apparently, my eyes do, because they refuse to look anywhere else.
His damp hair falls in messy strands over his forehead, a few drifting into those impossibly dark eyes—so dark, my spine does this weird little shiver.
And for some godforsaken reason, I find the whole thing…fascinating.
No. Absolutely not.
It’s not fascinating.
Disturbing—yes. Fascinating—never.
Delete that thought, brain. Burn it. Salt the earth.
Marcus throws his gloves on the ice and closes the distance between us, but I skate back before he can reach me. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
My voice doesn’t sound as biting as I’d like, and that bothersome hard-on isn’t going away. If anything, it seems to have gotten worse, crowding my compression shorts more by the second.
“Touching you.” He keeps skating forward as I let myself glide away, tightening my grip on my stick. “That’s what we agreed on, remember?”
I don’t like the look in his eyes. First, he’s not smirking or grinning like the arrogant bastard he is, which I’m starting to think is bad news. Second, there’s this predatory shine in his eyes, like he’s debating the best way to devour me.
I, Preston Armstrong, who devours people for breakfast, am on the brink of being devoured?
Someone call Dr. Duret stat. I’m psychologically dying.
I lift my chin and speak in the condescending tone I reserve for peasants. “You already have touched me.”
“No.” His low voice carries like a vibration. “I haven’t even started. Had to remove the gloves to feel you properly.”
We fall into this ridiculous dance—me skating backward, him stalking forward with staggering determination.
“You’ll feel my foot in your ass if you don’t watch it.”
He chuckles. Chuckles. I didn’t know he was physically capable of producing that sound, but there he is—laughing. Not lightly, though. Darkly.
“Your adorable defense mechanism is growing on me.”
“Don’t get attached. I bite.”
“Mmm. How hard?”
The asshole drags his tongue over his lower lip before catching the corner between his teeth.
And now, his mouth is glistening red, and I need to look the hell away because, what the actual fuck is going on right now?
“I’d bite your head off.” I grin in my usual provocative way, but he only smiles, seeming too pleased with whatever the fuck this is.
“Violent. I knew you were special.”
Something moves behind my rib cage, not sure what, probably an illness Dr. Fenwick hasn’t found yet, but fortunately, I don’t have to think about it.
Unfortunately, however, my back slams into the plexiglass—no, it’s the unlatched penalty box door. It swings open from the impact, and I skid on the slick ice, losing balance as my stick clatters somewhere on the ice.
Big hands grab my waist, flattening across my back. Enveloping me? Trying to keep me upright?
Whatever the fuck the intention is, it fails spectacularly because we crash through the doorway and tumble inside in a mess of skates, scraping sounds, and unholy banging.
The fall is only half controlled. Marcus’s weight pins me briefly, absorbing part of the impact with his grip. Still, my upper back smacks the edge of the bench.
I end up half sitting, my shoulder blades glued to the cold composite surface as a large, stupidly muscled body presses me down.
I blink at the rink lights spilling through the open door, ice gleaming in the corner of my vision, my shoulders throbbing.
And…something else is throbbing.
Fucking hell.
This needs to be clinically studied, because I just fell on my ass, got steamrolled by a linebacker disguised as a hockey player, and now, my dick is…excited?
This would be peak comedy if I weren’t personally starring in a psychological horror film.
Marcus lifts his head and—fuck me sideways—he’s close.
So close, his face might as well be fused to my helmet. Instead of air, I’m inhaling him—cedar, leather, something painfully masculine.
And my dick is aching.
Wow. This is crossing into new territory of insanity, and I’m already operating at a clinical baseline of unstable, as Grandma likes to remind me.
Because none of this adds up. Like, seriously. I love women. Hypersexual disaster here—courtesy of the fucked-up past, or so Dr. Fenwick says. The point is—I love sex.
I love fucking, binding, going all night until I can’t move.
So yes, it’s logical that my dick is a whore. That’s his default setting. But it is not logical that the whorish tendencies are activating in front of Marcus.
He’s nowhere near a girl. Nowhere near soft. All sharp lines, carved jaw, predatory eyes, and muscles that are currently crushing the air out of me.
Everything about him smells and feels unmistakably male—deep, rough, and unapologetically masculine.
Not my usual dish. Not even on the menu.
“Get off me,” I say, then press my lips together because it comes out low, almost soft, so unlike the bite I meant to deliver.
Marcus reaches toward me, and every muscle in my body tenses as he removes my helmet. The clatter it makes against the panels sounds absurdly loud in the stillness.
Everything does.
My breaths.
His.
They’re deep, audible, fogging the plexiglass like we’re trapped inside our own private nightmare.
“Hi,” he drawls, running his index and middle fingers down my cheek, slow and obscene, stopping at the healing cut on my mouth. “I did a number on you the other day, didn’t I?”
I grit my teeth. “You have a death wish?”
“Not particularly.” A low vibration threads through his voice, his eyes darkening to match it. “I love my mark on you.”
“You’ll love my fist in your face, too.”
“I already do.”
His full concentration narrows onto the fingers tracing over my features—cheek, nose, the corner of my mouth. His gaze drops there, and discomfort rips through me in a sharp, familiar blur.
Like when he touched me before.
It starts as a prickle of unease, then slices through my chest like hidden blades, deeper than anything Lenin has ever done to me with his iron fist.
“What I don’t love,” Marcus murmurs, tilting his head, “is how your beautiful face is bruised.”
He brushes his thumb over my jaw. “I won’t hurt your face again. No matter how hard you push for it.”
Something thick lodges in my throat, tightening everything inside me.
Why does this feel—fuck—intimate?
I hate it. I hate him.
“Don’t ever get your face hurt again,” he whispers, guiding my jaw into his palm.
“What I do with my face isn’t your business.”
“Not again.” His grip firms, his voice roughening in a deliberate shift. “Are we clear?”
A shiver races down my spine, and I categorically refuse to analyze that. Straight into the walk-in closet with the rest of my psychological skeletons.
“If you’re done, get the fuck off me,” I snap, except it still lacks the punch it should have—which is deeply troubling. I’d like to file a complaint with my vocal cords.
And while I’m filing complaints, my uncooperative dick is next on the list.
“Done?” His lips hover inches from mine, heat radiating between us. “I’m only getting started, baby.”
I slap my gloved hand over his mouth before he can close the distance. “Don’t fucking kiss me or I’ll slice your throat, take a bath in your blood, and rearrange your face so thoroughly, your own mother won’t be able to ID the corpse.”
He lowers my hand with maddening calm, his fingers drifting from my chin to my throat, lingering over my Adam’s apple like it’s a button he’s debating pressing.
“Is this your idea of dirty talk?” he murmurs. “It’s starting to grow on me.”
I swallow hard—very hard—because he keeps gliding his fingertips over my Adam’s apple. What kind of guy touches another guy’s Adam’s apple like he’s testing its texture?
Marcus, apparently.
And, of course, my brain chooses this exact moment to get distracted by the chain tattoo curling up his neck, peeking from under his shirt like a warning label.
His hand drifts lower. The grip he had on my wrist slides to my hip, pushing under my jersey and compression shirt until his large, warm palm lands on my damp skin.
Nausea coils through me the second he touches the tattoo on my hip. Every pass of his hand along my side, along muscles I normally brag about, makes breathing harder.
Fuck.
Fuck.
This is why I don’t let people touch me. It summons the demon I bury deepest—my seven-year-old self.