Chapter 9
He doesn’t say a word.
I’m still holding my breath, waiting for the rejection, for the cruel laugh and the shove that sends me sprawling backward.
Instead, his hand—the one not gripping my wrist—lifts slowly. He touches my hair, his fingers threading into the strands at the crown of my head. The touch is so hesitant, it feels like he’s handling something fragile he’s terrified of breaking. It undoes me.
“Either you continue,” Raiden says, and his voice breaks, cracking on the last few words as if his throat is closing up. “Or I’ll… lose control of myself.”
Permission. My hesitation shatters.
With a surge of adrenaline, I work his jeans the rest of the way down his thighs, my fingers brushing against the taut fabric of his black boxers.
Oh wow.
He’s already fully erect, the head of his cock straining against the cotton. I free him with shaking hands. He’s thick, so heavy, and there’s a single, clear drop of precum glistening on the tip under the dim light.
My brain goes offline. There is no thought, only instinct.
My mouth waters, and I lean forward, my tongue darting out to lick that single bead away. It tastes salty and intoxicating.
Above me, Raiden draws in a loud, ragged breath through his nostrils, his whole body going rigid. The hand in my hair tightens, not painfully, but with a desperate, grounding force.
That sound is all the encouragement I need.
I take the swollen head of his cock between my lips and suck. My own excitement spikes so high my head spins, a dizzying wave of just pure lust. My God. He’s so hard, and he’s hard for me.
I start to take him deeper, wanting more, wanting all of him, not wanting to stop. My throat muscles stretch, protesting slightly, but I ignore the discomfort, driven by a primal need to consume him, to prove my words.
To prove to him—and myself—that this is real.
“Artie,” Raiden whispers, his voice ragged. The fingers in my hair begin to move, stroking me now, more frantic and desperate.
I pull back slightly, needing to breathe, wanting to tease him.
I run my open mouth up and down the length of him, the velvety skin smooth against my lips. I flick my tongue over the sensitive vein running along the underside, and he lets out a low groan that vibrates right through me.
I want to own this moment, to make him lose that iron-clad control he wears like armor.
When I finally take his full length back into my mouth, my free hand comes up to grip his hip, anchoring myself as I start to suck in earnest.
I move with a passion I didn’t know I possessed, my head bobbing, wanting to drive him over the edge, to give him the same mindless, shattering release he gave me in the locker room.
“Artie, if you don’t stop, I’m going to come right in your…”
His words are cut off by his own harsh groan.
His hips buck upward, and his cock throbs violently in my mouth as a hot flood of semen hits the back of my throat. I swallow reflexively, the taste of him overwhelming my senses.
The hand in my hair clenches, his knuckles brushing my scalp, and I know it’s not deliberate—he’s completely lost, out of his mind.
In that moment of shared sensation and release, I feel my own cock burst with excitement inside my jeans, a painful ache.
I barely have time to get my legs under me before he’s hauling me to my feet.
In one fluid motion, he pushes me back onto my narrow dorm bed, the springs groaning in protest. He comes down on top of me, his weight solid and strangely comforting, and his mouth crashes against mine.
It’s a wild, hungry kiss, not just lips but teeth and tongue. He bites my bottom lip, just hard enough to make me gasp, and then soothes it with his tongue.
He pulls back just enough to rip my jumper over my head and toss it aside.
The cool air hits my bare chest, but then his big, warm hands are on me, touching everywhere at once. His palms are rough, calloused, and they map my body with an almost desperate reverence—over my ribs, down my stomach, up to my shoulders.
“You’re not cold anymore, right?” he whispers, his breath hot against my cheek.
I shake my head, my mind foggy. The question is… so odd, so out of place. He seems to be in some kind of trance, fixated on this one small detail from outside, as if my being cold was a problem he was desperate to solve.
But then his mouth covers my skin, and all coherent thought vanishes. He laves a wet, open-mouthed path down my neck, over my collarbone.
When his lips close over my nipple, I arch my back off the mattress, a short moan tearing from my throat.
He sucks hard, his other hand finding my other nipple, rolling the sensitive peak between his thumb and forefinger. Electrifying pleasure lances through me.
He moves, shifting his weight so he’s lying behind me, pulling my back flush against his chest. I’m spooned against his solid frame, feeling the frantic beat of his heart against my shoulder blades.
He nuzzles my ear, his lips brushing the shell, sending shivers down my spine, while his hands continue their relentless, wonderful torment on my chest.
He starts to speak, his voice a ragged whisper directly into my ear.
“I shouldn’t have questioned you so harshly about being gay.
I shouldn’t have pushed you, demanded an answer.
You have the right to have doubts, you don’t have to answer me at all…
” He takes a shuddering breath, his arms tightening around me.
“But you have to understand that I just couldn’t take it anymore…
Fuck, Artie, I’ve been going crazy since last week.
Since the locker room. I never thought you’d let me touch you…
like that, so fast… You climbed on top of me, remember?
You climbed right into my lap yourself, and I fucking lost my mind… ”
His confession spills out. It’s all there—the insecurity, the want, the madness I’ve been sensing under the surface for months.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, my head lolling back against his shoulder as his lips find my neck again. “Oh God, Raiden, please…”
He pulls me even closer, his now-soft cock pressing against my ass.
He shifts his hips, a clear prelude to something more.
I’m ready. My body is pliant, open, ready to let him do anything he wants to me.
My mind is almost gone, it’s just like I’m lost in the storm of sensation and the dizzying truth of his words.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound is sharp, loud. Shit. Brutally out of place. I startle, every muscle in my body tensing. Raiden growls irritably against my neck.
“Ignore it,” he mutters, his hand sliding down my stomach. “They’ll leave.”
“Artie? Are you in there? It’s me!”
My blood runs cold. Karolina.
I scramble out from under Raiden’s arms and off the bed, my heart hammering against my ribs. I look at my phone on the desk—10:15 PM. Fuck. We were supposed to meet at ten to go over the final food truck vendor contracts. I completely forgot.
“It’s my friend,” I whisper, panic clawing at my throat. I look around the room, at Raiden half-dressed on my bed, at my jumper on the floor. It’s a disaster.
I snatch my jumper and pull it on. “Okay,” I say, my voice a frantic whisper. “Okay, listen. I’ll go out into the hall. I’ll tell her I fell asleep, I’ll distract her and walk with her down the other hall, toward the common area. That will give you time. Just grab your stuff and get out. Quickly.”
I look at Raiden. He hasn’t moved.
He’s just sitting up on the edge of the bed, watching me with a dark, unblinking gaze that makes my stomach swoop. His expression is closed off, impossible to read. The wild, vulnerable man from moments ago is gone, replaced by this stone-faced stranger.
The knocking comes again, more insistent this time. “Artie, come on, I know you’re in there, I can hear you talking!”
“Shit,” I breathe. I have to go. But I can’t leave him like this. “I’m sorry,” I say, moving toward him. “We agreed to meet, I can’t blow her off completely. I’ll call you, okay? Do you… do you want me to call you?” I finish uncertainly.
The silence stretching between us feels heavy, charged with something I don’t understand.
Instead of answering, he just keeps staring at me with those intense, shadowed eyes. I make a split-second decision. I lean in to give him a quick, placating kiss on the lips.
The second our mouths touch, his hands come up to cup my face, holding me fast. He pulls me into a deep, bruising kiss that steals my breath and leaves me dizzy.
He pulls away abruptly. “Okay,” he says, his voice flat.
His abruptness is jarring, hiding something I don’t have time to analyze. I just nod, turn, and wrench open my door.
Twenty minutes later, after a masterclass in deflection and promising Karolina I’d buy her coffee for a week, I finally get back to my room.
I close the door, lean against it, and let out a laugh that sounds suspiciously like a sob. The sheer whiplash of the last hour is staggering.
I was going to call Raiden, as promised, to apologize, to try and explain.
I flop down on my bed, the lingering scent of him on my sheets rising to meet me, and pull out my phone. My thumb hovers over the screen.
And then I remember.
I don’t have his fucking number.
Frustration mixes with a helpless sort of hope. I guess I’ll have to find him tomorrow morning? First thing. The thought sends a thrill through me. I’ll go to the arena. I’ll wait for him after practice. We need to talk. We need to figure out what this… what we are.
I finally fall into a restless sleep, my dreams filled with the phantom touch of calloused hands and the image of piercing blue eyes.
The shrill ring of my phone jolts me from sleep. I grope for it on my nightstand, my eyes bleary. The caller ID says ‘Ashford Sec’. My heart lurches. It’s barely dawn.
“Hello?” I answer, my voice thick with sleep.
“Artie Patton?” The voice is familiar. Frank, the night guard. But his usual warmth is gone, replaced by a tense urgency.
“Yeah, Frank? What’s wrong?”
“Son, you need to get down here,” he says, his voice strained. “To the old common room. There was a fire.” My stomach plummets. “Don’t panic,” he adds quickly. “It’s out. The sprinkler system kicked in right away, thank God. It’s been extinguished. But you should probably check the damage.”