Chapter Four
The dormitory stairwell smelled of wet wool and industrial bleach when Lucas slipped back inside.
He didn't take the elevator. He took the concrete steps two at a time, his legs shaking on the risers, his thighs trembling with a faint, involuntary tremor that wouldn't quit. Every surface of his body felt raw, scrubbed down to exposed wire.
Lucas didn't turn on the ceiling light. He grabbed his wire shower caddy, pulled a clean towel from his locker, and backed out into the hallway.
The communal bathroom at the end of the hall was freezing.
The tile floor was gray, slick with condensation, and lit by a single flickering fluorescent tube that buzzed against the acoustic ceiling.
Lucas locked himself in the stall at the far corner, peeled off his running flats, and kicked his sweatpants into a damp pile by the drain.
His stomach was marked with faint red pressure lines where heavy knuckles had ground into his skin. His inner thighs were chafed raw from coarse denim. And on his lower abdomen, dried to a stiff, translucent glaze in the cold air, was the proof of what had happened against the pine trunk.
He turned the brass shower handles all the way to hot.
The water hammered down in needle-sharp jets, scalding against his chilled shoulders.
Lucas stood under the stream, resting both palms flat against the cold subway tile, his head hanging between his biceps.
He grabbed the bar of green soap and scrubbed his skin until the foam turned gray with dirt and pine bark, dragging the rough lather down his ribs, between his thighs, over his hips.
He scrubbed until his chest was mottled pink, but the feeling wouldn't wash off.
It wasn't just the physical residue. It was the memory of weight.
The absolute, unyielding pressure of another man's chest pinning him against the wood.
The certainty in the stranger's grip. The way Lucas's own body had responded—not with panic or revulsion, but with a violent, humiliating surge of pleasure that had bypassed his brain entirely.
You run the 5K, don't you?
Lucas turned the cold handle, letting freezing water blast the back of his neck until his breath hitched.
The guy knew him.
He wasn't some anonymous stranger drifting through the county from the interstate. He was someone who knew the athletic department. Someone who walked the same campus paths, maybe ate in the same dining hall, maybe sat in the bleachers during home meets.
Lucas shut off the taps. The pipes gave a dull, shuddering groan in the wall.
He dried off fast, dressed in fresh gray cotton, and threw his dirty clothes directly into the bottom of his laundry hamper, burying them under three layers of towels so he wouldn't have to look at the pine needles clinging to the cuffs.
Sunday morning long run was hell.
The sun hadn't even cleared the stadium press box when Coach Miller blew the whistle on the gravel loop. The frost was still thick on the grass, crunching beneath thirty pairs of training shoes as the distance squad fell into a tight, silent pack.
"First six miles at recovery pace," Miller shouted from the bed of the department pickup truck, idling along the service road. "Then we pick up the tempo on the reservoir road. If you're drifting off the back, you run stairs until lunch."
Lucas slotted into his usual position, tucked behind Kevin Chen’s right shoulder.
Usually, the first three miles were automatic. His breathing would settle into a smooth three-in, three-out rhythm, his hips would align over his ankles, and his mind would drift into that cool, empty space where miles just clicked away like numbers on an odometer.
Not today.
Every time his right foot struck the gravel, a sharp, dull ache tugged at his groin.
His quads felt stiff, heavy, as though they were filled with wet sand.
His shorts kept brushing against the sensitive head of his cock, sending faint, unwanted sparks through his lower belly that shattered his focus.
"You're dragging," Kevin muttered without turning his head. His breath puffed white over his shoulder. "Your stride is short on the right side."
"I'm fine," Lucas said, the words tight in his throat.
"You look like shit. You look like you got run over by a tractor."
"Thanks."
"Did you sleep at all?"
"A little."
"Miller is watching your cadence," Kevin said, his voice dropping as the coach's truck revved slightly, pulling even with the front of the pack. "Pick it up, or he's gonna pull you from the relay."
Lucas pushed down on the gravel, forcing his hips forward, trying to lengthen his gait.
He tried to think about the conference standings.
He tried to think about his split times.
He tried to visualize the final turn of the five-kilometer course, the blue line painted on the asphalt, the clock counting down in red digital lights.
It was useless.
All he could see was the shadow of a jawline in the moonlight. All he could feel was a heavy, calloused hand reaching into his waistband, tearing away every rule he’d ever lived by.
By mid-week, the weather had turned brisk and clear.
The state collegiate invitational was held at the regional sports complex three towns over—a neutral, six-lane red-rubber track surrounded by concrete grandstands that echoed with the crack of starter pistols and the constant murmur of track officials over the PA system.
Ten schools had sent their rosters for the mid-season tune-up: distance runners jogging the perimeter in color-coded windbreakers, pole vaulters hauling fiberglass tubes across the infield, and throwers clustered around the shot-put ring.
Lucas sat on the low aluminum bench near the distance tent, re-tying his spikes.
His event was scheduled for the afternoon, right after the hurdle finals. He had an hour to warm up, roll out his calves, and do his strides on the backstretch.
Across the green turf of the infield, the sprinters were beginning their block starts.
They were different athletes entirely from the distance crew.
While the distance runners were lean, hollow-cheeked, and quiet, moving with the economical efficiency of marathoners, the sprinters carried themselves with loud, heavy swagger.
They wore bright compression gear, talked trash across the lane lines, and paced the turf like thoroughbreds waiting to break from a gate.
A cluster of athletes from Metro State was gathered around the hundred-meter mark.
Lucas didn't pay attention at first. He reached down to double-knot his left spike, pulling the thin laces until the nylon bit into his fingers.
Then he heard the laugh.
It was low, rough around the edges, carrying a heavy, dismissive rasp that cut cleanly through the roar of the crowd.
Lucas’s fingers stopped moving. The breath stalled in his windpipe.
Slowly, deliberately, he raised his head.
Standing at the edge of the high-jump apron, leaning with one foot propped on a red foam landing mat, was a sprinter in a black-and-gold Metro State singlet.
The guy was massive. His shoulders were wide enough to block out the view of the timing tent behind him, thick slabs of muscle knotting across his upper back and sloping into a powerful, corded neck.
He had his track jacket unzipped, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, revealing heavy forearms marked by vascular ridges and pale barbell calluses on the inside of his palms.
Lucas’s vision tunneled.
The man was laughing at something his teammate had said, shaking his head. He had dark hair cropped short at the sides, a heavy, square jaw shadowed by a day's worth of dark stubble, and a small, jagged scar cutting through the arch of his right eyebrow.
It was him.
There was no shadow here. No pine branches, no silver moonlight filtering through sweetgum leaves. The afternoon sun beat straight down on the turf, picking out every plane of the man's face with brutal, unforgiving clarity.
Jaxen Cross.
Lucas knew the name. Everyone on the collegiate circuit knew the name.
Cross was Metro State's lead anchor for the four-by-one relay, an all-conference sprinter with a reputation for explosive starts and an arrogant, aggressive attitude that had nearly gotten him disqualified from the indoor championships earlier that year.
The pieces fell together with sickening speed. The raw size. The sheer, terrifying physical authority. The heavy, calloused hands that had handled Lucas against the bark like he weighed nothing at all.
He knew who I was. He's known the whole time.
As if sensing the weight of the stare, Jaxen turned his head.
Across forty yards of green turf, across the lanes where athletes were jogging and coaches were waving clipboards, Jaxen’s eyes locked straight onto Lucas.
He didn't look startled. He didn't look away.
His eyes were a clear, predatory amber in the bright sunlight, completely unbothered by the open space. The laughter dropped from his face, replaced by an intense, deliberate focus that made the hair on Lucas’s arms stand straight up.
Jaxen slowly straightened from the high-jump mat. He didn't wave. He didn't nod.
Instead, he lifted his right hand—the same hand that had clamped around Lucas’s hip in the dark—and tapped the index finger against the side of his own neck, right over the carotid artery.
Right where his mouth had been.
A cold shockwave ripped through Lucas’s chest, dropping straight down to the pit of his stomach. His heart slammed against his ribs so hard he could feel the pulse hammering in his temples.
Before Lucas could react, Jaxen turned his back, picked up his starting blocks with one hand, and walked casually toward the sprint staging tent, disappearing into the crowd of gold singlets.