Chapter Six
Lucas didn’t back up. He kept his feet planted in the frost-bitten needles, though his balance felt precarious, his weight shifting back onto his heels.
"I didn't ask you to wait for me," Lucas said.
"Didn't have to." Jax took another half-step forward. The distance between them shrank to less than two feet. "You spent several days spinning out. I watched you on the infield. You looked like you were going to throw up every time you looked at the blocks."
"I was focusing on my race."
"Bullshit." Jax’s voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "You were thinking about having your back against that tree. You were thinking about what it felt like when I had you by the hips."
A hot spike drove straight through Lucas’s stomach.
The bluntness of it knocked the air out of him.
On campus, everything was veiled—coaches spoke in code about potential and discipline; Maya spoke in soft hints about what she wanted for dinner; teammates buried their rivalries under locker-room jokes. Nobody just said the thing out loud.
"I have a girlfriend," Lucas blurted.
The words sounded ridiculous the second they left his mouth. Thin. Pathetic. Like a child holding up a cardboard shield against a sledgehammer.
Jax didn't even blink. He tilted his chin down, his amber eyes tracking the tremor in Lucas’s throat.
"Then why aren't you in her bed?" Jax asked.
Lucas had no answer. His lips parted, but his throat was dry, his tongue heavy and useless.
"You're not in her bed because she doesn't make your hands shake like that," Jax said quietly. He reached out. Slowly, without any rush, he hooked his fingers into the collar of Lucas’s windbreaker, right below the zipper.
He didn't yank. He just took the slack out of the nylon, anchoring Lucas where he stood.
"You're out here in the dirt because you want what happened last week. Only this time, you know who I am."
"Cross—"
"Say it." Jax’s knuckles grazed Lucas’s throat, rough and calloused against the thrumming artery. "Tell me you walked through two miles of freezing brush just to say hello, and I'll walk back to my truck right now."
Lucas stared at the center of Jax’s chest. The canvas jacket was unbuttoned, showing the thick gray cotton of the hoodie underneath, rising and falling in a slow, infuriatingly steady rhythm.
Lucas could lie. He could say it, turn around, and jog back to Maple Hall.
He could spend the rest of the season running his sixty-five miles a week, staring at his spreadsheets, living inside the neat, gray box he’d built for himself.
The silence between them stretched out, cold and razor-sharp.
Lucas’s hands came out of his pockets. His fingers caught the heavy canvas of Jax’s jacket, bunching the fabric tight in his fists.
"I couldn't sleep," Lucas whispered, the truth ripping out of him like broken glass. "I haven't slept well since Saturday."
Jax’s grip on his collar tightened, hauling him in that last foot until their chests collided.
"Good," Jax murmured, his breath hot against Lucas's cheek, cutting through the frost. "That makes two of us."
Jax didn’t take him to the pine tree this time.
He shoved Lucas back toward the massive fallen log.
Lucas’s calves hit the rotted bark and Jax shoved him down by the shoulders, forcing him onto his back across the wide, mossy timber.
The damp wood was hard and freezing beneath Lucas’s shoulder blades, the cold seeping straight through his windbreaker, but Jax was already over him—straddling his thighs, pressing hundreds of pounds of dense, explosive muscle down onto his lap.
The sheer weight of him pinned Lucas flat, thighs locked on either side of his hips, the heat of Jax’s body a brutal contrast to the frost-bitten night.
“Hands above your head,” Jax ordered, voice low and absolute.
Lucas hesitated, chest heaving, ribs aching under the pressure of Jax’s weight.
“Above your head, Vance.”
Lucas lifted his arms. His knuckles sank into the cold, wet moss behind him.
The surrender of control was instantaneous and terrifying—a total collapse of the rigid discipline he’d used his entire life to keep himself sealed shut.
He was pinned, open, completely helpless beneath an athlete who outweighed him by thirty pounds of pure power.
Jax leaned down until their faces were inches apart.
He shucked his heavy canvas jacket off onto the log, then reached down and tore the snap of Lucas’s track pants open with a sharp, decisive yank.
The nylon and briefs were shoved down to mid-thigh in one rough motion, exposing Lucas’s cock to the freezing air.
It was already hard, flushed dark, leaking steadily onto his stomach.
Jax’s bare, warm hand wrapped around the root of Lucas’s shaft.
He didn’t stroke. He just gripped it with heavy, possessive authority, his thick thumb grinding down against the sensitive base, pinning the throbbing vein hard against Lucas’s pubic bone.
The pressure was almost too much—perfectly controlled, deliberately overwhelming.
Lucas gasped, spine arching off the log, hips surging upward against the immovable grip. “Jax—fuck—”
“I told you,” Jax said, voice dropping into a thick, gravelly rasp as he leaned over him. His mouth hovered just above Lucas’s lips, close enough that their breath mingled in white clouds. “You’re built to take this.”
Then Jax lowered his head.
He didn’t use his hand. He parted his lips and took the swollen, weeping head of Lucas’s cock straight into the wet heat of his mouth.
A ragged, strangled cry tore out of Lucas’s throat.
His hands clenched into the moss, tearing the damp green growth from the bark in desperate fistfuls.
The contrast was mind-shattering—freezing air on his bare stomach and thighs, hard frozen wood beneath his back, and the scalding, silky heat of Jax’s mouth sliding down over his length in one long, deliberate swallow.
Jax took him deep. His throat relaxed around the crown, tongue working flat and firm against the sensitive underside, the wet heat enveloping every inch until Lucas felt the head press against the back of Jax’s throat.
Jax gripped Lucas’s hips hard, blunt fingers digging into the sharp bones, holding him completely still while his head began to move in a slow, devastating cadence—pulling almost all the way off so the cold night air kissed the slick, exposed shaft, then burying him again in one smooth, relentless stroke.
Every time Jax drew back, the freezing air hit the wet skin like a slap. Every time he sank down, the heat returned so intense it made Lucas’s vision white out at the edges. The wet sounds of it filled the empty air—obscene, rhythmic, filthy against the silence of the pines.
Lucas’s mind unraveled completely. The training logs, the four-minute miles, Maya’s quiet voice, Coach Miller’s clipboard—everything dissolved into pure, white-hot sensation.
He was moaning into the night air, hips bucking helplessly against the iron restraint of Jax’s hands, chasing the slide of that mouth even as Jax held him pinned and forced him to take it at Jax’s pace.
“Jax—please—I’m gonna—”
Jax pulled off with a wet, deliberate pop, a string of saliva and pre-come connecting his lower lip to the flushed head of Lucas’s cock for a second before it broke. He didn’t give Lucas a single second to breathe or recover.
He hauled Lucas up by the armpits, dragging his torso upright against his own chest, then spun him hard and pushed him face-down over the log.
Lucas’s palms slapped into the cold, mossy bark.
Before he could process the change in position, Jax yanked his own sweatpants down just far enough to free himself.
The heat of Jax’s bare cock pressed against the cleft of Lucas’s ass—heavy, thick, already slick at the tip and searing against the chilled skin.
Jax didn’t penetrate him. Not yet. Instead he shoved his cock between Lucas’s tightly closed thighs, forcing the thick shaft into the hot, narrow channel of muscle and skin, and began to grind hard and fast.
The friction was brutal and perfect. Jax used Lucas’s own leaking pre-come and the tight squeeze of his thighs to create a punishing, rhythmic heat, driving his hips with short, powerful snaps that made the log creak beneath them.
Each thrust dragged the heavy head of Jax’s cock along the sensitive skin of Lucas’s inner thighs and the underside of his balls, the wet, sliding pressure relentless.
Jax reached around with one massive hand, grabbing Lucas’s cock from behind, and began pumping him in perfect, brutal synchronization with the snap of his hips.
The dual sensation—being used between the thighs while that rough, calloused fist worked his shaft in tight, twisting strokes—ripped a broken sound from Lucas’s throat.
“Feel that?” Jax grunted against the back of Lucas’s neck, lips scraping the tendon hard enough to sting. His breath was hot and ragged, body a furnace against Lucas’s back. “Feel how easy this is? You don’t have to think. Don’t have to decide. Just take it. Just let me use you.”
Lucas surrendered entirely.
He pushed back against Jax’s hips, spreading his thighs just enough to give the heavier man better access, letting Jax dictate every aspect of the tempo and pressure.
The sensation of being held, driven, and completely overwhelmed by another male athlete—stronger, heavier, unapologetic—pushed Lucas over the brink with devastating violence.
His quads locked hard. His back bowed sharply.
Lucas yelled into the empty air, the sound raw and cracked as he came in thick, uncontrolled pulses across the damp moss and Jax’s knuckles.
His cock jerked helplessly in Jax’s fist, spilling in long, heavy ropes while his thighs trembled and clenched around the shaft still grinding between them.
A second later Jax let out a harsh, guttural growl that vibrated against Lucas’s spine.
He drove his hips forward three more punishing times—deep, grinding thrusts that forced his cock hard against the sensitive skin of Lucas’s thighs and the base of his spent cock—before his own release hit.
His cock bucked violently between Lucas’s legs, flooding Lucas’s lower back, the cleft of his ass, and the backs of his thighs with searing, heavy heat.
Jax kept grinding through it, working every last pulse out against Lucas’s skin until both of them were slick, trembling, and panting hard into the freezing air.
The forest was completely still again.
Lucas stayed slumped over the fallen pine, his forehead resting against the rough wood, fighting to pull oxygen into his burning lungs. His legs were shaking so hard he didn't think he could stand if Jax let go.
Behind him, Jax remained heavy and warm, his chest pressed flat against Lucas’s back, their shared sweat cooling fast between their clothes. Jax’s hand stayed anchored to Lucas’s hip, the grip firm, unmoving, resting there as if he had no intention of ever taking it away.
Neither of them spoke for a long time.
The wind sighed through the tops of the white pines, a soft, rushing sound like water over stones. Faint plumes of white steam billowed out from their faces, mingling together in the space between the branches.
Slowly, Jax shifted.
He didn't pull away immediately. He dragged his thumb across the crest of Lucas's hip bone, a single, deliberate stroke that felt shockingly tender against the cold, spent skin. Then he stepped back, the leather of his boots crunching in the mulch.
Lucas pushed himself up on trembling arms. He pulled his clothes back together, his fingers numb from the cold, fumbling with the waistband of his track pants.
Jax was already standing, fastening his own pants. He picked his heavy canvas jacket off the wood, shook the pine needles from the collar, and pulled it over his broad shoulders.
Lucas looked up. In the clear moonlight, Jax’s face wasn't mocking. There was no smirk, no smug athlete bravado. His expression was serious, almost severe, his amber eyes locked on Lucas with an intensity that made Lucas’s chest tighten all over again.
"You're not straight, Vance," Jax said, his voice quiet, matter-of-fact.
Lucas looked down at his own dirty running shoes. He should have argued. He should have defended himself, thrown out the usual excuses about stress, adrenaline, or just messing around.
The words wouldn't come. The lie was too big, too exhausting to carry anymore.
"I don't know what I am," Lucas said, his voice barely audible over the wind.
Jax took a step toward him, stopping right in front of where Lucas sat on the log. He reached down, caught Lucas under the chin with two fingers, and lifted his head until their eyes met.
"You're mine out here," Jax said. "That's what you are."
He didn't wait for Lucas to answer. He let his hand drop, turned on his heel, and walked up the trail toward the highway, leaving Lucas alone in the silver light of the hollow.