Chapter Nine
Outside the fourth-floor window, the highway loop around the state capital was a smear of red and white taillights cutting through the freezing rain. Inside, the wall unit beneath the sill rattled every few seconds, blowing dry, lukewarm air against the heavy polyester drapes.
Lucas sat on the edge of the double bed closest to the door, his elbows resting on his knees, staring down at his competition spikes.
He’d already replaced the worn steel pins with fresh quarter-inch needles for tomorrow's regional championship final. The little brass wrench sat on the nightstand next to the laminate room key card. Across the room, Kevin’s duffel bag sat open on the luggage rack, clean white socks and compression sleeves spilling over the nylon lip.
Kevin was down in the lower-level banquet hall.
Coach Miller had called an all-hands strategy session for the relay squads, followed by mandatory ice baths in the visiting training suite.
Lucas had skipped the ice, signing the trainer's attendance sheet early by claiming his hip flexor needed dry needle work in his room.
He had forty minutes before the team curfew check.
A quiet, double tap sounded against the hollow wood of the door.
Lucas went rigid. His heels dug into the carpet, his heart slamming hard against his ribs.
He didn't move for three beats. The knock came again—firmer this time, the brass peephole rattling slightly in its bore.
Lucas stood up, padded across the carpet in his white athletic socks, and looked through the glass lens.
The fish-eye curve distorted the hallway, but there was no mistaking the width of the shoulders or the dark canvas jacket. Jax was leaning against the opposite doorframe, his hood pulled down, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
Lucas unlocked the deadbolt. The brass mechanism slid back with a loud, oily clack.
He pulled the door open six inches. "Are you insane?"
Jax didn't answer. He used one heavy boot to nudge the door inward, caught the edge of the wood with his forearm, and stepped past Lucas into the room.
The latch clicked shut behind him, the automatic lock dropping into place.
The space shrunk immediately. In the woods, surrounded by timber and freezing wind, Jax’s size had felt like a natural extension of the terrain.
Here, under the harsh glow of the overhead fluorescent fixture and the twin brass bedside lamps, he looked massive.
Too broad for the room. His damp jacket dripped two beads of rainwater onto the patterned carpet.
"How did you find this room?" Lucas demanded, his voice a harsh, frantic whisper.
"Metro State is on the third floor," Jax said, pulling off his damp canvas coat. He tossed it onto the vinyl desk chair, not looking around. "Miller left your room assignments sheet face-up on the registration table by the lobby elevator."
"Kevin is down at the ice baths. He could walk through that door in twenty minutes."
"He's got thirty. I saw him in line for the physical therapy tables when I came up.
" Jax turned around, his amber eyes locking onto Lucas with a calm, heavy certainty.
He wore a fitted black long-sleeve compression shirt that showed every corded line of his shoulders and chest. "You looked like a ghost getting off your team bus today. "
"They put trail cameras on the fire roads, Jax," Lucas said, the words spilling out in a jagged rush.
He stayed by the bathroom door, his back flat against the wall, his fingers digging into the hem of his gray training shirt.
"Security has night-vision units on the perimeter.
Miller called a team meeting. If anyone gets caught out there, they pull our scholarships. It's done. Over."
"I know."
"You know?" Lucas stared at him, incredulous. "You could have gotten kicked off your squad before qualifiers."
"I don't care about the woods, Vance."
The statement dropped into the room like a lead weight.
Lucas’s mouth parted, but no sound came out. The air conditioner clicked off, plunging the room into a sudden, ringing silence broken only by the faint hiss of traffic from the highway below.
Jax took a slow step forward.
There was no shadow here. No silver moonlight filtering through sweetgum saplings to soften the edges, no cold fog to hide behind.
The bedside lamp illuminated the sharp cut of Jax’s jaw, the short dark stubble, and the faint, pale line of the scar through his right eyebrow with absolute, unforgiving clarity.
Lucas’s breath hitched, dropping down to sparse, shallow hitches. He wanted to look away, wanted to find an excuse to grab his gear and bolt down the carpeted hallway to the elevators, but his weight remained pinned to his heels.
Jax stopped less than a foot away. The heat rolling off his body was thick and immediate, smelling of clean cedar, hotel soap, and the faint, metallic trace of rainwater.
Jax lifted his right hand. Slowly, giving Lucas every opportunity to flinch or duck away, he laid his heavy, calloused palm flat against the side of Lucas’s neck.
His skin was burning hot against Lucas’s chilled throat. Jax’s thumb settled over the frantic pulse hammering against Lucas's windpipe, tracking the rapid, erratic beat.
"The woods were just where you were willing to look at me," Jax murmured, his voice low, gravelly, vibrating straight through the quiet room.
Lucas looked up into his eyes.
The panic that had lived in his chest for weeks—the fear of Coach Miller’s clipboard, the terror of Kevin finding out, the suffocating anxiety of trying to fit his desires into the rigid, four-minute splits of his old life—fell completely away.
Under the heavy, unwavering pressure of Jax’s hand, the mental noise simply vanished.
There was nowhere left to hide. No dark trails. No anonymous games.
Lucas reached out, his hands trembling faintly as he gripped the front of Jax’s black compression shirt, feeling the thick, solid slabs of muscle beneath the fabric. He didn't push. He pulled Jax that last remaining inch until their chests collided.
Jax’s other arm came around his waist like an iron band, hauling Lucas flush against him.
Jax lowered his forehead against Lucas’s temple, letting their breath mingle in the warm, dry air of the room.
They stayed locked together for several continuous beats, motionless, letting the sheer physical reality of each other settle into the silence.
"Look at me," Jax whispered against his skin.
Lucas lifted his chin. His gaze met Jax’s in the bright lamplight, completely unshielded.
"I'm looking," Lucas said, his voice quiet, steady, and certain.
Jax’s mouth came down on his with crushing, bruising force.
It was different from the woods—not a quick, hurried bite in the freezing dark, but a deep, demanding claim under the bright glare of the hotel bulbs. Jax backed Lucas up until the backs of Lucas’s knees hit the mattress, tumbling them both down across the crisp white sheets.
Jax was over him instantly, his knees slotting between Lucas’s thighs, pinning him to the bed.
He didn't bother turning off the lamps. He stripped Lucas’s gray shirt off over his head, tossing it onto the floor, his heavy hands trailing down Lucas’s ribs, over the sharp cut of his hip bones, before tearing the waistband of Lucas’s shorts and briefs down in one swift, decisive yank.
Lucas lay exposed on the white linen, flushed dark from his chest to his thighs, his cock rigid, weeping, and pulsing in the light.
Jax kicked his boots off and stripped his shirt and pants away with quick, ruthless efficiency.
When he came back over Lucas, bare skin met bare skin with a hot, slick friction that made Lucas gasp aloud.
Jax’s cock was heavy, thick, and searing against Lucas’s hip, dripping pre-come onto the clean sheet.
"No trees tonight," Jax growled into his neck, his teeth catching the skin right over Lucas’s collarbone. "You're going to take all of it right here."
Jax reached between them, his large, calloused hand gripping Lucas’s thigh and hauling it up, throwing Lucas’s leg over his broad shoulder. The angle opened Lucas completely to the room, vulnerable and bare under the light.
Jax lined himself up. He used his own slickness and the leaking head of Lucas’s cock to coat his thumb, working it slowly, firmly into the tight, unyielding ring of muscle between Lucas’s thighs.
Lucas cried out, his hands gripping the white bedspread, knuckles turning white as Jax stretched him open. The intrusion was searing, intense, a foreign pressure that made Lucas’s hips arch off the mattress.
"Breathe, Vance," Jax ordered, his voice thick with strain as he leaned over him, watching Lucas's face unravel. "Look at me and breathe."
Lucas kept his eyes locked on Jax’s face, panting through his teeth, until his muscles relaxed around the intrusion.
Jax withdrew his fingers, positioned the heavy head of his cock at the opening, and pushed forward with one slow, unrelenting drive of his hips.
Lucas’s head cracked back into the pillows, a broken, breathless sound tearing from his chest as Jax filled him. The fullness was staggering—thick, burning, and absolute. Every nerve along Lucas’s spine caught fire as Jax sank all the way to the hilt, burying his entire length inside Lucas’s body.
Jax paused, his forearms planted on either side of Lucas’s head, his chest heaving, his jaw tight as he waited for Lucas to adjust. Sweat dripped from Jax’s brow, landing hot on Lucas’s sternum.
"You good?" Jax rasped, his voice raw.
"Yes," Lucas choked out, his fingers reaching up to grip Jax’s biceps, feeling the iron strength holding him in place. "Jax... please."
Jax began to move.
The rhythm started slow—long, devastating strokes that dragged almost all the way out before driving deep into Lucas’s core. The friction inside was overwhelming, hot and wet, the head of Jax’s cock striking a spot deep inside that made Lucas’s vision spark with white light.
Lucas’s hips began to move of their own accord, meeting every thrust, chasing the brutal fullness. The headboard rattled against the drywall with a steady, rhythmic thud.
Jax sped up, his hips snapping forward with the explosive, metronomic power of an elite sprinter. He reached down with one hand, wrapping his fingers around Lucas’s untouched cock, pumping it in hard, tight strokes that matched the brutal cadence of his hips.
"Look at you," Jax grunted, his breath tearing out in ragged bursts. "Taking every fucking inch of me under the light."
Lucas couldn't hold back. The sensation of being filled, held, and utterly possessed by Jax shattered the last fragment of his control. He cried out into the quiet room, his body arching off the mattress in a violent, shuddering spasm as he came, painting his own stomach and Jax’s knuckles in thick, pulsing ropes of heat.
The clenching of Lucas’s walls around him broke Jax’s restraint entirely. Jax let out a low, guttural roar, driving his hips forward three more punishing, deep times before his own release tore through him, flooding deep inside Lucas in heavy, scalding waves.
The hum of the traffic outside seemed very far away.
Lucas lay flat on his back, his chest rising and falling in deep, ragged breaths, staring up at the textured plaster ceiling of the hotel room. His skin was slick with sweat, the cool air from the window vent washing over his bare shoulders.
Beside him, Jax was propped on one elbow, his heavy hand resting flat against Lucas’s ribs, feeling the steady descent of Lucas’s heart rate. His dark hair was damp, his expression calm, stripped of all the arrogance he wore on the track.
For a long time, neither of them said anything. The quiet between them wasn't heavy or tense anymore; it was still.
"Curfew is in ten minutes," Lucas said quietly, not moving.
"I know," Jax replied, but he didn't pull his hand away. His thumb stroked the skin over Lucas’s hip bone, slow and grounding.
“Kevin and Miller going to be at that door."
"Let them knock."
Lucas turned his head on the pillow. He looked at Jax—at the solid cut of his jaw, the raw certainty in his eyes.
"Tomorrow on the track," Lucas said. "Everyone's watching."
Jax leaned down, pressing his lips firmly against Lucas’s temple, lingering there against the pulse point before pulling back.
"Let them watch," Jax said. "You run your race. I'll run mine. And when the meet's over, we're done hiding."
Lucas reached over, his hand finding Jax’s wrist, his fingers curling tight around the heavy bone.
"Yeah," Lucas said, the word settling in his chest with absolute weight. "We're done hiding."