8. Cruz
CRUZ
Hot water hammers down my back, washing the last of the session off my skin.
My shoulders ache in that good way, the kind that means I worked hard in the weight room, and my head’s already three steps ahead.
Post-shower protein, ice on the left knee, maybe text Dante about tomorrow.
Maybe don’t text Dante about tomorrow. Still working that one out.
I tip my face into the spray and let it pound against my eyelids.
The locker room door bangs open. Footsteps. Quick ones, not the heavy plod of Brady or the unhurried stride of Eli. I shut off the water and grab the towel slung over the partition.
“Yo, who’s that?”
No answer.
I step out from behind the tiled wall, towel in hand instead of around my waist because whoever it is has seen me naked a hundred times. Probably Brady. Or Dante with some bullshit excuse to come back in here.
It’s not Brady. It’s not Dante.
Dakota stands frozen by the bench, cheeks blotchy red, chest rising and falling like she just ran sprints. Her eyes lock onto mine for half a second before they drop. Then drop further. Then snap up to the ceiling like it offended her.
“Oh, fuck. Shit. Sorry. Fuck.”
A laugh punches out of me. “Sweetheart, this is the men’s room.”
“I know. I know that.” Her hands flap at her sides. “I just needed…”
“You needed?”
“A minute. I needed a minute and the women’s was… someone was in there and I just…” She’s looking everywhere except at me. Which means she already looked. Which means she knows exactly what she’s not looking at.
I don’t move. Don’t cover up. Don’t pull the towel hanging off my finger around my waist. There’s a wickedness crawling up my spine and I know I should kill it, but Dakota’s cheeks are the color of a sunset and her throat keeps working like she’s trying to swallow something that won’t go down.
And my dick? My dick has opinions.
It’s filling out fast, heavy between my thighs, and I don’t do a damn thing to stop it. She looks. She can’t help it. Her eyes drop again, just for a second, and her lips part like she forgot how breathing works.
“Cruz.” Her voice cracks. “Jesus.”
“What’s got you all flustered, Fisher?”
“Nothing.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Nothing, I just…” She trails off.
“Was it Coach?”
Her head snaps up. “What?”
There it is. The flush deepens, blooms down her neck and disappears under the collar of her tank. Her hand comes up to her throat like she can press the heat back in. She’s still not covering her eyes. Still not turning around.
I take a step toward her. Slow. Lazy. Dropping my towel to the floor on the way.
“You came in here looking like that and I’m gonna ask you again. Was it Coach?”
“You’re insane.”
“Probably.” I tilt my head. “Look down, Fisher.”
“I’m not—”
“Not at me. At yourself.”
Her eyes drop. Confusion first. Then her whole face goes scarlet and her hands fly to the front of her shorts.
“Fuck.”
A dark patch sits dead center of the gray fabric, generous enough that there’s no pretending it’s sweat. I bite the inside of my cheek and fail to keep the grin off my face.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
“Cruz,” she warns.
“Coach had his hands on you?”
She lets out a noise that’s half laugh, half groan, and drags both palms down her face. “We were practicing clinch work. Pummeling drills, dirty boxing from the over-under. That’s it. He just. God, he was so close.”
I smirk. “And your pussy went swimming.”
“Stop talking like that.”
“Why? Honest words for an honest situation.” I take another step. She doesn’t back up. “Hot fighter girl walks into the men’s room with damp shorts and a wild look. I’m just connecting the dots.”
She finally looks at my dick. Full on. Stares for a beat too long before tearing her eyes away and turning toward the door.
“I’m leaving.”
“Not so fast.”
I cross the space in two strides and catch her wrist before her hand makes it to the handle. Gentle. Loose enough she could pull away if she wanted. She doesn’t. Her pulse jackrabbits under my thumb.
“Cruz.”
“You came in here for a reason.”
“By accident.”
“Maybe.” I dip my head. “But your mistake has my dick hard, sweetheart. And your problem has your shorts soaked through. Feels like the universe wants us to help each other out.”
Her breath hitches.
“This is a bad idea. We can’t—”
“Can’t what?”
“You’re.” She gestures vaguely at all of me. “And I’m… I work with you. You’re on my team. I don’t…”
“You don’t what?”
She doesn’t finish the sentence. Her tongue darts out and wets her bottom lip, and that’s the moment I know. She wants this. She wants this so bad her body’s already given the answer her mouth’s stalling on.
“You into guys, Cruz?” she asks.
The question stops me for half a second. Then I grin, slow.
“Look at my dick, Fisher. Is that telling you I’m only into guys?”
“I just… You said—”
“I’m bi. Have been since I figured out the word for it.” I let go of her wrist, slide my fingers up her forearm, watch goosebumps chase the trail. “Told Coach a little fantasy when I first saw you. Him, balls deep in you. Me, balls deep in him. Made him real quiet.”
Her mouth falls open.
“You didn’t.”
“Did.”
“Holy shit.”
“He hasn’t been able to look you in the eye properly since. Man’s losing his mind.”
She’s breathing hard now. Her thighs pressed together.
“You want a taste?” I tip my head toward my cock, which hasn’t gotten the memo about this being a complicated situation. “Right now. Mouth on me. Bet it’d take the edge off whatever Coach kicked up.”
“Cruz,” she murmurs
“Yes or no, Fisher.”
She nods.
Just like that. One nod. Quick, like if she does it slow she’ll change her mind.
I grab her hand and pull her toward the row of changing stalls at the back, kick open the third door, drag her inside. Latch it. The space is barely big enough for both of us but it’ll do.
“On your knees.”
She goes down without a word.
The sight of her there with her blonde hair tumbling forward, hazel eyes blown black, and lips parted nearly does me in before she’s even touched me. I fist my hand in her hair, not hard, just enough to anchor.
“Open.”
Her mouth opens. I push in slow, let her get used to the size of me, and her tongue flattens against the underside in this clever little way that tells me she’s good at sucking dick. “Fuck, sweetheart.”
Her hand drops between her legs. I watch her shorts shift as she palms herself through the fabric, then shoves her hand under the waistband, and the sound she makes around my cock. It’s a half-whimper, half-groan that has my knees considering retirement.
“That’s it. Play with that pretty cunt for me while you suck.”
She hollows her cheeks and takes me deeper. I hit the back of her throat and she doesn’t gag, she hums, and my head tips back against the stall wall.
“Christ, Fisher. You felt that good in my fucking fantasies and now you’re—” Her tongue does something filthy. “—fuck, you keep doing that and I’m gonna come down your throat.”
She whimpers, takes me deeper.
Three more strokes and I’m right there. Right at the edge. I pull her off me by the hair, slow and gentle despite the static in my brain, and she looks up at me with shining wet eyes and a swollen mouth and I almost change my mind, almost shove back in.
“Up. On the bench.”
“Cruz,” she protests.
“Up, sweetheart.”
She rises on shaky legs and sits on the narrow wooden bench bolted to the wall. I drop to my knees in front of her and yank her shorts and underwear off in one pull, tossing them somewhere behind me.
“Look at this.”
She’s drenched. Glistening. Her thighs tremble when I press them apart.
“Cruz, God, this is so—”
“So what?”
“So fucked.”
“Yeah.” I press a kiss to the inside of her thigh. “Real fucked.”
I drag her tank up over her sports bra and shove the bra above her tits, and they bounce free and fuck, she’s perfect. Small handfuls, pink nipples already tight. I lean up and take one in my mouth, suck hard, and her back arches off the wall.
“Oh god.”
I focus on one then the other, biting just enough to make her hips buck up off the bench searching for me. My hand slides between her legs and one finger dips through her slit and she’s so wet it slides in without resistance.
“Tell me Coach made you this wet.”
“Cruz…”
“Tell me.”
Her hips buck against my hand and her head tips back against the stall wall with a soft thud. “He… God, he—”
I curl my finger inside her and her whole body jolts. “Use your words, sweetheart.”
“He pinned me. Against the wall.”
Everything in me goes still for half a second. Then it goes the opposite of still. “Say that again.”
“After the drill.” Her chest heaves, that pink flush blooming down her throat to her tits. “I called him the wrong name and he ran me till I couldn’t breathe and then I baited him at the water fountain.”
I add a second finger. Slow drag in, slower drag out. “What name, Fisher?”
She bites her bottom lip and shakes her head.
“Uh uh. You came in here looking like that, you tell me the whole thing.” I crook my fingers up against that spot inside her and she keens, hips chasing my hand. “What name?”
“Daddy.”
The word knocks the air out of me.
“Fuck.” A laugh rips out of my chest and I drop my forehead to her thigh, grinning like an idiot. “You called Coach Daddy?”
“It slipped,” she defends.
“Bullshit it slipped.”
“Cruz,” she whines.
“What’d he do?” I lift my head, work my fingers in slow filthy circles. Her thighs are quaking against my shoulders. “When you said it. What’d that man do?”
“He went so still…”
“Yeah.”
“And then I said it again. At the water fountain. After.”
“On purpose.”
“On purpose.”
“That’s my fucking girl.”
Her eyes squeeze shut and her hand flies down to fist in my hair. “He caged me in. Hands on the wall either side of my head, didn’t touch me anywhere else, but he—Cruz, he was so hard…”
“How hard?”
“Like you. Like.” She swallows. “He pushed his hips into me. Through my leggings. And I almost came right there against the cage.”
“Christ.” I press a kiss to the inside of her thigh and feel her tremble. “Tell me he kissed you.”
“He didn’t.”
“No?”