15. Dante
DANTE
Cruz can’t sit still in the passenger seat. His hand keeps drifting to my thigh, fingers walking up the inseam of my jeans. He’s already half-hard against his own zipper, the outline obvious under the streetlights flicking past the windshield.
“Eyes on the road.” His palm settles over my dick, gives a slow squeeze that has me gripping the wheel tighter.
“You’re squeezing my cock, Cruz.”
“And?” he asks.
“And we’re doing forty in a thirty-five and Dakota’s place is six minutes out.”
He grins, that lopsided thing that makes the dimple in his cheek deepen. God, he’s so fucking sexy. His thumb works along the seam, finding the ridge of me through the denim. “Let me suck you off real quick. I’ll be fast. You won’t even swerve.”
“Hard pass.”
“Coward.”
“Pragmatist.”
He doesn’t move his hand though, just keeps that maddening pressure, watching me out the corner of his eye like he’s gauging how far he can push before I crack. “Fine. But I want it on record that I offered and you refused.”
“Noted.”
He shifts, tugging at himself through his shorts, his own dick as if there’s any amount of adjusting that helps. “You think Coach is gonna let me near him?”
“I think Coach is going to be a flight risk if you walk in there with that mouth running.”
“My mouth’s an asset.”
“Your mouth’s a liability when you’re in this mood. So, unless you want him to bolt, and Dakota to castrate you with a fork, you need to keep that mouth in check.”
He laughs, leans his head back against the rest. “Can you imagine it though? Coach. Bent over. A cock in his ass, finally letting go of all that—” he waves his hand vaguely, “all the Eli of it. He’s been wound too tight since the day he walked in the gym.
Six months of clenched jaw. Imagine him moaning, Dante. Imagine it.”
“Cruz.”
“What? You’re not picturing it?” he asks.
I’m picturing it. Coach with his green eyes blown black, the controlled set of his shoulders finally breaking. The sound he might make. My grip on the wheel turns my knuckles white.
“Cool it before we get there,” I tell him. “We push too hard, he bolts.”
“I’m not gonna push.” Cruz lifts his hand off me at last, settles back. “I’m gonna offer. There’s a difference.”
“With you? Debatable. Pushing is like breathing to you. You never know when to stop.”
He just grins.
Dakota’s apartment building sits behind a row of dogwoods on a side street, the kind of place with a buzzer and a hallway that smells like someone’s dinner. Cruz bounces on the balls of his feet beside me while I knock, rolling his shoulders out like he’s stepping into the cage.
“Breathe,” I tell him.
“I’m breathing,” he shoots back.
The door opens. Dakota’s barefoot in leggings and one of Coach’s shirts—I recognize the faded logo on the chest—hair damp at the ends like she’s just showered. She gives Cruz a look that’s half warning, half affection.
“He behaving?”
“He’s vibrating,” I reply.
“I noticed.” She steps back to let us in. “Coach is on the couch. He’s—” she lowers her voice, “he’s a little freaked out. Be gentle.”
“I’m always gentle, sweetheart.”
She snorts. “Cruz.”
“Yes?” he asks, with mock innocence.
I follow them through to the living room. Eli sits at the far end of the couch, elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them. He’s in dark jeans and a Henley with the sleeves shoved up, forearms working as his hands knot together. He looks up when we walk in and I watch his jaw flex.
He’s scared.
I’ve seen Coach intimidate sponsors, manhandle two-hundred-pound heavyweights into submission, stare down state commissioners. I have never seen him look like he might bolt for the door. There’s a wildness in his eyes that doesn’t fit the rest of him.
“Coach,” I greet.
“Dante.” His voice comes out steady at least. “Cruz.”
“Hey, old man.” Cruz drops onto the couch like he owns it, leaving the middle cushion between him and Eli empty. He’s grinning. “Nice of you to show.”
Dakota perches on the arm of the couch near Eli, her hand finding the back of his neck. He doesn’t flinch, but I watch his shoulders unwind a fraction. She’s grounding him.
I take the chair across from them, leaning forward with my forearms on my thighs. “So.”
“So.” Dakota’s thumb traces the base of Eli’s hairline. “We talk.”
“Talk.” Eli says it like the word is a weight.
“You’re here,” she says. “You showed up. That matters. But we all need to be on the same page before anything else happens.”
Cruz starts to open his mouth, and I cut him off with a look. He raises his hands in surrender, theatrical, but stays quiet.
“What are you wanting, Coach?” I ask. “Honestly. Not what you think we want to hear.”
Eli’s quiet for a long moment. His thumbs work against each other.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Nobody does in the beginning,” I supply.
“I don’t mean the—” his hand gestures, vague, taking in the room, all of us, “the arrangement. I mean any of it. I’ve been alone for years. I’ve been controlled for longer. I don’t know how to—” he stops, exhales. “I want her. We all have since the day she walked through the door..”
“We do.”
“And I—” he looks at his hands. “I’d be lying if I said it stopped there.”
Cruz has gone uncharacteristically silent, leaning forward now, watching.
“Where else does it go, Coach?” I keep my voice even.
He looks up. His eyes find mine first, then slide to Cruz, then drop. “I’ve never been with a man. I’ve never thought of myself as someone who would be. But the last few months—” he swallows hard, “I’ve been noticing things. About you. About Cruz. About Brady.”
“Yeah?” Cruz’s voice is soft. Genuine. None of his usual sharp edges or cocky bullshit.
“Yeah.”
“Only the last few months?” I ask.
“Years, if I’m honest with myself. But I’ve gotten very good at not being honest with myself.”
Dakota’s hand cups the back of his head now, fingers in his hair. He leans into the touch like it’s an addiction.
“That’s the deal then,” I say. “If we do this, it’s all of us. Not you and her, with Cruz and me on the side. You’re either with all of us or it doesn’t work.”
Eli nods slowly. “I want that. I want—” his voice cracks slightly, “I want all of it. But I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t scare the hell out of me.”
“What about Brady?” Cruz asks.
Dakota answers. “Brady comes when Brady’s ready. We don’t push him. He has a fight in less than three weeks. I’m not making him decide anything until he’s clear—of the fight and what he wants.”
“Agreed.” I nod. “He has to walk himself through it. We all want him here, but he’s gotta come on his own.”
“Agreed,” Eli says.
Cruz hums. “Agreed. But for the record—I want Brady here. Bad.”
“We know you do,” I reply, because Cruz is greedy. The man’s libido is insane and he just wants to fuck constantly. Unfortunately for us all, he doesn’t know how not to be. He’s going to have to learn to moderate himself or this will never work.
He grins at me, a flash of teeth.
Dakota’s still threading her fingers through Eli’s hair. “So we’re doing this.”
“We’re doing this.” I say it slowly, watching Eli. “Coach? You with us?”
He breathes out, allowing his shoulders to drop another full inch. “Yeah. I’m with you.”
Cruz shifts on the couch, turning his body toward Eli. “Coach.”
“Cruz.”
“Can I kiss you?” Cruz asks.
The whole room holds its breath.
Eli’s eyes go wide for a second, expression darkening as Cruz waits. Patient for once. Not pushing, just asking. Dakota’s hand stays in his hair, steady.
“Yes,” Eli murmurs.
Cruz moves slowly. That’s the thing nobody outside the gym understands about him—for all his big talk and impulse, when it matters—when he knows his frat-boy demeanor may ruin something that matters, he’s careful.
He closes the space between them on the couch and brings one big hand up to Eli’s jaw.
Just rests it there, thumb against the corner of Eli’s mouth, letting him feel it.
“Fuck, I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long,” he breathes.
“I know,” Eli replies.
Cruz leans in.
The kiss starts soft. Eli’s whole body goes stiff for a heartbeat and then I watch him melt, watch his hand come up uncertain and land on Cruz’s chest, fingers spreading over the fabric of Cruz’s T-shirt. Cruz makes a sound low in his throat and tilts his head, deepening it.
Heat rolls through me. Dakota’s watching with her lips parted, her hand still in Eli’s hair, and her eyes flick to mine.
“Come here,” I tell her, voice rough.
She slides off the arm of the couch and into my lap, straddling my thighs. I get my hand at the small of her back and pull her down against me. She rocks her hips once, deliberate, and I groan into her mouth as I kiss her.
Across the room, Cruz has Eli’s Henley shoved up, his hand splayed across Eli’s stomach, his mouth working along Eli’s jaw. Eli’s breathing hard, his hand fisted in the back of Cruz’s shirt.
“Bed,” Dakota whispers against my mouth. “Now.”
We move clumsily, laughing. Cruz pulls Eli up off the couch by the hand and Eli lets himself be led.
and I have to look away because the look on Coach’s face—the kind of self realization that takes hold when someone has been thirsty their whole life and they finally realize they no longer need to be—is going to make me come in my jeans if I don’t.
Dakota’s bedroom is dim, lamp on low, the bed already made up with extra pillows like she planned for this. Knowing her, she probably did.
I pull my shirt over my head. Cruz is already shirtless, working on his belt, as he watches Eli with unyielding focus.
Eli stands at the foot of the bed, frozen beat until Dakota sees Eli’s hesitance and goes to him, lifting up on her toes to place a reassuring kiss on his lips.
She smiles at him as she slips her hands under the hem of his Henley and pulls it up, pausing patiently for him to raise his arms and let her undress him.