4. Late Night Tape
LATE NIGHT TAPE
Isat on the edge of my couch, the remote heavy in my palm like it carried more than plastic and batteries.
The living room stayed dim, only the television glow cutting across the worn carpet in shifting blues and reds.
Old footage rolled across the screen from our third pro bout, the one in Vegas where the crowd had screamed for blood and the air smelled like sweat and cheap beer.
Diego moved like liquid in the highlights, every shift of his hips calculated, every feint a trap waiting to spring.
I leaned forward without meaning to, elbows on my knees, the fabric of my sweats pulling tight across my thighs.
His eyes locked on the camera during the stare-down before the bell.
Not the usual fighter glare most guys threw out like cheap intimidation.
A sharper focus lived in that look, one that drilled straight through the lens and into whoever was watching.
Like he saw past the lights and the noise, past the guy across from him, into whatever weakness waited underneath.
My thumb hovered over the pause button, pulse ticking against the plastic.
I let the tape run instead. The way he tracked movement, never wasting a glance, made my skin pull tight across my shoulders, a slow prickle that traveled down my spine.
I remembered that stare from the mat two days ago.
Same unblinking weight. Same sense that he already knew how the next breath would land before I even drew it.
The clip cut to him circling after a missed takedown.
Sweat carved lines down his torso, catching the ring lights so each drop gleamed like it had weight.
His chest rose and fell in steady rhythm while mine had heaved like a rookie, lungs burning, legs shaking.
I rubbed a hand over my jaw, the stubble rough under my fingers, catching on calluses from years of wrapping.
This was supposed to be study. Break down his patterns.
Find the holes I could exploit in the qualifier.
Instead the footage pulled me into the memory of his thigh wedged between mine, solid and unyielding, the heat of it bleeding through both our shorts.
The faint scrape where his jaw had brushed my ear, stubble dragging like sandpaper and leaving a ghost burn I still felt in the shower.
I killed the video with a jab at the remote.
The screen went black, leaving only the low hum of the fridge from the kitchen and the too-loud thud of my own heart.
My phone buzzed on the coffee table, the vibration rattling against wood. The screen lit up with a message from an unknown number, but the words made it clear. Diego. He must have gotten my digits from Coach, probably with that half-smirk he wore when he knew he had an edge.
Early session tomorrow. Five sharp. Bring your A game or stay in bed.
Short. No bullshit. The kind of text a guy sends when he expects compliance and doesn’t waste words on pleasantries.
I stared at it until the screen dimmed, the blue light fading from my retinas.
My thumb traced the edge of the phone case, the plastic cool, familiar against the heat building in my palm.
Five meant even less sleep than last night.
Meant facing him again before the sun bothered to rise, the gym lights buzzing overhead while the mats still held yesterday’s sweat.
The thought should have pissed me off, should have lit that familiar competitive fire.
Instead it settled low in my gut, a slow uncoiling that left my mouth dry and my tongue thick.
I set the phone down and killed the lamp.
Darkness swallowed the room whole, pressing in from the corners.
I stripped to boxers, the waistband snapping against my hips, and dropped onto the mattress in the next room, sheets already twisted from the night before like they’d been fighting their own battle.
The ceiling fan spun lazy circles overhead, pushing stale air across my bare chest in uneven gusts.
Sleep refused to come. My body felt wired, every nerve tuned to the silence and the faint creak of the fan blades.
The text replayed in my head on loop. Bring your A game.
Like he knew I’d been off balance since that pin, like he could see the fracture I’d tried to scrub off in the shower with scalding water and too much soap.
I shifted onto my side, the pillow bunching under my cheek, cotton cool at first then warming too fast. My cock stirred against the fabric of my boxers, thickening without permission, the weight of it shifting heavy between my legs.
The betrayal hit sharp, a flush crawling up my neck and burning my ears.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not from a goddamn text.
Not from him. Not from the guy who’d left me tasting blood and pride on the mat.
I closed my eyes tighter, willing the images away.
The darkness only sharpened them. Diego’s focused stare from the tape, those dark eyes pinning me harder than his hands ever had.
The way his weight had pressed me into the canvas, unmovable, hips locked, thighs like iron.
The heat of his breath against my skin, humid and steady, carrying the faint salt of his exertion.
My hand moved before I could stop it, sliding down my stomach, fingers catching on the trail of hair below my navel.
The skin there was still warm from the shower I’d taken hours ago.
I palmed the growing length through thin cotton, the fabric already damp at the tip.
Shame burned in my throat, thick, sour, coating every swallow.
I was straight. Women had always done it for me—soft curves under my palms, eager moans vibrating against my neck, the wet give of a willing body that arched just right.
This felt like a glitch in my wiring, a short circuit from too many hits to the head or too many nights alone with fight tapes.
Still my fingers wrapped around myself, the grip familiar but the context all wrong.
The touch stayed light at first, almost reluctant, like if I didn’t commit it might not count.
My hips jerked once, involuntary, the mattress creaking under the sudden shift.
The friction dragged a low sound from my chest that I swallowed fast, teeth sinking into my lower lip.
Wrong. This was all wrong. Diego Vargas had put me on my back, had smirked like he owned the moment and the mat and every inch of space between us, and here I was getting hard over it in the dark like some confused kid.
My grip tightened despite the disgust twisting through me, knuckles brushing the root.
Pleasure spiked anyway, unwanted, insistent, pooling at the base of my spine in a hot, heavy throb.
I stroked slower, trying to make it clinical, just relief so I could sleep and reset for tomorrow.
But his face kept flashing behind my eyelids.
Those dark eyes holding mine while he pinned my wrist to the canvas, breath mingling.
The faint gold flecks I’d noticed up close when our faces were inches apart.
The scar through his brow that I had given him two years back, a thin white line that pulled tight when he grinned.
Betrayal clawed deeper with every pass of my fist. My body didn’t care about history or labels or the fact that I’d never looked at another man this way.
It remembered the solid press of muscle, the musk of sweat and soap and something uniquely him, the way every point of contact had lit me up like a live wire straight to my balls.
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper, the sharp metallic bite grounding me for half a second.
The shame only sharpened the ache, turned it vicious, needy.
My strokes grew uneven, breath coming shorter, the fan’s hum mixing with the wet sound of skin on skin.
This wasn’t me. I didn’t lie here thinking about a rival’s body, about what it would feel like if his rough hand replaced mine, if those callused fingers tightened just there.
The thought sent another pulse through me, hot, humiliating, pre-cum slicking my palm and making the glide filthy.
I squeezed my eyes shut harder, chasing the edge with rough determination now, desperate to finish and forget, to scrub this moment from my memory before morning.
Release crashed over me in a sudden wave, hips stuttering off the bed, a choked groan slipping past my teeth.
It left me spent, sticky, and hollow, thighs trembling with aftershocks.
I lay there afterward, chest heaving, the ceiling fan still spinning its indifferent circles, pushing cool air over the sweat cooling on my skin.
Cum cooled on my stomach in thick stripes, pulling tight as it dried.
The shame didn’t fade with the orgasm. It settled heavier, pressing on my ribs until each inhale felt borrowed, like I’d stolen the air from someone who deserved it more.
I grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and cleaned up without looking at the mess, the paper rough against oversensitive skin.
My hand shook slightly as I balled it up and tossed it toward the trash.
Pathetic. A grown man reduced to this because of a text and some old tape, jerking off in the dark to the memory of an opponent’s stare.
I rolled onto my back again, the sheets sticking to my lower back.
The room felt smaller, the walls closer, the quiet thicker now that my pulse had slowed.
Tomorrow I would walk into that gym and keep every interaction on the mat.
No more lingering stares that lasted a beat too long.
No more letting him get under my skin where he didn’t belong.
Professional. That’s what this had to stay.
Spar, drill, improve for the qualifier. Nothing else.
I would shut down whatever this confusion was before it spread.
Before it cost me the title shot I’d bled for.
My phone stayed dark on the table in the other room. I didn’t check it again. The decision sat there in the quiet, solid as a promise I hoped I could keep.