Chapter 6 - Aleksey
The absolute last thing I needed at eleven at night was a legacy kid pushing my buttons.
A few nights ago I’d let Karter Johnston press gauze to my bare skin in the communal bathroom, and now I couldn’t look at him without the memory kicking up, making everything worse.
I let my backpack slide off my aching shoulder; the canvas hitting the floor with a dull thud. And somewhere in the dim maze of shelves, a librarian’s cart squealed on a bad wheel, the sound grating against the quiet.
Every muscle in my body ached. A long, four-hour morning shift stocking shelves at the Food Mart, stacked right on top of a long afternoon drill session on the ice, had left me drained.
Karter sat at our usual table, looking out of place in the grim basement. Even down here in the shadows, those natural blonde streaks in his messy hair managed to stand out.
Scraping the wooden chair back, I collapsed into my seat.
“Chapter four, page twenty-two,” Karter said, nodding at the chemistry textbook without looking up.
I didn’t open it. Five minutes crawled by.
Karter’s thumb traced the edge of the page, his knee bouncing under the table.
His phone buzzed against the tabletop, and his whole body seemed to twitch in response.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he stared at the screen as if it might bite him, then shoved the phone into his pocket and crossed his arms.
“Who is it?”
“Nobody.” He tapped the textbook page, his gaze fixed somewhere past my shoulder. “Read the problem.”
“You’ve checked your phone four times in three minutes.”
“So you’re counting now,” he said, voice tight. “That’s cute.”
“And you’re a terrible liar. It’s obviously somebody.”
Karter gave me a cutting look. “Read the chapter, Aleksey.”
“Back to full names now? Must have touched a nerve.” I leaned back, crossing my arms. “And I’m not reading shit until you actually pay attention,” I snapped. “You’re supposed to be the one who knows this stuff.”
“I do know it.” He finally met my eyes. “Which is why I’m telling you to start on page twenty-two.”
The phone buzzed again, muffled by denim. Karter flinched. His hand twitched toward his pocket before he caught himself. The color climbing his throat gave him away.
“Hand it over.”
“What?”
“The phone.” I held out my palm, waiting. “Put it face down on the table.”
“No.”
“Karter.”
“Still no.”
I leaned forward, my body casting a shadow over his side of the table. “You think my future is a joke?”
“It’s just a text, Aleks,” he said, his voice sneering on the nickname he’d given me. “Drop it.”
“Phone. Now.”
Karter’s chest rose and fell fast. Instead of shrinking back from my size, he shifted his weight forward, lifting his chin.
“Make me,” he said.
Something ugly and reckless snapped awake inside me. My bone-deep fatigue vanished, replaced by the cold, sharp instinct of realizing a fight had just been picked.
I pressed my palms flat against the tabletop, my breathing going still.
Letting some rich kid mock me wasn’t an option when I had nothing left to lose.
I shoved the chair out of my way and stepped into his space. I didn’t give him a second to react, throwing my weight forward to pin him between me and the table. I wasn’t trying to intimidate him anymore—I was going to rip the phone right out of his pocket.
“You think I won’t?” I warned.
I grabbed the thick fabric of his hoodie and hauled him out of the chair.
Karter scrambled backward, his hip knocking hard against the edge of the table.
He ripped the phone from his pocket and wrenched his body sideways, turning his back to me.
By the time I lunged around him, he’d already shoved it somewhere I couldn’t see; whether in a different pocket or the waistband of his jeans, it was gone.
He then spun back around and retreated into the narrow aisle between two towering bookshelves. I followed, using my broad frame to block his only way out.
“Back off,” Karter said, his breathing shallow. He planted both hands flat against my chest as I neared. His fingers felt cold through my shirt. But for all his defiant talk, he pushed against my chest with zero actual force.
“What’s on the phone?” My hands slid down his sides. The rough cotton of his hoodie scraped my palms.
“I told you, back off.”
“I’m done asking,” I muttered.
Moving lower, my hands patted down his hips to find where he’d stashed it. Karter shifted again to block me, and his hoodie rode up. My fingers slipped past the fabric.
And then my skin brushed the bare stomach right above his waistband.
The sudden feel of his bare skin short-circuited my brain. We both froze. My shoulders tightened, bracing for the inevitable hit—because guys like me didn’t corner people without catching a fist in return.
However, instead of fighting, Karter exhaled a ragged breath. He just gave up, letting his body sag forward into my grip.
My hands went totally still against his stomach. The phone didn’t matter, and I wasn’t just pushing him around to prove a point anymore. Twenty-one hours without sleep had stripped away my usual instincts. I was too tired to back off, and too curious to see what he would do if I didn’t.
“You’re not fighting me,” I whispered.
“You’re not searching my pockets,” he answered.
He was right.
I moved forward, walking him backward until the bookshelves stopped him. The lack of sleep was making my knees weak. So, dropping my usual stance, I let my full weight crash into him, using his body and the shelves to keep myself standing.
The shift brought us flush together. When I pinned his hips to the wood, he gasped, his body arching forward instinctively. And the movement brought the thick, hard ridge of his cock right against my thigh.
Every warning siren in my head flatlined. Instead of backing off, a selfish, dark curiosity took over, daring me to see how far this could go.
Pulling my hand from beneath his hoodie, I slid my palm up to grip his jaw.
“Tell me to let go.”
Karter tilted his head back. The column of his throat was pale and unmarked. “No.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Then stop me.”
A beat of silence. Neither of us moved.
His hand slid up my chest. Not pushing. Testing. “You talk too much.”
The kiss landed hard enough to split the scab on my lip, but the sting barely registered. I bit his lower lip and copper flooded my tongue.
Karter didn’t pull away from our kiss; he just gripped my shoulders tighter, his nails biting through the thin cotton of my shirt. When I drove my thigh up between his legs, pinning him, he hitched a breath into my mouth, immediately rocking his hips forward into the friction.
A recklessness flooded my mind, and I didn’t bother being gentle. Instead, my hand just gripped his bare stomach to feel his muscles flinch and tighten under my fingertips.
“More, Aleks,” he muttered, breaking the kiss just enough to speak. His breath came hot against my lips.
I didn’t answer with words. I simply kissed him again, deeper this time, my tongue pushing past his teeth. Meanwhile, his hands slid down my back to pull me tighter against him as the shelf creaked behind him from the force.
My hand, already resting on his stomach, slid lower until I was cupping his bulging cock through the thick fabric of his jeans. He was hard, no doubt, straining against the zipper, and I squeezed his dick just enough to make him groan.
The sound seemed to vibrate through my body.
Karter pushed up into my hand, seeking more, his fingers tangling in my hair to hold me close.
“You’re losing it,” I rasped against his throat, my teeth grazing the skin just to feel the erratic jump of his heartbeat.
“So are you,” he breathed out. The words were shaky, but his body wasn’t. His hand slid down to grip my hip, anchoring me there as he ground himself aggressively against my thigh.
The contact felt too good. My cock was hard too, aching from the press of his body against mine.
I forced myself back a few inches, both of us still breathing hard. The heat of the moment cleared, and the risk of what I was doing slapped me in the face.
I was one step away from ruining everything... all for a legacy kid.
“This is a mistake,” I muttered. I kept my jaw tight so my voice wouldn’t shake. “You’re convenient. Don’t read anything into this.”
Karter stared up at me. I could see in his eyes that he clearly didn’t buy the lie for a second. Instead, his hands reached up and grabbed the back of my neck.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to,” he said.
The quiet permission snapped the last thread of my control.
He dragged me right back down. A low grunt escaped my throat against his shoulder. My restraint was entirely gone. I bit into his neck, pinning his hips hard against the shelves, letting the heat of the moment completely take over once again.
I grabbed his wrist and then forced his hand lower. With my free hand, I undid my jeans, yanking the zipper down. Pushing my underwear out of the way, I wrapped his bare hand firmly around my cock.
Karter let out a ragged breath, his fingers curling tightly around my thick dick.
CRASH.
The sound of slamming metal echoed from the front of the room. The double doors groaned open, and the screech of a book cart’s broken wheel ripped through the dead air of the sub-basement.
Ice water dumped over my entire body. My heart rate spiked wildly against my ribs. Detroit, my mother’s unpaid bills, and the threat of losing my scholarship crashed over my arousal.
My stomach dropped out. I backed off Karter like I’d been burned, tucked my dick away, and dragged my zipper back up with shaking hands. The squeal of that book cart was the sound of my entire life collapsing.
If we were caught, there would be no second chances. Just a revoked scholarship, a mother I couldn’t look in the eye, and a one-way ticket back to a neighborhood I had literally bled to escape.
I tried to calm my rapid breathing as I intently tracked the squeaking wheel rolling closer to our aisle.
Karter, meanwhile, stayed pinned against the bookshelf, his breathing fast and shallow. He looked terrified, but seeing the panic in his eyes just made my stomach turn.
We weren’t risking the same thing. His father’s money would quietly buy Karter out of any scandal. But I would be the one taking the fall for both of us.
The glaring difference between his safety net and my reality made me sick.
Stepping out of the aisle, I snatched my backpack off the floor by our table, my fingers locking around the nylon strap.
“Not. Fucking. Happening,” I snapped. Making my voice harsh hid the violent shaking in my hands.
Karter blinked. His empty hand reached out. “Aleksey, wait.”
“No.” Retreating a quick step toward the end of the row felt like the only option. “You can afford to get caught. I can’t.”
“Nobody is getting caught,” he whispered. He glanced toward the main aisle. “Stay here.”
“I’m not doing this.” My glare locked onto his face. “I’m not wrecking my life for someone who doesn’t understand what it costs.”
I turned my back on him and walked away. Ducking out the far end of the aisle, I slipped between the shelves just a second before the librarian pushed her cart into our row. I kept my head down, striding past the empty study tables and hitting the sub-basement stairs two at a time.
My boots echoed in the stairwell, but I didn’t slow down. I crossed the main lobby in a blur and threw my weight against the exit doors, shoving them open into the freezing winter night.
The biting wind stung my face, but the sharp taste of copper and the dull ache in my split lip lingered all the way back to the Ice House.