Marcus
Preston ran away.
Again.
He shut me out first, then he ran away.
But he didn’t get far. The good thing is that he didn’t drive his car into the horizon and disappear from view before I could blink like the last time.
Instead, he just headed into the arena.
Naturally, I will follow him.
But for now, I stay outside, dabbing at the cut on my temple courtesy of the violent motherfucker.
My ribs hurt as well, and I don’t have to look to know he gifted me with nasty bruises. Nothing new. I get bruised in hockey all the time—what’s another couple?
I tap my thumb against my middle finger as I stare at the door through which Preston disappeared a few minutes ago.
What the fuck am I even doing?
Tomorrow, I have an important game that I’m expected to knock out of the park. Allowing myself to be beaten up a day beforehand is neither logical nor beneficial in any shape or form.
Not that I could’ve stopped Preston per se.
He had a manic look in his eyes, almost as if an entirely different person possessed him and ran the show.
I don’t like those eyes. They’re different from the ones in the forest; those were manic, too, but at least they overflowed with excitement.
These were…dead. No, not dead. Scared?
He was kicking me until he almost broke a rib, but he looked terrified while doing it.
As I watched him, I strangely developed a deep sense of resentment toward whatever the reason was for that reaction.
He’s the Preston Armstrong, as he likes to remind everyone.
The league’s prince. GU’s popular hockey god. A rich boy with the prettiest face and the most lethal body.
He takes pride in it and flaunts it all over social media. I know because I may have gone through all of his posts, studying them like an essay.
But since the forest, I’m discovering a whole different side of Preston. A side he keeps under lock and key. A side that seems to come out in destructive bouts.
And I want more.
I need more.
It’s…what? A fixation?
No, not a fixation. Something worse.
The reason I first approached Preston was entirely selfish. He was my way into their world. The world my dad decided I wouldn’t belong in but is now practically begging me to join.
I thought that if I could get close to one of the other heirs—Jude, Kane, or Preston—I’d gain more insider information. That option would be way better than depending on my unreliable source for everything Graystone Ridge.
Preston is the most logical target. He’s reckless, high-profile, and emotionally volatile. If I wanted to manipulate a founding family member, he’d be the apparent vulnerability. Jude and Kane are too composed and unapproachable, but Preston is the chaos variable.
My plan was simple—rely on the Vipers versus Wolves rivalry. That way, my pursuit of Preston would look like pure competition.
Knowing Preston is a certified egomaniac, there was a hundred percent chance he’d fall for my provocations. Also, considering his rich-boy snobbishness and disregard for Stantonville, he’d definitely not come over and would invite me to Vipers Arena instead.
My eventual access to the inner circle would feel natural given the sports rivalry and overlapping social hierarchies.
He’d feel like he was doing me a favor, and that would feed his narcissistic tendencies. I’d let him believe that as I used him to find the most poetic way to bring my father and his legacy down.
Win-win, if you ask me.
Now, that plan is somewhat muddied. Or more like a complication appeared along the way.
Preston himself.
The niggling sense of something being wrong started with touching him, if you can believe it.
Well, not being allowed to touch him, to be precise.
The way he freaked out every time I tried to, turning his panic into violence the more I wanted a taste.
He’s like forbidden fruit that’s still sitting at the top of that branch, his feet swinging as he stares at the sky.
I had to use a simple tactic to lure him.
Just dangle an ego-trip-shaped fruit in front of Preston, and he’ll take it.
He’ll always take it.
But maybe that was a mistake.
Thing is, I didn’t count on him asking me to hurt him—begging me, even, as his dick was throbbing in our hands. He wore the softest, hottest, and most beautiful expression I’ve ever seen.
His eyes were glittery green, bright and boyish, and so fucking titillating, my cock was rock-solid.
He turned me on.
The guy who doesn’t like touch but is completely fine with being disciplined into submission turned me on.
It’s more than that, actually.
I’ve been fantasizing about that face since that night, picturing it in my head as I jerked off roughly in the shower.
The parted lips. The red cheeks.
The soft moans.
Fuck.
I run a hand through my hair and adjust myself because, once again, my dick twitches at the image.
A complication.
I’m having a slight complication in my modus operandi.
The thing is, I was entirely open to seducing Preston if I had to. If he gave a sign that he was even faintly interested or curious about men, I’d seize the opportunity.
What’s another conquest, right?
Preston presented me with the opening I needed when, during the game, I turned his god-awful provocation about my mom on him.
Sure, straight dudes would get offended, but Preston was overreacting. He lost his cool in epic proportions and screwed up his game by allowing me to get into his head.
It wasn’t like him. At all.
That was my sign.
And it only kept getting stronger with each meeting after that.
I’m not sure if he’s curious or just confused, but he’s attracted to me.
He opened his mouth for me like a very good boy that day when he was drunk. After that, he came so hard when I spanked his ass only a little.
And while that falls well within my plan, my reaction to him does not.
It’s just…I didn’t expect how viscerally I’d feel for him.
I like my fuck buddies silent and obedient. Preston is neither. He’s such a disrespectful loudmouth, and so far from my type, it should be a turn-off.
And yet he’s the first person my dick has come alive to without him having to touch it.
As I said. A complication.
One I won’t allow to ruin my course of action.
I throw my duffle bag over my shoulder, grab my stick, and head through the entrance.
It’s been over five minutes. That should be enough time to give him space.
The moment I walk into the locker room, I pause, my fingers tightening on the sling of my duffle bag.
Preston is standing in front of his locker, naked except for tight black boxer briefs that barely fit him, rummaging around inside.
Taut legs that go for miles, all defined and sculpted from years of conditioning training. It doesn’t show in hockey clothes, but he’s actually quite muscular—big, proportionate, and with the most beautiful, lean, sculpted waist.
But the thing that stops me in my tracks is the snake.
A creepily detailed serpent that’s inked across his entire right half, its tail coiling around his arm near the wrist, winding up his bicep and shoulder, wrapping across his back in multiple loops before reappearing along his ribs and abs.
Its head rests low on his hips, snarling from just above the waistband of his boxer briefs.
It’s…riveting. Just like the man wearing it.
Beautiful. Dangerous. Pretending to be whole.
I wonder if the snake means something—especially paired with the yin and yang behind his ear—or if these were symbols he collected because he thought they looked cool when he chose his tattoos.
There are scars, too. Pale lines scattered across his back, old and fresh, like he’s a walking target.
How the hell do they raise their children in this hellish town?
I tap my thumb against my middle finger while I take him in. He’s…unusually unguarded right now. He left the door open behind him, so he must have known I’d follow—yet nothing about him is tense.
He’s simply standing there, unaware of how much the sight of him provokes my inner demon.
Certainly, he didn’t think I’d run away just because he was a little violent.
A little freaked out.
Nearly choked himself with his stick.
I suppose someone else would have left. Lucky for him, I’m not someone else.
He retrieves his compression shirt and pauses but doesn’t look at me. “Tell anyone about what you just saw, and I’ll pluck your eyes out and use them as earrings.”
“Aw, you want to keep me on you forever?”
He releases a tsking sound as he tilts his head in my direction and glares at me. Preston probably doesn’t realize how adorable he is when spouting his homicidal gibberish.
He also doesn’t know that he lets me into his head so easily. I know exactly the right buttons to push to provoke such a reaction in him toward me.
I love seeing him so worked up when facing me.
It’s quickly turning into a dangerous addiction.
“You think I’m joking? I’ll shove your bike keys so far up your ass, you’ll need a surgeon and holy water to retrieve them.”
“Now you want to finger my ass?” I grin. “I’m not open to that since I strictly top. But I’m flattered you’re thinking of me so deeply.”
“Like hell I am, you—” He cuts himself off, facing me fully, and I get distracted by something.
In the middle of his sternum, there’s a tattooed fracture that catches the light, delicate yet realistic, like broken glass.
That’s disturbing.
I find nothing disturbing.
And yet the view of an odd tattoo right in the middle of Preston’s chest elicits a strange reaction out of me.
Why does he have it there?
“I mean it.” He crosses his beautifully sculpted biceps over his chest. The contrast of his fully tattooed arm over his undecorated one is a sight to behold.
“A word gets out about tonight, I’ll strangle you with your shoelaces.”
“You’re adorably homicidal today.”
“I’ll be adorably vicious.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“Stop annoying me when I’m so close to committing murder, Marcus.”
“Mmm.” I step toward him slowly so as not to scare him off. “That’s the first time you’ve said my name. I like it.”
His lips part as if he didn’t realize he was, in fact, using my first name instead of Osborn this and Osborn that.