Chapter 16

SIXTEEN

Owen

S hock colors Colin's face when he finally sees me.

Ryan looks between us. "Owen." He extends his hand. "Nice to see you. Congratulations on the National Team."

I drop my gaze to his hand, then lift it to meet his, squaring off to him. "I'm going to skip the pleasantries, Ryan. If I so much as see you looking my husband's way again." I lift the tip of my practice sabre, shoving the tip just under his sternum. "I'll give you a new hole for every fucking infraction." I flick the sword another half an inch forward so he can feel the burn of the dull point trying to force its way into his skin.

"Your husband?" Ryan blinks. "Are you trying to get me on the Godfrey's bad side?" he says to Colin before turning to me. "I had no idea. I would never have…"

I cut him off. "I don't need excuses. He's mine."

Colin is fuming when Ryan backs off, but before he can open his mouth, I lift my sabre to his throat.

"I don't want to hear it. That was considerably more than flirting."

"What?" he plays coy.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I demand. "You can't fuck him."

"If you aren't going to, someone should."

"How will that reflect on our marriage? I thought you wanted your parents to buy this."

"Like our parents are monogamous. Be real." His words drip with attitude.

"So you want to make a mockery of me with this national thing after encouraging me to do it?"

Colin breaks our eye contact and sucks in a breath before storming into the locker rooms. Do I follow? Do I stay out here and give him space? Why is this so fucking hard?

I find him in the locker room, sitting on a bench with his head in his hands. I join him. Close enough our arms are touching. "That guy's a douche bag anyway. You don't want to date him."

"Dating and fucking are two vastly different things."

Jealousy eats at my throat. "You can't just fuck other people."

"I wasn't even trying to. Not really." Colin shakes his head. "You won't get it."

"I won't get what?"

"I have needs. I can't be like you and not touch anyone or speak to anyone for days at a time. I can already feel it fucking me up." Colin sucks in a shaky breath.

"I hadn't considered your needs. I'm sorry. Do you want to call this off? I will understand if you do," I say softly, even though it's the last thing I want.

"We can't do that. Between our parents and the fucking public, we'd get slaughtered, and you know my dad would suggest a quick marriage to my sister to quiet it all down."

I cringe, then sigh. "I think I'd be kicked off the national team too."

"Wouldn't that be a positive?"

I shake my head, clearly surprising Colin. "I need to get out of the apartment more. I think I'm rotting there. I hate to say you or Oliver is right, and I'll kill you if you tell him I said it, but I need to get out more."

Colin puts his hand over his mouth in a huge show of a reaction. "I'm right? That has got to earn something."

I roll my eyes. "Maybe."

"I'd never tell Oliver. Your secret is safe with me, and not just because I hate him. I care about you." He gets all serious, making me smile.

"I care about you, too. I hate that your needs aren't being met."

Colin sits up and looks into my eyes. "Being rejected by you makes it so much worse."

"I'm confused…"

"It's me. It's on my side, and I shouldn't put it on you." He gets up. "I need to get back out there."

I grab his hand. "No, not without explaining."

"Not right now."

I get to my feet keeping hold of him. "Yes, right now. Your needs aren't being met, and we are finally talking about it. I'm not letting you just bail."

He won't look at me. "I've been rejected my entire life by my mom and dad and everyone else in my family. I'm the black sheep, and I've done a lot of fucking work to make myself happy with who I am and not care what anyone else thinks. Being rejected by you just puts me back in that head space." The pain in his voice hits me in the chest.

"Why would me rejecting you make you feel that way?"

"Because I like you, you idiot. So I'm fucking vulnerable and rejected and not getting my needs met. It's a mind fuck."

I take him by the arm and force him to face me, sliding a finger under his chin to tilt it up. "I want to take care of you like you take care of me. What can I do to help get your needs met—" His eyes light up but before he can speak I go on. "—that's not sexual."

He purses his lips.

"Would cuddling help?"

He nods carefully, still avoiding my eyes.

"What about dates? I need to get out of the house more. We can spend your dowry."

He finally meets my gaze, mouth open. "My parents gave you a dowry?!"

"I'm joking. But it wouldn't surprise me if they tried for your sister."

He huffs. "Dates would be nice."

"Anything else?"

"You know what works well for frustration relief?" I can't help myself. "Orgasms. I would be happy to help you relax, and I can be of full service. You don't have to do anything."

"No." I shove my hand into my hair and pull it so I don't grab his like I want to.

"Why does sex have to be off the table?" he pushes. "I clearly turn you on at least a little. Don't fucking deny it."

I open my mouth to argue, but I couldn't deny it. He'd made me hard more than a few times, and I won't admit to what I did in the shower after the last time. "I told you, it's sticky, and I don't like it."

"A blow job might change your mind." Colin gets up on his tippytoes.

"It won't."

Colin presses into me, warm body flush, and mine responds to his. "I turn you on, even if you won't admit it."

"You do—" Admitting it felt like swallowing fire. I'm both more turned on and raw. What the fuck am I doing?

Colin narrows his eyes, smirking.

"Stop looking at me like that." It makes me want to try it for him, and that sounds like the best way to blow this all up. He can't handle more rejection.

"What are you going to do about it if I don't?"

"I'm going to fucking make you regret it," I say through my teeth, suddenly annoyed.

A flicker of amusement shows in Colin's eyes. "How are you going to make me regret it? You can't do anything to me I don't want you to do." He rocks subtly against me, making me harder.

My teeth lock as my nostrils flare. Why does he have to be so good at pushing my fucking buttons? The worst part is I know how to make him stop.

"It's not the same," I say.

"It is the same."

"No, it's not."

Colin shakes his head, smirking a bit.

"What?"

"You can't say that after one time."

"I told you, it was sticky and not a good time."

"I feel like nobody could say that off one experiment." He grins, all lips, making me wonder what they would feel like.

"Why would I do something again when I didn't like it the first time?" I ask, curiosity eating at me.

"Because the first time wasn't with me." There is a flicker of amusement in his eyes. And I want to get it off his fucking face.

"Why are you so insufferable?" I ask.

"It's easy for me to be insufferable. I enjoy it."

"And why do you enjoy it? Do you like getting a rise out of me? What does that get you except frustration?"

Colin lifts his shoulder in a slight shrug. "I don't know. There's something about the way you look at me when you're frustrated that I enjoy. Is that bad to admit?"

"Yes."

"I think I should be able to admit that to my husband."

"I can't believe you're admitting that you like to annoy me," I say, the shock coloring my tongue.

"Why is that so hard for you to understand?"

"Because it's not fucking right. Shouldn't you want to make me happy?"

"Maybe I just want to make me happy," he says, amusement dancing at the corner of his mouth.

"And what do I get out of all of this?" I ask, liking the way he looks when he's pushing my buttons. I shouldn't enjoy this.

I was starting to—no—I wasn't going there.

"I'm not even getting laid. Why should I care what you enjoy?" Colin's eyes narrow, and he's back to sassy.

"Because we're not fucking actually married." I throw my hands up. It was like talking in circles.

"We are married."

"Fine, yes, we are married, but it's a sham. Why are you obsessed with getting me to want to try sex again? I can not like it."

"You can not like it, but then you would have to say that. You just keep saying you're straight, not asexual or something."

"Because I am straight." Or so I thought. I can't have another identity crisis. I just got over the last one.

"So you feel attraction?" Colin asks, lifting a brow.

"I do, and I like fucking my own hand. I just said it was unpleasant with other parties."

Colin growls. "So if you feel attraction, there is no reason not to try it with me. I feel like everybody's a little bi-curious." He gives me an innocent-type grin.

I roll my eyes. "That's not true. Not everybody is bisexual. There are straight people. I'm straight."

"But how are you straight? You don't even like sex. That's asexual, not straight."

"I'm not going to admit it because it's not true." At least I didn't think it was. I liked sex in theory. In practice, it was messy. "Asexual was about attraction, not necessarily sex."

"Okay, sex repulsed, then?" Colin cocks his head like he was waiting for me to admit it.

"No, like I said, I like sexual acts."

"Prove it." Colin slips an arm around me, pressing his hand into my lower back to give him more leverage to grind on me.

I grab his shirt, but I don't force him back. "I don't have to prove it to you."

"And you wonder why I like pushing your buttons." He draws a line down my throat with his fingertip.

I release him with a snarl. "Why do you want me to admit it so bad?"

"Because I thought I'd get laid. But I'm being forced to be celibate. If you're not going to fuck me, I feel like someone should be able to." Colin crosses his arms. "But after the way you just acted with Ryan, I can tell you're jealous."

"I'm not—" But I am, and I won't lie to him. I barely hold back my reaction to his obvious baiting. "You can fuck yourself. And infidelity would garner the media's attention and thus ruin this with our families."

"Stop making this about the media and anyone else. I saw your reaction. You can't hide from me." He glances between us. "You're hard and not pushing me away."

I swallow. "I didn't like sex…"

"Okay, fine, you don't like sex. Maybe you'll like a blow job." His lips purr next to my ear.

"I'm not going to like giving a blowjob if I don't like sex. It's way more sticky." I grab his jaw, all my control slipping.

"I didn't say you'd like giving a blowjob. I mean—you'd like getting one. And since mouths are all the same, it'd be easy to pretend you're straight while I give you a blowjob."

The idea of something other than my hand getting me off tonight. It sounds a whole lot less lonely than going to bed by myself in my room with my own thoughts and having to deal with my own brain.

"I can see you thinking about it." Happiness exudes off of him, and I realize I like it.

But it also makes me not want to give in at all. Just to fucking spite him.

"Oh, what's that?" Colin asks.

"What's what?" I say through my teeth.

"That flicker. You've like darkened. It's fucking hot."

I hold him in my gaze. "It's none of your fucking business."

"I think I hit a nerve there. Why don't you explain, husband?" Colin asks, continuing his singsongy taunt. Every word out of his mouth vibrates through my hand.

"Nothing," I say, letting it draw out so he gets the fucking point."I'm going back to practice." I get three feet away just to breathe air that does not involve his scent.

But Colin doesn't give me peace. He follows. "You said I couldn't leave, so you don't get to either."

And every step on my heels drives me further toward the edge.

I stop, hands clenched into fists. "What else is there to say? We have practice."

"You want me to go out there like this?" He grabs himself smugly, like he knows I'm just as hard as he is. "I bet Ryan won't be the only one looking."

I snap, grabbing him by his long blond hair, shoving him to his knees.

I have my dick out and between his lips before he can say another fucking word. Just to prove to him he doesn't feel the same as a woman.

To prove to him that I'm not into it when I go soft, but as I force my cock down his throat, I only get harder. All the blood in my body pulses into my dick.

While my other hand grabs his jaw, forcing his mouth open farther, so I can get deeper.

I don't know what comes over me, but I thrust, and pull back, and thrust again until I hit the back of his throat.

Colin is too stunned to do anything but swallow around me.

His eyes try to meet mine, but I avoid them, too lost in my lust to humanize this.

I can't admit it to myself, or to him.

I can't admit how good his lips feel, how good his throat constricting is, or how much shutting him up with my dick does something to me I never expected.

The act of forcing him. I've taken what I want, that was so freely offered, but that's not the way I want it. Forcing him feels better. How sick and twisted is that? But that doesn't stop me wanting it, or getting off on it, or fucking his face harder with every stroke.

My breath catches, and my voice catches, and I'm close, but I don't want to stop. I don't want to leave this moment. The power I feel coursing through my veins is a high I've never experienced before. A lust I've never realized.

His fingertips dig into my thighs as his eyes bulge. I know he needs to breathe, but I'm not gonna let him. Not until I've had my fill.

"You've offered it so many times. Take it till I'm done with you. This is what you get for pushing my fucking buttons." My dick swells in his throat, thickening, filling every inch of available space. Choking off his air.

Tears stream out of the corners of his eyes, but his lips pull in a taunting smile. Nails bite into my skin, and his chest heaves, but he doesn't even try to pull back, not that he could. My fingers so firmly tightened in his hair, and the way it falls over his face.

A slight gagging sound constricts his throat, and I groan. I'm gonna hate myself later for loving every second of this, but right now, I'm reveling in it. Reveling in making him choke on his words, reveling in making him choke on his offer, and reveling in this submission. He's right, he almost does look like a woman, but his stubble burns into my groin, his chin against my balls makes me know on a deeper level that he's a man, and I don't want to stop.

I want to fuck his throat until he passes out.

I immediately push the thought down, a wave of self-loathing bubbling up, but I refuse to focus on it, not while I have him like this, not leaving him so close to getting off. His full lips pull around my girth while he swirls his tongue over my vein, and I'm about to come undone. He pulls me over the edge, pulling me apart until I'm totally unraveled.

As if he has some extra reserve, he opens more, welcoming me deeper, taking every fucking inch. I grind against his face, and as he swallows around me. I'm trembling, an entire mess, feeling his mouth and his throat. Tears lubricate his lips, and I keep fucking him until I'm fully spent.

Finally, I pull back, my cock still half-hard.

He's wobbling, gulping air as he sits back on his heels, and just when I expect him to say something, like he hates me, that was unforgivable, or I'm disgusting, he lifts his chin, and he says, "Can't be that different from a woman, since my stomach's full of your cum."

I can't face what I've done.

I turn and leave.

Fuck practice.

Fuck fencing.

Fuck marriage.

Fuck all of this.

I'm in the car in another five minutes.

I tell the driver I don't care where we go. I just need to get out of here.