Chapter 2

2

Coach (Emmett)

Despite today having been an ordinary day, the date on the calendar made me restless. The people who say every day is a blank slate must not be haunted. Must not have had their life irrevocably altered so brutally, so definitively, it did not matter how many years passed or how many “new days” we lived. Some dates would be forever stained by the past, an anniversary of trauma with the ability to sully a fresh chance with what was.

Just knowing this day was coming was enough to turn me surly and put me on defense. I found myself bracing for every moment of the day in anticipation of the onslaught this date would unleash, drowning me in regret, self-loathing, and memories I wished I could erase.

Rolling onto my back, I stared up at the dark ceiling, glaring at the looming black shape the ceiling fan made overhead. I wondered who I’d be if I did forget. Would I be altered profoundly by that missing chunk that the rest of me had formed around? Would there even be anything left if that one thing that literally defined me was gone?

Blowing out a breath, I rubbed a hand over my face, scratching absently at the trimmed stubble lining my jaw. Closing my eyes, I commanded sleep. The fluttering of white fabric caught on a metal railing appeared in my mind. The sound of rushing water hitting rocks roared between my ears.

My eyes flew open, staring hard into the darkness as my heart pounded.

Apparently, sleep would not be a reprieve tonight. In need of another distraction, I rolled onto my side, tugging the sheet as I went. Dragging my cell off the charger, I squinted against the sudden light after I swiped my finger. After adjusting the brightness, I thumbed through the screens to a hidden app.

Bangr. The largest social media dating/hookup app for queer people.

After tapping on the large B icon, I found the screen filled with singles ready and willing to mingle. I scanned the photo grid, perusing the available men to find the distraction I needed.

I clicked on a few, brought up their bios, and then backed out almost as fast. I scrolled for a while until my agitation increased to the point of angry frustration.

The phone plopped facedown on the blankets, and I grunted, staring across the shadowy room. Self-loathing sank its teeth into the back of my neck as I fought the urge riding me.

“Fuck it,” I muttered, palming the phone and tapping the screen until it brought up the profile that lived rent-free in my brain. I knew it was wrong and I should evict it, but since stumbling upon it a couple months ago, it had become a vice.

A sure-fire distraction for everything else in my life.

My stomach dipped when the main photo filled my screen. It wasn’t even that compelling or unique. It was basic at best. A typical thirst trap.

It seemed, though, that I was thirsty as hell. More like dehydrated. Because the second I’d stumbled upon this profile, the thousands of others on this app seemed lackluster.

Why is this so fucking hot?

Maybe it was because it was anonymous, a sexy-as-fuck body without a face or personality to get in the way. A body offering nothing but release.

A body I found insanely attractive.

He was nothing but a torso. Lean without a lot of muscle mass but not lacking definition. His chest was hairless and golden as though he’d spent countless hours in the sun. His nipples were tight like he’d just been rubbing them, and his thin waist practically begged to be owned by my hands. The way he posed, slightly arched toward the camera, showed off the diamond stud piercing his navel. My teeth sank into my lips as I imagined the way it would sparkle with every shift of his hips and how he might cry out if I tugged that little stud with my teeth.

The pubic area beneath his pierced navel was flat and smooth, the photo cutting off right where his hair would begin. The slight twist in his position showed off his hipbone and the way it jutted out. If it wasn’t already sexy enough, it was highlighted by a thin strap of pink that pulled up high to settle at his narrow waist.

Heat burned my belly as I stared at that thin pink line, imagining licking over it and then dragging it aside to kiss and bite across the bone that taunted me so fucking well.

I knew as well as my own name that he was wearing a thong. A pink lacy thong that hugged his dick and showed off his ass. Sometimes I imagined that ass as a juicy bubble that could fill my palms, and other times, it was narrow like this waist.

But every time, including now, I pictured that pink strap snug between his cheeks, pressing against a tight hole.

Beneath the sheets, my dick was rigid, pulsing as though it needed to remind me it was there and wanting. As if my veins weren’t on fire and the muscles in my lower abdomen weren’t already flexing. I stared at the torso, the pink strap, and that fucking piercing as my free hand snaked under the cotton sheets and wrapped around my unruly dick.

Every time I looked at this photo, the urge to claim, own, and dominate this pierced, pink body turned me into a man fueled by pure need.

No other body did this to me. No photo. No flesh-and-blood man. I tried. Oh, how I fucking tried. I knew it was twisted. It was depraved. This man was young. Too young for me. It said so right there in his bio.

I’m old enough to be his father.

That should have killed my hard-on. It shouldn’t have made me thrust up into my palm, milking a bead of precum out of my slit.

Using that moisture, I lubricated my head and started to stroke myself, the whisper of the sheets and hum of the ceiling fan competing with my choppy breath.

The satisfying scrape of my nails against his supple flesh as I drag the strap covering his hole. “You hiding this from me?” I growl, snapping that strap against the meat of his ass.

His whimpers make me want him more. The way he pushes his ass out for me to take.

My balls drew tight against my scrotum, pressing against the base of my dick. The need for release had me hard, the pressure almost painful as I panted and increased the pressure and speed of my hand.

Reaching up, I grab a fistful of those long blond curls and tug. “You belong in my bed, Goldilocks. You’re mine and mine alone.”

My hand stuttered at the way my thoughts went, but even though I knew it was wrong, I was too far gone. Too close to the edge of blowing to stop now.

I need this. Need him.

His silky curls wrap around my fingers, possessing me wickedly the same way his body clamps around my dick.

I thrust once, twice, and then come apart, dumping an obscene amount of cum everywhere, marking him on the inside and then pulling out and pushing him over so I can spurt the rest all over that pristine diamond decorating his navel.

“Your beauty is mine, Goldilocks, and so is your mess.”

My stomach muscles unclenched, quivering as I relaxed against the bed. My fist remained tight around my cock as tingles of lingering pleasure shot through my lower half. One last tug emptied what was left, and I released my spent cock, dropping it into the mess I’d made on my body.

Flinging my arms out, I lay there with eyes closed as my breathing returned to normal.

Another image swam through my relaxed and unguarded mind.

Of him.

The object of my affliction.

The intrusive thought I could not dislodge.

He was off-limits in every way. Forbidden. The one fantasy I should not enjoy.

Peeling my eyes open, I stared down my torso at the puddles of cum decorating my midsection.

The one fantasy that turned me on like no other.

It hadn’t happened in a while. I’d held it off. Tried not to look at that fucking photo. Because it never failed. Every time I did, my mind would give that body a face. And a head full of shoulder-length curly blond hair.

So much for the theory that the anonymity of this photo was what turned me on.

Or no. It was the anonymity. The very fact that I could turn that body into exactly who I wanted. A man I had no right at all to crave. I’d seen him only twice. Both times were even more reason he was a walking sin.

That had been months ago.

Yet here I was, still unloading all over myself at the mere thought of having him. That’s right. This was not the first time Goldilocks appeared in my fevered dreams.

Something in me was conclusively broken and corrupt beyond repair. If today’s date wasn’t enough to remind me why I was better off alone, this little debauched tête-à-tête with my hand in the middle of the night was irrefutable proof.