Dean's POV

Rain was falling outside the dorm, and across the main quad, the massive iron-gray roof of the Ice Arena crouched in the distance, a few floodlights still burning above the stands.

Who could possibly know about my novel? Who would choose that locker room arena? But I would keep writing, chronicling every detail of Curtis fucking me senseless, because that was the only way I could ever be seen.

I stared at the comment pinned to the top of my screen, my heartbeat thundering like a drum. What was the tone of this message—teasing, threatening? Should I go, or shouldn't I? What if this was a trap, someone wanting to humiliate me the way my father had, exposing my privacy in public just to watch me squirm?

My mind churned through the comments beneath the post, but soon a more specific image displaced them all: Curtis's eyes, bluer than the ocean, and the curve of his hips in those tight training pants. I'd jerked off once while holding his jersey, the one he'd left behind in the equipment room, and I'd come so hard I disgusted myself afterward.

I closed my eyes and my hand drifted downward again. This time I fantasized in greater detail—Curtis looking down at me from above, his veined cock pressed against my lips as he commanded in that low voice, "Open your mouth. Be good."

I came a second time, filthy and ashamed, yet unable to stop myself.

The next day, the rain had cleared. I forced myself to act normal as I limped out of bed, my pants wet again. I changed into clean ones and balled up the soiled pair, stuffing them deep into the bottom of the laundry basket before heading to Exercise Physiology.

After my morning classes ended, I emerged from the building into sunlight that filtered through leaves and cast shifting shadows on the pavement, walking through the maple-lined path on the west side of campus and finding myself, almost against my will, heading toward the hockey training facility. I told myself I was just going to look, just to confirm whether the person who'd left that comment was the asshole I imagined.

I pushed open the half-closed door and stepped inside to find the Locker Room empty, a few towels piled on the benches and water stains marking the floor. No one was there. Relief washed over me as I leaned against a locker, my mouth twisting into a self-mocking smile. Fuck, Dean, you're pathetic.

Then, with a sharp bang, the door behind me slammed shut. I whipped around to find a tall shadow engulfing my entire body. It was Curtis, wearing a black training T-shirt that outlined the perfect triangle of his shoulders and the hard, solid lines of his forearms, a towel draped over one shoulder.

What was he doing here? That comment—had he posted it? Had he found my novel? Curtis seemed momentarily stunned as well, his brow furrowing as though he clearly hadn't expected to find me here. His tone was flat when he asked, "What are you doing here?"

I'd come, and Curtis had come—this couldn't be coincidence. But if he was the one who'd left the comment, why not just say so instead of pretending this was a chance encounter? I hesitated for a second, my eyes darting away as I asked, "Did you... need something from me?"

Curtis didn't answer, instead moving past me to pull open a locker and casually retrieve a wrist guard before saying, "You got cornered by Brendan and his crew yesterday, been limping around ever since."

I froze for a second, not expecting him to bring that up, and managed, "I'm fine."

"If you're fine, then don't wander around," Curtis said, his blue eyes fixing directly on me as though he'd just remembered something. "You know there's something going around the team lately."

He took a step forward and I instinctively stepped back, my spine hitting the locker as the distance between us shrank to less than an arm's length. The clean scent of soap mixed with something distinctly masculine rolled off Curtis's body and hit me square in the face, making my lower abdomen clench and my inner thighs squeeze together involuntarily.

"They're saying someone's been writing stuff about the hockey team, writing about the captain pinning a teammate in the Locker Room and—" He paused, the corner of his mouth curving upward. "Fucking him."

Every drop of blood in my body rushed to my head as my fingers clenched into my palms. Curtis looked at me with an expression of complete calm and asked, "So do you think whoever's writing this novel is putting real events in there, or is it all made up?"

I feigned ignorance, my breathing shallow and trembling as I managed, "I... don't know."

I clenched my fists tighter, and the bandage around my hand began seeping red. He leaned toward me and said, "Well, do you know that the way you're acting nervous right now makes you look exactly like the character in that porn novel?"

My heartbeat accelerated further, and before I could dodge, he lifted his hand to grip my chin, his thumb pressing against my lower lip. Instantly I thought of a chapter I'd written in Checking Orders: The Cold Captain Barebacking His Teammate—Curtis's fingers probing into his mouth, the head of his cock forcing open his throat. My inner thighs twitched involuntarily.

The thing in my pants was already beginning to stiffen, but I still forced myself to maintain composure and said, "I don't think I've read that novel."

Curtis paused as though recalling something, the corner of his mouth lifting in an ambiguous smile. "I heard that novel's pretty explicit—not that I've read it myself. Brendan and the others have been talking it up like crazy, saying something about the captain fucking his teammate until he can't even cry anymore."

My heart felt like it was about to leap out of my throat. His tone sounded like he was just repeating gossip, but the way those blue eyes were fixed on me made me feel like he actually knew something. Right now he was running his thumb along my jaw, and humiliation crashed over me in waves.

What if this was just coincidence? What the hell did Curtis actually want? Curtis glanced down at my hand and asked, "How'd you do that?"

I blinked, loosening my grip before remembering the cut on the side from when I'd dismantled a skate blade yesterday. Curtis asked again impatiently, "I'm asking you—what happened to your hand?"

My first instinct was to run, but my legs wouldn't obey, and worse still, the thing in my crotch was starting to stiffen treacherously in response to his low voice and oppressive proximity. In front of him I was nothing but the student equipment assistant no one noticed, while he was the emperor of this frozen surface—how could I have this kind of reaction to him?

"None of your business," I managed to rasp out a few words. Curtis raised an eyebrow with apparent interest and moved fully toward me, stopping right in front of me and taking hold of my hand with a tsk. "Did you disinfect it?"

I stared at him in disbelief and asked, "What?"

"Change it out—don't let it get infected," he said, slowly pulling a roll of medical gauze from his pocket. His expression remained detached, almost clinical, as he unwrapped the soiled bandage with efficient movements that suggested he'd done this a hundred times before, yet there was something deliberate in the way his fingertips lingered against my skin, pressing just slightly harder than necessary as he wound the fresh gauze around my palm. Throughout the entire process he said nothing, the heat from his touch seeping through the thin layer of fabric to my skin as every hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and when he tucked the end of the bandage in place, his thumb traced a slow line across my knuckles before he released me.

I stood frozen in place, my breathing shallow and rapid—this was the first time I'd ever looked at his eyes from this close. Light blue, with a ring of deeper blue around the pupils. Why would Curtis be carrying medical gauze on him? Hockey players always had supplies on hand for minor injuries—he hadn't brought it specifically for me.

Just as I was lost in thought, Curtis spoke again, his voice dropping half a tone. "Hey, do you know why they call you a freak?"

The word hit me like a fist to the gut, that single syllable dragging me back to freshman orientation when someone had scrawled it across my dorm room door in permanent marker, back to high school locker rooms where it had been whispered just loud enough for me to hear, back to my father's study where he'd said it with cold precision after finding my browser history. My body reacted before my mind could catch up—throat constricting, vision tunneling, pulse hammering in my ears—and suddenly I was fourteen again, standing in front of my father's desk while he looked at me like I was something diseased. This was humiliation, giving me a taste of sweetness before delivering a slap, the question leaving me floundering as my throat tightened and my mind went blank with a buzzing sensation. It felt like a stress response, some primal instinct overriding rational thought, when I lowered my head and bit down on the base of Curtis's finger without thinking, my teeth applying pressure and deliberately increasing the force.

Curtis didn't even furrow his brow, only his pupils contracted slightly. He withdrew his hand to find a faint teeth mark on his thumb, then let out a short laugh. "Not bad—got some bite to you."

Curtis stepped back, no longer blocking my path, and turned toward the door, glancing back with his profile appearing especially sharp-angled in the shadows as he repeated, "Do you know why they call you a freak?"

He answered his own question: "You know damn well why." "Because you are one—"

I stood alone leaning against the cold locker, my legs weak and my back drenched in cold sweat, while the erection in my crotch remained painfully hard with no sign of subsiding. During the afternoon's intrasquad scrimmage, I stood in the video area holding the camera and working absentmindedly until Abel appeared beside me at some point and patted my shoulder, saying, "You don't look so good."

Yeah, of course I didn't look good—I'd written an anonymous fantasy novel and was about to get caught by the subject himself—but I only gave a slight smile and said dismissively, "It's just the temperature today."

That evening I returned to my apartment and stared blankly at the neatly wrapped bandage on my wrist, Curtis's wrapping technique perfectly standard. That bastard... Curtis—what the hell did he want?

If he'd left that comment, then he'd read those obscenely explicit words. If he'd come to expose me, why had he touched me? Would someone who was just toying with me care about the injury on my hand?