Why Don't You Try Fucking Him The Way He Wrote It?

Curtis's POV

After hockey practice, Brendan pushed me again, even saying I couldn't handle one little gay guy from the logistics crew.

I yelled at him to shut his mouth and stop talking nonsense.

Dean's ridiculous novel had me laughing in my apartment half the night. A rabbit crouching in the corner—who the hell compares themselves to a rabbit crouching in the corner?

I read two chapters and tossed it aside, then picked it back up. Made it through chapter three without finishing, then to chapter seven—fuck, I lost track of which chapter I'd reached.

After the away game ended, Dean was leaving with his camera hanging around his neck when players moving through the venue knocked him backward. I immediately stepped forward and grabbed his thin arm.

Dean turned his head in surprise, his face instantly flushing red.

I remembered the expression on Dean's face when he'd lowered his head in front of Ralph. Even now when I closed my eyes I could see it—a kind of resigned calm, like someone who'd been pushed so many times he'd stopped trying to block it.

I looked down at him. "Got knocked around and you just take it without a word? Same thing when you got cornered last time."

He shook his head too quickly, so quickly it made my temper flare.

"I checked the surveillance footage," I said. "Wednesday afternoon, second period."

Dean's head snapped up to look at me, pupils contracting sharply.

I moved half a step closer, one hand pulling his collar down off his shoulder while he clutched his camera and leaned back. "Curtis, don't—"

"Don't move," I said, raising my right hand to brace against the wall and cage him in. "The bruise on your shoulder, your previously sprained knee, what those guys called you in the hallway."

"You think I'm deaf or blind?"

Dean pressed his trembling lips together, unable to get a single word out.

I changed the subject. "You've been living in the dorms this whole time?"

He finally straightened up, looking at me in confusion. "Yeah, I have."

"Take this. My apartment key."

He looked down at the key lying in my palm, his brow furrowing. His brown eyes shifted left and right, his voice hoarse. "Curtis—"

I immediately cut him off, afraid he'd say something about refusing. "Don't fucking tell me no. I'm giving it to you to take, not to push away."

"Why are you giving it to me?" he asked.

My answer sounded noble enough, though the words I'd made up were complete bullshit. "Don't want people treating you like a pushover. The dorm has strict curfew. If something happens, you won't even have anywhere to go."

Still, that didn't stop me from filing the key-giving under some step in my "bet operation manual," telling myself this was just one more way to make the prey unable to escape.

Give him a key, let him have a place to stay, keep Ralph and his crew from getting their hands on him. That simple.

After I got back to my apartment, I showered and threw my practice gear in the washing machine, then sat on the couch and opened a beer.

Some game replay was on TV. I wasn't really watching, my mind stuck on the image of him clutching the key in his fist.

At 10:40 PM, the doorbell rang.

I thought it was takeout and went to answer barefoot.

It was Dean standing in the doorway, holding his backpack, wearing an old hoodie. He didn't look up, his voice muffled in his chest. "The dorm... isn't really convenient tonight."

I stepped aside to let him in.

He entered with the same posture he'd had every time since I'd known him—walking close to the wall, scanning every corner of the living room before setting his backpack down by his feet.

I leaned against the doorframe watching him take off his shoes. The hem of his hoodie rode up, exposing a strip of startlingly white skin at the small of his back.

My gaze fixed there, unable to move. Only now did I see clearly—Dean actually had a small mole just above his left back dimple.

After changing shoes, Dean walked to the windowsill and touched the dry soil of the plant. "It's dying."

"Forgot to water it."

"If you're busy, I... could do it."

I made a sound of agreement, tossing a pillow and blanket onto the couch armrest. "You'll sleep here. Get up at six. Don't oversleep."

He nodded, holding the pillow and standing there like a stray dog that had been brought home—both wary and hopeful.

That look made my lower abdomen tighten.

Before bed, Dean took a towel into the bathroom to shower. I stared at that frosted door, imagining him standing naked inside.

Water streaming over his collarbones, his chest, and between his legs—his cock and his hole.

The words in those novels were written by him, but the Hunter in them was me.

His hole had been fucked by me for seventeen chapters. "Hunter's fingers explored inside him." "Hunter's cockhead forced open his throat."

When he gripped his cock in the bathroom, what was he thinking about?

Was it me? Or was it the fictional version of me he'd written—Hunter?

When he came out after showering, wearing an old T-shirt, his hair wasn't dry. Water droplets slid down from his nape along his spine, disappearing into his waistband.

"Your hair isn't dry."

He replied, "Yeah, it's fine not to blow-dry."

My tone was almost commanding. "Dry it. I don't want to wake up tomorrow morning to you having a cold, your nose all red during practice."

Just like that, Dean moved into my apartment. More accurately, he started appearing frequently in my apartment.

There was an extra carton of milk in the fridge, not the brand I usually bought. A few novels appeared on the coffee table. An extra pair of shoes several sizes smaller than mine showed up in the entryway.

My life was being invaded by these tiny details, silently and more thoroughly than if he himself had walked in.

At first I'd get close and tease him, then I escalated. After practice when I came back to the apartment and he was curled up on the couch watching game footage, I'd sit down next to him, my leg pressing against his.

Sometimes I'd rest my ankle on his knee. He'd glance at me, then push my foot away with an expressionless face.

Once I deliberately draped my arm across the back of the couch, perfectly positioned to cage him in.

He kept his head down looking at his phone, completely still for nearly twenty minutes, yet his ears turned red enough to bleed.

Damn wooden block. My fucking arm went numb.

Wasn't he all enthusiastic when writing his novel? In front of a real person he goes limp?

That day Dean was bent over writing, his pale nape exposed.

"What are you writing, so focused?" I twisted off a bottle cap and took a drink of water.

"Analyzing last week's scrimmage data," he said without looking up. "Your team's defensive positioning in the third period had problems. The left flank gap was too wide. If the opponent adjusted their fast-break tempo—"

He suddenly stopped, probably realizing he'd started lecturing again. He looked up at me, his mouth pressing together somewhat awkwardly. "Never mind, you don't want to hear this stuff."

"Keep going, don't stop." I surprised even myself by saying that.

He froze for a moment, then pointed at a diagram he'd drawn and started explaining.

I leaned against the headboard watching him, watching his finger trace positions on the paper.

He'd just showered. His lashes were especially dark with moisture clinging to them. When he talked about things that interested him, his eyes would light up.

I couldn't even remember the last time I'd been with someone like this. Not drinking, not kissing, not fucking. Just sitting quietly in the same space, actually listening to another person talk.

I was starting to lose track. Getting close to him—was it because of the bet, or because I wanted to be close to him?

Giving him the key—was it to keep him penned in my territory, or because I didn't fucking want him going back to that cold dorm room every night?

After Dean finished explaining, he put all the materials away and sat on the couch armrest, head down scrolling through his phone.

I walked over and pulled the phone from his hand. He looked up at me, confusion in his eyes, his lips pouting slightly like a kid who'd had candy taken away.

"Stop looking at that." I tossed his phone to the other end of the coffee table, glancing toward my bedroom. "Come here."

He didn't move. I walked over and pulled him onto the bed.

"Curtis." His voice was as small as a mosquito's. "You... don't get so close, it's hot."

I didn't listen, pressing my whole body against him impatiently.

His voice shook even more when he spoke. "What exactly do you want?"

"You don't know what I want?" I raised the corner of my mouth, looking at him with teasing eyes.

I lowered my head close to the back of his ear, my lips nearly brushing it. "Sleep here tonight. I want to look at you. Look at all of you."

I held him tight, my fingers slipping under the hem of his T-shirt at the small of his back, palm against his skin, slowly moving up from his tailbone.

Every time I did this he'd hold his breath, his entire back going rigid.

"Curtis, you..."

"You..." he said quietly, asking carefully, "Why did you give me the key?"

I'd already answered this question. Now that Dean was asking again, I replied, "You're walking around The Rink wearing my clothes—anyone can see you belong to me. Plus you do the work better than Abel and those guys. Don't waste it."

I opened my mouth, teeth gently biting his earlobe. His whole body jerked like an electric current had shot through him, his fingers clutching the hem of my shirt.

Without question, his reaction pleased me.

His physical responses became a kind of proof more powerful than words.

At least on a physical level, my touch affected him, and he didn't even try to hide it.

"Curtis..." His voice was so hoarse it was almost gone.

I pulled back some distance, looking at the bite marks on his lips that had deepened. His chest heaved violently, his head tilted back, his eyes covered with a layer of mist as he looked at me softly.

Looking like that, he was fucking begging to be fucked.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

An unknown number: "Progress is a bit slow. Why don't you try fucking him the way he wrote it?"

I locked my phone screen and tossed it aside. Though my lower body ached with hardness, that text pulled my desire back.

I didn't continue. Dean just obediently fell asleep in my arms, his back pressed against my chest, impossibly soft.

Brendan was stirring things up in the fraternity again, getting others to push me about the bet's progress. I opened Brendan's message thread and replied: Stop fucking rushing me.