Dean's POV

I sat on the couch in Curtis's apartment, still discussing IP matters with Memory.

Curtis was in the bathroom taking a shower, water pouring down with a rushing sound, when his phone lit up with an incoming message.

My Adam's apple bobbed as I glanced toward the bathroom.

Then I reached over and picked up his phone. He hadn't set a password—one swipe and it unlocked.

It was a message from Brendan: "Come out for drinks. Don't tell me you're making time to nail your little sidekick again."

"How hard can it be."

I held my breath and scrolled up to earlier conversations.

"The new Equipment Manager at The Rink is a total freak—"

Curtis hadn't replied.

A few days later, Brendan sent another message: "When the fuck are you making your move? Two weeks left. Don't forget what we bet on."

My hands were shaking, the words on the chat interface trembling before my eyes, my breathing constricting to the point of near suffocation.

What bet? What sidekick?

I kept scrolling. The most recent message was one Curtis had sent in the early morning hours: "I don't want to continue this."

Brendan had replied instantly: "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Curtis: "I don't want to continue this. Mind your own fucking business."

Brendan: "Can't handle it?"

Curtis hadn't responded after that.

I forced myself to control my trembling hands and put the phone back in its original position—a skill I'd perfected at home.

A vague suspicion was already forming in my mind. Perhaps Curtis had known all along that I was the one writing that serialized novel on the forum.

So when he watched me tremble and flinch, what had been going through his mind?

When I was fourteen, my father discovered a photo of a boy saved on my phone. He pointed at my nose, staring at me with the kind of look reserved for garbage, and shouted: "This family doesn't raise your kind! Whatever happens to you from now on has nothing to do with this family. You're worthless!"

Now I knew what I was worth.

I was worth Curtis approaching me, tossing me clothes, caring whether I'd eaten, handing me the apartment key—all of it, without exception, for the sake of a bet.

A goddamn bet I knew nothing about.

My dad had been right. I was worthless. Even being approached by someone was because they wanted to watch me collapse in real life, to use me as a complete and utter wager.

The water stopped. The bathroom door handle turned.

My father's words echoed in my head once more: "Someone like you, used up and thrown away—you deserve it."

I didn't even deserve to be genuinely approached by another person. What I deserved was a bet.

I'd written Curtis into my novel so many times. What if he actually fucked me in real life? If I reached out my hand right now, would he pull away? If I pressed my lips to his, would he push me off?

Curtis emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, his upper body bare.

He looked at me, frozen in place, and asked, "What's wrong?"

My expression was flat, utterly calm. "Nothing. I just saw an interesting post about sports analysis."

"Go take a shower," he said, walking over to sit beside me.

I moved toward him, my knees pressing against the couch, positioned between his legs. "Curtis, what you said before... about a sidekick, about convenient training—was that real or fake?"

He looked at me, puzzled, then the corner of his mouth curved upward. "Guess."

I grabbed his collar and pulled him toward me, lowering my head and pressing my lips against his.

He didn't push me away.

I slipped my tongue inside, pressing it against the surface of his tongue, touching his wet, warm tongue. My palm slid downward slowly, feeling him through the towel fabric between his legs.

Curtis let out a muffled groan, and I clearly felt his cock hardening and heating up beneath my hand, pushing the towel fabric into a tent.

I pulled back, pressing my forehead against his, panting.

His breathing was rough. "Dean, what's gotten into you tonight?"

"Shh," I pressed my finger to his lips. "Don't talk."

My other hand hooked around the back of his neck, my lips against his ear. "Didn't you say you wanted me as your sidekick? I'll do it. Teach me how to—"

My fingers caught the edge of his towel. "Service you."

The deep blue in Curtis's eyes darkened a shade. He swallowed. "Dean, are you sure?"

I nodded, and his lips immediately crushed back against mine, his tongue driving deep and hard, sweeping across my palate, wrapping around the tip of my tongue and sucking it outward until my entire body went numb.

In Chapter 17 of the novel, Hunter had pressed him against the locker room wall, tongue sweeping across his palate, and his legs had gone weak. When I wrote that scene, my legs had trembled, my cock hard.

But I'd never imagined that a real kiss would be three times hotter than what I'd written. What I'd written was just words. What was in front of me now was muscle, temperature, saliva, breath.

My whole body went completely soft, my lips bitten until they were engorged with blood, then licked over by his wet, hot tongue.

I reached out and hooked his towel, pulling it downward.

The moment his cock sprang free, I held my breath. It was thicker than I'd written, the head a purple-red color, the tip leaking fluid with a faintly salty taste.

I slowly crouched down, his cock brushing against my chin.

I opened my mouth and took him in, my tongue circling the head. He thrust his hips forward, the head hitting the back of my throat.

When the head pushed deep into my throat, I gagged, my throat constricting. Saliva dripped from the corner of my mouth.

"Fuck—" He grabbed my hair, his knuckles tightening then loosening.

Inside, I was laughing. He was hard. He was losing control. Every curse word out of his mouth was proof of how good he felt losing control.

Curtis's breathing became completely erratic, a thin layer of sweat forming on his forehead. He lifted his hand to cup the back of my head, fingers threading into my damp hair.

He pulled me up from the couch and in a few strides had me pressed down onto the edge of the bed. Curtis's other hand gripped my waist.

He leaned down and bit my neck. I tilted my head back with a sharp gasp—that bite really hurt, his teeth stimulating every nerve in that patch of skin.

After the pain, his tongue licked over it, wet and hot, numbing the entire area of skin.

In the novel I'd written "Hunter bit the side of his neck and he got hard"—when I wrote it, I'd imagined this sensation, but actually being bitten sent all the blood in my body rushing to one place.

He didn't use lubricant, but I was already dripping wet, slick and ready, my body responding ever since he'd brushed against it.

His finger probed inside—a sharp stretch that made me bite down hard on the pillow.

He added a second finger. My body clenched tight around him, then released, wetness coating his fingers as they moved.

His finger ground against my prostate, and my entire body collapsed, trembling uncontrollably.

He pressed against my ear and laughed low. "How can you be this wet? Are you that impatient?"

"You're the impatient one," I shot back.

He flipped me over, his knee pushing my thighs apart, my hole exposed to the air.

"Dean," he leaned down against the back of my neck, his scalding, thick head pressing against my entrance, wet and slick as it circled the opening. "Do you want it?"

"Yes," I said.

He pushed in slightly, the tip of his head stretching open the tight entrance.

I deliberately clenched around him, not letting him go further.

Curtis stopped. "Dean?"

I refused, though my body contracted and released uncontrollably, as if sucking him in. "I don't want it anymore."

His voice was low and hoarse, his brow furrowed. "You say you don't want it, but you're gripping me inside."

I twisted away, propping myself up on the mattress with one hand, pushing against his chest, my voice trembling. "I don't want it anymore."

"I said I don't want it anymore."

"You're fucking with me?" His tone was flippant and mocking, as if he thought I was joking.

My palm pressed against his jawline, my thumb brushing the corner of his mouth. I looked into those lust-filled eyes. "I am fucking with you."

A flash of bewilderment crossed Curtis's eyes, quickly overtaken by barely controlled anger. "You've been teasing me all night, kissing me on the couch, getting on your knees and sucking me off like that."

He looked down at his cock still throbbing at my entrance. "And now you're telling me you don't want it?"

I forced myself to deny it. "I don't feel it anymore."

I tried to get off the bed, but he pulled me back and pinned me down.

He gripped my waist, spreading my ass cheeks, and pushed in very lightly. The head ground past the soft inner flesh, and my whole body shuddered. My entrance loosened for an instant.

He took the opportunity to push in further, nearly two thumb-lengths deep.

"Curtis—"

I was almost shouting. "I said I don't want it anymore!"

Curtis went completely still, frozen like that for five seconds. His breath hit the back of my neck in steady bursts.

"Do you want it or not?" he asked.

He paused for a few seconds, then pulled his cock out, rolled off the bed, dressed himself efficiently, and slammed out the door.

He would probably never know what I'd seen tonight.

My cock had rubbed against the sheets all night without release. I'd gotten my revenge on him, and punished myself in the process.

It was 3 a.m. I still couldn't fall asleep.

Curtis still wasn't beside the bed.

Was it true, as I suspected—was Curtis's approach, all his actions, because of a bet?

What kind of bet would be worth it for the campus-famous hockey team captain to lower himself and personally engage with a nobody?

The phone on the nightstand vibrated. I reached over and grabbed it. The screen lit up with a message from an unknown number : The show has only just begun.