You Think Pushing Him Away Means You Won?

Dean's POV

I sat on the apartment couch, still discussing IP matters with Memory.

Curtis was in the bathroom showering, water rushing down in a steady stream. His phone lit up—someone had sent him a message.

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

Then I reached for his phone. No passcode—it unlocked with a single swipe.

The message was from Brendan: "Come out for drinks. Don't tell me you're busy nailing your little tagalong again."

"Piece of cake."

I held my breath and scrolled up to earlier conversations.

"The Rink's new Equipment Manager 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 trembled. Every word on the screen wavered as my breathing seized, nearly suffocating me.

What bet? What tagalong?

I kept scrolling. The latest message was from Curtis, sent at dawn: "I don't want to continue this."

Brendan's reply came instantly: "The fuck are you talking about?"

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

Brendan: "Can't handle it?"

Curtis hadn't responded after that.

I forced my shaking hands under control and placed the phone back exactly where it had been—a skill I'd honed at home.

A suspicion was already forming in my mind. Maybe Curtis had known all along that the serialized novel on the forum was mine.

So when he watched me tremble and flinch, what had he been thinking?

When I was fourteen, my father found a photo of a boy on my phone. He jabbed his finger at my nose, glaring at me with the contempt reserved for garbage, and roared: "This family doesn't produce trash like you! Whether you live or die has nothing to do with us. You're worthless!"

Now I knew what I was worth.

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

A fucking bet I knew nothing about.

Father was 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.

Father's words echoed in my head again: "Trash like you—used and tossed aside—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 now, would he pull away? If I pressed my lips to his, would he push me back?

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

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

My expression was flat, devoid of any ripple. "Nothing. Just saw an interesting sports analysis post."

"Go shower," he said, sitting down beside me.

I moved closer, my knee brushing against the couch as I positioned myself between his legs. "Curtis, what you said before... about the tagalong, about training convenience—was any of it real?"

He looked at me, puzzled, then his lips curved into a smirk. "Guess."

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

He didn't push me away.

I slipped my tongue inside, pressing it against his, touching his wet, heated tongue. My hand moved downward, feeling him through the towel fabric.

Curtis let out a muffled grunt. I could distinctly feel his cock hardening and heating beneath my palm, tenting the towel.

I pulled back, our foreheads touching as I panted.

His breathing was ragged. "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 grazing his ear. "Didn't you say you wanted me as your tagalong? I'll do it. Teach me how to—"

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

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

I nodded. His lips immediately crushed back against mine, his tongue driving deep and fierce, sweeping across my palate, coiling around my tongue tip and sucking outward until my entire body went numb.

In Chapter Seventeen of my novel, Hunter pinned him against the locker room wall, tongue sweeping his palate, and his legs went 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 were just words—now before me were muscle, temperature, saliva, breath.

I went completely soft, my lips bitten until they flushed with blood, then licked by his wet, hot tongue.

I reached out and yanked his towel down.

The instant his cock sprang free, I held my breath. Thicker than I'd written, the head a deep purple-red, liquid seeping from the tip with a faint salty musk.

I slowly sank to my knees. His cock grazed 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.

The pressure triggered my gag reflex and I choked, my throat contracting. Saliva dripped from the corner of my mouth.

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

Inside, I was laughing. He was hard. He was losing control. Every curse that fell from his lips was uncontrolled pleasure.

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

I let him push me down onto the bed. Curtis's other hand gripped my waist.

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

After the pain, his tongue laved over it, wet and hot, numbing the entire area.

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

He didn't use lubricant, but my own fluids had already soaked the entrance, streaming out since that first brush.

His finger pushed inside—painful and stretching. I bit down on the pillow.

He added a second finger. My sphincter clenched then released, fluids running down.

His fingers pressed against my prostate and my whole body caved, trembling uncontrollably.

He leaned close to my ear and laughed low. "How can you be this wet? This eager?"

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

He flipped me over. His knee pushed my thighs apart, exposing my hole to the air.

"Dean," he murmured against the back of my neck, his burning, thick cock head pressing against my entrance, wet and slick as it circled the rim. "Want it?"

"Yes," I said.

He pushed forward slightly, the head stretching open the ring of muscle.

I deliberately clenched around him, refusing him entry.

Curtis stopped. "Dean?"

I resisted, yet the muscles of my hole contracted and released uncontrollably, as if sucking him in. "I changed my mind."

His voice went 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 one hand and pushing against his chest, my voice shaking. "I don't want it anymore."

"I said I don't want it."

"You're fucking with me?" His tone was flippant, mocking—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 fury. "You've been teasing me all night. Kissing me on the couch. Sucking me off at the bathroom door like that."

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

I forced out a denial. "I'm not feeling it anymore."

I tried to get off the bed. He grabbed me and pressed me back down.

He gripped my waist, spread my cheeks, and gave a slight thrust forward. The head ground past the inner ring of muscle and my whole body shuddered. My sphincter loosened for an instant.

He seized the opportunity to push deeper, nearly two thumb-lengths inside.

"Curtis—"

I practically roared it. "I said I don't want it!"

Curtis went completely still. We remained frozen like that for five seconds, his breath beating against the back of my neck.

"Do you fucking want it or not?" he demanded.

He paused for a few seconds, then pulled out, rolled off the bed, dressed swiftly, and slammed out the door.

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

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

Three in the morning. I still couldn't sleep.

Curtis still wasn't beside me in bed.

Was my suspicion correct—had Curtis's approach, all his actions, been because of a bet?

What kind of bet would be worth it for the school's star hockey captain to lower himself to personally engage with a nobody?

My phone on the nightstand vibrated. I reached for it. An unfamiliar message glowed on the screen: You think pushing him away means you won?