The admission hangs between us, honest in a way our encounters haven’t been. My pulse shifts, and I find myself saying words I hadn’t planned.
“Maybe we should try sleeping together. Actually sleeping, I mean.”
Victor laughs, the sound rumbling through the phone. It’s different from his usual controlled chuckle—freer, more genuine. I find myself smiling in response, something warm unfurling in my chest.
“It might help,” he says, his voice still rough from our activities. “Having your body against mine all night.” His eyes darken again, that predatory look returning. “But I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t get hard every time I woke up and need to fuck your ass.”
Heat floods through me at his words. Coming from anyone else, it might sound crude. From Victor—with his intensity, his raw honesty—it’s devastatingly sexy.
“That doesn’t sound like a problem to me,” I reply, voice dropping to match his tone. “Sounds like a benefit.”
The corner of Victor’s mouth twitches upward. In the soft light of his bedroom, with his defenses lowered by pleasure and late-night honesty, he looks different. Less guarded. Almost tender.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” he says quietly, the admission seeming to surprise even him. His fingers trail absently across his chest, and I find myself tracking the movement, wishing they were my fingers instead.
I swallow hard, suddenly feeling like we’re stepping into territory neither of us planned for. Territory beyond the physical dance we’ve been engaged in.
19
VICTOR
It’s after eleven, and I’m working on a second whiskey when the phone lights up the dark of my apartment.
It’s been a long fucking week.
Hartwell hasn’t returned three calls. Marco pulled the contact log this morning: clean two-year pattern, weekly check-ins, all the usual rhythms—and then nothing. Dead air starting the morning after the Jonah card. Lin from BioMax replied to an email in one line and didn’t sign off as he usually does. Some local fight blog ran a piece this afternoon quoting Dawson on “old guard” gyms run by men who “can’t adapt to where the sport is going.” No name attached to mine. Doesn’t need to be.
I’d called Marco an hour ago. He’s filing it under reputational, not material. Says wait it out.
I’m trying to be the kind of man who wouldn’t let it touch him.
The screen brightens again. Not Marco this time.
A single message from Theo. No words. Just a link.
I open the link.
The playlist loads immediately. Thirty-eight songs. Artists I wouldn’t be caught dead listening to—the kind of shit that plays at Eclipse. Electronic beats and synth pop and whatever thefuck else Theo probably dances to when he’s on those platforms above the crowd.
My thumb hovers over the first track. I shouldn’t press it. I know exactly what this is—another one of his games. Another attempt to pull me further from everything I know about myself.
I press play anyway.
The beat builds slowly, pulsing through my apartment. It’s nothing like the heavy metal I blast during workouts or the classic rock I listen to while driving. This is...different. Insistent. The kind of music that doesn’t ask permission to enter your bloodstream.
I hate that I don’t hate it.
I hate that I can picture Theo moving to this, all fluid grace and those sharp smiles of his. I hate that I can feel my own body responding, muscles loosening to the rhythm without my conscious permission.
I grab my whiskey glass from the coffee table and drain it in one swallow.
The track shifts to something darker, with a bass line that seems to match my heartbeat. The vocals are raw, honest in a way that makes me uncomfortable—like someone’s reading thoughts I’ve never admitted to having.
My phone buzzes with a text.
What do you think?
Theo. Of course.