Corrupt

by Chase Potter

  When the game finally finishes, I take my time before heading to the locker room. I stop at the door, waiting on the bench just outside as Bradford and the councilmen change and leave. Normally I just shower at home like everyone else, but today might be different.

  James stops on his way out. “You waiting for Alex?”

  “No,” I lie.

  “You’re a real piece of work.” He presses his lips together with a vague sense of acceptance. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Yeah.” The word tastes stale and so does my mouth.

  I look away, but I can still feel his eyes on me. James lingers, but I refuse to look. Not until I’ve heard his sigh and the footsteps moving away. And when I’m finally alone again, I lift myself off the bench and enter the locker room.

  Past the rows of lockers and benches, I hear the sound of running water. It draws me forward, even as I know I shouldn’t. This… thing with Alex was never supposed to happen, much less take over my life. Step by step, I follow the trail of humid heat. So close to the showers now, the sound of water continues, and still I can’t stop myself.

  Alex appears at the edge of the shower, his bare feet on the line where the concrete meets tile, and I can’t breathe. He’s wearing a towel, a towel only, and now I can’t look away either. I’ve seen him half-naked before, but it wasn’t like this. His shoulders are squared like he has something to prove, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t have my height, sure, but his frame is thick with muscle.

  It’s a fight to get the words out as water spatters on the tile. “You left the water running,” I say.

  Alex holds me captive as he waits to respond, and with his stolen seconds, he watches me. “You’ve always held back,” he says.

  My fingers tighten on the strap of my gym bag. I’m drowning and it’s my lifeline. “I’m not… gay.” The confession is true but it’s also not, and Alex needs to know before we do this. He needs to know before we do something we regret.

  Darkness flickers through his expression, and I’m convinced that all of this is going to end right here.

  Alex's whisper cuts me to my core. “Does it matter?”

  My breath catches, and I’m being crushed alive between desire and guilt.

  I glance away from his beautiful eyes, down to his body. The body of a man that I should have no interest in. My throat is contracting with every breath, and my answer is husky with emotion. “No.”

  Six impossible feet separate us, and he glances down to my lips and then my crotch. “Then come here,” he breathes.

  “Okay.” My answer comes out rough, and I’m afraid. Not afraid that I won’t be able to do this, but afraid it will be too easy.

  My gym bag slips off my shoulder, thuds to the ground, and I kick off my shoes as I step toward the soft billows of steam. Alex stands motionless, his skin slick with water and his towel taunting me. I move forward, still clothed from the game and not giving a shit as I finally step from the concrete onto the tile.

  My hands rise to his face, gripping the sides of his jaw. I want him to know my strength, and I want him to fear it. He should fear me and what we’re about to do, but he doesn’t and he won’t.

  Our eyes lock, and his voice is soft. “Don’t hold back anymore.”

  My heartbeats trip over one another, and my voice is wrapped in a painful honesty. “I won’t.”

  I press my lips to Alex’s as my hands move down to his shoulders. I taste vanilla, feel his rough stubble, and I fall into him harder. He kisses me back, matching my movements as our bodies press together, and even in this he’s fierce, competitive. It’s a challenge, and it’s not hard to recognize the timbre of his emotions. I know what he wants, and I’m going to give it to him. Don’t hold back anymore.

  Around his shoulders, my hands begin to tighten, locking him down and squeezing so hard I expect him to cry out in pain. He doesn’t.

  His tongue fights against mine, struggling for control. But I won’t let him have it. Alex is mine, and he needs to know it. Holding him by the shoulders, I push him back with me, back toward the wall and under the water. It’s pounding onto us now, against Alex’s bare skin and his towel and over my t-shirt and gym shorts. But still I push him back until his back slams against the wall with the wet sound of flesh on tile. It forces the air out of his chest, and I feel the warm breath on my face.

  “That kind of hurt,” he growls, and his eyes impart a hint of arousal.

  I meet his gaze with a grin. “I know.”

  But still I decide to release him from my iron grip. His hands slide beneath my sopping wet shirt, and mine tear his towel down. He yanks my shirt over my head and tosses it to the floor. His frantic hands drop to my chest, my abs, and we’re kissing again. He drags down my soaking gym shorts, and I let him work. My fingertips tingle with need, and my breathing comes faster.

  Alex's hand is in my briefs, and he starts pumping away on my dick. I haven’t gotten off in nearly a week, and I can’t ignore or deny the warmth spreading through me. I let my gaze wash over him, taking in every detail of his body.

  A smile plays across the lips I was just devouring. “You like that, huh?” he dares to ask.

  “Hell yes.”

  Now I’m practically dragging him away from the shower. Whatever we do in this locker room isn’t going to be comfortable, but it doesn’t need to be. It isn’t about that. My hands holding the sides of his chest, I lower him back onto a bench between two rows of lockers, and I climb onto his naked body, straddling his waist. His dick lies exposed on his stomach.

  Unable to hold back any longer, I wrap my fingers around him. Unlike the time I had him in my mouth, this is… different. Before when I sucked him off, it was more about my physical need. And now… I think I really want this, beyond some primal desire.

  His skin is like silk, and it slides smoothly up and down with my hand as I work on him.

  I love how his lips part as I touch him, and I love the innocence in his eyes. For a fleeting second, a trampled and forgotten voice inside me desperately wonders why I’m actually enjoying this. But then I realize that I don’t give a shit about why. All that matters is what is.

  And the truth is that I want to feel him, smell him, taste him, to be inside him —

  Wait, what?

  My hand hitches in its rhythm on his cock, and for a solitary moment I’m absolutely lost.

  But I can’t deny the rising desire throwing itself against the back of my throat, pummeling the inside of my stomach, pulsing in my dick.

  Beneath me, the clean lines between his muscles weave together and wander back apart, and I want him. Vulnerable eyes meet mine, and I want him. A silky smooth cock simmers with growing heat in my hand, and I want him.

  I know it’s messed up, and I know it’s selfish. I also don’t care.

  Alex nibbles his lip, staring up at me from the locker room bench. “What?”

  I should be mortified, maybe I should even be ashamed. And maybe I will be later. But right now I’m just honest. “I want to fuck you.”

  His eyes gaze up at me, searching and delving so deep I’m afraid of what he might find. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but after what feels like forever he whispers, “So do it. Lube and condoms are in my gym bag.”

  “Seriously?”

  He grins. “I put them in there the night after we met.”

  “Wow.” I’m not sure how to feel about that. Maybe it’s not important.

  Alex lifts a hand to my face, rubbing his thumb along the bottom of my jaw. “I had a feeling about you.”

  Heartbeats thud in my ears, and I don’t answer. But for the first time tonight it seems okay to slow down, if only for a moment at least. My hands trail down the sides of his chest until they come to a rest on his hips, and I’m touching to enjoy and not just to satisfy. I trace my thumb down the side of his cock, around his balls, and lower along the line that leads downward.

  My breath catches. What I’m doing… it doesn’t feel
like me, but I can’t look away and I can’t stop. For these precious few minutes, Alex is mine and mine alone. I’m about to fuck a dude, and I don’t even care.

  Getting up off him long enough to push my briefs down to my ankles and kick them off, I grab his gym bag by the strap and hold it open for him. He rifles through it, finding what he’s looking for somewhere near the bottom.

  He hands me the condom, and I tear open the package with shaking fingers. Alex takes his hand off my dick long enough for me to roll down the condom.

  I dump some lube onto my hand. Too much, and it dribbles through my fingers as I rub it first over my dick. I pour out a little more, and this time my slick fingers are touching Alex. In somewhere I’ve never touched or even imagined touching a guy before. He feels hot, and I slide my thumb over the spot that’s making me drunk with desire. Alex watches me, and I keep touching him, the tip of my thumb dipping just barely inside him. I don’t want to take my fingers away, but I also want more than just this. I want to really be inside him.

  “Go slow at first,” he warns softly.

  “I’ll be gentle,” I whisper, and it’s the truth. For this, I know I can’t be rough with him. But even that realization is a turn on. For as strong as Alex is, what we’re about to do brings him to complete vulnerability.

  Angling my dick downward, I nuzzle the head between his ass cheeks and against where his hole should be as I press forward with light pressure. Nothing happens. I try pushing a little harder. Still nothing, and the head of my cock is getting squished now.

  Alex is watching me with a knowing smile. “Not quite the right spot.”

  I flush with embarrassment. “Sorry.”

  He shifts his hips a little, and this time I can see where I should be. I can barely breathe, but with Alex’s hand guiding mine, I nudge forward against him.

  Trusting him to get me where I need to go, I lean down over him and press my mouth against his. His lips open for me, and so does his ass. I barely have the tip inside, and already it’s tight, so fucking tight, and I want more. I want to be sunk into him all the way down to my balls, but I remember my promise to be gentle, and I hold back.

  He starts to jerk himself off, all the while watching me and only me. I hold his eyes, drinking up the vulnerability and compassion that are so uniquely his, and bit by bit, he takes more of me. Inch over inch until my balls are pressing against his butt and his tightness is just beginning to relent, even if only a little. I pull back, real slow, watching the slick length of my dick gradually reappear. Then I sink back into him, into his enveloping heat, and heaven itself is cradling my cock. Except really it’s just Alex doing that.

  Just Alex, what a colossal understatement.

  He relaxes with every second, and I pick up the pace, falling into a rhythm. He moans as I press into him again, and the sound is so delicious I wish I could lick it from the air.

  I pump harder, and Alex tosses his head to the side, his cheek brushing against the wood bench.

  I lean close to him, our stomachs pressing together, and my voice is gruff. “Tell me what you want.”

  “More,” he pleads, and his breath is hot in my ear.

  I want to give him that and then some. I grip his chest, using his muscled frame for support and leverage, and I thrust my dick into him. Over and over, into the softest and most trusting part of him.

  Like always, there’s a beauty in contradiction.

  A brooding heat courses through the end of my cock, slinking through my belly and my chest and my fingers and my cheeks. The heat washes into my face, and somehow Alex is the one who owns me. He has more power over me than any threat of prosecution ever could have. Because for all the times I did this with a woman, I never felt like this. Like I’m half of a whole, one partner of two.

  I push into him again and again, and this isn’t sex. It certainly isn’t fucking.

  It’s Alex and it’s me, and it’s both of us at once and together. It’s sprinting into the warm Pacific and it’s skydiving in the Alps and it’s closing my first real estate deal. Better than all those things, it’s the first time I make love to Alex.

  I tilt my hips a little further back, and the next time I sink into him, he gasps. “You’re going to make me come.”

  “I know.” And it’s true. How could I not know? His expression is my entire world, my hands are pressed to his chest, and I’m inside him. His pulse, his breaths, every tensing muscle — I know him, thoroughly and intimately.

  But I refuse to stop and I can’t relent, even if I wanted to. I’m bound by my own swiftly rising urgency. It demands a release. I drive into Alex again and again, and his expression turns helpless as he tugs one final time on his dick.

  The following moments are a cascade of seconds and panting breaths and heat. Alex bites his lip as he starts to come on his stomach, and I sink into him one last time, as deep as I can go. I tense all over as the rushing feeling pumps white hot pleasure out the end of my cock.

  With perfect awareness, I feel as my load charges out of me, bit by bit.

  I wish there were no condom. I wish that I could fill him. The stray thought catches me off guard, slipping between the seconds like a dagger through my ribs.

  Ragged breathing fills the space between us, and after a few moments I begin to withdraw from Alex. His head is resting on the hard bench, but his gaze is on me. He flinches when my dick finally slips out, but otherwise he seems fine. My legs are cramped from the position, and I sit back on his hips as I glance down at the condom. There are bits of stuff on it, and Alex's cheeks flush red as I take it off.

  “Sorry,” he says quickly. “I didn’t… uh, anticipate doing this tonight.”

  I’m neither surprised nor bothered by it, and I shrug. “I don’t care.”

  His come-covered stomach rises and falls with his breathing, but he doesn’t seem to notice as a bead of the semi-clear liquid slides down the side of his belly. My eyes steal across him once more, to the way his increasingly limp penis is draped across the lower part of his stomach.

  A torrent of regret smashes into me. I fucked a guy in a locker room. Wow, Matt.

  But the truth is that I loved every delicious second of being with him, of being inside him. I bite my lip, and a flood of conflicted emotions rise in my throat. They’re threatening to choke me from the inside out, and I don’t even know what to think anymore.

  “You okay?” Alex asks as his lazy smile is overtaken by concern.

  I feel like I’m about to cry, and I nearly gag on my own voice. “No. I don’t think I am.”

  “Really?” The sound is soft and wrapped in a regret that mirrors my own.

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell him, and it’s the truth. Alex deserves so much more than me. He’s an amazing guy, and I’m… not that at all.

  He sits up on the bench, pulling his knees to his chest, and trails of come run down his stomach. “Why?”

  I swing my legs around so I’m sitting on the bench, and I pull on my wet briefs. I can’t look at him. “You deserve better than me,” I choke the words out.

  Alex sighs. It’s a melancholy sound, and to me it’s the sound of realizing he made a mistake. Softer now, he says quietly, “I don’t want anyone else.”

  Something in his voice drags my eyes back to him. Alex is still buck naked, covered in come and lube. But he’s completely oblivious, and his expression is consumed by concern for me.

  He reaches out a hand, brushing his knuckles over my bare arm. It’s such a simple gesture, but my heart is desperate, and it clings to this small thing. I can feel wetness in my eyes, and I hate that feeling as my confession comes out husky and weak, “You don’t know who I am.”

  His words are soft and pensive. “I’m willing to risk it.”

  “Why?”

  Alex motions between us. “That, what we did just now? I’ve never felt a connection like that with anyone. Not once, not ever.” His voice becomes even quieter, venturing to the very brink of silence. “If I’m goin
g to get hurt… I’d rather be hurt by you than anyone else.”

  I’m half naked and exposed, and I don’t deserve what he’s offering me. But I must just be too selfish to resist. My heart is a traitor. It wants him, even now after I’ve just gotten off. My lips conspire against me too, and a single confession falls from them. “Okay,” I breathe, and I don’t stop Alex from pulling me into his arms. I don’t stop him as my bare skin presses against his, and I don’t stop him as he nuzzles closer to me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nine Years Earlier

  What the hell was I thinking? I’m not equipped to take care of a child. But here he is. Carson. The half-brother I’d never met until this afternoon.

  We’re in the living room of my studio apartment, and he’s staring up at me from his spot on the couch, his dilapidated bear clutched to his chest. The window air conditioning unit is wheezing and whirring, but it’s still hot in here. Carson is probably wondering what happens now. And if he is, then we’re thinking the same thing.

  He needs a place to sleep, he needs clothes, and he really needs a bath.

  My shirt is sticking to my back, but it’s from my nerves as much as the humidity. My fingers fidget in my pocket, and I run my thumb over the blunted points of my car key. It’s a reminder that I just bought a car with money that doesn’t seem quite so extra anymore. I’m a young professional, I work full-time and then some more on my design business, and I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a kid.

  But still, there he is.

  I take a seat beside him on the couch, leaving several inches between us. The first rule of parenting must be to not let the children starve. “Are you hungry?” I ask. “Or thirsty?”

  Carson shakes his head, and I’m at a loss once more. A minute stretches out, and we just watch each other as I slide closer to the conclusion that I’ve made a terrible mistake. I don’t think I can do this.