Hurt me like you need me novel Chapter 3

Cade’s POV

The guy’s name is either Michael or Matthew. I stopped caring four minutes into the conversation and started kissing him two minutes after that. He’s got decent arms and a mouth that does what it’s told, which is really all I need from him right now.

We’re in the locker room of the campus aquatic center. Michael-or-Matthew has me against the tile wall, his tongue in my mouth, his hands pushing up under my shirt.

I close my eyes and he stops being Michael-or-Matthew.

The mouth on my neck becomes Sawyer’s mouth, except Sawyer would never use his mouth like this. Sawyer would use his teeth. He’d bite down until he tasted blood.

My cock twitches so hard at the thought that my breath catches.

Michael-or-Matthew groans against my throat and grips my hips tighter. I tilt my head back against the cold tile and picture Sawyer’s face from last night — the bathroom floor, his knuckles splitting open on my jaw, his full weight pinning me down.

Fuck.

I was so close to coming in that moment it was almost embarrassing. His fist connecting with my face over and over while his hard cock pressed against my thigh through his jeans, and I was right there, right on the edge…

He stopped too soon.

I bite my lip and push my hips forward into Michael-or-Matthew’s. He thinks it’s for him and drops his hand to my belt. I let him fumble with the buckle while I replay the way Sawyer’s breathing changed — shallow, ragged, panicked.

I know he wanted it.

I saw it in his face. That half-second before the horror kicked in, Sawyer Drum stopped fighting it. His eyes went soft.

“Fuck, you’re already hard,” Michael-or-Matthew whispers.

I’m not hard for him. I’m hard for the memory of Sawyer Drum losing a fight with his own body on a bathroom floor.

I’ve been chasing that reaction for years. Last night, I finally got it.

“Take your pants off,” I tell Michael-or-Matthew.

He laughs like I’m joking. I’m not. He figures that out when I don’t laugh back. I don’t have time for foreplay or whatever performance he thinks this is.

I need to get Sawyer out of my system, and the fastest way to do that is to fuck someone else while pretending they’re him.

It never works but the attempt is half the fun.

I figured out the Sawyer thing in high school. Everyone thinks I stole his swim team spot because I wanted it. I stole it because I wanted to see what he’d do when I took something he loved.

The answer was violence, and I got hard from the first punch.

He cornered me behind the pool building. He grabbed my shirt and slammed me into the brick so hard my skull bounced.

I remember the taste of blood in my mouth. I remember my vision going white for a second. And I remember the heat flooding my groin while his fist connected with my face for the second time.

My dick was so hard it hurt, my body lighting up like a circuit board that had been dead my whole life and was finally receiving current.

That was the day Sawyer became the most interesting person in my world. Every other person I’ve met since has been a placeholder.

Including this one.

I turn him around and press him into the lockers. He groans. I close my eyes and see dark brown hair, sharp jaw, hostile eyes. I see Sawyer straddling me.

Michael-or-Matthew is breathing hard against the locker when I hear the footsteps. Heavy, deliberate, and pissed off before he’s even opened his mouth.

I know exactly who it is.

I open my eyes. Sawyer Drum is standing in the doorway of the locker room.

He’s frozen. Split lip from last night, bruise along his jaw, dark circles under his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept.

I plant my hand on the locker beside his head and watch him up close — the split lip I gave him, the bruise along his jaw, the way his chest rises and falls too fast for someone who’s just standing still.

Then I lean in. Close enough that my mouth is next to his ear. Close enough to feel the heat coming off his skin and hear the way his breath catches.

“How’s Megan?” I ask.

His whole body goes rigid. I can actually see it happen — the muscles in his neck tightening, his shoulders pulling up, his hands curling into fists at his sides.

He’s a shit liar. Always has been. Every emotion he tries to bury just shows up somewhere else in his body like a game of whack-a-mole.

“Fuck you,” he spits.

I laugh. Can’t help it. The way he says it — through his teeth, like the words are being ripped out of him — it’s almost cute. Like a dog baring its teeth at the vet. Aggressive and pointless and not fooling anyone.

“Megan dumped you, didn’t she?” I don’t even phrase it as a question. His face already gave me the answer. “Let me guess. She dumped you over a text.” I pause and watch his nostrils flare. “I mean, she was pretty upset when you dragged her out. Not the best look.”

“You had your dick in my girlfriend’s mouth.” His voice comes out low and shaking.

“Ex-girlfriend,” I correct. “And you can’t really blame her, can you?” I pause, let that land. “Girl like that, and you just… couldn’t perform?”

The shove comes so fast it almost catches me off guard. His palms hit my chest and I stumble back two steps.

His nostrils flare. His eyes are wet with that furious, humiliated shine that means something inside him is cracking and he’d rather die than let me see it.

He turns and walks out. The back of his neck is flushed red.

Sawyer Drum isn’t angry that I fucked his girlfriend. He’s angry that I’m the one who made him hard. And he still has no idea what to do with that.

I pick up my shirt from the bench and take my time getting dressed. There’s no rush. I already know where he lives.