Page 69 of Off-Ice Misconduct
I see him—Uncle Jasper. His handsome face, with cruel eyes. His perpetual frown. Sometimes the man smiled, but it wasn’t often. More often, he was filled with bitterness and a vengeful devotion to success. His version of affection was blood and bruises. Winning no matter the cost.
The air stank of sweat, rubber mats, and the regret pouring off the man in the corner, clearly having stewed in it for most of his life. My hands were taped, knuckles bruised through the gauze. I was eighteen, and fucking exhausted, having already been through hours of Uncle’s grueling training.
“Wait,” Uncle Jasper said. “There’s one more.”
I still don’t know who that man was, or what brought him to Uncle Jasper’s dark basement gym, but he had no business being in a ring with me. Even in my tired state. He was twice my age and half my size. But if Uncle Jasper snapped his fingers, I’d crawl. No questions asked. So, I got in the ring, and I hadn’t just beaten him, I’d destroyed him.
He lay crumpled in the ring, wheezing with a busted nose, searching for where he’d left his spirit, and scraping what was left of his pride off the canvas.
“You see that?” Uncle Jasper said. “That’s who you are.”
He wasn’t comparing me to the wreckage. The state of that man was the fruition of my values.
I was a breaker of men.
I shook my head. “I … no. I was just doing what you said.”
“I told you to get in the ring with him. I told you to win. I didn’t tell you to do that.”
His words could have been a reprimand, maybe even an expression of disgust, but his tone and his body language screamed pride. He smiled one of his rare, true smiles while I panicked on the inside.
Proud or disgusted? Was he proud or disgusted? I couldn’t tell. I could never tell.
My throat filled with shame, and my breaths came faster, because either way, he was right. He hadn’t told me to do that. I didn’t need to do that. The way I danced around that man … winning required little more than a few well-timed punches.
“I lost control.”
“No, Lucas.” He gripped the back of my neck, squeezing his hand like it was a leash. He dragged me to the stretch of mirrors across the gym walls and forced me to look.
Wild eyes. Hair like a windblown mess. Face glistening with sweat and blood. Teeth stained red from where I’d bitten through the man’s shoulder.
“I’m a monster,” I whispered as a tear slid down my cheek.
Jasper’s tone matched mine. “I know, kid. It’s beautiful. You’re the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You did this to me.”
“Had I that power, I’d make a million more of you. I didn’t make you, but I forged you. Embrace who you are, Lucas, just like I have.”
I couldn’t lie to Uncle Jasper. He saw right through to my dark soul. Saying I hadn’t enjoyed that fight would have been a lie. I was torn up about it for years, worried I was pure evil. But as I matured, I realized that I hadn’t enjoyed what I’d done to the man at all.
It was the power. The dominance. The command.
Evil men don’t shed tears over what they break.
That’s when I took on a new kind of bed partner, always with consent, but someone who liked rough play. Things always ended when I got rougher, more protective, more possessive. When I wanted it all.
And none of them held a candle to my growing need for Ace.
Give me all of you.
My fists smash the bag, a steady rhythm, until my wrists ache and the bones beneath the skin beg for mercy.
Can I? Can I give him all of me?
Ace was aroused. He begged me. Fuck. He wanted me because he saw me, and I kept myself from him.
Why?
