All Chapters of Own You.: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The water was still scalding when Damian heard the lights flicker.He had been standing under the showerhead for what felt like an hour, his palms flat against the cold tile, letting the heat hammer the back of his neck until his skin turned raw and pink. The championship loss was in his bones—not just the score, not just the broken stick, but the weight of three years of pretending. Pretending he hated Sebastian. Pretending his heart didn't race every time they faced off. Pretending the whispered threat "A deal is a deal" meant nothing.The cut above his eyebrow had stopped bleeding, but the water still stung when it hit the wound. He welcomed the pain. It was the only thing that felt real.He had locked the main door. Muscle memory from years of being the last man out of locker rooms. The bolt had slid home. He had checked it twice. The emergency exit was another story—that door led to the parking garage, and Damian had been too rattled by the black rose on his bench to check if it

The truck's headlights died, and the abandoned rink swallowed them whole.Damian sat in the passenger seat, still barefoot, still wearing nothing but his sweatpants and the hoodie he'd grabbed before leaving the locker room. His feet were filthy from the parking garage, and he could feel the dried blood from his earlier scrapes cracking with every small movement. He hadn't looked at Sebastian once during the drive. He didn't need to. He knew exactly where they were going the moment Sebastian had said abandoned rink.The south side rink. The one with the broken windows and the chain-link fence and the memories that had lived inside Damian's chest like splinters for fifteen years."I'm not going in there," Damian said. His voice sounded small, even to himself.Sebastian killed the engine. The silence that followed was thick and heavy, the kind of silence that only exists in places where people have stopped coming. "You said you wanted to stop being afraid.""I changed my mind.""No, you

Sebastian didn't make him beg again.The word please was still hanging in the cold air when Sebastian's mouth came down on Damian's throat. Not gentle. Not soft. Hard and hungry and desperate, like a man who had been starving for three years and had finally been given permission to eat.Damian's hands were still fisted in Sebastian's jersey. He pulled, yanked, tried to bring Sebastian closer even though there was no space left between them. Sebastian's weight pressed him into the cracked leather couch. The bandages on Damian's feet scraped against the armrest. His back arched off the cushions.Sebastian bit down on Damian's collarbone. Hard. Damian gasped, his nails digging into Sebastian's shoulders through the fabric. The pain was sharp and bright and perfect. It cut through the cold, through the fear, through the fifteen years of pretending he was made of stone."You said not gentle," Sebastian murmured against Damian's skin."I meant it."Sebastian pulled back just enough to tear

The snow was still melting into Damian's hair when his phone buzzed.He was sitting in the passenger seat of Sebastian's truck, wrapped in a blanket that smelled like wet dog and old coffee. Sebastian had found it behind the seat and thrown it at Damian's head without comment. The truck's heater was blasting, fogging up the windows, making the snow on their clothes melt into puddles on the floor mats.Damian's phone buzzed again. He pulled it out of his hoodie pocket—the hoodie he had finally located under the overturned desk—and stared at the screen.Unknown number. A text message. And attached to it, a photo.His stomach dropped.The photo was sharp. Too sharp. It had been taken with a professional lens, the kind that could capture eyelashes from a hundred yards away. Damian recognized the background—the snowbank beside the collapsed billboard, the rusted chain-link fence, the gray morning sky. He recognized the two figures tangled together in the snow.Himself. Naked from the waist

The carpet was starting to dig into Damian's shoulder blades.He was lying on Sebastian's living room floor, staring at the ceiling, his heart still pounding from the kiss. Sebastian was beside him, close enough that their arms touched, close enough that Damian could feel the heat radiating off his body. The laptop sat on the coffee table, the fake story still unsent. The clock on the wall ticked. The world outside was dark and cold and full of people who wanted to hurt them.But in here, on this floor, there was just the two of them."Make a new one," Damian had said. And Sebastian had looked at him like he was seeing him for the first time.Now Sebastian pushed himself up onto his elbows. His dark hair fell across his forehead. His eyes were unreadable."A new deal," Sebastian said slowly. "New terms."Damian nodded. His throat was dry."No blood oaths this time," Damian said."No graves.""No bets based on championship games."Sebastian's mouth twitched. "Then what's the point?""T