CHAPTER 3
CY
My cock is throbbing as I read back over the conversation I just had with Ariel. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she sounded last night. It was more than her being drunk. She sounded hurt. She sounded lost.
It took everything in me not to demand she tell me who the fucker is who hurt her and how he did it exactly. I would track him down and pummel him until he begged for his fucking life for hurting my little mermaid. At the same time, I’m damn glad that she’s not seeing anyone anymore.
I almost lost it when she admitted to dating at all. I haven’t been able to look at another fucking woman since the night I noticed her playing online. She kept getting cycled into the opposing team and it was pissing me off.
I had my eyes open for her when I saw her game stats, but when she popped me from the sniper nest? I’m pretty sure I fell in love with her right then and there.
I sent her a message, praising her on the shot and all she sent back was a winky face. A fucking winky face. Punctuation never made me hard before that night.
I turned to Kent where he was cooking in the kitchen, damn domestic bastard he is, with a feral grin on my face. “A chick just wiped the floor with me,” pride filled my voice along with a hint of awe.
He scoffed, but when I didn’t say anything else, he put down what he was chopping and came over to me. When I showed him the replay, his jaw dropped and then he started laughing. Not some damn little chuckle. It was a full-on belly laugh and I couldn’t help but grin along with him.
It was about as much as he was going to get from me. I’m not the freest man with my emotions. Well, neither is Gabriel, but I’m even worse than him. That’s what happens when you grow up practically alone, the only company the people I played online with and my weight set.
It’s where I honed my skills and found out I’m a fucking beast on the controller. It’s also where I figured out I could use those skills and find success. I remember the first tournament I ever joined, winning easily. I never looked back.
It might have been the dream of a sixteen-year-old fuck-head who didn’t know any better, but I am a professional gamer now.
At first, I was a fucking hot head. I’d yell at anyone on chat. I listened back to myself one time and the realization of sounding like a damn psycho hit me right in the chest. I also realized it gave too much away.
I decided to lock down my emotions and become ice cold. All my anger I took out on the weights. It’s the only reason I’m not some fat fuck in my mom’s basement. When I started playing in live tournaments, everyone ate it up. Not only am I a beast when playing but I’m jacked like one too.
I go for straight up menacing whenever I can. I’m not sorry about it at all.
When I turned back from Kent laughing his ass off, Ariel was gone, and I was pissed. I wanted to play with her and see if it was a fluke or if she was a damn ringer. There are a few women on the circuit, and we all have alternate handles we play under when we don’t want people gunning for us. It figured it was possible the woman who took me out was one of them, but, in my gut, I knew it wasn’t true.
It took a few days, but the next time I saw her I had talked Kent and Gabriel into playing with me. Kent was eager as fuck to see if the woman who took me out was playing and if she could do it again. Gabriel was skeptical, but it’s always a little difficult to read the man.
He keeps his emotions locked down the same as I do, but for entirely different reasons. His childhood was shit and when pushed came to shove, the only family he had left was his brother, Jericho.
I don’t care about Jericho’s business, to be honest. As long as he doesn’t fuck with me, we’re all good. Gabriel and Jericho are tight, and I admire the fuck out of Jericho for not allowing Gabe to follow in his footsteps.
We’ve known each other for years, one of those moments when you meet people and feel like they’re family. It hadn’t happened to me before, but with them I just knew they were people I could trust and wanted in my corner. It was fucking weird as hell, but I rolled with it.
Ariel is the first woman who has caught all our interests though.
I knew it the moment she popped in and I immediately pulled her into a voice chat. Her voice was like melted fucking chocolate, but the dark kind which is pure fucking seduction and sex, “Hi?”
Fucking hell, even Gabriel perked up a little bit and she barely said a damn thing. “Sweetheart,” I growled, “you playing? I want to see if you’re that good or it was a fluke when you took me down.”
She huffed out an adorably annoyed breath. Her annoyance bled into her words, “Why? You don’t think a girl could take you down?”
I barked out a laugh and my cock thumped in my joggers. Kent’s eyes were wide when he turned and looked at me slowly. Hell, even Gabriel cocked an eyebrow, surprised at my reaction to the little fucking spitfire.
I didn’t even know then everything I know now, and I was already in love with the girl after a headshot, a single word and then a lobbed barb which didn’t even land but was damn cute.
“Naw, Sweetheart, nothing like that.” I smirked even though she couldn’t see me. “I’ve had my ass kicked by girls more than once when playing. It was slick as fuck, and I know I wasn’t the first person you took out. I’d had my eye on you and then you set your sight on me.”
“Headshots are my jam,” she hummed happily.
Gabriel was the one who barked out a laugh then and I swear I could see my girl blink owlishly. “Oh,” her sweet rasp came through, “hello to you, too. I didn’t realize I was in a group chat.”
That was Kent’s cue and exactly why he was the best of us. He took over and introduced us and then we got lost in playing and chatting together. I could have played all night, but she had to go way too early. It’s how we found out she teaches middle school English.