Page 5

Story: Master of Pain

Especially with the way he blushed and practically tripped over his feet in reaction to me.

A guy as hot but as buttoned-up as him is one of two things—an incel or secretly gay. He doesn’t have to be gay; he could be bisexual, but…something is up.

The “Ally” with a rainbow in his bio makes me snort in amusement.

“Yeah, right,” I mumble.

I should know better than to want to fuck with a closeted dork like him—someone who can’t possibly have any idea what my life is like, whatthelife is like. My time would be better spent banging my head against a brick wall than trying to get into the jeans of a guy who can’t even admit he wants me.

Still, I know he wants me, too…right?

All I can picture is his dumb girlfriend, and my blood pumps hot in my veins.

I don’t even know her name, but the thought of her touching him, of him touching her, makes my hands curl into fists.

No. He’s not hers. Not any more than he’s mine…

Ethan Moore is the face in my head as I stroke my dick tonight. His soft, skinny body is the one I imagine underneath me. In my mind I’m buried in his ass so deep that he’s crying in pleasure.

As I come all over one hand, Ethan’s picture with his full lips is on my phone in the other.

“Fuck you. I did the job like I was told,” I spit at my older brother, Marco. He’s got a look on his face that mirrors the one our father gives me when he thinks I’ve done something wrong—brows low, mouth curled down, and calm but disappointed eyes.

“You shot him in the knee with his daughter in the room,” Marco says.

“I got the money,” I remind him.

“Yes, but who knows if he’ll work with us again?” he huffs.

I growl under my breath. “So fucking what? He wasn’t going to make a deal with us again anyway, not after what happened with April.”

“How do you know that, Dante? You act like you know everything, but you don’t. You’ve got a lot to learn before you could even begin to take my place,” Marco berates me as he steps closer to me, pointing in my face.

I swat his hand away. “Get your fucking hand out of my face.” I grab his wrist when he puts it in front of me again. I squeeze hard. Marco might be older, but he’s smaller than me. “I think it’s pretty fucking obvious that Kramer wasn’t going to make a deal with us again. You fucked his wife, Marco. Not once, not twice, but for the entire summer. He caught you idiots and didn’t want to pay up. So, yeah, I think that partnership is as dead as a well-done steak, you shithead.”

Marco stares at me after attempting to yank his hand out of my grip. I hold it tighter.

“I got the money he owed us while you sat here on your sad ass, wondering if April is gonna stay married to him or come running back to you,” I tell him. “So what if I traumatized a nine-year-old girl? Did anyone say sorry to me when they killed ourma right in front of me when I was five fucking years old? No. She’ll get the fuck over it.”

I let go of his wrist and step back from him.

Marco rubs his wrist, then adjusts his shirt. “Fine. Your cut of the money will be in your account by tomorrow. Don’t forget the meeting on Friday.”

I sigh. “Yeah, I’ll be there.” I turn around and grab my leather jacket off the hooks by the front door of the Romano mansion.

“Where are you going?” Marco asks.

“I got shit to do,” I tell him. “Anyone needs me, I’ll be at the campus library.”

“Library? Since when do you read?” Marco teases me, bouncing back from our argument as quickly as he always does.

“Sinceyour dick,” I snap at him as I open the door. I don’t have to look back at him to know he’s smiling.

I know Ethan will be at the library tonight, just like I know which classes he’ll be in throughout the week. That information really shouldn’t be as easy to find as it is.

The library is the easiest place to bump into him. We’re entirely different majors and years, so we have no classes in common what-so-fucking-ever.

As I make my way into the library on the Valmont campus, I realize this might be the first time I’ve been in here aside from when I come to pick up my books at the beginning of every year.