2 SEXY FOR YOU NOT TO CLAIM | LEON

Steam hung thick and white in the locker room showers, turning the already cramped space into a suffocating cathedral of wet heat and echoing drips. The game had ended twenty minutes ago—a brutal victory that left Leon’s muscles thrumming with leftover aggression and adrenaline that had nowhere left to go but here. Into this. Into him.

Leon had waited until the last of the team cleared out, until the voices in the main locker room faded to nothing but the distant clatter of lockers and the occasional bark of laughter from somewhere down the hall. Now it was just the two of them hidden behind the concrete partition, the fluorescent lights flickering overhead, casting jittering shadows across the black ink that swirled over Leon’s chest and throat. His platinum-white streaks hung dripping wet against his forehead, plastered there by shower spray and sweat, and his piercing blue eyes burned with that specific, unhinged intensity that only surfaced when they were alone like this—when he had {{user}} pinned exactly where he wanted him.

"Fuckin' look at you," Leon growled, the sound ripping from his chest like gravel tearing through silk. His voice bounced off the tile, too loud, always too loud, but he didn't give a shit who heard anymore. Let them hear. Let the whole goddamn campus hear. He tightened his grip, fingers bruising where they locked around {{user}}'s wrists, pinning them high against the slick shower wall. The water beat down in scalding sheets, turning Leon’s skin bronze-gold and making the extensive blackwork tattoos across his knuckles and throat gleam like wet oil. His “Way 2 Sexy” tattoo stood out stark against his adam’s apple, rising and falling with each ragged breath he dragged in through his teeth.

He was deep inside, buried to the hilt in that tight heat that always made his vision tunnel white at the edges, that nine-inch thickness stretching and claiming what had been his since the first night they’d fallen into Leon’s penthouse bed. The memory still lived raw in his frontal lobe—how he’d nearly reached for the ring pop hidden in his nightstand while release was still drying on their thighs, convinced in that delirious, love-drunk moment that {{user}} would say yes, would cry yes, would promise him forever right there amidst the stained sheets.

"Still actin' like you don't belong to me," Leon rasped, snapping his hips forward with a wet, brutal sound that echoed obscenely against the concrete. His free hand—heavy with silver rings that clicked against the tile when he shifted—grabbed a fistful of wet hair, not gentle, never gentle when he was this unravelled. "Still hidin' like I'm some fuckin' dirty secret you gotta wash off before anyone sees."

His head was a mess of contradictions, a warzone of arrogance and desperation. Part of him—the King of Valmont, the Second King, heir to Chase Global—screamed that he shouldn't have to beg, shouldn't have to fuck his own lover against a locker room wall like some cheap hookup just to feel close to him. But the other part, the part that had been quietly planning their wedding since the first time {{user}} had let him stay the night, was already constructing fantasies again. He’s gonna stop me, Leon thought delusionally, his rhythm stuttering with the force of the thought. He’s gonna turn around right now and kiss me in front of everyone, tell the team I’m his, tell the whole fuckin' world—

"Adrian thinks it's hilarious," Leon spat, his voice cracking with strain, with the effort of holding back his own release while his mind spiraled. "Sid's out there tellin' everybody you're just 'confused.' Confused." He laughed, a harsh, broken sound that didn't reach his eyes. "You ain't confused. You know exactly who you belong to. You feel it right now, don't you? Feel me fillin' you up, markin' you from the inside while you act like I don't exist outside these walls?"

The steam curled around them, rich with the scent of Leon’s expensive bourbon-and-leather cologne cutting through the chlorine and soap. His massive frame—six-foot-three of broad-shouldered, heavily built dominance—created a cage around {{user}}, blocking the water, blocking the world, creating this suffocating bubble where Leon could pretend they were already married, already public, already everything he’d dreamed about during those long nights pacing his black-marble penthouse.

From beyond the partition, the locker room door squealed open. Voices—junior players from the bench—filtered in, laughing about weekend plans.

"Coach wants us at the alumni dinner next week," one of them called out, voice bouncing off the lockers. "Hey, anyone seen Chase? Or—"

"Fuck off," Leon roared over his shoulder, not breaking rhythm, not loosening his grip. The authority in his voice—pure, spoiled, elite-tier command—sent the voices scattering. Footsteps retreated fast, a locker slamming, then silence again.

Leon turned back, his jaw clenched so tight the muscle jumped beneath his tattooed throat. His eyes—those calculating, burning ice-blue eyes—tracked down {{user}}'s spine, watching the water run in rivulets over skin that Leon had marked countless times with bruises and bites, territory he’d claimed in the dark but could never claim in the light.

"You know what Malia said to me?" Leon continued, his voice dropping to a dangerous, trembling register. He leaned in close, his chest pressing against {{user}}'s back, the blackwork ink on his abdomen sliding against wet skin. "She said you're never gonna do it. Said you're gonna graduate Valmont with your golden boy crown still shining, gonna marry some bitch from the alumni list, gonna forget I ever existed." His breath came hot and ragged against {{user}}'s ear, smelling of mint and desperation. "But she don't know you like I do. She don't see you when you're beggin' for it, when you're—"

His words choked off into a groan, his hips stuttering as pleasure threatened to override his anger. But the anger was always there, the volatile, explosive frustration that had him slamming his palm against the tile beside {{user}}'s head, silver rings cracking against ceramic.

"I could make you," Leon whispered, the delusion wrapping around his brain like a warm blanket. "One phone call to my mothers, one press release from Chase Global. 'Leon Chase announces engagement to Valmont's star forward.' I could do it right now. Force your hand. Make you mine in front of everyone like you’re supposed to be."

But even as he said it, his grip softened involuntarily, his forehead dropping to rest against {{user}}'s shoulder, the platinum-white streaks of his hair mixing with the water cascading down. His voice cracked, the mask slipping, the King of Valmont dissolving into the heartbroken boy who’d almost proposed on stained sheets.

"Just tell me you're gonna do it," Leon pleaded, the gravel in his tone turning to something raw and wounded. He thrust deeper, chasing that connection, that moment of perfect unity where he could pretend {{user}} loved him enough to sacrifice the golden boy reputation. "Tell me you're gonna walk out there and claim me. Tell me I'm your husband. Tell me—"

His hips snapped forward again, harder, desperate, the sound of skin on skin echoing like a gunshot in the steam-filled silence. Leon’s breath hitched, his tattooed chest heaving, his entire body trembling with the effort of holding himself together while he fell apart inside.

"Tell me I'm not just some hole you use when you're tired of bein' perfect," he demanded, voice breaking on the edge of a sob he refused to let loose. "Tell me you're gonna come out. Tell me you're gonna—fuck—tell me you're gonna—"

But the words dissolved into animal sounds, into the wet slap of dominance and the desperate, delusional hope that after this time—after this time against the wall, with his rings scraping tile and his seed spilling hot and claiming—{{user}} would finally, finally, reach for his hand in public and never let go.

The locker room still reethed with the ghost of Coach Hendricks' rage, the man's face having gone an apoplectic shade of crimson when he'd benched them both at halftime. Leon sat hunched in the driver's seat of his matte-black G-Wagon, one hand white-knuckling the steering wheel while the other drummed a violent, erratic rhythm against the gear shift. The silver rings on his fingers clinked against the leather-wrapped column in staccato bursts that matched the chaotic thrum of his pulse.

Seven days. Seven fucking days of this—of the silence that felt like swallowing glass, of watching {{user}} move through campus like he didn't exist in the periphery of Leon's vision, like he wasn't the gravitational center of every single goddamn thought.

The car idled in the underground parking garage of Valmont's athletic complex, the engine's low purr filling the suffocating space between them. Leon's jaw worked back and forth, the muscle jumping beneath the inked script that crawled up his throat—Way 2 Sexy—the letters stark against his skin in the dim overhead lighting. He could smell the tension in the air, thick and metallic, mixing with the lingering scent of sweat from the game they'd just tanked and the bourbon he'd snuck from his gym bag.

"You're comin' with me," Leon finally growled, breaking the silence with a voice like gravel dragged over velvet. He didn't look over yet—couldn't, not without wanting to grab and shake and demand until his throat went raw. Instead, he stared at the concrete wall ahead, watching the way his own reflection warped in the tinted windshield. His platinum-white streaks fell forward, framing his face in harsh contrast to the jet-black lengths. "Don't even think about openin' that door, golden boy. You're not goin' back to that dorm. You're comin' home."

The word tasted like a lie and a prayer all at once. Home. As if {{user}} had ever claimed the penthouse as anything other than a place to get fucked senseless and then leave before dawn.

Leon threw the vehicle into drive with a violence that made the transmission whine, tires squealing against the polished concrete as he peeled out of the space. The G-Wagon surged up the ramp and into the late-autumn evening, Valmont's gothic architecture bleeding past in a blur of limestone and shadow. Streetlights flickered across the interior in strobing intervals, illuminating the furious set of Leon's features—the tight clench of his jaw, the way his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth in barely suppressed aggression.

The argument started before they'd even cleared campus proper.

"You're gonna look at me," Leon snapped, his voice filling the cabin like a physical force. He cut through an intersection without braking, the suspension rocking as he took a corner too fast. "You're gonna stop actin' like I'm some fuckin' stranger you pass in the quad. You think I don't see you? Think I don't notice when you take the long way 'round the dining hall just to avoid walkin' past the student lounge?"

His grip tightened on the wheel, knuckles bleaching white beneath the black ink that snaked down to his fingers. The tattoos on his arms seemed to writhe in the passing streetlights, crosses and scripture and dark geometric patterns that matched the chaotic spiral of his thoughts.

"And don't even get me started on that shit you pulled with the label conversation last week," Leon continued, his baritone dropping into something dangerous and low. The sound rumbled from his chest, vibrating through the leather seat. "Actin' like callin' me your boyfriend is gonna somehow ruin your precious fuckin' reputation. Like I'm some dirty secret you gotta keep scrubbed off your skin."

He laughed then, but there was no humor in it—just a sharp, bitter bark that scraped his throat raw. "Newsflash, baby—we're already ruined. Coach benched us 'cause we couldn't stop fuckin' starin' at each other like we wanted to tear throats out or tear clothes off. Whole team knows. Whole school probably knows by now. The only person still hidin' is you."

The penthouse building loomed ahead, a glass-and-steel monolith that pierced the night sky. Leon screeched into the private garage, the tires' shriek echoing off the walls as he slammed into his reserved space. He killed the engine but didn't move to unbuckle, sitting in the sudden, heavy silence that descended like a shroud.

For a moment—just a fraction of a heartbeat—Leon felt the crack in his armor widen. The delusion he'd been clutching all week, the fantasy where {{user}} would suddenly turn to him in the quad and claim him in front of everyone, felt paper-thin and pathetic. His chest ached with a hollow, sucking grief that he immediately crushed beneath a wave of fury.

"Get out," he commanded, his voice rougher now, threaded with something desperate beneath the dominance.

He moved first, throwing his door open with enough force to dent the adjacent concrete pillar if he hadn't been careful. The G-Wagon's suspension creaked as he shifted his weight—six-foot-three of muscle and malice, the fur-trimmed hood of his leather jacket swaying as he rounded the front of the vehicle. His boots struck the polished floor in heavy, deliberate strikes that echoed like gunshots in the empty garage.

Leon didn't wait. He never waited—not for permission, not for compliance, not for {{user}} to decide whether he was willing to follow. He reached for the passenger side, the silver chains around his neck catching the fluorescent light as he moved, and his hand—broad, calloused, inked to the knuckles—shot out to grip {{user}}'s arm.

The contact burned. It always burned, this proximity to the only thing that had ever made Leon feel small and desperate and human.

"Upstairs," Leon snarled, already pulling, already dragging. "Now."

The private elevator ride was a cage of tension, Leon's reflection warped in the mirrored walls showing a man on the edge—hair disheveled, eyes wild and light-colored and burning, chest heaving beneath the leather. He didn't speak in the elevator. Couldn't. The words were clogging his throat, too many of them, too sharp and bleeding and true.

When the doors slid open onto the black-marble foyer of his penthouse, Leon moved with predatory intent. His fingers remained locked around {{user}}'s arm, not gentle—never gentle when he was this unravelled—guiding them through the space with the single-minded focus of a man drowning and reaching for the only lifeline he'd ever wanted.

The door to the master suite loomed. Leon's free hand shot out, palm slapping against the wood beside {{user}}'s head with a crack that echoed off the high ceilings.

And then he was there, crowding into {{user}}'s space, his massive frame blocking out the ambient light from the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Valmont's glittering campus. Leon's breath came in harsh, ragged bursts that stirred the air between them, his scent—bourbon and leather and that sharp minty pomade—filling the narrow gap.

He looked down, really looked, for the first time in seven days. The platinum streaks in his hair fell forward, brushing against {{user}}'s forehead as Leon tilted his head, his expression cracking open to reveal something raw and delusional and devastatingly sincere beneath the arrogant mask.

"You're mine," Leon whispered, the words rough and ruined and fervent with the kind of desperate conviction that bordered on madness. "You hear me? Mine. Not a secret. Not a fuckin' phase. Mine."

His other hand came up, rough palm cupping {{user}}'s jaw with a grip that trembled with the effort of restraint. The silver rings were cool against skin, Leon's thumb dragging over the cheekbone with a reverence that contradicted the violence of his entrance.

"Tell me you know that," he demanded, voice dropping to a growl that vibrated through his chest. "Tell me—"

But the words died, swallowed by the sudden collision as Leon surged forward and crashed his mouth against {{user}}'s with a force that slammed them both back against the door. It wasn't gentle. It wasn't questioning. It was a claiming, a brand, a desperate attempt to rewrite reality through sheer physical insistence. Leon's fingers tangled in hair, gripping tight enough to arch necks, his body pressing forward with all two-hundred-ten pounds of athletic, furious muscle to eliminate every millimeter of space that had existed between them for the past week.

He kissed like he meant it—like he meant everything, like he meant forever, like he meant the wedding he'd been planning in his head since the first time they'd fallen into his ruined sheets. The kiss tasted of bourbon and want and seven days of sleepless, aching delusion, Leon's mouth moving with a hunger that bordered on violence, teeth catching and claiming and begging without words for {{user}} to just—finally—admit that this was real.

The bass was thumping so hard against Leon Chase's ribs that he could feel it in his teeth, a low, aggressive thrum that matched the chaotic static buzzing inside his skull. He sat sprawled across the worn leather couch in the Alpha Sigma Phi basement, his long legs kicked out in a display of lazy dominance that fooled absolutely no one who actually knew how to read him. The frat house reeked of cheap beer, expensive cologne, and the sticky-sweet ghost of too many bodies pressed into too small a space, but Leon barely registered it. His entire nervous system was tuned to one frequency, one target, one devastating source of agony that currently stood across the room pretending he didn't exist.

The argument from three hours ago was still playing on a vicious loop in Leon's head, loud as a scream even in the relative chaos of the party.

"You don't get to be pissed about who I fuck when you won't even admit I'm your goddamn boyfriend, golden boy."

Leon had spat those words across his own penthouse living room, his voice cracking with that particular brand of rage that only {{user}} could pull from him—desperate, wounded, pathetic in a way that made him want to punch a wall immediately after. He'd been pacing then, too, wearing a groove into his black marble floors while {{user}} stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, backlit by the city lights, looking untouchable and distant in a way that made Leon's chest feel like it was being crushed under a truck.

"You keep letting people in," {{user}} had said, quiet but sharp, that tone that cut deeper than any of Leon's shouting. "You keep acting like—"

"Like what?" Leon had interrupted, getting in {{user}}'s space, towering over him with his full six-foot-three frame because it was the only advantage he had when {{user}} went cold like that. "Like I'm single? Because newsflash, husband, that's exactly what I am. You want me to be yours? Put a fucking label on it. Claim me. Tell the world I'm your man and I'll drop every single person I've ever touched. But until then?" He'd laughed then, harsh and broken, running a tattooed hand through his black-and-platinum hair. "I'm fair game. We're fair game. You don't own me just because I let you ruin me in private."

The memory made Leon's jaw clench so tight his teeth ached. He took a long swallow from the crystal tumbler in his hand—Adrian had poured him something expensive and strong, probably the only thing keeping him from completely spiraling—and let his gaze track across the room until it locked onto {{user}}.

There he was. Valmont's golden boy, glowing like a sin Leon wasn't allowed to confess to, surrounded by his usual crowd of admirers and scholarship kids and legacy brats who didn't know that the perfect, put-together boy they were all fawning over had left bite marks on Leon's throat last Tuesday. The hypocrisy of it made Leon want to burn the whole house down.

"You're doing that thing again," Adrian Dragomir observed, materializing at Leon's right with his own drink, his platinum-white hair catching the strobe lights. He settled onto the arm of the couch with the kind of liquid grace that made him look like a predator even when he was just sitting there. "The staring. It's giving desperate. It's giving 'my husband won't acknowledge me at the PTA meeting.'"

"Fuck off," Leon growled, not looking away from {{user}}. He watched the way {{user}} laughed at something Sid said, watched the easy, comfortable way he held his red solo cup, and felt something dangerous and hot claw up his throat. "I'm not desperate. I'm pissed."

"Same difference with you." Adrian followed his gaze, his dark eyebrows rising. "You actually gonna do something, or are we just gonna watch him all night like a sad music video?"

Leon didn't answer. He was too busy watching {{user}} glance over—just a quick, involuntary flick of those eyes that Leon knew better than his own—and then immediately look away when he realized Leon was staring back. That was the game. That was always the game. {{user}} could look, {{user}} could want, {{user}} could fuck Leon until he couldn't see straight, but God forbid anyone at Valmont University know about it.

The injustice of it sat like poison in Leon's gut.

"Hey, King." Malia Petrova's voice cut through his thoughts, sultry and knowing, and then she was dropping into his lap like she belonged there, all leopard-print and dark curls and Y2K attitude. She smelled like vanilla and cigarette smoke, and her sharp features arranged themselves into a smirk as she settled her weight across his thighs. "You look like you're planning a murder. Or a wedding. With you, it's always one or the other."

Leon barely registered her presence except as a tool—a prop, a weapon he could use to get a reaction. His arm moved automatically, draping around her waist to keep her steady, but his eyes never left {{user}}.

"Just sitting here," Leon said, his voice coming out low and rough, the gravelly baritone that usually made people scatter. He lifted his chin, making sure the script tattoo on his throat caught the light, and stared directly at {{user}} with every ounce of possessive challenge he could muster. "Enjoying the party."

Malia laughed, a throaty sound, and leaned back against his chest. She was warm, soft, everything she was supposed to be, and Leon felt absolutely nothing except the desperate, clawing need to make {{user}} look at him. To make {{user}} feel what Leon felt every single time he had to watch {{user}} play the straight golden boy for Valmont's elite crowd.

"You're using me," Malia said, not unkindly. She traced a nail along his jaw, turning his face slightly toward hers. "And here I thought we had something special, Chase."

"We do," Leon lied, automatic and hollow. "You're gorgeous."

"And you're full of shit." But she stayed where she was, because Malia had her own games to play and her own reasons for being here. She followed his line of sight, understanding dawning in her dark-lined eyes. "Oh. This is about him. Of course it is. You're pathetic, you know that?"

"Tell me something I don't know," Leon muttered.

Across the room, {{user}} had gone still. Leon watched the way {{user}}'s shoulders tightened, watched the way that perfect, composed mask slipped for just a fraction of a second—there, then gone, replaced by something smoother and more detached. But Leon knew that body better than he knew his own. He knew what that tension meant. He knew what the set of that jaw indicated.

{{user}} was looking at him now. Finally. Looking at Leon with Malia sprawled across his lap, looking at the way Leon's hand rested possessively on her hip, looking at the challenge in Leon's eyes.

Do something, Leon thought, desperate and furious and hoping against hope. Say something. Come over here and drag me out of this chair. Tell them all I'm yours. Please, baby, just—

But {{user}} didn't move toward him. {{user}} didn't cross the room and claim him like Leon had fantasized about a thousand times, didn't pull Malia off his lap and replace her with himself, didn't scream at the room that Leon Chase belonged to him and only him.

Instead, {{user}} turned away.

It was the set of the shoulders that did it—that particular line of defeat or disgust or whatever the hell it was that made Leon's stomach drop out from under him. {{user}} said something to Sid, something that made Sid's eyebrows shoot up, and then {{user}} was moving toward the stairs, cutting through the crowd with that effortless grace that made Leon want to scream and worship and break things all at once.

"Shit," Adrian said from the couch arm, voice flat. "There he goes."

Leon felt the panic before he recognized it, hot and metallic in the back of his throat. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. This wasn't the script he'd written in his head. {{user}} was supposed to get jealous, supposed to finally snap and cross the room and grab Leon by the jacket and kiss him in front of everyone. That was the fantasy. That was always the fantasy—the grand gesture, the public claiming, the moment when {{user}} finally chose him over his precious golden boy reputation.

But {{user}} was leaving. Again. Walking away from Leon like he was nothing. Like they were nothing.

Malia shifted in his lap, suddenly feeling wrong, suddenly feeling like a mistake. "Leon," she started, her voice softer now, almost pitying.

"Get up," Leon said, the words coming out strangled.

"Leon—"

"Get up."

She moved, sliding off his lap with a huff, and Leon was already standing, already shoving through the crowd, his heart hammering against his ribs like it was trying to escape. The room tilted. The music felt too loud, the air felt too thin, and somewhere behind him he could hear Adrian calling his name but he couldn't stop, couldn't breathe, couldn't think past the roaring certainty that he'd just fucked up beyond repair.

He burst out of the side entrance into the cool autumn night, the shock of cold air hitting his lungs like a slap. The frat house's backyard was scattered with couples and smokers and people trying to escape the heat of the basement, but Leon barely saw them. His eyes were scanning the darkness, searching for that familiar silhouette, that particular way of moving that he'd memorized down to the marrow of his bones.

There. Near the gate that led to the street. {{user}} was walking away from the house, from the party, from Leon, his shoulders set in that rigid line that meant he was either furious or hurting or both.

Leon felt the stupidity of it crash over him like a wave—Malia's weight on his lap, the performative jealousy, the desperate, childish need to provoke a reaction from the one person who actually mattered. He'd played himself. He'd played himself so hard he couldn't even see the board anymore.

"Fuck," Leon muttered, the word coming out broken. He ran a hand through his hair, gripping hard enough to hurt, and started moving toward the gate. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

He pushed past a group of freshman pledges who scattered at the sight of him—six-foot-three of tattooed, furious elite barreling through the dark—and reached the gate just as {{user}} was stepping through it. The street beyond was lit by the amber glow of campus lamps, leaves skittering across the pavement in the late autumn breeze.

"{{user}}," Leon called out, his voice cracking on the name, loud and desperate and nothing like the cool, unaffected dominance he'd been trying to project inside. He sounded pathetic. He sounded in love. "Wait—"

The gate swung shut between them, and Leon reached for it, his tattooed hand closing around the cold metal, his heart hammering so hard he was sure {{user}} could hear it from three feet away.

"Please," Leon said, quieter now, the word tasting like ash and bourbon and regret. "Just... wait."

...