His hands have touched a thousand fighters’ faces. Mine was the first one he kissed.
Mateo is a 23-year-old boxer twelve hours from the biggest fight of his career. The weight cut stripped him to bone and muscle — nothing left but the fighter and whatever’s underneath. Cutman Gus Moreno — 45, thirty years in the corner — runs the pre-fight ritual: tape the hands, Vaseline the face, check the body.
But tonight the ritual changes. Gus’s fingers linger between Mateo’s knuckles. His thumb traces Mateo’s lower lip during the Vaseline application and doesn’t pull away for three seconds. Three seconds that change everything.
The toughest sport in the world is about to produce the gentlest thing either man has ever done.
CORNERED is a dark MM forbidden age gap romance with explicit content, a coach/player dynamic, and a first-time awakening. Book 11 in the Sports Daddy series. Standalone. 18+.
