Chapter 64: Parallel Hours

The change on the court was immediate and absolute.

From the morning after Elena made her final promise, both teams arrived early and stayed late. There were no more half-hearted drills. No more phones on the sideline. No more players leaning against the wall waiting for the next reward cycle. Every possession was contested. Every rebound was fought for with full bodies. Andrew and Tim still matched each other with open rivalry, but the personal edge had been redirected into something larger. The entire roster now moved with the same single-minded focus.

Win the tournament, and every one of them would finally get to fuck their coach.

Lose, and the entire system ended forever.

Elena watched the transformation with a mixture of satisfaction and quiet unease. She ran the practices with sharper demands than before, correcting footwork, forcing extra sprints, and refusing to let anyone ease off. The players absorbed every instruction without complaint. The daily physical rewards were gone, replaced by a single, massive incentive that sat at the end of the week like a fixed point on the horizon. Elena could feel the weight of that promise every time twelve pairs of eyes followed her across the court. She had offered them the one boundary she had never crossed. Now they were training like their lives depended on collecting it.

While Elena spent her late afternoons and evenings inside the sports complex, another routine continued in parallel across town.

Ana had learned Elena's coaching schedule down to the hour.

Every day after her own classes ended, she waited until she was certain Elena would already be at the gym. Then she took a cab to the house. Edward was always home by then. The hospital had been lighter on late shifts that week, and he had started arranging his schedule around the same window. By the time Ana's knock sounded on the door, he was already waiting.

They rarely wasted time with conversation.

The moment the door closed behind her, hands were already under clothes. They fucked in the living room on the first day of the new week, Ana bent over the arm of the couch while Edward took her from behind with deep, steady strokes. The next day it was the kitchen counter. The day after that they barely made it past the entrance hall before Ana was on her knees and then on her back on the floor. Each afternoon carried the same urgency. Elena's absence had become a reliable, recurring gift, and both of them used it without restraint.

Ana grew bolder with every visit.

On the fourth day she arrived already wet, pushed Edward onto the couch, and rode him with her hands braced on his chest, grinding down until she came with a broken sound she tried to muffle against his shoulder. Edward finished inside her minutes later, gripping her hips hard enough to leave faint marks. They stayed joined for a long moment afterward, breathing hard, the quiet house wrapping around them like a shared secret.

Sometimes the window was long enough that they went more than once.

Edward would recover while Ana lay against him, tracing idle patterns on his skin, and then they would start again — slower the second time, more deliberate, as if trying to stretch the stolen hours as far as they would go. They used the guest room when they wanted a bed. They used the shower once, the water running over both of them while Edward fucked her against the tiled wall. The risk of Elena returning early never fully left the air, but the more times they got away with it, the thinner that caution became.

Elena's new coaching demands made the secrecy almost effortless.

She came home later each evening, her body carrying the fatigue of long practices and the constant, low-level tension of managing twelve highly motivated young men who were now training for the right to have her. Most nights she walked through the door already exhausted. She would eat something quick, shower, and go straight to bed. On the nights Ana had stayed, the guest room door remained closed. Elena never opened it. She assumed the room was empty. She never checked.

Ana learned to listen for the sound of Elena's car in the driveway. When it came, she would slip into the guest room if she wasn't already there, pull the covers up, and stay silent. Edward would move to the living room or the bedroom, composing himself into the picture of a husband who had simply been home alone. Elena would pass through the house without suspicion, too tired from the gym to notice the faint scent of sex that still clung to the air or the slightly too-neat arrangement of cushions on the couch.

They were never caught.

The pattern held through the entire week of intensified practice. While Elena drove her team toward the tournament with the weight of her ultimate promise hanging over every drill, Edward and Ana continued to use the empty house as their private stage. Each day the sex grew a little more confident, a little less rushed. Ana stopped bothering to fully dress again before Elena's expected return. Edward stopped checking the window as often. The more successful the secrecy became, the more both of them leaned into it.

On the evening before the tournament, Ana arrived earlier than usual. Elena was scheduled for an extended final practice and wouldn't be home until late. Edward met her at the door. They didn't speak. He pulled her inside, shut the door, and had her against it within seconds, one hand under her dress, the other tangled in her hair. Ana moaned into his mouth as he pushed her underwear aside and entered her in one smooth thrust. They fucked right there in the entrance hall, standing, urgent, the possibility of discovery reduced to a distant background hum that only made the heat sharper.

Afterward Ana rested her forehead against his shoulder, still breathing hard.

"She's going to be at that gym until late," she murmured.

Edward's hand stroked slowly down her back. "I know."

Neither of them said what they were both thinking — that the tournament was the next day, that Elena's entire focus was locked on the twelve young men who were training for the right to take the final boundary she had never given anyone, and that for one more night the house belonged completely to the two of them.

Ana stayed until the early hours of the morning.

When she finally slipped out, the guest room looked untouched, the living room restored to ordinary order, and Edward was already in bed on his side of the mattress. Elena came home sometime after that, exhausted from the final practice, and went straight to sleep without turning on more lights than necessary.

The parallel lives continued without collision.

On one side of the city, twelve young men trained like the coming tournament was the only thing that mattered, driven by the promise that victory would finally let every one of them fuck their coach.

On the other side, Edward and Ana kept taking what they wanted in the quiet hours of an empty house, still untouched by consequence.

The tournament was less than a day away.

End of Chapter 64

Read 30+ chapters ahead, unlock exclusive stories, and get early access to new content.

patreon.com/maddy32