Chapter 20
MATEO
The rink is empty.
Just the two of us and Brita on the laptop propped against the boards, her voice tinny through the speaker, her eyes seeing everything even through a screen.
I step onto the ice and immediately feel wrong in a way I can’t quite name. She’s watching me circle and I can feel the difference between how I move and how she moves. I move like a hockey player, she moves like a dancer. We couldn’t be further apart.
“You sure about this?” I ask, stopping in front of her.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t.”
She pushes off and lets me follow.
Brita’s voice comes through the laptop. “Basic pair spin first. Elida, you know the position. Mateo - you’re the base. She sets the axis. You hold her steady.”
I glance at Elida. “Hold her where?”
“Here.” She takes my hand and places it on her hip. My other hand goes to her lower back. Her jacket is thin - I’m way too aware of her body. “You’re not spinning me. You’re giving me a center to spin around.”
“And if I mess up?”
“You won’t. You’re solid. I’ve watched you brace against bigger guys at the boards. This is easier than that.”
“You’ve watched me,” I say, raising one eyebrow suggestively.
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
We spin - her leading, me following, and I find the right amount of pressure. She says faster and I match her. She says tighter and I pull her in, and then her blade leaves the ice and she’s spinning around me with one leg extended and her arms out. All I need to do is hold her without wobbling.
Okay, I think. I can do this.
“Lift next,” Brita says. “Elida initiates. Mateo, you catch and hold.”
She skates backward, pulls me toward her by the wrists, and jumps.
My hands lock under her thighs. She wraps her arms around my neck and suddenly she’s above me, looking down, and her face is - I don’t have a word for her face right now. Surprised, maybe. Reassessing.
I can feel the tension she’s keeping in her shoulders and core, ready to correct for mistakes I haven’t made. She’s bracing against me the same way she’s been bracing against me since she first arrived, holding something back.
I don’t say any of that.
I wait.
And slowly, deliberately, she lets go.
Her full weight drops into my hands and something shifts between us in that moment, which has nothing to do with the lift.
Brita runs us through the whole sequence twice. On the second run she’s different - she stops managing the space between us. She skates and I follow her. It feels natural.
I reach over and take her hand, ready for the next element of the routine, and my thumb moves across her knuckles once.
“Last element,” Brita says. “Death spiral. Elida, you know the position. Mateo - you’re the anchor. Don’t let her fall.”
I look at Elida. “I won’t.”
She skates backward, takes my hand, and leans.
Her body goes horizontal. Her hair brushes the ice. Her blade carves a wide perfect circle around me and I’m the fixed point of it - even I can see that her form is both flawless and fearless - and none of it works if I let go.
My arm stays locked. My grip stays firm.
Her eyes are closed. Almost like she’s decided, somewhere in the last hour on this ice, that she doesn’t need to do the math anymore.
She trusts me.
The spiral ends. I pull her up and she doesn’t stumble - she lands softly against my chest, both of us breathing hard. She’s looking up at me and her hands are still on my arms and mine are still at her waist.
“Good,” Brita says, from the laptop. “Very good. I think that’s enough for today.”
ELIDA
I skate over to the boards and flip the laptop toward me. Brita’s face fills the screen.
“Good session. Really good. I’ll send through my notes tonight.”
“Thanks. Talk soon.”
The screen goes dark. I close the laptop, set it on the bench, and turn back to the ice.
Mateo hasn’t moved.
He’s standing at center ice, hands loose at his sides, watching me. And something in his eyes makes me catch my breath.
I skate toward him slowly. He doesn’t move toward me. He lets me come to him.
When I’m close enough to see the cold flush on his cheeks, the way his chest is still moving a little too fast, I stop.
“We should probably-” I start.
“Probably.”
Neither of us finishes.
“I’m leaving soon,” I say.
“I know.”
“So, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It always mattered, Elida.”
I don’t have an answer for that. I grab the front of his training jersey and pull.
The kiss isn’t gentle. It’s teeth and tongue and his hand fisting in my hair, tilting my head back so he can bite my lower lip.
I gasp into his mouth and he swallows it.
His other hand slides down my back, grabs my ass and pulls me against him.
I can feel how hard he is through both our layers and I moan.
I’ve been pretending not to want this for so long and I’m so fucking tired of pretending.
“I’ve missed this,” he says against my mouth.
I pull his head back by his hair. His eyes are dark. “Say it again.”
“I’ve missed you.”
I kiss him harder. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it.”
“Neither have I.” His hands grip my thighs, lift. “Every night. Every time you looked at me and pretended you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t pretending. I was trying.”
“Trying what?”
“Not to want you.”
He laughs - low and rough. “How’d that work out?”
I answer by jumping. He catches me without thinking and I wrap my legs around his waist. I can feel him through his pants, against the thin layer of my leggings, and I grind down without meaning to. He groans.
“Fuck, Elida.”
“Then do something about it.”
He’s already walking us toward the locker room.
The door swings shut behind us. He sets me on the bench and I pull him down by the neck and kiss him until we’re both breathless.
Finally, he draws back.
“You’re really leaving.”
“In a few weeks.”
“We don’t have much time.”
“No,” I agree. “We don’t.”
He pulls my jacket off. Then my base layer. His fingers are quick and sure. My sports bra goes next and his eyes drop to my chest. He makes a low sound before his mouth follows.
He sucks one nipple hard and I arch into him, my fingers digging into his shoulders. His hand cups my other breast, thumb rubbing rough circles, and I can feel myself getting wetter with every pull of his mouth.
“Mateo-”
“Shh.” He switches sides, bites down gently, then soothes with his tongue. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I need to do this before I leave.”
He stands and pulls his jersey over his head.
His chest is bare and pale with a trail of dark hair disappearing into his pants.
I reach for his belt and he lets me. My fingers fumble - I’m shaking - but then the buckle comes loose and I’m pulling his zipper down and pushing his pants and boxers off his hips.
I wrap my hand around him and he hisses. “Elida.”
“I’ve thought about this,” I say. “Every single day.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve thought about your hands on me. Your mouth. The way you feel inside me.” I squeeze slightly and he groans, drops his forehead to mine. “I’ve made myself come thinking about it.”
“Fuck.”
“Tell me you haven’t.”
“I have.” His voice is ragged.
I kiss him again.
He pushes me back onto the bench. He’s not gentle. My shoulders hit the lockers behind me and I don’t care. He pulls my leggings and underwear off in one rough yank and then he’s between my legs, spreading me open with his knees, looking down at where I’m wet and ready.
“So wet,” he says.
“That’s your fault.”
He gives me a wild grin. “Good.”
He leans down and licks me. Just once. I gasp and my hips buck and he does it again, slower this time, like he’s tasting something he’s been craving.
“I’ve missed your taste,” he says against me.
“Then don’t stop.”
He doesn’t. His tongue circles my clit, his fingers push inside me, curling exactly the way I like. I grab his hair and hold him there and I can hear myself making sounds I don’t recognize.
“I’m close,” I say.
He pulls back. “Not yet.”
“Mateo.”
He crawls up my body, lines himself up, and pushes inside me in one slow, thick stroke.
I forget how to breathe.
It’s a kind of perfect I haven’t felt since the last time. He stays there for a second, both of us frozen, his forehead pressed to mine.
“Oh, fuck,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” he breathes.
Then he moves.
It’s rough from the first thrust. No warm-up, no gentleness. He fucks me hard and deep, the bench rocking beneath us, my back scraping against the lockers with every push. I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him deeper and he groans my name.
“Harder,” I say.
His hand slides under my ass, tilts my hips up, and suddenly he’s hitting something inside me that makes my vision blur.
“There,” I gasp. “Right there - don’t stop-”
He doesn’t stop. Sweat slicks his back under my hands. His breathing is ragged. I dig my nails in and he moans.
“Come for me,” he says. “I want to feel you come around me.”
“I’m trying-”
“No.” He slows down, just for a second, just long enough to torture me. “You’re holding back. Don’t. Let go.”
His face is flushed. He looks wrecked and wild and like he wants to devour me.
“I’m leaving,” I say, again, pointlessly.
“I know. Nothing matters except right now.” He drives into me, deep and slow. “You and me. Let go, Elida.”
And I do.
I shatter around him - my back arching, my entire body clenching and releasing and clenching again. He keeps thrusting through it, riding it out, and the sensation is almost too much but I don’t want him to stop.
When I come back to myself, he’s still moving. Still hard. Still watching my face.
“Don’t stop,” I say.
“I won’t.”
He pulls out, flips me onto my stomach, and enters me from behind in one motion. I cry out - surprised and overwhelmed - and he leans over me, his chest against my back, his mouth at my ear.
“You feel so fucking good,” he says.
“So do you.”
He fucks me again like that. Faster. One hand grips my hip hard enough to bruise. The other slides around to my front, finds my clit, rubs in rough circles. I’m already close again - too close - and he knows it.
“Come with me,” he says.
“Keep talking to me.”
“I’ve wanted this every second since I first saw you. Every practice. Every time you looked at me like you wanted to kill me-”
“Maybe I just wanted to fuck you.”
“Obviously.” He laughs. “Same thing with you.”
I come again - harder this time, my face pressed into the bench. He follows right after, his teeth sinking into my shoulder to muffle his own groan.
We stay like that for a long moment. Him inside me. Both of us shaking.
Then he pulls out slowly and I feel the mess of it slide down my thigh. I don’t care. I roll over and look at him - flushed, sweaty, his hair a disaster.
He leans down and kisses me. Soft this time.
Then he rests his forehead against mine.
“So,” he says. “Sweden.”
Neither of us says what happens then.
Right now, this is enough. It has to be.