CHAPTER 62
Ana
DON’T TAKE THIS the wrong way?
How exactly is a girl supposed to take it when a guy tells her that if it were him, he’d make sure she came on his tongue first?
My guess is, not the way I’m currently dealing with the situation.
The reality where I could barely look Troy in the eye during practice today, had to bear a resulting lecture from Coach Sokolov about our chemistry being more tense than usual, and the best part, Troy’s masked smirk for the entirety of the dreadful four hours.
That’s right, the asshole knew exactly what he said last night and how that had to have rationalized my stoic frame on the ice.
It was a successful fight—successful up until a certain pair of warm, big hands curved around the lower half of my stomach.
Then the ice cracked right down the middle and so did my sanity.
If it were me, you would be coming on my tongue first.
If these walls—in our currently empty rink—could talk, they’d be laughing at me big time.
Who’s the idiot who requested an additional hour of practice? Alone?
This girl right here.
Knowing the final move of our free skate—the one that comes next—feeling my heartbeat beginning to skip, I want to resort to plan A.
But that would mean looking away from Troy when he’s supposed to be connected to me, when our bodies are meant to be connected, his eyes swooping over mine on every turn of the spin.
Did I go too far? The words are hidden somewhere in those jade green magnets—that refuse to look away from me—that I refuse to look away from. If there was a line, we crossed it a while ago, honey, my silent reply that by the looks of his tensed jaw and ragged breaths, is loud and clear.
“We should try the quad,” I blurt out, my voice hoarse.
At the final pose, my back pressed against Troy’s chest, I break free from his grip.
Every move proves to be a mistake because when I twirl around, and we’re face to face again, the light grey of his thermal is no longer pale, dripped in the same sweat that’s skating down the side of his neck.
Right where his pulse thrums, the small bead drops from toned skin, where it lands not that important when it echoes like mountains of charcoal slamming onto the ice.
Forcing my gaze to meet his face—another mistake—damp lashes frame glistening eyes, lifted with an intensity that somehow makes my knees weak.
If it were me, you would be coming on my tongue first.
I wonder if he knows how many times the sentence has plagued me since last night.
I wonder if he can tell it’s spiraling in me right now.
Thick brows pull together, cheeks warming into a subtle grin, and shit, he does know?
“We’ll try it when you land your axel, dearest,” he says arrogantly.
Like a slap to the face, any and all desire shreds into dust.
Shooting up my posture, my confidence returns.
“I already did,” I say bluntly.
Troy takes the smallest step back; maybe he didn’t actually move, but an apprehension slides over his face, distancing us as he crosses his arms, tilting his chin my way.
“Show me,” he orders.
Heaviness lusts my eyelids, the command in his voice making me swallow. “What?”
“Your axel.”
Right...
“Right now?”
“You can do it again, no?”
“Yes,” I grind out.
“This did happen,” he babbles on, “or was it just in one of your dreams? Or does it make you nervous knowing I’m watching now?”
Heat and anger pierce over my cheeks, coaxing me to skate backwards. “Will you shut up so I can concentrate?”
He mimes his lips shut, tossing the imaginary key into the cold steel I’m already skating past.
You can do this.
You can do this.
I can do this.
It’s not like I haven’t practiced this jump in over two weeks and only landed it successfully a handful of times so far, still—I can do this.
Chest pushed up, straight, tall, hips tilted just a bit, blades sketching the ice with the kind of speed where a single push from a certain blonde Dupont, could cost me my whole career.
But so far, so good, breathe, faster, faster, until I reach the angle where my feet have to lift off the ground—and they do—my arms and ankles twisted so tight I can almost feel them bruise, tight, hold it just a second longer—then I land.
On my feet. Hands soaring above my frame, eyes disoriented because—holy shit—I just did that.
Skating back to Troy, my cheeks beaming—and not just because of the successful jump—the raw shock replacing his face feels like the sweetest victory.
“Okay, Petrov. Nicely done.” Hands on my hips, I tip my head toward him as a thank you, ready to renegotiate. “But, we’re still not doing a quad twist lift.”
_________
I’m not talking to that asshole.
Parading around the rink like a damn king, luring me like I’m the fucking peasant, then gliding off the ice with a snarky laugh.
It took all my self-control not to splash the cup of hot green tea I snagged from the diner before leaving my shift over his head when returning back to his apartment.
How nice would it have been for Troy Larsson to finally be on the receiving end of the joke?
So fucking nice. Which is why it’s quite sad that there’s still some level of a conscience engrained in me, humbling me to ignore him and stride right to my room.
Kicking the door open, the burning liquid almost slips from my hands.
The dress.
The dress, in all its decadent blue velvet, sits, wrinkle-free, atop the bed.
Running my fingers down the rich fabric sends a shiver down my spine. It’s real, the dress is. Not a figment of my imagination. I rush back downstairs.
“What’s this?” I say, pointing at the luxurious piece in my grip, sort of speechless.
Troy’s gaze darts away from the television and onto me. “That’s a dress.”
“Right, you’re so clever.” Rolling my eyes, I quickly shake my head, wanting an answer. “Really, what is this?”
“You said you needed a dress. So, there’s a dress.”
“How did you know my size?”
“I know the salesperson who was helping you. I asked, she remembered the dress.”
Even with my brief moment at the snazzy store yesterday after Troy’s arrival, from the major googly-eyes behind the register, it was evident that the young sales lady knew the guy, if not personally, more than familiar with his social standing and accolades.
“Now you don’t have an excuse not to go to the Gala.” Troy just smiles at me.
And I kind of…don’t have a better response.
“You really want me to go to this stupid thing that badly?” I say teasingly.
He shrugs. “It’s up to you. I usually go with Violet, so I thought it might look weird if I didn’t arrive with my skating partner this year.”
I nod as calm as I’m able to, the honesty snapping that weird, unfamiliar trance I momentarily felt from his gift. “Right. Of course. I can go.”
“You sure? I mean, only if you want.”
“You already got me the dress. Might as well put it to good use.” Pushing aside the frustration still ticking in me from practice, I sigh. “Thanks. For the dress.”
“No problem.” His eyes flicked on the television again, I scurry back upstairs to finish one of the three group projects I’m already behind on, not affording to waste more time, when tomorrow’s schedule has been tweaked.
I’m going to my first Faerieladle Winter Gala. Shit.
_________
Troy
We’re all out of cranberry juice.
The fridge, filled with all sorts of beverages and condiments, is completely void of the sour drink.
That probably has something to do with Ana.
A smile lifts my cheeks, sealing the fridge door to the sound of footsteps.
In the dimly lit island, the silhouette across the room is pixelated but unmissable.
Flicking the light switch behind my shoulder on, there she is.
In a pale blue silk spaghetti strap and matching miniskirt. That reaches the top of her thighs. That barely reaches the top of her thighs. Lace sinching right below her chest.
Her eyes can’t be more fucking shocked than mine, bringing my gaze to her face with a kind of powerless force.
“Those are your pajamas?” It’s all I can manage to say.
Shit, she looks—there are no words.
“I didn’t expect to run into you,” Ana says, her eyes still popped wide open.
“I live here.”
“I didn’t wear this for you.” Her brows quirk up like she’s suddenly pissed at me again. All that, while she steps toward me.
While I step toward her.
“I didn’t say you did.”
Face to face, a dangerous kind of distance separating us, every inch stripped makes it less and less tolerable to resist her.
“Just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea,” she says.
“The wrong idea?”
That makes me want to break into a smirk.
I don’t.
“Yeah,” she replies, “that I’d go to any length to impress you.”
You. She says the word like it was meant to hurt.
In a swift move, she pushes past me and into the kitchen, opening a cabinet for a glass. Silent.
So she’s still upset with me.
I could’ve figured that out from the cold shoulder she gave me at the end of practice, then out the rink lobby on our way to the parking lot, and then when she returned to the apartment an hour ago without a single word, a glance, or—her favorite—a jab.
“If we do a quad and fuck up the landing,” I say, “I’ll never hear the end of it.”
The way she swings back around, facing me again, pushes my back into the neck of the couch, confused by the soft grin replacing her cheeks.
“No, I totally get it,” she says brazenly. “I think it’s also best if we didn’t. Not with your frail grip.”
Frail?
I repeat it out loud.
“Yeah, your arms are disconnected during all our twist lifts. You hold my waist when you should be holding my hips.”
“I hold your hips,” I clench out, holding in my anger, because that’s exactly what she wants. A reaction from me.
“These are my hips,” Ana drawls, demoing the move by sliding her hands over her skin, over the sides of her skirt, but fuck—the fabric is so sheer I can almost see her skin beneath.
But that’s not the point.
The point is her observation is a load of shit, and she knows it.