CHAPTER 71
Ana
ONLY AN HOUR back from the banquet, and we’ve managed to repeat similar activities to those performed earlier.
I really don’t fucking know anymore.
Troy and I, we make no sense.
But somehow, in the bedroom, and I forget about the very concept of logic.
Take now for instance. Both showered, after some more similar activities, and we’re both on our sides, facing each other, still naked, laying in his bed—I’m still laying in his bed—the actual fuck.
“You like what you see?” He smirks smugly.
And apparently also staring down at his perfect body.
“It pisses me off,” I grumble. “You know you have a nice cock.”
The grin he gives me makes my stomach erupt with stupid butterflies.
I hate it.
“Aw, you complimented me,” he says, batting his eyes very annoyingly.
“While we’re ogling, you have the prettiest pussy.
” I suck out a breath at the way he said that, like it was a subtle compliment and not, well, what it was.
Without realizing it, my eyes start to track the index finger that he traces down my body.
I suck in a breath when it lands on my clit.
“It’s so soft.” Touch. “So warm.” Tap. “So sweet.” Scratch.
“Always so ready to be fucked by me.” Rub.
Oh my God.
And it’s happening again.
Logic. Boom. Gone.
When a couple of his fingers disappear into me, I force myself not to look, having learned that when I watch him fuck me, it only makes everything worse, as in I spiral out of control and come in seconds.
So I decide to speak.
Yeah, that usually kills the mood.
“That day,” I say, clearing my voice. “When you came over to our place, when Lucy let you in. I was thinking about you.”
“You were?” he says like the wiseass who already knew the truth.
I pinch his shoulder.
“I also did say your name,” I admit. “Out loud.”
“So it was good?”
“Yes.”
“But this is better, yeah?”
“Mmmm,” I moan out when he curls three of his fingers, though just for a moment.
“Since we’re confessing,” he says. “I didn’t lie. I’ve jerked off to your skates before. And after every single one of our rehearsals, and every night since you’ve been staying here, I’d picture you, wondering if you were touching yourself. Also thinking about me.”
In a mess of whimpers and pleasure, while hearing his naughty confessions about me, I rest my face along my elbow, nearly crying out when Troy removes all his fingers from my core. “I was so close,” I whine.
“I know, baby.” My thighs stick together when he lifts himself up, his hard cock jutting toward his stomach, watering my mouth. “But I want you to come on my cock.”
See, this is where logic should tell me no.
Except, I spring up, just as eager at the idea, a second before he’s sliding on a fresh condom and I’m impaling my pussy over his length, gasping at how good this feels.
How easy it’s been making it for me to forget.
I realize that fact, but when I do, I shake off the feeling of discomfort it brings me.
Instead I focus on the hot guy who I’m about to ride into oblivion, and it works because a few messy bounces and hip thrusts later, our groans and releases mask everything I’ve always wanted to forget.
_________
Troy
“My biggest pet peeve?”
I laugh not only at the question but even more at the fact that we’ve been asking each other the most random shit on the planet for the past hour, even though it’s past midnight and we should both go to bed soon with having practice tomorrow.
Technically, we are in bed—my bed—and the reality still hasn’t sunk in yet.
None of it has, actually.
As good as the sex has been—the best sex of my whole fucking life—I think I prefer this even more.
Okay, maybe equally, they’re equal.
And I know that makes me sound like a pretentious douche but going almost twenty years with throwing insults at your supposed skating rival and now you’re whispering nonsense in bed—it feels pretty fucking good.
So I reply to the silly question, knowing the answer like the back of my hand.
“When people mispronounce your name as An-uh,” I reply.
Ana throws her head back into her pillow. “That’s because it’s pronounced as Uh-nuh. It’s simple enough.”
I chuckle, then feel the tightness reach my throat again. But know that it shouldn’t. Not when this is just sex.
Not when she decided for us that this would be just sex.
“Ana?” I say, making my first mistake.
She flips toward me, the heat of her bare skin brushing against mine, sending me to fucking space itself.
“Yeah?” she says sleepily.
Just this once, I push my luck. Craving to delve into her favorite pastimes, pieces of her that never left me even when she did.
“The shapes you used to doodle over your notebook,” I ask simply because I always wondered about this in middle school, “would you choose butterflies or stars, if it came down to it?”
“A star in the shape of a butterfly,” she says without missing a beat.
And I chuckle at the conviction in her voice.
“Stars are always around, but butterflies aren’t,” she reflects, her eyes glazed on mine. “If you blink, you might miss the butterfly. So I’d say a star to the outside world and a butterfly to myself.”
The alphabet is filled with letters that create endless words. Words that make complete sentences. Yet I lay here, gaping at this girl, speechless.
“What?” Ana says, cocking a brow at me.
“You’re a fascinating character, Petrov,” I marvel.
“Goodnight,” she scoffs out, twisting around to her other side.
I shut off the lamp on my nightstand, staring at the ceiling as darkness paints over the room.
And when I finally close my eyes, I see a sky full of butterfly-shaped stars that spell out her name.
_________
Ana strolls into the kitchen, her waves dancing around her shoulders, wearing the most relaxed expression.
The reminders of yesterday afternoon and last night sting my chest with pride.
“Wow,” she yawns out. “Your bathtub’s heavenly.”
My what?
Then it occurs to me that she’s referring to the one in the guest room.
My back begins to strain.
“Glad you like it,” I say, my jaw clenched, hoping that helps keep the pain still.
“Why don’t you have one?” Ana rolls back her shoulders lazily, stretching them as she picks up a slice of her favorite burnt toast. “Does it cost like two billion dollars or something, and your one billion just didn’t cut it?” she jokes, while my muscles only tense up more.
“Uh, I’m more of a shower person.” I offer a trepid smile.
“Ah, okay. If you ever change your mind, you can borrow mine,” she says, her voice teasing, not picking up on any of my discomfort.
I guess that’s good, though. The question was lighthearted enough.
Why don’t you have one?
The answer to that question, however—dark.
It reminds me of my dead mother, who I gripped onto with dear life as her body laid still, inside of a bathtub.
Not that I was a bathtub connoisseur before that, but at least the home appliance wasn’t attached to an overwhelmingly traumatic experience.
My bathroom came with one when I first bought the place, which I quickly had removed. The guest room also had one, and since I assumed I’d hardly go in there, I decided to just leave it be.
In fact, seeing Ana’s sated grin this morning is the only silver lining in keeping the item in my apartment; the morbid blast from the past has the metal hanging by a thread.
“Hey, so I had this idea,” she says.
Whatever it is, I’m glad we’ve moved on from the previous topic.
“Let’s hear it,” I say.
“I know you don’t want us to do a quad twist lift.
I’m fine with that, unless you want to reconsider?
” I stare at her like that’s not an option, earning myself a deep eye-roll.
“Anyway, I was thinking we could add another jump in our free skate and make it into a medley the way our short program is, but then debut that performance at the Winter Olympics. If we make it.”
I try and process the small jumble of words that hint a shit ton of extra hours of practice and stress that we both don’t need.
Then I look at her face, the one where I could never say no to unless I knew a yes could potentially hurt her. The quad twist lift is stupid and thoughtless.
“Oh,” she adds quickly, “and we will have different costumes as well but that’s fine because I’ll just save my main blue dress that I got for this edited version.
And we can move our extra practice to at night.
I thought that would be smart so that others wouldn’t see the routine, so it would like, I don’t know, be a surprise? ”
Somewhere in the middle of all of this, even while considering her first question, a whole bunch of other terms were just thrown in there.
And after weighing each of them over I actually say, “Okay.”