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Hayden held my face between his hands as he devoured my kiss, my hands slid around his hips. His hands quickly shifted to my chest and I released a little sigh. My stomach tightened and my heart jumped into my throat at the thought of what he—we—would do next. His fingers ran over the sides of my breasts, and my fingertips plunged into the waistband of his sweats and pushed them down just a bit so I could feel how low the V dipped.
He broke the kiss and stepped back.
“No, no more,” he panted. My lips were swollen and my breath heavy when he pulled away. “I don’t know what I was thinking. This is a big no for our gym. If any coach found out, we could get in a whole lot of trouble. We don’t need that.”
Overwhelmed with lust, I didn’t take a moment to stop and think about how this could affect us down the line. Looking at the ground, I apologized.
“Hey, there’s nothing to be sorry about, okay? I liked kissing you and, under different circumstances, maybe we would’ve kissed longer, but we have bigger things to focus on.” He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a ragged breath. “Let’s get those hands fixed for you.”
Turning my hands over, I chuckled remorsefully at the blisters. “You know, I forgot my hands hurt. You took the pain away for a bit.”
The dimples in his cheeks appeared and his eyes glistened. My stomach was full of butterflies and my heart pounded in my chest.
Hayden was so damn cute.
Opening the package, he took out the ointment and uncapped it. He squeezed a small amount on his fingers. “I’m just going to apply this to your wrists right now. Before bed, you’ll need to apply a generous amount to your palms and put socks over your hands. Otherwise, it’ll get everywhere.”
Hayden clutched my wrist and turned my hand over. “Luckily you don’t have rips on your wrists too from grips and tape, so this will help heal them nicely.”
He began applying the balm, rubbing it into my skin and making sure it got absorbed. “You know we’re going to need to pull those off, right?”
I groaned. “Do we have to?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
I did.
His skillful fingers did wonders to my aching muscles and I almost groaned from the sheer delight of the massage. Maybe I needed to hire a masseuse. “You have no idea how good this feels. My wrists are always in pain.”
“I overheard what Kova said, how you hang on the bar and all. To be honest, it’s amazing you’ve lasted this long. Between the grip on bars and the bizarre way you wrap your wrists, I’m surprised you haven’t quit.”
Never. There wasn’t a chance in hell I’d ever quit gymnastics.
He grabbed my other wrist and changed his tone. “I’ll be honest. I like you, Adrianna. I have since the moment I met you.” He shook his head and then met my eyes. “There’s a light in your eyes, a will I don’t see often from the other girls at World Cup. I see the way Coach grates on you, pushes you down, picks at every little thing, but you never give up. Sometimes I wonder if he has it out for you. You don’t cry, you don’t want empathy, you don’t walk around with a chip on your shoulder—”
“Like Reagan.”
He smiled softly, and my heart melted. “Like Reagan. You’re determined.”
I bit the inside of my lip. “I feel like that’s how all the girls are though.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know.” He shrugged. “You’re just different.”
Reaching into his bag, Hayden pulled out a package of needles and a lighter.
“No,” I whined, knowing what those were used for.
He paused. “You have to, Aid. You know this.”
I did know this. It didn’t mean I wanted to do it.
“This can’t be worse than straddling the beam.”
I pursed my lips together. “You may have a point, but this is going to make tomorrow even more painful and you know it.”
“No, not popping them will make it worse. You have to drain them. At least get the fluid to release a little. I won’t do to you what I do to my hands, I’ll just pop at the corners.”
Curious, I asked, “What do you do for your hands?”
