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No. What I felt for him was the opposite of loathing. Still, I bobbed my head slowly, not holding back with a blanket stare.
“I loathe you.”
Kova clenched my jaw again and leaned down. I thought he was going to kiss me, so I swiped his hand away. The tips of my fingers struck his nose and he flinched back.
“Goddammit,” he gritted. “I told you to stop fucking hitting me!”
“Screw you, Kova. Get off me!”
“You could never loathe me.”
Kova slapped the hell out of my thigh and I yelped. He seated his cock against my pussy and my hips arched in return. Grabbing both my wrists in a tight hold, he pinned them to the bed next to my head again, this time extra tight. I fought and struggled against him.
“I do. I hate you so much.”
He ignored me. “You cannot loathe me, because you love me. You. Love. Me.”
My gaze shifted back and forth between his. Tears filled my eyes. His words constricted my heart with awareness. The more I thought about what he said, the more my body softened.
Did I love him?
With his lips pressed to the shell of my ear, he spoke in his native tongue.
“What did you say?” I whispered, my body relaxing.
“Nothing you should ever hear come from me.”
“Stop being a wiseass. Want to eat at the coffee table?”
We moved to the living room and sat down next to each other. I opened the lids and a puff of steam appeared before my eyes. I inhaled in delight with a smile. It’d been a long time since I had Chinese, and I couldn’t wait to dig in. Hayden plucked a few packets of sauce from the bag and tore them open with his teeth. I’d never used them before, so I picked one up and read it.
“You know, I’ve always wondered about duck sauce. Does it really come from a duck?”
Hayden regarded me with a blank stare. “Was that a serious question?”
My shoulders drooped. “It was a really dumb question, wasn’t it?” I asked, deflated.
“Dumb, like when Jessica Simpson asked if she was eating chicken when she knew it was tuna because the can said ‘Chicken of the Sea.’ That’s like saying buffalo sauce is made from a buffalo. It’s just a dipping sauce,Jessica.”
A burst of laughter escaped me. “Don’t laugh at me!”
“I’m laughing with you,Jess.Not at you.”
“Don’t tell anyone I asked you that.”
“Believe me, I would never tell a soul. I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself,” he responded, his tone full of sarcasm to lighten the mood.
Being this intimate, tucked into the shadows with his arms embracing me, we watched as fireworks lit up the midnight sky.
It was New Year’s Eve, and I stood with my coach, hidden on a balcony above a celebration that was filled with affection and hope. It was the start of new beginnings. But for reasons I couldn’t explain, all I could feel was loss and longing in his arms. I pushed closer to him, praying this wasn’t a prediction of how the year would go.
My knees were weak being this close to him, but nothing had prepared me to feel the pounding of his heart against my chest. A steady and hard stride, Kova was more nervous than I was. I wondered if it was because he was risking everything to be with me right now, or if he felt what I did too.
There had only been one time when I truly felt uncomfortable around a coach. I couldn’t remember his name now since it was so long ago, but I’d been young. Any time I turned around, he was right there, watching me, touching me, berating me in front of my teammates with ways to improve myself. To this day, I could still feel his eyes crawling all over my body. He’d scowl, call me out on every little thing I did wrong, but when I got it right, he would light up and clap his hands so loud the sound would echo throughout the gym. My stomach fluttered just thinking about how happy he would get. He’d sweep me off my feet and give me the tightest bear hugs as he praised me with words that sang to my heart. I loved the attention then and considered it normal behavior. Like all gymnasts, I wanted his admiration, so I submitted to whatever he asked of me. It was all about his approval and getting further in the sport. I never told my parents though because I thought they’d pull me from the one thing I held dear to my heart. I couldn’t risk that. It wasn’t until my family relocated and I had to attend a new gym that I realized not all coaches acted that way.
“I’m not as vulnerable as you think I am. Don’t mistake my ambitions as a weakness,Coach. Just because I’m eating you up, doesn’t mean Iwantyou. Quite the opposite.”
It didn’t take me long to pick up what I needed: Ace bandages, sports tape, heating packs, ice packs, topical creams to reduce swelling, a few painkillers, the nipple cream Hayden was fond of for rips, and, of course, my favorite, Motrin. I read every label before I dropped the item into my cart.
