From Lukov with Love

by Mariana Zapata

  “But I’m not you,” she said, still in that resigned voice. “Mom didn’t believe in my dream like she did in yours.”

  “Rubes,” I started, suddenly feeling terrible, because how the hell must that have been? Her seeing my mom supporting the shit out of me while telling her she couldn’t do what she loved? I’d had no idea. No clue.

  “It’s okay, Jas. It worked out for the best. I’m only telling you because I want you to know that Mom and Dad aren’t perfect. That you aren’t the only one that’s been told your dreams are pointless, but the difference is that you never let anybody talk you out of it. You didn’t let anyone make you do something you didn’t want to do, and I wish I could have done the same,” Ruby finished.

  I was stunned. Honestly, surprised out of my mind.

  Because that was a load of shit.

  “The only reason I even studied accounting was because I wanted to make them happy. Mom was even trying to talk me into taking a job where she works up until a few years ago. Anyway, all I’m trying to tell you is to… be open-minded. To forgive him. You don’t have to do it today or tomorrow, but give him a chance. I don’t think he ever knew what to do with you when you were little. You were so opinionated, and I think you reminded him too much of Mom, but I don’t know.”

  “Huh” was the only thing I managed to get out as I thought her words over.

  Had I been that much of a shit as a kid that he didn’t know what to do with me? I had a faint memory of telling him that I hated him. Kicking him in the shin. Crying. Not wanting to go spend time with him when he’d come to visit. But I’d had to have been really small. Maybe four. Maybe five at the most. Right after he’d left.

  Huh.

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I don’t want to ruin your high. So, tell me about that cute kiss Ivan gave you. When are you two going to get married, win all the awards ever, and have kids that are prodigies at every sport they ever play?”

  I choked. “What the fuck are you talking about, Rubes? Are you drinking while you’re expecting my next niece?”

  Ruby laughed. “No! I would never do that!”

  “It seems like it just now.”

  “No! I’m asking you a serious question. You two are so perfect for each other it gave me a toothache. No lie. Ask Aaron.”

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head at the ceiling, thinking again, finally, about the words Ivan had said to me while we’d been on the ice. I love you. He loved me. And he knew I loved him back.

  And we hadn’t talked about it since we’d gotten off the ice to get hugs and pats on the back from Coach Lee. I’d spotted Galina in the stands as we’d made our way to wait for our scores and had nodded at her, getting a nod in return, which from her was basically an I love you.

  Everything after that had been a crazy mess of changing, interviews, and rushing out to have a late dinner because we’d all been starving.

  Ivan hadn’t even walked me back to my hotel room. He’d been too busy in the lobby talking to another pairs skater that he seemed to be friendly with from Canada. So….

  “Darn it! Jessie is crying. I need to go. Good luck tomorrow, but I know you won’t need it! Love you!”

  “Love you too,” I said into the phone.

  “Bye! You were amazing!” my sister called out before hanging up on me without giving me a chance to say bye in return.

  I’d barely dropped my phone on my bed when a knock came from my door.

  “Who is it?” I called out, sitting up on the edge.

  “Who else would it be?” Ivan’s voice answered on the other side of the door.

  I rolled my eyes and got to my feet, heading to the door so I could undo the bolt and the lock. I took my time opening it, to find Ivan standing there, his eyebrows up, still dressed in the clothes we’d gone to eat dinner in. A charcoal gray button-up shirt, black dress pants that he’d confirmed were tailored just for him because his glutes and quads were too big in comparison to his narrow waist, and those black fancy lace-up boots I’d seen him wear a few times by that point.

  “You want to let me in?” he asked.

  I shook my head and got a smile as I stepped aside, watching him as he came in and immediately went to sit on the edge of my bed, bending over to mess around with the laces of his shoes. I locked the door again and went to take a seat beside him, taking him in as he toed off one boot and then the other with a sigh.

  “I’m exhausted,” he admitted as he stretched his legs out.

  “Me too,” I replied, taking in his black and purple striped socks. “I just got off the phone with Ruby, and I was deciding if I was tired enough to go to sleep or not. I can’t seem to wind down yet.”

  Cocking his chin, he turned to give me a smile right before slipping an arm over my shoulders, pulling me into his side. “How’d that go?”

  “Fine. She said that was the best she’s ever seen me skate. Then she gave me a lecture on my dad, but it was fine,” I told him, not in the mood to go over those details again.

  Ivan nodded like he understood. “That was the best you’ve ever skated though. I’ve already had at least twenty people come up to me and tell me how good you were.” He blinked. “It didn’t make me jealous. Don’t worry.”

  “I wasn’t,” I said, dryly.

  He pulled me in even tighter to his side, his hand going to my upper arm and rubbing up and down there. “You were amazing, Meatball. You really were... but don’t expect me to admit that to you again anytime soon.”

  I pressed my head into his shoulder and smiled, glad he couldn’t see it. “You were pretty fucking amazing too.”

  “I know. But I’m old news. Everyone is used to it.”

  I snorted. “You conceited shit.”

  His response? “It’s the truth.”

  How the hell could I have fallen in love with this arrogant ass? Of all the billions and billions of people on the planet, this was who I fell in love with? This guy?

  “But now everyone wants a piece of the Jasmine Pie, and I’ve got to tell them all to turn around and walk away,” he let me know, reminding me again about the one topic we hadn’t talked about in months.

  The one I had purposely ignored.

  But...

  “Ivan,” I started to say, knowing the last thing I wanted to do was ruin this moment, but also wanting an answer. Wanting to know just what the hell was going to happen so I could plan, even if everything hanging in the balance wasn’t for months away. But I didn’t want to run from this anymore. I wasn’t going to be a pussy.

  “Hmm?” he asked, still rubbing my arm up and down.

  I held my breath and got my words together before spilling them out. “Whenever you and Coach Lee get around to finding me another partner—”

  His hand stopped moving, and I felt him turn his upper body to look down at me. “What?”

  It made me a coward for sure, but I kept my head on his shoulder, even knowing he had his total attention on me. “When worlds are over and you try to find me someone else to—”

  “Jasmine.”

  Now that tone had me glancing up at him to give him a crazy look, and the expression I faced was another version of crazy. “What?”

  He blinked. “You think I’m going to find you another partner?”

  It was my turn to blink. “Well, yeah. That was the deal, wasn’t it?”

  One eyebrow went up.

  So, I made mine go up too.

  “I’m not going to find you another partner,” he said, his face and voice both telling me he was insulted. But I didn’t get why. “Why the hell would I do that?”

  “Umm, because that was the deal. Because you were the one that said like a hundred times that we were only pairing up for a year.” I almost added “dumbass,” but managed not to.

  He blinked. Both of his eyebrows went up. Then he blinked some more. “You’re not dumb, so I know that’s not the problem,” he said, taking his time with his words as his eyes narrowed. “But let’s think
about this, genius. Tell me if I’m wrong at any point.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “You’re the best partner I’ve ever had,” he started. “There’s no comparison. Am I right?”

  I nodded because, yeah, I fucking was.

  “You’re my best friend.”

  He’d never called me that before, but I nodded at that too.

  “You’re my sister’s friend.”

  I lifted a shoulder because he was right.

  “If I had to choose anyone to help me bury a body, eat dinner with, or watch television with, it would be you, every time for everything.”

  My heart squeezed, squeezed, squeezed.

  “I made up Mindy taking the season off when really our agreement had ended, and I hadn’t planned on going back to skate with her. Because even though you drove me crazy, I wanted to skate with you.”

  What? Just… what?

  “My family loves you.”

  I didn’t know… anything.

  I looked at him, watching as he tipped his head closer to mine and said, “And I love you.”

  He’d said it again.

  “I love you so much I spend all day with you, and it still isn’t enough for me,” he kept going.

  I stopped breathing.

  “I love you so much, if I can’t skate with you, I don’t want to skate with anyone else.”

  Holy. Fuck.

  “I love you so fucking much, Jasmine, that if I broke my ankle during a program, I would get up and finish it for you, to get you what you’ve always wanted.”

  It was love. All I could feel was love.

  I was going to cry. I was going to fucking cry. Right. Then.

  “You mean so much to me that that’s why whatever happens doesn’t really matter to me. Not like it used to. Not like it ever will again,” he finished, pressing his forehead against mine, his eyes intense and heartbreaking. “You’re not ever going to be anyone else’s partner. Not while I’m alive, Meatball. I will drag your stubborn, beautiful ass kicking and screaming back to me because nobody else will ever be good enough for you.”

  I blinked. I blinked so fast I knew I was about two point five seconds away from losing my shit.

  And then Ivan ended me. He ended every worry I’d ever had about there being someone after him. He did it right there with the tip of his nose touching my own and his forehead against mine too.

  “Because I’m okay with you having ten other people be your favorite. But you’re always going to be my favorite person,” he finished. “Always. No matter what.”

  I blinked so fast, I couldn’t help but let my eyes fill up with tears. “I… I’m not good….”

  His smile was so gentle, so sweet, it took half my soul with it. “I know,” he whispered before he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me, the bottom of his chin going to the top of my head.

  And he hugged me, and then hugged me for even longer, even as tears slipped out of my eyes and wet his shirt.

  And while I was leaning almost all of my weight against him, he lowered us onto our sides and kept on holding me, pulling me so I was halfway on top of him, my head on his chest, one of my hands gripping his ribs, a leg over his own. We stayed like that until the tears stopped leaking out of my eyes, and I could take deep breaths again.

  He brushed his hand down my hair, almost absently.

  I had thought earlier that night had been one of the best moments of my life, but this was. This was, and I loved Ivan so much, I didn’t think it was possible to love him any more. Everything he had said to me, I felt the exact same way about, except I would have skated with someone else if he’d truly wanted to go back to his old partner, but I would have done it as a tribute to him, for all the ways he had changed me and my life.

  I wanted to give him all the shit and all the shit I couldn’t forever and always, because he’d given me everything.

  Neither one of us said anything for a long, long time as we lay there.

  Not when his hands made longer strokes along my hair, not when his hand drifted to my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Or when his palm moved down my arm, gentle, gentle, gentle, his fingertips almost tickling me as he touched the thigh I had over him.

  I wouldn’t have moved away for all the money in the whole world. Not for all the awards and all the medals either. Not for fucking anything.

  What Ivan did was move his fingertips across my thigh and then, then to my knee. It took everything in me not to react as all but one of his fingertips disappeared, and that one sole, lonely pad began making circles over my kneecap. So light, so soft, it felt like a feather.

  I stayed right there.

  His fingertip made wider and wider circles, dipping down to the sensitive skin at the crease behind my knee before making its way back upward again to my quads, making that track-like pattern one more time. Then that fingertip made a trail down my bare shin and calf, making a circle around the muscle I used and overused. Then he made another one.

  I’d never been happier that from the moment Mom had given me permission to shave—right after I’d hit puberty and hair had grown in with everywhere—that she’d stressed how important it was to do it every day. And moisturize. Because if you asked my mom, moisturizing was one of the most important parts of the day. Just like brushing your teeth. Or wiping your ass after using the bathroom. I was so damn thankful I’d shaved after coming back to my room following dinner.

  One fingertip turned into four. Then the length of four fingers. Then an entire palm. All covering my calf. Then my shin. Up and down.

  “How’s your skin so smooth?” His question was low, almost distracted if I hadn’t known any better.

  “Coconut oil,” I answered, hitching my leg up higher so that it was closer to him.

  “Coconut oil?” He spread his fingers wide to wrap around the entire width of my lower leg.

  “Uh-huh,” I answered, swallowing hard at the feel of his warm skin on mine.

  If he noticed me moving it closer to him, he didn’t comment on it.

  “You know, Jasmine,” he said, sounding almost distracted, “these things are so strong—”

  “Things?” I almost panted out.

  “Legs,” he clarified, still touching my skin. “Legs,” he emphasized. “They’re all muscle. I didn’t think—” He made a noise in the back of his throat as his palm swept up over my knee to land on the top of my thigh. “—they would be so soft.”

  “You know how many bruises I get,” I managed to get out, “how many cuts and scars… it helps… heal.”

  I swallowed. Gulped.

  Ivan dragged his hand higher up my thigh, so high the fingers snuck beneath the hem of my shorts, his hands practically spanning the length of my entire thigh. It wasn’t like I had long legs or anything, and I was grateful. Because he could touch more. Touch everything.

  And I wanted him to.

  “Jesus,” he almost hissed, moving his hand around, fingertips so deep into my sleep shorts, the tips touched the very top of my ass. He made a little line over the skin there, grazing my crack, and I couldn’t help but flex everything from my ankle up. “Are you not wearing any underwear?”

  I didn’t know what it was that had me tipping my head up, my nose touching his throat, when I whispered, “I’m wearing some.”

  He hummed, walking his fingers another inch higher into my shorts. God, I’d never been ungrateful for the fact he had such big hands, and I especially wasn’t cursing it right then. Because his fingers kept moving… but instead of going back in the direction of my back, they moved to the side… then back again… lower… reaching another crease… then again to the side…

  And I sucked in a breath as those fingers found my underwear.

  Specifically, the strip of my underwear that went right up between my ass cheeks.

  It was then, as his fingers made contact with my thong, that he slung another arm around my lower back, and with a strength I was totally aware of, that I knew so well, he pul
led me over his lap so that I was straddling him. The arm around my back crushed my lower body against his.

  And I felt it. All long and thick and hard.

  Jesus.

  “Ivan—”

  He cut me off with his mouth then. Those pink lips sealed over mine, slanted, wet, taking mine completely and totally. His tongue darted against mine, needy. Thirsty. He pressed our mouths together like they were meant to be like that. His fingers trailed up the sliver of fabric between my ass cheeks, touching over places on my body that I was shy with. That anybody would be shy with.

  Most anybody.

  Those fingertips went up, up, grazing over the triangle at the top of my thong. I slanted my mouth to the side, touching my tongue against his as he pulled at the triangle and let it go, letting it snap against my skin with a hoarse groan that I felt everywhere. “Only you would wear this fucking underwear under these shorts,” he groaned, grabbing a handful of ass cheek and squeezing it almost hard enough to hurt.

  Almost.

  I moved my mouth just enough so that I could aim it toward his neck, biting it instantly.

  And Ivan, fucking Ivan, groaned, tipping his head back to give me more room. So I opened my mouth wider and took more of his neck into my mouth, the skin soft and just a little salty and smelling like that clean, expensive cologne I knew he wore on a daily basis.

  “Jesus, Jas,” he hissed when my teeth turned into my tongue and lips, sucking on his skin a lot harder than I knew I should.

  The hips beneath mine rolled, curled and fucking humped into mine, and they did it twice more when I sucked on the skin even harder, dragging my tongue across his throat.

  “You taste so damn good,” I moaned, sucking on him harder.

  He let out a wild groan, his hips moving beneath mine, his arms restless, wrapping low around my back, bringing our fronts together, tight. Flush. My breasts smashed against the hard surface of his chest.

  “Damn,” Ivan hissed. His chin still tilted up, still giving me access to that beautiful, long throat as his lower body moved, gaining friction between the material of his pants, the anaconda I couldn’t wrap my head around under them, and the thin, stretchy material covering the part of me that wanted him to fill it like I needed painkillers on a regular basis.