Текст книги "These Battered Hands"
Автор книги: Laurel Ulen Curtis
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 14 страниц)
Hope.
It spread like an infection and tainted clean vision and dedication. It made me think about, and long for, other things outside of the one thing that encapsulated my entire life.
The fact was, I didn’t know how to be anything other than this, I didn’t know how to strive for something other than greatness, and the prospect of the consequences forced my hand with the cure.
Hurting Nik yesterday had physically hurt me, the figurative gaping hole in my chest lacking the ability to clot. It had taken everything in me not to go after him, to let it go—to convince myself that it was all for the best.
I hadn’t specifically tried to aggravate him, but I hadn’t been naive enough to think it wouldn’t happen either. Part of me thought I needed the scene, the whole argument to make a clean break and go back to what practice and experience told me was important. But it didn’t heal all of the longing and wonderment in me. If anything, it made me rage to understand its unavoidable pull even harder.
It still felt fresh to me today, and I knew he felt the same. His words weren’t bitter, but they were cutting, the struggle he was feeling apparently just as real as my own.
Mud clouded the pristine water of his eyes, and all the ease had vanished from his posture.
He moved with stilted agitation, and I couldn’t even blame him because I was doing the same thing.
The difference was, he and everyone else were judging me based on mine.
If he told me I was jerking to one skill from another in my bar routine instead of flowing one more time, I was going to punch him in the throat.
Granted, half of my frustration came from him and the other half came from the inability to complete this stupid, godforsaken skill.
“You’re releasing too late. There’s no way you’ll be able to grab the bar doing it like that. Look down the line of your body, when your toes point right there,” he pointed to the joint between the ceiling and the wall, “that’s when you let go.”
“I know,” I grated, smashing my lips together and checking the tightness of my grips on my wrists.
“If you know, do it.”
His anger fueled mine, riling us up into a torturous circle of aggression.
“Relax, alright?” I snapped. “This is a new fucking skill, and it’s taking me a little time to get used to it.”
His eyes glittered and shimmered, and the line of his jaw became noticeably more compact.
“If you’re this slow to take what you want, I don’t know how the hell you expect to take that goddamn podium.”
I shook my head at his absurdity, knowing that the guise of gymnastics talk was just that—an emotional ruse. “The two aren’t even remotely related.”
“How do you figure that?” he asked, slamming his hands to his hips and pretending not to know what I was talking about.
“Because when it comes to gymnastics, I know what it takes. I know that I’m safe.”
An outsider would have laughed at the absurdity of that statement. Gymnastics, as a sport, was anything but safe. But Nik knew exactly what I meant.
Because he was living the double meaning along with me, and he saw inside the window to my mind like no one else I’d ever encountered.
Gymnastics was known. It didn’t change. It was comfort.
That didn’t stop him from refuting my logic.
“I’ll make you a promise right here,” he swore, his words a conviction and a truth and a vow that he’d do anything to keep. “There are a lot of things you may never be with me, but you’ll always be fucking safe.”
I wanted so badly to give in, to cave to his line of thinking and believe that what he said wouldn’t only be a promise, but an irrefutable fact. But I knew better. Years of not getting my way reinforced that it would never change.
“Gymnastics is safe,” I told him in an effort to distance him. I needed him to back off from this argument, to let it go. Unless he did, I wouldn’t be able to. Not unless he was gone.
“Gymnastics is not supposed to be your entire life,” he insisted, his face imploring. “You’re allowed to have more than this.”
He poked and poked the bear inside me until it was cornered, and my only option left was to growl.
"Jesus Christ!” I threw my hands in the air. “What do you think you are, some kind of life coach?! You coach gymnastics," I spat, feeling the chords in my throat stand out with each rage filled syllable. "You're here to improve my gymnastics. That's it.”
If I'd been expecting an apology or concession, it was nothing but my fault. People were reliably predictable, and Nik wasn't any different. He never apologized or lived regret. He lived that moment, breathed that reasoning, and answered every irrational outburst of mine with a rational calm that blew my mind. I kept to myself, so it was easy to fool people into believing I was low key, but I had never been an even keel kind of person. I blew up and I did it hard, whether it lived completely in my mind or splattered all over everything just depended on who I was dealing with. Every moment with him was infinitely messy.
Those words had drawn what I considered to be a line in the sand. But Nik…he wasn’t afraid to cross it.
His chest blew back as if I’d struck him, but it wasn’t because he was contrite. It was because he was winding up for a punch that would be anything but physical, but would leave its mark all the same.
“Gymnastics isn't a self contained sport. It's not only the training, only the skills, only the work you put in. It takes mental toughness and adaptability,” he annunciated, tapping his temple with rapt precision. “Neither of which work cohesively with a hothead or simmering unhappiness. The more fulfilled your life is, the more your gymnastics will improve.”
The corner of his mouth just barely hitched as he rounded the corner of his speech and settled into his exceptionally made point. “So I am coaching you at gymnastics. But for you, the area you're lacking in isn't skill or dedication. It's goddamn life.”
Without apology or hesitation he was gone, time for a rebuttal completely off the table of accessibility.
I watched numbly as he left, not even slowing for the rain that beat an unrelenting rhythm on the metal roof of the warehouse.
Anger seared hot all over my skin, and as a stroke of worry for the safety of riding his motorcycle in this weather came over me, it burned all the way through like acid.
How dare he come into my life and mess everything up?
Until he rammed his bossy way in, the only person I had to worry about was myself. My safety, my opinions, my feelings, and my goddamn wants.
His words bounced like ping pong balls in my head, catching slightly in the net and making me doubt my own serve. I didn’t want to get lost in his fucking speeches and look forward to his smiles. I didn’t want to have to worry about him in the rain or the wind or any other godforsaken showing of mother nature.
I hadn’t asked for it, hadn’t prepared for it, but the bastard had done it all the same.
Unwilling and unable to stop myself, I took off at a run for the door, not pausing to look into the eyes of anyone else as I went and ran straight out into the blinding rain. It pounded my skin like a hammer, the drops were so big, but I fought through the beating in order to wipe my eyes and scan the parking lot. His motorcycle sat untouched, soaked in its spot, and the roar of the rain overwhelmed the rest of my senses.
I looked first to my right and then to my left, but the driving sheets of water almost made me miss him.
White material clung to his chest like a survivor to a life raft, and the unruly scraps of his ugly hair clung to the sides of his face like a wet mop.
Barefoot and broken, I moved my feet toward him, one in front of the other until there was no holding back my run.
His head lifted at the last second as my body crashed into his and my desperate hands grabbed at the side of his face.
Water streamed over the lines of his cheeks like river rocks, and vitality surged into his eyes as vibrantly as a flash of lightning.
My lips attacked his, eating at their softness and rushing to cover the entirety of each surface. He tasted like sin and chocolate and the forbidden dream of a stronger-minded woman.
I lived inside that dream, savoring the feel of his hands as they grasped at my hips and molded my soaked body to his. His mouth grappled with mine until I finally ceded control, and for the first time in my life, I moved in the same direction.
Letting him lead the moment and the kiss, I blocked out the sound of the rain and instead listened to the pound of his honest heart.
One second bled into the next, the threat of discovery only heightening my passion and driving me to grab at his shoulders and chest with ferocity and impatience. He maneuvered me by lifting me up and swinging my bare legs around his hips. I felt him move, but focused on the feel of his advancing lips. Each step only strengthened his fervor, and leached directly into me through the connection of our mouths.
My back hit the side of the building after he rounded the corner out of view, and even if I wasn’t cognizant of it in that exact moment, I knew I appreciated his proclivity for discretion.
“Callie—” he gasped through a breath, moving his mouth from mine to my jaw and working it to the line of my neck.
I couldn’t pull him close enough fast enough.
It felt like I’d been waiting forever.
Like this was as natural as breathing.
And, swaddled by the protection of the rain and a frozen moment in time, I allowed myself to savor it.
To squeeze the grip of my legs tighter and pull his body closer to mine.
Our wet clothes stuck to one another, and my leotard and what was left of his t-shirt left little to the imagination.
But I wanted what little there was.
I pulled at the hem of his shirt as he kissed from my collarbone up my neck and back again, sinking my fingers into the skin above the waistband of his pants and scratching.
He groaned into my mouth, and I moaned into his as we worked together toward the thing I found myself wanting more than anything in that moment—
Connection.
I wanted one with her almost more than I wanted my next breath, but I had no intention of taking it there pressed up against the cool metal of her family’s gym. Not in the rain, not in the sun, and not within five miles of her peers.
We’d already been gone long enough that someone should have noticed, but I guess the rain had kept them from actually looking.
“Callie—” I called, prying my lips from hers and trying to move her hands away from the growing bulge in my pants.
I know. It sounded crazy to me too.
“Nik,” she cooed back, still lost in the moment. I took the opportunity to pull back and look at her, covered in water and flushed from her nose to her ears and all the way down her exposed chest.
Her eyes were closed, and a droplet of water clung to the long, curled line of her lashes. Stretching to reach me, her lips parted and pursed just slightly, and her hips shifted even closer to mine.
The skin of her thighs felt smooth and creamy, the now wet chalk forming a thin film of paste that made my hands harder to move.
I didn’t mind, the feeling of my hands attached to her in a more powerful way than normal only deepened the need in my gut.
Her eyes opened as a result of my lull and looked questioningly into mine. Security fled and nerves started to encroach, her body language changing minutely in preparation for rejection. She thought this was it, the definition of catch and release.
Before she could retreat, I flexed the fingers of one hand deeper into one thigh and moved the other to cup the side of her face. My fingers mingled with the wet, straggling hairs of her ponytail that fell around the sides, and my thumb sought the supple corner of her lips.
I forced it up when it wanted to curve down and reassured her with actions as well as words.
“I’m in this, Cal. I’m not backing out, I’m not running away, and I’m not giving it up. I don’t know what it is about you, but I couldn’t forget this happened if I tried.”
I’d been shocked as shit when her lips first met mine and momentarily mystified that my life had taken a path that somehow ended in this moment—fully enthralled mentally and physically with an athlete I’d been charged to coach and mentor—but at the feel of her and I together all of it faded away. The only thing left was awareness. A distinct recognition that something existed between us that neither one of us could manage to deny.
She seemed surprised that I could read her so well, but with me she’d always been a crystal clear page. No smudges to impede the context or fancy emotional language to get caught up in. Just smooth, simple prose that read true to her every emotion.
If other people had trouble reading her, they weren’t very good at context clues.
“But we can’t do this here any more than you can admit that I’m right.”
“Hey!”
I smiled at the return of her fire. Anger or passion, it didn't matter to me. Just as long as it burned, I’d tend to it with care. Poke and nudge and rearrange when necessary. And any time she started to die out, I’d just add more fuel to the pile.
“How many people watched you leave?”
“Oh my God,” she squeaked, the realization of consequences and aftermath slapping her on the cheek and leaving it red with embarrassment. “I can’t go back in there. Not like this…”
She looked down at herself, the sopping material of her leotard, her hair mussed from the rain and my hands, and the paste-y chalk evidence of my touch plastered over nearly every inappropriate surface illustrating her point. “Not after leaving like that.”
“We don’t have to go back in,” I assured her, running my thumb from her lips to her ear and back again just because I could. Just because she wasn’t stopping me from touching her, wasn’t fighting me on the validity of what had happened.
I took a moment to soak it in and tried to telegraph the feeling it evoked in me right back to her.
“But we can’t stay here.”
“You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here? Are we at a bar?” Her head thunked back into the metal of the building behind her. “That’d be handy actually. I could use a drink.”
“Callie,” I called, asking for attention by pulling her face back toward mine with two soft fingers at her chin. “This is big. I get it, I feel it, and I’m just as confused about how it happened as you are. But I need you to calm down…and focus. We cannot stay here right now. Especially not, as much as I enjoy it, with your sexy as fuck bare legs wrapped around my waist and my hard dick crushing you into the building.”
“Crushing me?” she teased with a tilt of her head. “You sure think a lot about your—”
“Cal!”
“Okay! I get it! We need to leave.” She rolled her eyes playfully. “Then take me somewhere for crying out loud.”
Regretfully, I unwound her legs from me and set her bare feet on the ground, steadying her swaying body as it lurched toward me in unbalance. Her body’s lingering physical reaction gave me some clue as to why her mental realization of our scenario was delayed as well.
She was still turned on and tuned up on adrenaline, and apparently, lust made her frolicsome.
Fuck me.
I didn’t know if she always reacted this way or if it was the intensity and unexpected nature of the moment, but I had absolutely no desire to waste it. I wanted to get her somewhere else, somewhere where I could work her back up to that reaction again, and I wanted to do it quickly.
I grabbed her hand and ran, pulling her behind me into the more brutal rain of the open parking lot. Her hand clenched tightly in mine when a gust of wind drove the rain like horizontal spikes.
The pound of her bare feet on the pavement behind me sounded like a rhythm, each step jolting through my chest and confirming the unbelievable fact that we were here. That she had followed me from the gym, that she’d been the one to kiss me.
All of it felt like an imaginary whirlwind. Her car only feet away, I dropped her hand in preparation and rounded the hood, hoping to everything holy that she kept her keys in the car rather than her bag in the gym. If not, we’d have to take the motorcycle, and besides the rain, I didn’t like the idea of her riding with so much unprotected skin exposed.
“Keys?” I called over the hood, just as she opened the passenger door.
She nodded with knowing, pointing inside the car and sinking into the seat and out of the rain.
I yanked my door open and threw one leg in, but looked up as I did.
Right into the eyes of Frank Nickleson.
Hands on his hips, he stood stagnant on the other side of the glass door, keen and curious eyes on me and the very familiar car I was waiting to sink into.
Panic very nearly jolted my body—for Callie rather than myself—but I fought it, instead giving him a resolute, confident nod with an open ended meaning.
He could contemplate his own clues, paint his own picture, and draw his own conclusions.
But I’d planted a seed of doubt with one simple gesture.
Guilty men, fraught with wrongdoing and wicked intentions, rarely looked their jury directly in the eye.
And after trusting me to guide his daughter professionally, no matter the age of consent and lack of dissent between hers and my own, Frank Nickleson would very much see me as a guilty man if he knew the details of my intentions for my relationship with her.
As I slid into the car, desperate to hold on to the fun, free-loving woman unlocked by a kiss, I decided not to tell Callie about her father’s watchful eye. Not if she hadn’t noticed it on her own.
Mischief and happiness sparkled in her eyes as she turned to me. “Where are we going?”
“My apartment,” I decided and decreed at once, wanting the privacy and freedom to talk to her how I wanted, touch her how I wanted, and open up the next chapter of her beautifully written book.
All of the things she’d kept locked away for the last few weeks lingered on the surface, and I was eager to scrape as many of them up as I could before they disappeared.
A shiver ran through her body as she opened the console between us, grabbed the keys from inside, and handed them to me with an electric brush of her hand.
“Cold?” I asked as I started the engine, ignoring the man that still stood in front of us and focusing on her.
“A little,” she admitted, turning on the heat and pointing the vent until air directly bathed her skin.
I wanted to pull her into my arms, warm her with the heat of my own body and the comfort of my arms, but I knew it wasn’t a good idea.
“I’m sorry. It won’t take long to get there,” I said instead, watching as her brows scrunched slightly together before turning away and putting the car into gear.
Hurt feelings and unmet expectations would have to wait.
I turned left out of the parking lot and drove toward the center of town. Past the McDonald’s where we’d shared greasy chicken nuggets, a Quarter Pounder, and nervously aggressive conversation, through Main Street, and to the apartment complex on the other side that housed my home.
I missed the home I shared with my parents throughout my childhood, but not because of the house. I missed the laughter of my mother and the playful antics by my father that caused it. I missed the loving acceptance they provided me through all of my decisions, the support they gave to my athletic career, and their ability to balance that with a life devoid of pressure.
I didn’t think Callie had that—an unconditional support system.
I wanted to be that for her.
As I pulled into the spot directly in front of my unit, Callie’s voice cracked with nerves. The fog of lust and passion had worn off, and reality had set in. “What are we doing, Nik?”
I turned to her fully, put a hand to her jaw, and leaned in until my lips just barely touched hers. She didn’t pull back or protest, but the pulse in her neck throbbed violently.
“What we’ve wanted to do since the first night we met.” When the words were finished, the movement fully formed against her lips, I added pressure, settling my mouth against hers and sealing the statement with a kiss.
She kissed me back slowly, the taste of cinnamon and heat working its way into my mouth along with her tongue as she gave into the moment and allowed herself the freedom from her mind.
I never wanted it to end, but I also wanted more than stolen kisses and unsure rendezvous.
And that kind of more was only founded on more. More communication, more understanding, and more respect.
Breaking the kiss slowly, I let my hand linger on her cheek, feeling it heat with both embarrassment and something else as her eyes met mine.
“Let’s go inside, okay?” I asked softly.
“Yeah,” she agreed with a nod, staring into my eyes for a beat longer and then turning to open her door. I followed suit, rounding the hood and walking beside her to ensure she didn’t step on something that would hurt either of her bare feet.
My bag inconveniently still in my bike at the gym, I reached around the side of my door, behind the bush and pulled the hidden key out of its box before shoving it in the lock and opening the door.
With an extended arm, I suggested she go first, flipping on the switch for the light in the hall as I stepped in behind her.
“Just down and to your right,” I suggested, guiding her to the living room.
When she got to the opening, she hesitated.
Her eyes found mine as she asked, “Do you think I could take a quick shower? I’m sticky from the chalk and the rain kind of—”
“Of course.” I cut her off before hearing the rest. It didn’t matter why, other than meaning it needed rectifying.
“Come on,” I said. My hand fit directly in the slight hollow of her lower back, and her steps, though her legs were much shorter than mine, matched me beat for beat.
I reached around the wall in order to flick on the light switch in the bathroom, pushing the door out of the way and standing back to let her enter. “There are towels under the sink, shampoo and stuff in the shower. Sorry if it smells like guy, but—” I hollowed my cheeks in jest, “that’s kind of how I like to smell.”
She smiled slightly and stepped into the space, but as I turned to leave she stopped me with a hand to my shoulder.
“Is this how it’s gonna be from now on?”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Awkward. Overly nice. Tiptoeing around one another?” she offered.
I only hid part of my smile. “For right now? Yeah, probably,” I admitted. “See, I’m a little skittish about running you off and you’re trying your best to convince me you can be something other than crabby.”
“Hey!”
I released the rest of my smile, letting it soar all the way to the tops of my cheeks and pull at the corners of my eyes.
And then I winked. “Don’t worry, though. Something tells me it won’t last.”
Her shoulders relaxed at the same pace as her face, draining her of tension and filling its void with understanding.
She’d still give me a hard time, and I was more than happy to give one back. There would never be a time when we didn’t yell, and no matter how right I was, she’d still fight me on admitting it.
But we’d get to fool around a little.
I, personally, felt like it couldn’t get much better than that.
“Go shower,” I instructed. “I’ll get you some clothes to put on.”
“Thanks,” she replied. Both of us knew she didn’t just mean for the clothes.
My bedroom just down the hall, I got a pair of shorts, boxers, and a t-shirt out of my dresser fairly quickly and headed back for the bathroom.
The water was on, but I knocked to make sure she was inside and not standing naked in the middle of the bathroom. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to be that way or didn’t want to see it, but I had a feeling she felt everything I was feeling times a million.
And to me, the whole day felt—
