From Lukov with Love by Mariana Zapata
A new curse straight out of that wonderful mouth lit up my spine, my fingertips, my knees, and everything in between.
The trail of curse words had me pulling back, sitting my ass against his thighs, right by his knees, settling all my weight there while I sat up straight, and with a talent that would have impressed the best stripper in Vegas, I yanked my shirt over my head, leaving me in one of those lacy bras with no underwires that were one of the only good things about being either the smallest B-cup in the world or the largest A-cup.
Ivan groaned. He groaned. Leaning back against the bed, he let a noise out that I’d never heard before, the arms around my waist loosening until his palms were curled around my ribs, my waist, his thumbs parallel to my belly button. They went up, going over each ridge of every rib, taking his time, until the webbing between his index fingers and thumbs were set beneath the slight curves at the bottom of my breasts.
“Damn,” he murmured, still holding the weight up. “Jasmine.” Leaning forward, quick, quick, quick, he lowered his head. I knew what he was doing before he did it. I could have moved… if I was insane.
So I let him. I let him lean in my direction and suck a nipple and almost all of my breast into his mouth, bra and all.
And then it was me grinding against him. I moved, dragged, and humped against him, letting his hard dick drag across my clit.
One of those big hands slid down my ribcage to my hip and around to my ass again. Palming it, he squeezed the cheek, cupping most of it. Then letting the pressure go and just holding it instead, lightly, more of a caress than anything else. His moan was low, and I had to drag my mouth to his lips and take the top one between mine.
The one hand under my breast moved, and Ivan pulled the material covering it down, jerking it low, exposing it. Me.
I sucked in a breath, remembering… remembering….
“Beautiful, so fucking… beautiful,” he whispered, hoarse, his lips hovering over my chest.
“You used to—”
“Shut up,” he huffed, then latched onto my nipple again. Bare that time.
I let out a cry. A moan. All I could do was arch into his mouth, wanting him to never let go. To never move. To do that forever.
And he did.
Pulling down the other cup, he took that nipple into his mouth too. The hand on my ass cupped all of it, trying to mold it with his fingers but….
“This fucking ass,” he hissed. “I’ve been dreaming of this ass for so long,” he claimed. “Perfect, perfect….”
What I hadn’t gotten uptown, I’d gotten downtown. Exercise on top of it had molded it into something I was pretty proud of. Maybe I wasn’t beautiful. Maybe I wasn’t sexy. I got enough shit about it every time I got online. But this fucking body, I had busted my ass for, and I wasn’t ashamed of it. Not even my unremarkable chest. But at least it was small, and tight and gravity hadn’t gotten to it yet.
Ivan moved his face so that his cheek rested against the top of my breast, and he rubbed his cheek over the skin, then moved his face so that his opposite cheek rested above the other one. He nuzzled. He scraped that bristly cheek from one side of my chest to the other, down the center, and under it, his nose brushing against the lace still over me and around the curve of my breast. His hands guided me backward a little, but held me up so I was arched in midair. Then that cheek went across the center of my stomach, his lips brushing my belly button, his hair grazing my nipples.
Each of them. Over and over again with each of his movements over my skin.
His tongue darted out and dipped into my belly button. And all I could do was give him more.… More, more, more. Please, please.
“Ivan,” I pretty much whimpered.
“Shh,” he whispered back, dragging his lips straight up my sternum as he sat me back down on his lap, his mouth still moving until it reached the notch at my throat. Those long fingers that knew me so well made their way to the middle of my back and then up, pulling my bra along with it.
I kissed him, and he kissed me back. My hands went to his shoulders and gripped them, hard. We moved against each other, his hands going down, pulling my shorts and underwear down my hips until I had to get up to jerk them the rest of the way down and off my ankles.
It wasn’t until then that I realized I was naked. Standing in front of him. Totally, completely naked.
But when I glanced up at his face, those cool blue-gray eyes were slits, and his cheeks were pink, and he looked….
Ivan sat up and undid the buttons on his shirt, shrugging it off with jerky and unsure movements, like he wasn’t used to getting undressed so fast. And then he was up, a foot away from me, and in a move that was familiar, he undid his belt and then jerked his pants and boxer briefs down to his knees and kicked them off.
And goddamn.
Mother of God.
Holy shit.
Jesus H. Christ.
I’d seen Ivan with clothes on before. Not just for a second but for minutes. Hours. I’d seen him.
But nothing could have prepared me for the sight of Ivan naked the way he was without a sock. He was hard. Hard everywhere. From the tendons at his throat to the pectoral muscles that were pretty much rocks, to his eight-pack abs, and those thighs that could have had a song written about them….
But it was the hard, long, fat thing pointing at me that had stopped my breathing.
How the hell was it possible for someone to be that damn perfect? Why? What kind of bullshit was this that someone so long and lean had that monster between his legs?
“I hate you,” I whispered.
And Ivan laughed. Laughed. “You love me.”
I didn’t look at his face. I wouldn’t.
But what I did look at was his hand rising, curling around the shaft trying to point toward his belly button, bobbing. He moved his hand down to the root, flanked by thick, curly black hair, and then up, toward the big, pink and purple mushroom tip that was so wet it dripped….
“I’m on birth control,” I told him with a swallow. “And I’m not ovulating for another week.”
It was only because he tipped his chin down that I knew he heard me, but he was so busy just looking at me, I would have thought he hadn’t.
But he had.
Because in a movement so easy and effortless, he took a step forward toward me and wrapped his hands around my upper thighs, hauling me up. My body went high, my thighs instinctively went around his waist, his hands clutching me perfectly. I licked my hand, reached between us, and wrapped my fingers around the cock that made my mouth water. And I moved my hand up and down, taking in the smooth skin and what might have been the hardest muscle in his whole body. Then I pointed that pink-purple head right between my legs, and in that way that we read each other’s minds, he lowered me down.
Down, down, inch after three inches, five inches, slowly, until I was seated on him. Completely.
Stuffed. Full. I’d never tell Ivan, but it hurt. At first.
I sucked in a breath.
And so did he, following it with a groan.
Then I followed it with a sound I wouldn’t call a whimper but someone else might.
Those big hands slowly moved my body up and down on him. An inch, then down. Two, then back down to the root. Over and over again. Until it wasn’t a fight, but a glide.
“Jesus Christ,” Ivan chanted over and over again. His whole body tight, strained. Shoulders and biceps that could do this movement a hundred times when it wasn’t sexual, tight and shaking. He was trembling. His breathing, the breathing of an athlete, was ragged. His hands moved, and he slipped a forearm under my ass while the other one went around the middle of my back and guided me up and down, my nipples brushing against his chest. “I love you, Jasmine,” he said, the movement going faster. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he repeated.
And all I could do was close my eyes, close my eyes and wrap my arms around his neck and hold on for dear life, the words there, between us. My mouth found his and we
“Love you,” I whispered, shaking on his dick as the hint of an orgasm tingled along my lower stomach.
He smiled. More than smiled. He lit up. And his hips powered up into me. Gripping me tighter. Closer. His hand went between us and circled my clit. It didn’t take more than a few circles of his thumb, our bodies covered in sweat, before I came. I cried into his shoulder, coming around him, clinging onto him for dear fucking life.
His moans were so husky and rough, I almost couldn’t hear his choked groan as he came moments later. He pulsed inside of me, gasping. I clung to him and he held me tight to him.
We were both covered in sweat. Out of breath and trying not to be, but failing miserably. I gasped, and then I gasped again, shaking some more.
“God help me,” he moaned.
I trembled. I panted. I could have been dying, but it would have been worth every second.
Holding me, Ivan walked us toward the bed and slowly lowered me onto it. His body came over mine, covering me. With his arms straight, legs bracketing mine, his smile was lopsided as he panted, “Practice makes perfect, Jas.”
Fuck.
I tried breathing out of my nose as I raised my eyebrows at him, his dick resting against my thigh, still half hard. “That wasn’t already perfect?”
“It was,” he said, hovering over me. “But I want to practice anyway.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, loud, so loud it kind of freaked me out.
But what didn’t freak me out was the giant smile that Ivan gave me from above. “Over and over again.”
“Who says I want to do it again?”
His hand went over the side of my head, his fingers brushing my temple. “You came all over me,” he said like I didn’t know that. “We do everything good together. You know that.”
I did know that, but he didn’t need to.
“We’re the best team. We do what we have to do to be the best,” he said as he lowered his weight to really cover me, his thighs were spread wide on top of mine, the tops of his feet touching the inside of my calves, his forearms on either side of my face.
“And this will help our skating?” I asked him.
He kissed my cheek and then the other one. “It’s not going to hurt it.”
I laughed again and curled up to plant a kiss on his chin that made him blink slowly.
“I love the way you smile,” he said with a dreamy, sleepy expression. “I want to tell you to do it more often, but I don’t.”
I took in every inch of that flawless face. “Why?”
He didn’t even have his eyes open as he responded. “Because you don’t give it to everyone.” His cheek rested against mine, that sweaty chest did the same as he said, “And I don’t plan on sharing you.”
Chapter 24
“One minute.”
Shaking my shoulders out, I took a deep breath in, let it out, and then did it all over again. It was easy to zone out the audience cheering for the pair on the ice who had literally just finished seconds ago. It was even easier to ignore the flowers and stuffed animals raining down from the crowd.
I was strong. I was smart. I could do anything.
I wasn’t weak or unprepared.
The world wouldn’t end if I blew it.
I could do this.
I was always going to be able to do this. Maybe I hadn’t exactly been born for it, but I’d made it mine. I had taken it for my own, and it would always be mine.
Four minutes and some seconds to show off a lifetime of hard work. No big deal.
“It’s time,” Coach Lee’s voice spoke almost directly into my ear, her hand coming to land lightly on my shoulder.
I nodded, shooting her a look out of the corner of my eye before she let go and took a step to the side, to do the same to Ivan, who was standing a foot away, shaking out his hands and thighs. I noticed him glancing at her, the same way I had, nodding, the same as me too.
And then he glanced over his shoulder at me.
Those bright blue-gray eyes landed directly into mine, and we didn’t need to nod or do anything. We just smiled at each other. Our own little secret. Our own thing.
We’d woken up this morning in my room, with me drooling on his hand and his leg thrown over one of mine, and it had been the best morning of both of our lives. He’d told me so, and I’d just known. Then he’d pinched the shit out of my ass cheek, and it was like it was supposed to be between us. Perfect.
We were going to do this.
We had this.
The smile that crept over his lips and cheek muscles was lazy… almost filthy… a fucking promise of what was for sure going to happen tonight regardless of anything else.
It was his trustful smile. The one he shared with me. It was mine.
And it zinged its way up my spine, this warm, comforting thing that told me he was as confident as I was. That we had this. But we had this together.
So I couldn’t help but smile right back at him, wider than before. It wasn’t anything big, but it was his and only his.
And he knew it was because his smile grew even wider.
I rolled my eyes as I looked away and stepped toward the ice, my heartbeat nice and even, my head calm and controlled. At the wall, I stood to the left to let the last skater off the ice and looked up. I’d already clocked my family when we’d first gotten to the tunnel, and they were still there. Each and every one of them holding up a sign, even my dad.
THAT’S MY SISTER.
GO JASMINE!
JASMINE!
WE LOVE YOU, JASMINE
JASMINE SANTOS 4 EVER
GET IT GIRL
YOU’RE AMAZING, JASMINE
But it was the NEVER GIVE UP, JASMINE that had me squinting. Because it was my dad holding it. He wasn’t jumping up and down like the rest of them, but he was smiling. He wasn’t embarrassed. He wasn’t bored.
But he was there. And that was more than I could have wanted or expected.
And it was what I needed. Another little piece of glue to my mind and my heart.
I let myself think for a second about the card I’d read that morning, lying in bed beside Ivan. The card from the nice girl at the LC.
Good luck, Jasmine!
You’re going to do great. Thanx for being so cool. I hope one day I can be like you.
Love, Patty
And I knew I could do this.
Once, when I’d been maybe fifteen or sixteen, Galina had told me that to win, I would have to be prepared to fail. Have to be okay with the idea of failing. And I had never completely understood what she meant by that then, because who the hell wanted to lose? I got her message now, and it had only taken me a decade to.
I took a step onto the ice and glided off just a couple feet away to give Ivan room to do the same. He followed after me, stopping just two feet away from me as the announcer called out our names.
That was when I looked over my shoulder at the man in the brown and gold costume that my sister had created, and found him already looking at me, with a smirk aimed right at me.
He looked happy.
And for the first time, I felt happy as I stood there, not nervous, not overwhelmed. I just felt happy. Ready.
So I smirked back at him.
We both seemed to let out a breath of air at the same time.
Just like that, Ivan extended his hand out at his side toward me. He watched my face as I gave him my own hand, draping my palm over his, both of us curling our fingers around the other’s.
He mouthed I love you, and I winked at him. Then, we skated toward the center of the ice, hand in hand, stopping in the spot we needed. Ivan got into position at the same time I did, both of us never looking anywhere else. If the crowd went quiet, I had no idea because I was zoning them out just as Ivan’s face came to pause an inch away from mine.
“You suck,” he whispered, his breath against my cheek.
I just barely held back
A second, a split fucking second before the music started, he whispered, “Let’s do it.”
And we did.
Epilogue
“Look at the height on that!”
“I haven’t seen a twist like that since the 2018 Lukov team!” the announcer on the television claimed.
Ivan and I both snorted at the same time.
I didn’t need to look at him to know he was rolling his eyes.
Because I was too.
“That was clearly at least half a foot shorter than ours used to be,” Ivan muttered beside me.
I snorted again, keeping my eyes glued to the television.
“I was thinking more like a whole foot,” my mom, who loved coming over so much she was on steady allergy medication, agreed from her spot on the other side of the couch.
“Mark needs to retire from being a commentator. I’ve thought he’s needed glasses for at least the last three seasons, easy,” Jojo claimed from where he was lying on the floor, his head propped up on one hand while the other one held a bottle to Elena’s mouth.
“Jonathan, that’s not nice,” James said to him. I didn’t need to look to know he was shaking his head.
All of our eyes were on the television as the Canadian team on the screen moved around the ice effortlessly, their movements a perfectly measured amount of strength, grace, and beauty. I wasn’t hating on them. They were good.
But not as good as we used to be.
“That was amazing!” the commentator on the screen cooed in excitement.
“Now he’s just throwing words out to hear his own voice,” I muttered, shaking my head.
The man beside me made a noise that had me glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. He had his head cocked to look at me, a smirk I knew like the back of my hand pasted on that mouth that had stayed just as annoying and wonderful as it had been even over the years. “Your spins were cleaner and faster than hers are.”
I nodded, still looking at him, ignoring the huge television mounted to the wall, showing the 2026 Olympics. “You made it look more effortless too. And clearly, you’re stronger than he is.”