Page 101 of Hate You Most

A smile broke across Viktoriya's face. “I love you too.”

She wasn't about to let the sweet words ruin what was happening, and she didn't want Dakota to stop. She was desperate and would get on her knees and plead if Dakota told her to.

Dakota had her hands between Viktoriya's legs and knew exactly what she was doing to her. She needed Dakota to continue exactly as she was.

“Don't stop,” she managed to get out between kisses.

“You should ask nicely,” Dakota leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “Only nice girls get what they want.”

An involuntary noise escaped her lips. “Fuck—please—mmh—” Viktoriya knew she was needy and knew she was begging, but in that moment she truly didn’t care.

Her fingers clenched in the sheets, her body overtaken by a quiet and rising desperation. She needed Dakota's fingers deeper inside of her. Closer. As close as she could possibly get her. They could melt into one person and that would be completely fine with her.

Dakota inhaled sharply. “What are you?”

She made a strangled noise, then forced the words out between shallow breaths. “—A good girl.”

“No. What are you?”

Viktoriya’s hips squirmed off the mattress as she failed to bite back another moan.

“I'm yours,” she whimpered in response. “I'm your… I'm your girl.”

“Good,” Dakota said and finally moved her fingers deeper into her. They had found their way back to each other, as if they had never really been apart. And she hadn’t realized, not fully, just how much she had missed that.

April 4th, 2023.

— Bloomfield Hills training center, Detroit, Michigan.

The laughter echoed off the smooth ice, the boards, and the walls, infecting the entire rink. The sound of blades moving against the ice in unsynchronized patterns filled Viktoriya's ears.

Her idea had worked. Maybe a little too well.

“I still don’t understand how you managed to convince all of them,” Dakota muttered beside her, as she watched Hannah and Brooke attempt something that looked vaguely like a synchronized spin that failed spectacularly and dissolved into laughter halfway through.

Viktoriya tilted her head slightly. “I didn’t convince them, I suggested it.”

Dakota gave her a look. “That’s worse somehow.”

“They needed a break,” Viktoriya said simply, though she and Dakota both knew there was more to it—that maybe they all needed to do something that wasn’t filled with pressure and expectations. She'd somehow convinced Brooke, Elena, Hannah and Kaylee to also sign up for this small competition, and that they were all just going to have fun with skating again.

It also helped that they didn't have a coach for this—so they got to choreograph the routines themselves.

Kaylee called her name and waved at her. “Viktoriya, come over here and tell her that this music works!”

Viktoriya pushed off, gliding toward them, Dakota followed a second later with less enthusiasm but no real resistance.

“What music?” Viktoriya asked, slowing as she reached them.

Elena stood beside her and gestured toward the speakers, where something upbeat and unmistakably not classical was playing. It was completely out of place in the context Viktoriya had always known. Her programs had always been set to classical music, carefully selected by her country and her coaches. The programs never quite carried her own personality when she performed. But now the rules had been thrown away, and all that mattered was that they had fun skating again. So, fuck it, there was no reason for anyone to skate to classical pieces with little or no lyrics.

“She wants to skate to this,” Kaylee said, pointing accusingly at Elena. “Tell her it’s a bad idea.”

Viktoriya listened to the song for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then, slowly, something shifted. It was an energetic and girly pop song and Viktoriya loved it.

“What is this song?” she asked.

There was a pause.