Page 134 of Hate You Most

“It was a test,” she smiled.

“A test?”

“To see if you would save me.”

Viktoriya looked at her with disbelief. “You would have crashed into the wall.”

“Yes, but you caught me in time.”

“I’m holding onto your fucking arm, you call that saving?”

Viktoriya laughed then, really laughed, the kind that made her shoulders loosen and her chest feel briefly too open.

When the song shifted into the chorus, Dakota lifted her free hand and said, “Come on.”

Viktoriya arched a brow. “What are we doing?”

“I never did land a quad axel, did I?”

“What?”

“I have never landed one, and you have. You’re going to guide me through it.” That was it. Dakota had officially lost her mind. There was no other explanation. Completely insane.

“You are joking,” Viktoriya said.

“I never joke.”

“That is not true.”

Dakota spun backward, her grin wild and bright under the rink lights. “Oh, come on!”

Viktoriya watched her for a second, then pushed off with a sigh that was more affectionate than anything else. “If you fall, I will be laughing at you.”

“I expect nothing less.”

Viktoriya skated closer to Dakota, close enough to feel her body heat through the layers of clothing that separated them. Dakota glanced at her with that bright and reckless look in her eye.

“Trust me,” she murmured, and Dakota laughed, breathless and already grinning like she had no intention of doing anything else.

Viktoriya moved her hands to Dakota's side and steadied her on the ice. She held firmly around Dakota's hips, lifted her, and guided her slowly through the jump. Four and a half rotations in mid-air, and a clean landing on the opposite foot she had taken off from.

She held her in the air by her hips for a moment, looked into her emerald eyes. Viktoriya understood, with an awful clarity, that there was no one else like Dakota in the world. There was no one so maddening and so brilliant and impossible to resist. She had known, since 2010, that Dakota Sanchez was going to ruin her, and she had been right. But some kinds of ruin had always been worth it to her.

Viktoriya kissed Dakota while still holding her, then slowly lifted her down onto the ice again. Her lips tasted faintly of citrus.

“Look at you,” Dakota said breathlessly. “You are never getting tired of this, are you?”

“Of the skating? Never. Of you? Also never.”

Dakota looked away with a small, shy smile that made Viktoriya’s heart hurt in the best possible way. After all these years she could still make Dakota so shy she couldn't fully look at her.

“Good,” she said softly. “Because I don’t think I’m getting tired of you either.”

They moved away from each other, skated around until the song ended and the next song started playing out through the speakers. She truly could do this forever. As long as she had Dakota, she could do it forever.

They took their skates off and grabbed their jackets from the boards. The door shut behind them with a soft sound, and they stepped out into the summer air.

The streetlights reflected against the damp pavement, and the city stretched out openly around them.

Dakota moved close enough to brush her knuckles against Viktoriya’s hand as they walked beside one another. Viktoriya reached for her hand without thinking. This time, neither of them let go.

They walked down the crowded street like that, fingers intertwined. Her wedding ring glistened whenever the passing streetlights caught it.

There was nothing for her in Russia that she didn't have here right beside her. Dakota swung their joined hands lightly between them and glanced over. “We still have to pick up your sister.”

“Yes, at the airport in two days.”

“Are you excited?”

Viktoriya squeezed her hand. “No, I’m completely terrified.”