Balance (Off Balance Book 1)

by Lucia Franco

  “Are you okay?” Holly asked, but I didn’t hear her question. “Adrianna?”

  I looked up. “Huh?”

  “I asked you if you’re okay. You look sick.” Worry carved her face.

  “Oh, I’m good. My lunch isn’t meshing with me is all.” The lie casually rolled off my tongue.

  “Just a warning, Coach Kova is in rare form today.”

  My heart dropped. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s been walking around with a scowl on his face and barking orders nonstop. Even Madeline jumped at one point.”

  “That’s not much different than any other day.” I gave a nervous laugh. “But thanks for the heads up.”

  “Adrianna!” Coach Kova yelled, startling me with a loud clap of his hands and grabbing my attention. My eyes locked with his and my stomach tightened. “Two miles. Now.”

  Fuck. Two miles in this heat, he’s insane.

  I nodded hastily. I did a couple more stretches, the ones Kova had taught me, and then walked to my locker. I slipped on some shorts and sneakers then grabbed my headphones and iPhone so my run wouldn’t be dull. Actually, running wouldn’t be so terrible since I needed to get my thoughts under control before I started practice. And getting away from him and everyone noticing my strange behavior was probably best.

  Not that anyone noticed. Paranoia at its finest.

  Once my feet hit the pavement, I jogged across the street and turned on some music. It wasn’t long before I completed one mile and sweat was dripping off of me. A couple more laps and––

  My thoughts stopped immediately when a searing blaze of fire traveled up my ankle and caused me to stop in my tracks. The air was robbed from my lungs. Jesus Christ, it hurt and I collapsed on the ground, clutching my calf. The sun was blinding and sweat poured down my temples as my fingers sought relief and massaged the muscle. Aside from practice, it seemed when I did any sort of running for long periods, my calf flared up. Maybe I needed to stretch out more, or maybe I was dealing with shin splints. I wasn’t sure what caused it, but I needed to get it under control.

  I did a couple of pointing and flexing stretches just on my left leg that hopefully would stretch out my muscle a bit more so I could finish running. Clearing my mind, I stood and wiped the pebbled dirt from my shorts. I started jogging again, ignoring the pain bursting from my ankle to my calf. I bit my lip, applying pressure to my other leg to relieve the impact on the injured side and fought it in spite of wanting to crumple to the floor. I pushed through the rest of the run and made my way back to the gym, limping in agony.

  The moment I walked through the doors, the cool air hit my face and I sighed in relief. Florida heat could be deadly. Between the pain and the humidity, I was lightheaded. I quickly grabbed a bottle of Aloe water my mom got me hooked on and drank half of it while sitting down.

  I rummaged through my bag and grabbed a clean leo and went to change in the bathroom. I was sticky and hot. Stripping off my damp clothes, I slipped on a black leotard and then splashed water on my face. I patted the rest of my body with a towel and then applied deodorant. Looking at myself in the mirror, my cheeks were flushed and my green eyes brighter than ever. I fixed my ponytail, the scarlet undertones looked like perfectly placed highlights even though I never dyed my hair.

  Luckily the pain at the back of my ankle had begun to subside. Just to be sure it wouldn’t come back, or at the very least I didn’t feel it, I popped some Motrin and then made my way onto the floor where I’d be practicing today.

  Looking for Kova, my heart stammered in my chest when my gaze landed on his finely chiseled body. I chewed the inside of my mouth, taking in every inch of him when our eyes finally locked. He stood waiting for me on the floor, hands propped on his hips and shoulders tight.

  “I am not getting any younger, get moving,” he clapped annoyingly.

  I exhaled a sigh of relief. He was back to his normal Russian dick self. Maybe my anxiety was over nothing after all.

  “Warm up. Sashays, handstand walks, front handspring passes, standing tucks across the floor. You know the drill. I should not have to remind you.” He was right—he didn’t have to remind me—so I wasn’t sure why he was. Maybe if he gave me more than thirty seconds to be back in the gym, he’d see I was capable of doing it on my own like I’d done every other time.

  “Then move on and do another pass of two back handsprings, ending in a full. Ten sets each.” He added, then stormed off.

  My jaw dropped. Ten sets? We normally did three to five sets. Now he wanted one hundred—with fulls? After I just ran two miles, he was trying to kill me.

  I shook my head and started up. The first thirty minutes I was good, then as I started my standing tucks across the floor, the ache was back in my lower leg, but so very light I worked through it. It wasn’t until I progressed and began the double back handspring fulls that the pain blindsided me.

  With both feet landing hard on the floor, I rebounded with a searing agony. Somehow I knew if I didn’t land easy it would end badly. So I tightened my body on the way down and landed as gently as I could on my toes to break the impact. I squatted to the floor and clutched my calf in distress, the air knocked from my lungs. I quickly massaged the muscle, kneading the ache, hoping to alleviate some of the burn, but it only aggravated it more. My stomach rolled in knots as I limped back so I could continue my warm up.

  It was a stupid idea. The same thing happened after I did another tumbling pass, only this time I fell to the floor clutching my leg and gave out a little yelp.

  Madeline rushed over. “What’s wrong? What hurts?”

  I flattened my lips and looked away. “It’s nothing. I just landed wrong.”

  “It’s not nothing when you look like you’re about to cry.”

  I gritted my teeth and sucked it up. “I’m okay.”

  “Kova!” Madeline yelled across the gym, waving him over. “Take a look.”

  Kova jogged over, mumbling in Russian. He bent down to get a better look. “Let me see.”

  I pulled away and he tensed. His eyes darkened and nose flared, perturbed by my blasé attitude. “You seem to forget your place here. Give me your leg.”

  “There’s nothing wrong, I just landed wrong.” I pressed.

  With two hands, Coach Kova ignored me and began feeling around my ankle, twisting and turning, asking if it hurt. Then he grabbed the back of my ankle and pinched. I gasped in response, acting in reflex and yanked my ankle from his grip. He snapped his eyes to mine, and I panicked, falling back to my elbows because I knew what my reflex meant.

  He knew I was lying. “Let us go.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Therapy room. I need a better look.”

  Tears sprung to my eyes at the realization I could have a serious injury. My heart pounded as I stared at the ceiling. I wanted to get this over with as fast as possible so I could get back to business. Every minute counted in my world, which meant I didn’t have a second to spare.

  Kova squatted down and scooped me up. This was the first time we’d touched since we’d had sex and I wondered if he realized it. He cradled me to his solid chest the way you would a baby. I wrapped an arm around his shoulder for support and dropped my head to his chest. He smelled really good and I tried to focus on his cologne over the pain. I was too distraught to make eye contact with anyone, so I kept my head down. His warmth calmed my emotions and brought me ease. An injury in gymnastics could go either of two ways: minor or catastrophic.

  I didn’t think mine was catastrophic, but I wasn’t a doctor either. I knew there was no way in hell I could take a long period off to rest. I’d come too far since starting here for that to happen.

  Kova carried me to the therapy room and set me on one of the exam tables with a deep blue, plastic cushion. As I went to scoot back, he stood in front of me and gripped my hips, shifting me gently. I had a hurt calf, I wasn’t crippled for Christ’s sake.

  “Lie back.” He stood on the side of the tab
le, arms crossed in front of his chest grimly. “How long has your leg been bothering you?”

  I bit my lip, deciding whether I should lie or not.

  “And do not lie to me, Adrianna, because I will find out either way.”

  Shit. Kova lifted my leg. My knee bent as he propped it on the table. He began to examine me with his index finger and thumb. “A few months, I think. I can’t remember exactly when it started, just have a roundabout idea.”

  “What kind of pain do you have?”

  “My calf hurts. Certain activities cause it to flare up. It’s like a burning sensation, but if I rub it out a little, I’m okay. Most of the time I just push through it.”

  “That was your first mistake. You never push through the pain, it will only prolong an injury. Keep going.”

  “Sometimes the pain goes into the back of my ankle. At times, when I point and flex, it hurts.”

  He began to massage the tender muscle and it took everything in me not to groan from relief. His fingers were magical. I clutched the edge of the exam table.

  “Your ankle is swollen.”

  Looking down, I compared both and realized he was right.

  “Did you ever at one time feel like the back of your ankle snapped, or did you hear a snapping?”

  “No.” He paused, looking at me for clarification. “I really haven’t.”

  “I will call your parents and they will need to take you to the doctor to be further examined since you are underage and cannot be seen without a guardian present. Until then, we will massage it and ice it.”

  My stomach tightened and I sat up. “There’s no need to call them. I can just wrap it up and I’m good to go. Really, I’m okay.”

  Letting go of my leg, Kova placed both of his hands flat on the table on the sides of my hips. Lowering his voice, he said, “Adrianna, I am not going to risk you being injured more than what you already are. This is my gym, and it is my responsibility to make sure everyone is safe and healthy to practice. From the looks of it, you might have a moderate Achilles injury. But without proper medical attention, I cannot tell exactly what it is or how to treat it, and until then, you will not practice.”

  My nails dug into my palms as I fought back the tears. Darkness surrounded me. My breathing became labored. There was no way this was happening. Swallowing back my frustration, I asked, “Can I at least ice it and finish today?”

  He didn’t answer me, just massaged the back of my calf. It felt heavenly, like he knew exactly how to work out my tight muscle with a touch of his fingers. Expelling a heavy sigh, I wiped the one tear that fell from my eye.

  After a few minutes of attention to my leg, Kova quietly said, “You should wear shorts for now.”

  I eyed him, but before I could ask, his fingers grazed my skin. “People might ask what these are.” Looking down, I noticed small circles of faint black and blue bruising on my upper thigh. They were close to my bikini line where Kova was feeling. I sucked in a breath and let him continue his gentle touch.

  “I didn’t notice them before,” I said softly. “But I could easily say I bruised them on bars.”

  Concern carved his sharp jaw. He looked genuinely troubled from the bruises he left on me. “Do you have any more marks?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “I hurt you,” he stated more than questioned.

  “You didn’t hurt me, Kova,” I whispered. “If you were hurting me, I would’ve told you to stop.”

  He paused, looking at me. “Would you have?”

  I wanted to say so many things, but I couldn’t find the words. The air thickened as we stared into each other’s eyes. Flashes of that night speared through my brain, flushing my cheeks and parting my lips. He knew my answer.

  Kova’s fingers trailed along my bikini line, dipping a little too far. My breathing slowed. We were in the gym in broad daylight where anyone could see what he was doing. Luckily his back was to the door of the therapy room, shielding his forbidden touch.

  “It is hard for me to keep my hands to myself,” he whispered so quietly it was almost hard to hear. “I cannot stop thinking about that night—how wrong it was, how good it felt to be inside you. How much I surprisingly did not care about the repercussions.” His palm spread across my inner thigh, pushing it open. “Of all the years of coaching,” He pulled me up to a sitting position to face him. “The persuasion from the mothers I fought off, the temptation of the gymnasts, then you come along and break it. I have been coaching for many years, had colleagues tell me about relationships with their athletes. I abhorred it.”

  My eyes widened, my heart stammered. The fiery heat of his touch only made my blood simmer more as I thought back to the night he took my virginity. My legs dangled off the table, his hands remained on my thighs.

  The next words he uttered were ones I didn’t expect. “It is not safe for me to be alone with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Adrianna, we cannot get into this here, but you know why.” He paused, then spoke the most devastating words possible.

  “That night was a mistake,” he confessed. My lips parted with my heart, a shallow breath bursting from my lungs. “On so many levels.”

  “Don’t say that,” I whispered, my jaw quivered.

  He shrugged. “That is life. Do you realize I cheated on Katja, again? I have never once considered cheating on her, until you. Five years of a relationship down the drain, and I cannot even confess,” he hissed softly, “because you are my fucking gymnast.”

  His fingers were digging into my legs, struggling to stay calm.

  “If you regret it so much, then why are you here and not another coach?”

  Kova didn’t say anything, he just stood there glaring.

  Smugly, I smiled and said, “That’s what I thought.”

  I jumped off the table and limped toward the door. Before I could leave, Kova stepped ahead of me and slammed the door shut and locked it. He grabbed my elbow, turned me around and pushed me up against the door. With one hand braced above my head, his other held my thigh hitched around his hip. Thank goodness it was my bad leg, otherwise this straining would hurt.

  Kova leaned down. Hovering above my mouth, I stopped him. “I thought you said relationships are banned,” I panted.

  “I make the rules, remember? I am the coach. You are the gymnast. And who said this was a relationship anyway? You have a lot to learn, Ria.”

  “This is much more than a relationship. You just don’t want to accept the reality of it.”

  My leg hooked firmly around his hip as my toes struggled to remain on the ground. His hand slid over my thigh, rounding my ass to hold me to him. His erection strained against my center and my eyes flitted shut before I forced them open. His wild eyes looked into mine. Kova tilted his head and rolled his hips, a purr of pleasure escaped my throat.

  “You confuse me,” I said breathlessly.

  “I confuse myself,” he countered. “This is the one and only relationship you are allowed to have, if that is what you want to call it. Get rid of Hayden.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Hayden is just a friend, I really like him.”

  He gave me an amused stare. “I was not born yesterday. You guys are very close, too close for me.”

  “I’m not getting rid of him, he’s the only true friend I’ve had since I’ve been here. I want him in my life.”

  “I do not like the way he looks at you. Or maybe you want him too?”

  “He’s just a friend.” I reaffirmed.

  “The looks you two share appear more than friendly.”

  Rolling my lip between my teeth, my eyes grew heavy. “We may or may not have kissed.”

  “You really know how to push my buttons.” Kova flared, his lip curled. Revelation of his jealously coiled my belly. “What else happened? Did he touch you?” It was my turn to ignore him. He gripped my chin with his thumb and index finger. “There could be consequences for it, Adrianna. Do not test me.”

&
nbsp; “You mean test you more than I already have?” I quirked with a half-grin. Two could play at this game. “Hayden is staying in my life.”

  Kova leaned down and sensually nuzzled my neck, whispering, “When did this happen? Before or after I was deep inside your pussy and fucked you senseless? Did he touch you the way I did? Does he make you come like I can?”

  A gush of air burst from my lungs. My entire body was about to combust. “It’s none of your damn business.”

  With his eyes on my mouth, he pulled my face to his and crushed his mouth to mine. This was more than just a kiss. He kissed me with his entire being, surging into me. Kova’s hips pressed forcefully into mine and marked his territory, claiming me.

  I clutched his shirt in my fist, holding him tight, feeling his solid chest firmly pressed to mine as his mouth devoured me. I wanted Kova so badly, but I could tell he was holding back—and with reason. We were inside World Cup in broad daylight.

  Reaching between us, I slid my hand down to his hardness, and grasped him through his shorts. He tensed. “I want this again,” I admitted against his mouth, tugging on his length and bottom lip at the same time.

  Kova pulled back and smirked, his emerald eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “Greedy little girl. I knew you would want it again.”

  Blood rose to my cheeks as wetness coated the fabric between my legs. What a cocky Russian he was and I fucking loved it.

  “And what is this?” He asked coyly.

  I paused, not understanding his question. He saw my confusion and reached down with his hand to cover mine over his growing erection. “What is this, Adrianna?” he repeated, and this time I understood when he squeezed my hand that was holding him.

  Nervously, I bit my lip as my gaze wavered to his shoulder. My cheeks flamed in embarrassment once again at his question, unable to meet his gaze. I knew what it was, he knew I knew, but apparently he wanted me to say it.

  “A penis,” I said quietly.

  “Wrong answer. Try again.”

  His deep, quiet voice had my heart pounding as my breathing intensified.

  “Eyes on me, Ria.” His commanding tone demanded my attention.