“You are done for the day,” he abruptly said in a broken whisper. As Kova stood, something hard dragged up the inside of my thigh. He placed a hand out to help me up and I hissed as my skin made contact with his. I’d forgotten I had rips the entire time I was with him. He turned my hand over and inspected them, his thumb delicately running in circles on my palm.
“Sorry about these.” Then he turned his back to me and left, leaving me speechless.
It was then I realized Kova had a really long and hard erection.
Two things I was sure about.
One: Hayden was right about treating my hands properly.
Two: There was something mentally wrong with my coach.
I paced my condo, wearing out my carpet while I waited for Hayden to show up again. He’d be here any minute to help me out.
Today had been awful, the pain, unbearable at one point. So crippling, it nearly brought me to tears, but I sucked it up and refused to give them to him. I guess Kova thought I was in dire need of training because we spent hours together. Him screaming at all the little things I did wrong had me wanting to throw a block of chalk at his head. I had tutoring between gym sessions that gave my hands a little break, but it wasn’t enough. They needed days to heal.
After changing a few things up in my routine, Kova made me repeat it until I couldn’t get it wrong. Every single skill, he had a conditioning technique for. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good thing, but it can also become tedious, and quite frankly, fucking annoying at times. He was on top of everything I did, breathing down my neck, ready to attack. More so than usual. He reminded me of a gnat that just wouldn’t go away. Always in my ear, always making sounds. I’d banged my shins, jammed my toes on the bars, and even lost my grip due to exhaustion and fell on my hips. The bar had caught me, not the floor. There was only so much one could handle after hours of relentless coaching.
It wasn’t long after the change in my routine that my rips got caught and the skin tore back. Sometimes when the pain is so severe, you don’t feel the injury, and that’s exactly what happened to me. I was chalking up, too focused on Coach explaining something, when he paused and pointed it out. I looked down at my bloody hands covered in chalk and shrugged. There wasn’t much else I could do at that point. I couldn’t very well beg for mercy and ask to move to beam where my hands could get a little break. Although, I’m sure he would’ve loved that.
And as much as I hated to admit it, the outcome had been rewarding. I knew I had nailed my routine near the end, and the slight smile on his face confirmed it. He was proud of me, though he struggled with the words. Like every man in the world did.
My hands had gone through the stages of hell, from feeling like I had dipped them into a fiery red ant pile, to being completely numb. I had managed to block the pain and push through it and not complain, and I think that bought me some points in his book. At least I hoped it had.
I was sure Coach Kova thrived on the tears of young hopefuls, it was the only thing I could come up with at this point. He was a raging lunatic when he wanted to be.
But surprisingly, he could be rather tender too...
I could still feel his hands on me, the whisper of breath that rolled across my cheek, the way his erection glided up my thigh. I couldn’t get the image out of my head. He’d been on my mind since our private session, and astonishingly for the first time, I actually looked forward to another one. Kova opened up and showed me a different side of him, one I was curious to learn more about. A side that made him human, one that had a heart.
A knock at the door shook me from my thoughts, and I ran toward it. Hayden stood on the threshold with another pharmacy bag.
“You know, I’m gonna have to start charging an in-house doctor fee.”
I laughed, welcoming him in. “Bill me.”
“So are you regretting not listening to me?”
“Do you think it would have made a difference in the end?” I held up my palms to him. Hayden grimaced, shaking his head.
“Honestly, I’m not so sure.”
He placed the plastic bag on the counter and then walked over to me. Taking one of my hands into his, he used his thumb to feel around my palms. Aside from the actual blisters, my skin had rolled up and peeled in various places. Those weren’t too bad, they were manageable. It was tender behind my knuckles, so that always tore first and caused the most pain.
“We should probably do this in the bathroom, or over the kitchen sink. It’s going to get messy.”
My heart dropped, fear exploded through me of what was soon going to take place. Before he began, Hayden pulled out a small steel container from his duffle bag.
“But first, you’re going to need this.”
“What is it?”
“A flask of vodka.”
I frowned. “I can’t drink all that. I’ll get sick.”
He was amused. “Not all of it, of course you’ll get sick. Only a shot or two to help take the edge off. Have you ever had vodka before?”
A tremor worked through me at the memory. “Yeah, once with my best friend, Avery. Let’s just say it didn’t go over well.”