Page 87 of Hard Lessons

He turned away and walked over to the table beside the bed. I watched him in front of me as he opened the drawer and pulled out a ruler. He turned back to me, a dangerous smile on his face. “Coaches do need rulers. Now, be a good girl and bend over for me.”

My stomach tightened in excitement as I moved to the bed and bent at the waist. I twisted my fingers into his bedding before I locked eyes on him in the mirror on his dresser.

Without warning, he pulled the ruler back and sent it flying toward my ass. It hit with a resounding sound, and a stinging sensation burned across my skin.

My breathing became labored with excitement.

“Do you want another?”

“Yes.”

He smacked me with the ruler again. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, Pro—Coach.” I offered a smile, and he flicked the ruler against my ass once more.

“How many do you want?”

“All of them.”

He chuckled before smacking me again. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I turned to him, taking in the way his chest heaved and his hair was messy from his attack.

I cradled his face and stared into his gray eyes.

“I never got to tell you,” I whispered.

He stared down at me, his brows crinkled. “What?”

“I love you, too.”

His eyes lit up, and a grin broke onto his face. He lifted me into his arms, his lips fused to mine as he lay me on his bed. He balanced himself over me, a look of pure adoration and devotion on his handsome face.

I reached out and cradled his cheek, the rough stubble against my palm.

“Just so you know, Miss Ashford, I think I’m going to marry you someday.”

I pulled him down to kiss me, my heart full.

“I think I’m going to marry you someday, too,” I whispered against his lips.

And that was it.

He pushed deep into my body, taking me back to the feelings I’d been missing with my entire being, his soft words in my ear as he moved in and out of my body.

“My Evie.Mine.Always.”

In the end, we weren’t anything like how we started. Neither of us was innocent. We had scars we gave to each other. But maybe that was the point of everything. We broke each other, burned through every boundary there was, and we still crawled back through the wreckage to feel whole in each other’s arms again.

I hated him for what he’d done. He hated himself more. But love, real, tangible love, doesn’t come with clean hands. It’s raw. It’s messy. It hurts. It’s laced with the kind of forgiveness that takes a lifetime to earn.

He was a punishment to me in the beginning. I was his salvation. And maybe the hardest lesson we learned was that some scars weren’t meant to fade. They were meant to remind us that we survived.

And we would continue to survive.

Together.

Forever.