Bootstrap btn class, but not hover state

I think the easiest thing to do would be to add some .nohover class to the desired .btn elements that would have the same styles as a .btn class

HTML

<span class="btn nohover" style="background-color: #82CFFD"><strong>R</strong></span>

CSS

.btn.nohover:hover {
    /* here copy default .btn class styles */
    cursor:default !important;
    /* or something like that */
}

If you set styles with the attribute style, than this will top all styles set from a css file for the class .btn. So you will not get a hover state style defined in bootstrap css.

And since boostrap 3 you have to set a css base class btn and a modifier class btn-default or btn-primary or ...

The way to achieve what you want is to set your button style, something like btn-default, and then add the active class:

<span class="btn btn-default active" style="background-color: #82CFFD"><strong>R</strong></span>

The only caveat is that the button will always look "pressed." If you don't want the button to look pressed, you'll have to make a custom override.