In the Zone (Portland Storm 5)

by Catherine Gayle

  “Do whatever makes you comfortable.”

  Taking a couple of pillows from near the headboard, she placed them behind her and leaned back against them. Then she drew her knees up and back, and reached down between her legs. And she touched herself.

  I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t give a rat’s ass that I couldn’t.

  I would never see anything more beautiful, more trusting, more insanely sexy and sensual and giving in my life.

  This was about as close to heaven as I would ever get, and that was all right with me.

  AFTER A FEW minutes, I stopped feeling self-conscious about the fact that Keith was watching me. My body jumped ahead of my mind on that point, growing closer and closer to orgasm even before I had come to terms with the fact that I was masturbating with an audience. Whatever embarrassment I’d been feeling changed to exhilaration at some point along the way, and then the vibrator was almost too much for me to take.

  I turned the intensity down and moved it inside, moving the vibrations away from my clitoris so I could slow my climax down some. I swirled my fingers around my slick bundle of nerve endings, but even a very light touch was almost too much.

  My breathing turned shaky. I was hovering right on the edge of release, but I didn’t want it to happen too soon. With my head back against the pillows and my eyes closed, I tried to focus in on driving myself closer but keeping myself from slipping into that moment of ecstasy.

  I was close. So close. The muscles in my thighs and calves and feet and belly clenched, seeking relief from the pressure. Alternately, I couldn’t breathe or I was gasping in huge lungsful of air. I squeezed my eyes and let out a moan.

  “Fuck, Brie.”

  Keith’s voice had me lifting my head to look at him. He had a hand over his pants, rubbing himself through the fabric, and he looked about as close to orgasm as I was.

  His eyes bored through mine. “Are you about to come?”

  “Yes,” I said, my voice wobbling.

  “Can I touch you?”

  “Yes.”

  In a flash he was next to me, leaning over me to lower the straps of my lingerie down my arms. My breasts had barely come free when he took one in his mouth and molded the other to his palm. I arched up into him, so close to climax I didn’t think I could stop it now.

  So I stopped trying to hold it back. It washed over me, leaving me shuddering and boneless and completely unable to think.

  Thinking was overrated, anyway.

  Keith kissed me, long and deep and full of need, his hand cupping the back of my head to keep me where he wanted me. “Can I make love to you?” he asked when he came up for air. “God, it’s been too long.”

  “It’s only been about a week,” I said, laughing, but only because I felt the same way he did. It might have been slightly longer than a week, but it felt as though it had been longer than the six months between our first night and when we finally found each other again.

  “I don’t care. I— I need you, Brie.”

  “I need you, too.”

  It took him no time at all to get his clothes off—which I was glad he could manage on his own since I still could hardly lift my head—and slip a condom in place. And then the vibrator was gone, and he was inside me, and we were moving together, my legs wrapped around his waist to draw him closer.

  It was hard and fast and needy, utter perfection in every way. I could only hold on to Keith’s shoulders, nipping him lightly as I came again. Two strokes later, he shouted and stilled, and lowered himself down over me to recover.

  After a minute, he rolled off me, pulling me with him with an arm around my waist. He tucked my head into the spot between his neck and his shoulder, keeping me right by his side. “Merry Christmas,” he murmured, still running his hands along my body in an almost obsessive manner.

  I couldn’t really complain about that, since it felt good, and since I was still doing the same to him. The bit of a break we’d taken had been good for us in more ways than I’d imagined. I never thought the physical aspect of our relationship needed work or to get better, but this was definitely better.

  “Merry Christmas to you, too. Maybe we should take a week off from sleeping together more often, if this is what comes of it.”

  “Don’t even fucking joke about that,” he said. “I can’t take it. I nearly died being around you and not being able to touch you.”

  I smiled into his chest, mainly because I knew exactly how difficult it had been for him. It was all too common for me to look over and see him grinding his jaw, fisting his hands, trying to physically restrain himself from stepping across the invisible boundary I’d placed between us.

  But he’d done it. He’d done everything I’d asked of him and more. And now we could move forward.

  With one hand, Keith adjusted the strap on my lingerie, pulling it back up over my shoulder where it belonged. I adjusted the bra cups, putting my boobs back inside, as he drew the blankets up over us, so if we fell asleep, at least we were in a good position for it.

  “How did you feel?” he asked quietly. “Wearing that, with me looking at you like I was?”

  That was a loaded question. I took a moment, weighing my answer. I felt nervous and excited and entirely too aware of everything about myself. I felt alive. I felt afraid that I wouldn’t have the guts to go through with what I’d planned. But more than anything…

  “I felt beautiful.”

  I LOST TRACK of how many times Keith and I made love that night and over the course of the next day and night. We did go down to eat and to spend some time with Shane and Cole, who were likewise seeming to spend a lot of time upstairs and shut away from us, but for the most part we stayed closed off in Keith’s room, enjoying each other.

  When we got up the day after Christmas, though, the four of us all knew that our idyllic few days had finally come to an end. There was a sense of unspoken acknowledgment over breakfast that morning. Keith and Cole were leaving later that day for their short road trip; I had to really devote myself to Devin’s piece since we still hadn’t managed to get through the whole thing and our performance was less than a week away; and Shane had to occupy himself while his brother and Cole were gone. His flight home wasn’t until January third, so he was going to have to figure out what to do over his next four days here by himself.

  I suggested that he could come along with me and Devin to our practices, but Shane turned me down, saying he would rather explore the city and see what it had to offer, since he hadn’t spent much, if any, time here in all the years that Keith had been playing for the Storm. In Keith’s rookie season—the last time the brothers were essentially on speaking terms—Shane had been a senior in high school and playing major junior hockey in Canada. He’d only come out once, following the conclusion of his season in juniors, and even then it had only been a few days with the whole family together.

  This was his opportunity to get to know the place that Keith now called home, at least most of the year, and to do it on his own terms.

  We agreed to get together for lunch or dinner a few times while the guys were gone, but otherwise he was on his own, and I was back to life as usual—or at least as close to life as usual as I could come with the knowledge that this performance was bearing down on me, and as soon as we were finished with that, we would be working on the music video for The End of All Things.

  The guys all helped me to get my cats and all of their paraphernalia back to my apartment. Cole and Shane headed down to the car once everything was situated, leaving Keith behind for the moment.

  He drew me in close and put both arms around me, resting his chin on the top of my head. He was only going to be gone for a few days, but it felt like so much longer than that. Probably because we’d been so fully immersed in each other for the last several days. That was what I told myself, at least. I even halfway believed it.

  “I haven’t even left yet, and I already miss you,” he said.

  I could understand that. For whatever r
eason, I felt as though as soon as we let go of each other, we were going to be half a world apart. It left me with an empty, hollow ache that I couldn’t explain and wasn’t sure I wanted to. “How soon do you have to leave?” I asked, hating the despondence in my tone.

  “A few minutes. I have to get packed and head up to the practice facility by ten.”

  A few minutes didn’t seem nearly long enough, particularly after spending almost every waking moment together—and many of our sleeping moments—in recent memory. I wrapped my arms tighter around his waist, drawing him closer to me, as though that would sear the sensation of having our bodies pressed together into my brain.

  “If I FaceTime you, will you put on another piece of lingerie and show it off for me?”

  I did my best not to snort out loud. “Depends. Do you have a roommate when you’re on the road?”

  “Nope. It’s just me. Me and my hand. Good times.” A silent chuckle rumbled through him and into me.

  It was somehow comforting that he could make thoroughly inappropriate jokes and be charming, all at the same time, when I was all torn up in knots that he was leaving. The simple fact that I was a mess about him going away for a few days was something worth examining, though. I knew I cared about him—there wasn’t really any point in denying that, to myself or anyone else—but how deep did that run? It was more than a just-friends sort of companionship. It had been even when I’d insisted we needed to keep our relationship limited to that. But had we gone over the line from friends-in-lust or casual dating to something more like love? I wasn’t certain, but the few days apart should give me ample time to sort through that and figure out at least where I stood on that matter.

  “I’ll think about it,” I finally hedged, not willing to give him a definitive answer one way or the other. The fact was, I was leaning toward doing exactly that for him. I couldn’t explain it, but the more willing I was to step outside of my comfort zone in terms of my body image issues, at least when Keith was involved, the less they seemed to plague me. I still wasn’t sure I was ready to wear that skimpy outfit that the seamstress had made for my performance with Devin, but I was at least a lot closer to ready than I had been a few weeks ago. The way he looked at me, no matter what I was wearing, gave me a confidence that had been sorely lacking for a very long time.

  “I guess I’ll have to accept a maybe, then, and hope for the best.”

  He pulled back a bit, far enough that he could tip my head up toward him, and he kissed me very soundly. I pushed up on my tiptoes to meet him, deepening the kiss. We were both out of breath, our pulses frantic, by the time we had to separate.

  “You really have to go?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

  “I do. Four days, Brie. That’s all. I’ll be back on the thirtieth. Well, late that night, but still.”

  “I know.”

  He cupped my face with both hands, planting kisses over every spare inch of skin he could find, it seemed. That was more than enough to steal what little breath I had left. No one had ever kissed me like that before, as though every piece of me was precious. When he released me and stepped toward the door, I had to put a hand on the bar between my kitchen and living room to steady myself.

  “I love you, Brie,” he said.

  Then he walked through the doorway and was gone.

  I SPENT A lot of time with Colesy on the road that trip. He admitted that he didn’t know exactly what he had going with Shane, but that it was nice to know he could potentially be in a relationship and have someone know about it and be okay with it. I tried not to pry, but I inadvertently did when I asked him why no one from his family came to visit for the holidays.

  “Dad is about as homophobic as they come,” he told me over coffee. “Once I came out to my parents, Dad pretty much wrote me off. He won’t let Mom have anything to do with me. She secretly sends me letters and stuff. I wish she’d stop, though, because if he finds out…”

  The way he left it hanging made me wonder if his father was a violent man. I got the distinct sense that I wasn’t too far off the mark.

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about anything where I’m concerned,” I assured him. “I’m pretty sure you could come out to the rest of the team if you wanted and everything would be fine. But only if that’s something you want to do.”

  He changed the subject pretty quickly, so I knew my suspicions were right and he wasn’t ready for that kind of step. But he did have me, at least. I was glad I could be the one person he felt comfortable enough to be real with. I only wished there were more.

  That could come in time.

  Even though we were only gone for four days on this trip, we had three games. We beat San Jose five to four in a wild one on Saturday afternoon, then flew down to LA. Sunday night, we lost to the Kings when we left Bobby out to dry. The second game of a back-to-back was always iffy, and as Hunter’s backup, Bobby had drawn the short end of that stick. None of us had any legs after the track meet of a game we’d had the day before against the Sharks. We finally had a day off again on Monday, complete with no travel, before we were set to face Anaheim.

  I talked to Brie as often as I could while we were gone, but between my schedule and hers, it wasn’t easy to find moments that worked for both of us. Whether she would have been willing to give me a show on FaceTime or not, there hadn’t been a good time for us to work that out, either.

  She hadn’t told me that she loved me, too. And maybe she didn’t. Maybe not yet. I’d jumped headfirst into love with her a lot faster than I’d ever imagined, so it was only natural to think that it might take her a little longer to get there. How long did it take most people to fall in love? I’d never bothered to ask anyone. It had never seemed to matter until now.

  As long as she knew that I loved her, though, and she wasn’t trying to pull away from me again, I was all right with waiting for her to get there. I told her again every time we talked, sometimes more than once. She would usually get a little quiet when I told her, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad sign. It could just mean that she was trying to let it sink in. I’d noticed that she did the same thing every time I told her how beautiful she was, too.

  Regardless of all that, something between us was awkward when we talked Monday night. We’d been on the phone for at least twenty minutes, all of them slightly uncomfortable, before I finally figured out what wasn’t quite right.

  She’d been telling me about her latest rehearsal with Devin, how they’d finally finished all the choreography and there would be no more changes to the piece for the New Year’s Day show. Tomorrow was the dress rehearsal.

  “I can’t wait to see you dancing that number in front of a real audience,” I said. “The way you come alive even in practice? I bet it’s magnified a hundredfold when you’re on a stage with all the lights.”

  “I’m nervous,” she admitted quietly.

  “This is what you do, though. There’s no reason to be nervous.” I always had a slight case of nerves before going out for a game, but once my skates hit the ice, all my nerves melted away. Then it was only adrenaline and the repetition of practice that got me through.

  “It’s not about dancing. That’s about the only part of my life where I feel truly confident.”

  “Then what?”

  Brie hemmed and hawed, putting off giving me a real answer. But then she finally came out with it. “The seamstress came back with my outfit today, all complete with sequins and beads and whatnot. It fits a little too well.”

  There was no such thing as something fitting Brie too well, at least not in my mind, but I had a feeling that telling her that would have the opposite effect of what I was going for. I bit my tongue, giving a thoughtful, “Hmm…” and then waiting for her to finish.

  “The way it’s cut, and the way it hugs my body… I’m just worried that I’ll be so focused on the fact that people other than you are seeing me dressed that way that I won’t focus on the dancing.”

  “The way you move, t
hey aren’t going to be able to focus on the dress, Brie.”

  “You’re only saying that to make me feel better.”

  “No, I’m not. I doubt that even I will be able to focus on how you look in that dress, and I can promise you that I want to focus on that, at least a little.” I waited until she chuckled. “Have Devin and Tanya seen you in it?”

  “Yeah. And Shane, too. He came by today to take me to dinner and got there just in time for me and Devin to do a rehearsal in it.”

  I was a little jealous that my brother had seen her in it before I did. Not to mention the fact that he’d gotten to go to dinner with her tonight. Okay, maybe I was a lot jealous. “What did they have to say?”

  “They said no one will be looking at the dress.” Her voice held a definite pout.

  “Well, then, I guess I was right.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Mmm-hmm. You keep thinking that. When I get back to Portland, you can dance in it for me and then we’ll really see.”

  “Or I could dance for you in something else…”

  My mind raced through all the different pieces of lingerie she hadn’t worn for me yet, and I imagined watching her doing a strip-tease. A reminder alarm on my phone beeped in my ear, though, telling me I had to get off the phone and call it a night. I had to be up early for a leadership meeting before morning skate, and Bergy would murder me if I wasn’t well rested.

  “Time’s up,” I said halfheartedly. The last thing I wanted to do right now was hang up the phone and try to sleep. There would be very little chance of me actually sleeping if all my thoughts were on Brie and her sexy body doing a dance just for me. “Gotta hit the hay.”

  “Mmm…me too,” she murmured. “With all these practices, I’m worn out. Thank goodness I haven’t had any classes to teach the last couple of weeks. I don’t know how I’ll get through the work on the music video once classes resume.”

  “You’ll figure it out.” I had no doubt that Brie could do anything she set her mind to. “I love you, Brie.”