In the Zone (Portland Storm 5) (35 page)

That was all the invitation I needed. “I thought you’d never ask.” I crossed over to her in a heartbeat, putting one arm around her waist and guiding her up the stairs and into my bedroom so fast that we were both breathless. Granted, we were already out of breath before we’d started moving, but that was beside the point.

I closed the door, desperate to get my hands on her, but when I reached for her she put a hand against my chest and shook her head.

“Not yet. Sit over there.” She nodded in the direction of an armchair near the window.

The torture wasn’t yet at an end, then. I groaned, but I took a seat.

She set whatever was in her hand down on the bed, but I had no clue what it was. I couldn’t look at it. My eyes were only for Brie.

She came around to the same side of the bed as I was on, leaning back against it while she slowly undid the belt. Her robe dropped open, and my breath caught when I saw her underneath it. She’d put on one of the baby-doll nighties I’d bought her, some sort of soft, red fabric with a loose skirt that swayed with her movements and a fitted bodice that cupped her breasts in exactly the way I wanted to. The skirt fell just high enough for me to get a peek of black satin panty.

My tongue felt thick, and I had to sit on my hands to keep myself in place.

When she took a step away from the bed, the satin fabric of the robe dropped off her shoulders. The material swished to the floor at her feet. She held my gaze for a moment, but then she bent down to pick it up, turning slightly so I had a view of her ass. The nightie shifted to reveal her panty was a thong—a thin strip of fabric between those gorgeous cheeks I was dying to get my hands on.

Brie straightened and set the robe on the foot of the bed. Then she reached for the item that she’d carried in. She opened the pull ties of a silky black bag, and she pulled a vibrator out of it, her face as red as I’d ever seen it.

“You, um…” She shrugged, but then her eyes flickered up to meet mine again. “You asked if you could watch sometime. Do you still want to do that?”

Hell to the fucking yes, and even more if she was going to let me touch her when she was done. I settled for nodding because I didn’t trust my voice.

She took a few breaths, setting the little bag on my nightstand and seemingly working up her nerves. Then she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties and lowered them, slowly, incredibly slowly, down her legs. She stepped out of them, toed them away, and sat on the edge of the bed.

Her breaths were heavy, fast, steady. She hadn’t even touched herself yet, but the skin of her chest and shoulders was already flushed and covered with a light sheen of perspiration. She was incredibly turned on, maybe as turned on as I was.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Brie said. “Well, I’ve— Just never with anyone watching, I mean.”

“Don’t be nervous.” I was nervous enough for the both of us. Maybe not nervous. Excited. Filled with anticipation. So damn ready.

“I’m not—” She cut herself off. “Okay, I’m nervous.”

“You have nothing to be nervous about. You’re beautiful. I love— I love watching you come.” I’d almost said I loved her. I needed to tell her soon, but not yet. This was about her starting to find that confidence in herself that she’d been sorely lacking. I didn’t want to steal anything from that moment, didn’t want to make it about something else. Telling her I loved her could wait.

She nodded a couple of times. Then she looked behind her at the bed. “Do you want— Should I—”

“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.

A
FTER 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 reason, 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.