In the Zone (Portland Storm 5) (12 page)

“That’s part of the Russian culture. Not violence, of course, but the machismo. They expect their men to be very domineering. It tends to work well in ballroom dance because the man is expected to take control on the floor.”

“Doesn’t make it right. Especially not in a relationship.”

“No, it doesn’t.” I had to hold back a contented sigh when Keith’s touch grew bolder. My body craved his touch. We may have only spent one night together, but now that his hand was on me, all I could think of was being with him again. “It wasn’t like that with Val at first,” I forced out, unwilling to give in to my desires so soon. “He was a true romantic, bringing me flowers, and writing me poetry in Russian, and wanting to be with me all the time. We moved in together before long, and then we were spending almost all our time together, and then he wanted to move to Providence to work with a new instructor.”

“And then you started having health issues.”

“And then I started having health issues,” I repeated.

“What did he do when you started gaining weight?” He kept slipping his hand farther up my thigh, an inch at a time.

I shrugged, trying not to let all my old hurts come to the surface. “At first, he acted like it was no big deal. He knew how I ate, and he knew how hard I worked out, so logically he should know that it wasn’t anything that was my fault. But the more weight I gained, the less understanding he was about it. The doctors weren’t able to find a fix right away, and even when they did I didn’t lose much weight, so he started blaming me for it.”

“Did he hurt you?”

I shot my gaze up to meet his because of the fierce tone of his voice. That fire was back, only it wasn’t passion or lust burning in his eyes this time. There was no hiding his anger—only unlike Val, I knew Keith wasn’t angry with me. He was angry with Val, or the situation, or Lord only knew what…but not me.

“Physically, no,” I said, weighing everything I said carefully. “Val only used words to hurt me.” The things he’d said to me had been more than adequate to accomplish the job. There’d been no need for him to inflict any other damage on me. In the year and a half since he’d left me, I’d come to realize that the old saying was a lie.
Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me
. No one and nothing had ever hurt me as deeply or as permanently as Val, and he’d never laid a finger on me in anger. Hell, in the end, he’d hardly touched me at all.

But Keith touched me now, lifting his other hand to gently brush the pad of his thumb along my cheek and jaw. “You swear he never hit you?”

“I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

“No.” He cocked a grin. “Just your name. And your job—”

“I am a teacher,” I interrupted.

Keith’s smile turned sinfully sexy. “You are a teacher.” He let his hand drop back down to his lap and finished off his beer, setting the empty bottle on the coffee table next to him. “I’m going to be totally upfront with you, Brie. I want this to be more than simply tonight. I want to show you what it can be like to have a nice guy in your life. A man who isn’t going to beat you up with words and make you think you’re not good enough.”

I wanted that, too, but I wasn’t so sure he was in any shape to be involved in a relationship—not a meaningful one, at least—and I didn’t know what it would take for him to get there. And was I ready for a relationship that meant more than one night? I didn’t know, but Keith Burns might be even more messed up in the head than me, and that was saying something after all that Val had put me through.

That didn’t stop me from finishing my wine, setting the glass next to his bottle, and sliding closer to him on the couch. It didn’t stop me from tugging his head down toward mine until our lips met. It definitely didn’t stop me from tracing my tongue along the seam of his lips until he opened and I could take the kiss where I wanted it to go. The tastes of wine and beer mingled in our mouths as he groaned and angled me back until he was leaning over me, covering me, steadying me.

No, it didn’t stop me from doing any of the things that I shouldn’t have done.

And at the moment, I couldn’t make myself mind, because right here, and right now, this man wanted me just as I was. Maybe if I allowed this to happen, I could start to understand why anyone would want me.

I
’D NEVER HAD
sex while standing up in a shower before. Not until now. Keith had the biggest bathroom I’d ever seen, with a giant walk-in shower and one of those rainmaker showerheads that kept the water pouring down over you the whole time you stood in it. Even with all the water and the slick footing, I wasn’t worried about slipping and falling. He’d worked me over in such a way that I wasn’t capable of worrying about anything now. All I knew was sensation—the rasp of his tongue, the heat of his touch, the fullness of him inside me. And the vibrating. Oh, wow, the vibrating.

I was on my toes on one foot, the other leg raised up over one of his arms supporting me, both my arms wrapped tight around his neck. And I was about to come. Again. He’d already taken me to orgasm with his charmed hands once on his couch, before we’d made our way to the bathroom.

That was when he’d really thrown me for a loop. He didn’t just put on a condom before we’d stepped under the spray; he’d taken out a pocket vibrator, removed it from its packaging, and brought it into the shower with us.

“I’m not so sure about that,” I’d said warily. “I’m already so sensitive.” Too sensitive. Painfully sensitive. But then he’d asked me to trust him, and I’d agreed, and now here we were.

That little toy packed some serious wallop. He held it between us, and every time he thrust, it buzzed even more firmly against my clitoris. Even though I’d already experienced one orgasm tonight, I knew I was on the verge of an even bigger one, maybe the biggest I’d ever had in my life. The toes on my free foot twisted into a claw from the intensity, and I couldn’t seem to take a breath. My whole body tensed. Clenched. Ached.

“Fuck, Brie,” he said, his mouth beside my ear. “You’re even tighter than I remembered.” He thrust into me again and held still, letting the vibrator go to town on me. He moved his hand to my hip, holding me in place, grinding his hips into mine.

Tight. Filled. Over-sensitized. About to explode.

I couldn’t say anything at all since I was still trying to force air in and out of my lungs. Finally, I was able to draw in a gasping breath, and I let it out again with a whimper as everything that had been so tight and tense and desperate within me fractured.

Then he was moving again, slow and steady, as though he was trying to build me up for more. “You’re so beautiful when you come. Your eyes turn almost pitch black and so fierce. Has anyone ever told you that?”

I shook my head and held on. It was all I could do to remain upright.

L
ATER, WE MADE
it to his bed. We didn’t end up lying down and going to sleep, however. The dogs tried to follow us in, but he shooed them out and shut the door, carrying another glass of wine for me and a bottle of beer for himself. We lay there for over an hour, naked, sipping, talking, and touching casually. Every time he looked at me too long, too intensely, I lost all my nerve and tried to cover myself by shifting my position on the bed or angling my arms in a different way, and then I tried to deflect his attention with something else.

I asked him about scars I found on his body—an appendectomy from a few years before, and a couple of knee surgeries, all related to hockey injuries. His fingers found the scar on my hip from a similar
war wound
, as he had described his—an injury brought on from my dancing—and he’d kissed me there on the white puckered skin. I turned myself away.

With his fingers and tongue, he traced the lines of the stretch marks that littered my belly, and he kissed them until I shoved him by the shoulders, my face burning from embarrassment as much as from desire. I rolled over, giving him more of my back.

“Do you have classes to teach tomorrow?” He touched my arm, a finger trailing whisper-soft over my skin. He didn’t try to turn me around again, but he wasn’t backing off, either.

“Most of the afternoon and some evening classes, too,” I replied.

“Damn.”

“Why damn?”

He let his hand settle on my hip, gentle but firm. I could tell the fact that I wasn’t facing him bothered him more than he was making out. He wouldn’t force me, though. That much was clear.

“I wanted you to come to my game,” he said after a moment.

“Oh.” We’d only been on one date, though. I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t his girlfriend. Yes, I was sleeping with him—although how much sleep was involved was debatable—but he didn’t seem ready for more even though he wanted more. I didn’t know if I was, either, if I couldn’t handle him looking at me. Touching me was one thing, but looking was something else entirely.

“Maybe next time then,” he said, and I nodded even though I wasn’t so sure we were going to make that leap anytime soon. He put a little pressure on my hip, rolling me until I was on my back, and he propped his head up on his hand. His eyes wandered over my body so much that I was antsy to pull the sheet up and cover myself, to turn out the lights, to grab my clothes off the floor and put them on again. Something. Just when I was about to act on my nerves, he took my hand in his, that simple touch as intimate as any between us until now. “Don’t hide from me,” he pleaded. “Let me look at you.”

He traced his thumb along mine, tickling me with the soft caress. This gentle touch was a plea, as much as his words had been. I pressed my eyes closed and let my head sink into the pillow, unable to watch him looking at me any longer. His gaze was enough to stoke a blaze within me, of need and want and lust and so much more, but I kept waiting for it to change. For the disgust to set in. For him to look away or turn out the lights, to be unable to look at me any longer.

“Look at me, Brie,” he begged.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

My face was on fire with shame. I shook my head, certain that if I tried to speak I would only end up crying.

“Tell me. Why can’t you look at me? Why can’t you watch when I look at your body?”

“Because I can’t handle the rejection that’s sure to follow.”

He moved closer, the length of his body pressed against my side, and he released my hand. But then he started touching my breasts, cupping and squeezing and molding them to his palms. I was so tender from all that we’d already done tonight, so sensitive, that every touch was the most exquisite torture. I arched into him, on the verge of begging. Then his lips touched my skin, wet heat enveloping me as his tongue rasped my nipple.

“You’ve got it wrong,” he said. “You’re rejecting me. You’re rejecting yourself.” He kissed me again, deep and slow and so sweet it almost made me cry. “Look at me, Brie. Let me see you.”

“You can see me. All of me.”

“Not all of you. You’re hiding a part of yourself away. I want to find it. I want to find you.”

I shook my head but opened my eyes, wavering between the urge to cry and the intense desire he stirred up within me.

“There you are.” Keith kissed the tip of my nose. He took my glasses off and set them on the nightstand, and then he kissed me again. “You look sexy as all hell in these, but I want to see your eyes better.”

“Why do you need to see my eyes?”

“So I can watch how they change when I make you come.”

I didn’t have the wherewithal left to voice a complaint, not that I really wanted to complain. Keith slid down my body and moved between my thighs, and he lifted my knees over his shoulders, dipping his head down to my center.

His tongue was magic. His hands were divine. His eyes never left mine, holding me locked within his gaze like a laser beam was keeping us tethered, which only intensified the power of my orgasm when it hit me.

Twice more, we had sex—earth-shattering, mind-blowing, never-in-a-million-years-did-I-think-sex-like-that-existed sex—before we were both too sated and exhausted to go on.

He dug out some clothes for me to sleep in, things that were far too snug on my body than I would normally wear, but it was either that or sleep naked or in what I’d worn on our date, and eventually, we fell asleep.

Mine wasn’t an easy sleep. I was sore like I’d never been sore before. But there was more to my sleeplessness than that.

Keith was restless even though he was out cold. He moved around a lot. He kept murmuring things, sometimes loudly, sometimes so soft I barely noticed.

Once, I was able to make out what he’d said. Only a few anguished words, a couple of sentences filled with pain.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

I
COULD ABSOLUTELY
get used to waking up in the mornings with Brie next to me wearing a pair of my boxer shorts and one of my old, worn college T-shirts. They’d been the best I could find in terms of giving her something from my closet to wear. If we made a habit of this, her spending the night at my place, then she’d eventually need to bring some of her stuff over to leave here. She could sleep in my boxers and T-shirts anytime she wanted, though. I would never complain about that.