Zane

In the end, I had one orgasm to Rowan’s four. I’m not sure she got the better end of the deal though, because by the end, I was so wound up from smelling and tasting and being inside of her I could barely tell which way was up. The only direction that mattered was which direction she was in. I swear half my brains shot out my dick when I finally let myself blow at the fifty-seven-minute mark.

When it was over, she stood, wobbly kneed, by the bed and laughed like a loon while she pulled her clothes on. I should’ve gotten up, but I think it entertained her more that I couldn’t. Could barely keep my eyes open.

“I’ll call you,” she’d said after she kissed me one last time, still giggling, and then headed out the door. I must’ve basically passed out right after that, because I woke up ten minutes ago, sticky with dried sweat, and kinda sore. That girl is a workout.

Today’s the big day, and I can’t believe Rowan’s going to race after that. Our marathon banging was my workout for at least today, maybe tomorrow too. I can barely get out of bed. When I finally do and hit the shower, I can’t get her out of my head.

There’s something about Rowan that has me obsessing over her while I scrub shampoo into my hair, wishing she was here with me. She’s busy prepping for her race, I know, so of course she can’t be here getting filthy in the shower, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it, from wanting it. Wanting her.

I’ve had girlfriends before, although I find it harder now that the band is really famous. It’s difficult to trust people. What do they want me for? And lately I’ve been avoiding serious entanglements, because LtG is the only real commitment I can handle right now. It’s a catch-22, that. Wanting more, wanting something for myself, but not being able to take it because of my duty to the guys—and then feeling so overwhelmed by the weight of it that I don’t feel capable of taking on more. Not even on a personal level. Even my family gets a smaller slice of me than I’d like for them to these days.

So though I shouldn’t fantasize about having Rowan—because a girl like that deserves way more than I can give right now—I can’t help it. She’s so . . . I don’t even know. I like girls, but she tempts me to break the promises I’ve made to myself in a way others haven’t been able to. Not even meaning to, because she wouldn’t, which makes her even more enticing.

Now I’m getting hard from thinking about her. I should finish up in the shower and see if I can’t get some more notes on songs down because in the midst of all our fun last night, I heard a melody forming in the back of my head. Not ready to come into the world yet perhaps, but there’s something there and maybe I could coax it out. At least let it know I’m listening.

Instead though, I find myself thinking of Rowan and stroking myself. Hand slick with soap, it doesn’t feel half as good as when she was riding me last night, but it’ll have to do. My Valkyrie is off preparing to do battle, she can’t be here with me. But I can’t imagine she’d mind me jerking off to thoughts of her. Especially if I tell her about it later. I get the feeling she might like that.

I lean back against the tiles of the shower stall and slip my hand from the base of my dick down to my balls and roll them in my hands, tugging gently and then harder, like Row had last night. I can’t help but imagine her doing that while she licks me, teasing, torturing, telling me to wait because she wants me inside her, and how am I supposed to please her if I’ve already shot my wad?

Before I can be inside her, she wants to taste me, feel me in her mouth, and god I want that too—her tongue slicking along the underside of the head, sucking lightly until I beg her to take me into her mouth, and she would. Swallow me down while rolling my sac, and my hands would be clenched by my sides because she’s killing me, killing me dead. Just when I was about to spill, she’d stop. Shake her head and tut at me until I’d backed off from the edge.

She’d do it again and again, and then when I was out of my fucking mind, she’d straddle me, facing my feet. At first I wouldn’t like it because I’d want to see her face, feel her against my chest, but then she’d start to move, and she can do whatever the fuck she wants because goddamn would that be amazing, and plus, her ass. Those dimples on either side of her spine like codas: go back, and back, repeat, repeat until her thighs would tighten, followed by the muscles surrounding my cock.

When she’d gotten through the first, most intense pulses of her orgasms, she’d look over her shoulder, blond hair wild and obscuring part of her face because she couldn’t be bothered to brush it back, and she’d say, “Now. Come on, Zane. Give it to me.”

If you’re smart, you don’t say no to a girl like Rowan. So in my fantasy, and under the very real spray of the shower, I let go and allow my climax to overtake me. Come spurts onto the tiles and when the first few thick ropes of it are over, drips onto my fist closed around my dick.

I work it until there’s absolutely nothing left because she’d want it all and I want to give it to her. If only in this one way I feel good about giving. In my imagination, she’d climb off carefully and then curl into my side, skim her strong fingers along the trail of hair that leads from where she took her pleasure to my chest. And I would hold her.

In real life, I soap myself down one more time, wincing because goddamn am I sensitive now, and then climb back into bed before I have to get up in a few hours to see Rowan take the mountain. Because she will. She’s going to be great, I know it, and I want to be rested up to cheer her on. That much I can do.

Rowan

It’s peculiar, my job. Standing at the top of a track, waiting for race officials to check the temperature of the steels on my sled before giving it back to me. It’s protocol, happens before every race of any import, and yet every single time I want to refuse to hand it over. It’s my sled, we’re quite close, and I don’t want anyone else touching it.

Sometimes I think I have this issue because I’m an only child and never had to share much of anything with anyone. I mentioned it to Kate once and she looked at me like I had three heads. I don’t. I just happen to use a precision instrument that was, to be fair, custom built for my body, as a security blanket. Totally fine, not weird at all.

It’s all I can do to not snatch my sled back from the official when she’s through inspecting it. Now it’s time.

The women’s starting gate is somewhat farther down the track than the men’s, and I always get a smidge jealous they get more time on the ice. But now’s not the time to dwell on sexist bullshit. Now’s the time to focus, and for god’s sake, to pull.

I settle into my sled on the platform, making sure I’m positioned so the fiberglass and steel hug my body as they’re meant to. The beat of my heart is as loud in my ears as the cheers of the crowd, but it’s okay. War drums. A steady thump that will keep me grounded.

I’ve done this a million times. My body and my mind have been honed as fine tools for this one purpose, and I’m ready. The track is clear in my mind, I’ve been through and through it, and I’ve trained my muscles to respond to the conditions surrounding me in a lightning-quick way.

Gerrilyn holds my sled steady while I draw the clear visor of my helmet over my face, and when it’s been fastened to my satisfaction, she pats me lightly on the back before stepping away. Resting my feet on the bows, I grip the starting handles. As I’m drawing back, getting ready to pull, I give myself a second to remember why I’m doing this. Images of my father, Gerrilyn, Kate, all those hopeful kids who approach me during the Luger Lookouts hoping to do what I do, my mother, and briefly, fleetingly, but still very much there, Zane—all flit through my head.

I want to make them proud.

So I pull. Once, twice, and a huge third time, using everything I’ve got to send myself as fast as possible down the track. As soon as my gloves leave the handles, I know it was a good start. I’ll make it even better by paddling for all I’m worth with the spikes on my gloves digging into the ice, driving me faster, harder toward the bottom of the hill.

Then it’s time to let the real fun begin. I stop paddling and lie back on my sled, gripping the handles and sliding my feet down so I can steer using my calves on the bows. I’m picking up speed and that’s when everything goes silent. Not silent as other people understand it, because there’s the grainy rumble of rough ice passing incredibly quickly under my lovingly sharpened steels, but it’s what passes for silence in my world. It’s me, my sled, and the track. Nothing else matters.

Speed. Going into the turns, I do my best to keep low because going too high wastes time and loses you momentum when you need all the help you can get. My sled is vibrating, the world is whizzing by at upwards of eighty miles per hour, infinitesimal twitches of my muscles will determine whether I win, lose, or crash, and I’ve raised my head just far enough to see so I don’t compromise my aerodynamics.

There’s an incredible pull on me around the turns, and my job is to keep my body primed and relaxed at the same time, same as my mind. It’s an odd state, one a lot of people will never reach in their lives, because they don’t have to. But I live here. This is my house.

Shuttling down the track, the analytical part of my brain is saying this is a good, clean run. Probably the best I’ve had on this track. That’s trailed by a minion keeping tabs on all the stats, and checking things off a list like mad, tracking every tiny detail, every one of the ten thousand things that have become second nature to me now. Then there’s that deep, primal part of me I can’t spend a lot of time with, but for a split-second, I let myself enjoy. Because she—she is delighting in sliding down a hill crazy fast, and wants everyone to know it. If I let her take over, they’d have me on camera screaming, “Woohoo!” as I barrel down the track like some batshit crazy person.

As I come around the last curve, I feel it. I’m up too high. I could’ve done better. Next time. I’ll have another run in a few hours and I’ll do better.

In the meantime, I’ve come across the finish line. Sitting up, I grab the bows and pull up while my feet slide over the ice. People are cheering, but that doesn’t mean jack shit. They cheer for everyone. I’m grateful for the flags flying and the all of the support in the form of noise—damn it’s noisy out here—but it’s not what I really want to know.

Then I see the time—a small display, but big enough I can read it, and yes, that was a damn fine run. Have to wait for everyone else to go, but that is not a twelfth place time, no sir. There’s a tiny squeeze of my heart and I let it in for a few seconds. Drop my shields of concentration and let myself feel it, with a pump of my fist: pure, unadulterated joy.

Zane

Watching Rowan race is a combination of exhilaration and frustration. Exhilarating because holy shit can that girl move, but frustrating because from any given place on the track, you can’t see much. I want to see it all. Every second, every inch of concentration distilled. And yes, okay, she’s sexy as fuck in that suit that clings to each flat plane and tight curve of her body. I would like to be that suit, please.

I can’t be, though. All I can do is stand here in the freezing cold with Rowan’s mittens on my hands and cheer myself hoarse as she goes by before I go find the nearest screen. Not to catch the rest of her run, because she goes way too fucking fast, but to see the replay of her bombing down the mountain.

Between the studying up I’ve done on my own and the things Rowan’s schooled me on during our time together, I know from watching she did well. Kept low in the curves, following that ideal line every slider out there will be gunning for, and her form looks perfect. She looks perfect, and I hope she’s happy.

I’m also hoping the second run will be as good, keeping her name and our flag right next to that number one, and that she’ll be in the mood for celebrating tonight. Because seeing her out here—even if it’s cold enough to make my balls crawl into my body in the vain hopes of staying warm—is dead sexy.

While Rowan’s competitors go, I watch and clap politely but nothing like the admittedly over-the-top display I put on when she was the one sliding. Which is when it occurs to me that if the news outlets are paying attention, they’ve probably got that on tape and when Rowan sees it, she’ll block my calls because who wants to be with someone who goes berserk over a race? But maybe she would.

Give me crap about it, sure, which would be well-deserved, but also get that pretty flush in her cheeks. Maybe she’d see the way she feels about Zane Rivera, lead singer of License to Game, is the way I feel about Rowan Andrews, SIG luger extraordinaire. It’s also possible she’ll realize that’s not all she is to me. Even though it’s a terrible idea, I’m hoping I’ve become more to her than that as well.

Not just a means to an end of more press and better sponsorships, not just a fuck buddy to take the edge off, but maybe someone she might actually . . . like. For myself. The pieces that aren’t glamorous, not particularly sexy. The ones that are imperfect. My glasses, the hot mess that is me composing a song, the fact that I get lonely wandering around my big house in the Hills and I’d rather sleep on my sister’s couch where my niece and nephew will pounce on me in the mornings and I’ll probably step on half a dozen Legos on my way to take a leak.

My phone rings in my pocket and I have a flash of hoping it’s Rowan. She must be bubbling over with excitement, and I’d love to hear her all thrilled and giddy. Or maybe she’d be serious, focused, because her work’s not done yet. Not even for the day. But the number flashing on my screen isn’t Rowan anyhow. Because of course not. She’s not thinking about me at a time like this. Nor would I expect her to. Though I wouldn’t be sad if she were . . .

“Stanley, what’s up? Did you see Rowan’s run? She was amazing.”

“Uh, no. I’m too busy working for you to watch your fake girlfriend go tobogganing.”

“Why you gotta be a dick like that? Rowan’s a serious athlete. She could kick your ass for sure.”

“So could your grandma.”

True. Nana was badass, and if she couldn’t beat Stan into submission with her giant purse, she’d feed him until the guy would barely be able to roll out of the house.

“I didn’t call to spar with you. You’ve got a spot on Pop Nation in an hour.”

An hour? The music/reality TV channel’s temporary studio is back by the village. Which means I gotta go if I want to make it. Which I do, but . . . I look around, trying to determine if there’s any way in hell I’m going to get to see Rowan before her next run. I’m thinking not, but what if I leave and I could’ve seen her? That would suck. However, I also don’t want to be the clingy boyfriend. Especially because I’m not actually her boyfriend.

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

Rowan

I’ve got my headphones on, listening to LtG, of course. I can’t talk to anyone right now; even my dad and Gerrilyn are sitting beside me in silence because they know that when I’m between runs, I just can’t. What I can do is listen to this song I’ve heard a million times before. Though the words and the notes are the same and it has the same settling effect as it always does, there’s an added layer to it.

Zane. Even though I wouldn’t be able to bear looking at him right now, I like having his voice in my ears. It’s comforting in a way it hasn’t been before. It leads me to thinking about some of the other things Zane can do for me, and oh . . . that is probably not a good idea.

I’m about to flick to another song in the hopes a change will stop my thoughts from heading down that path—that incredibly, delightfully filthy path, lined with bone-deep kisses and all sorts of other hedonistic things—when there’s a shake of my shoulder.

Who the fuck is—

Kate, of course. When I slide my headphones off, she shakes me again and I’m rattled. Not just literally, either.

“Kate, what the hell? You know I don’t like—”

“Yeah, yeah, you and your Fortress of Solitude before runs, but I thought you’d want to see this.” She thrusts her phone into my hands, and when I look at the screen, it’s Zane.

Before I can help it, I’m smiling. He’s so goddamn cute, how can I not? Though I can’t hear his words, I can see his posture and his face. He’s got that sly smile, the one that makes his dimples into deep divots in his light scruff. No wonder he’s got all the girls screaming for him.

Apparently Kate doesn’t want me to just look at him. She yanks her own headphone jack out and plugs mine in, using one swift movement. She is far too well-practiced at interrupting me. We’ll have to have a talk about that. I don’t have time to scold her though, because Zane’s voice is in my ear.

“Yeah, it’s true we’ve been spending some time together while I’ve been in Denver.”

Kate pokes me square in the chest and my cheeks heat up until they must match the red on my Team USA uniform. Should I be flattered or mortified? My brain decides to go for both.

“From the footage I’ve seen, it looks like more than some friendly chats.” The host eggs him on with a bit of a dudebro elbow nudge and I have to refrain from covering my face. No one can hear this except me. Well, me and the rest of the millions of people who are watching this on Pop Nation at any rate. Shit. At least that doesn’t include my dad. He’s still sitting next to me, shooting eye daggers at Kate.

“Simon, come on man. You know I don’t kiss and tell.”

“Ah, so you’ve kissed!”

Zane shakes his head and oh my god, is he blushing? He is. He totally is. With that bashful look on his face he goes, “I am the worst at this. I’ll say this, okay? Rowan’s a spectacular athlete. She works crazy hard, and I don’t know if you saw her run earlier today, but she was phenomenal.”

“I did see it, actually, and I hear she’s our best shot at medaling in the luge. Doesn’t hurt that she looks banging in her uniform.”

Zane’s flush disappears, and though he tries to keep his expression friendly, his tone is tight, his words sharp as the steels on my sled. “Come on, dude. You wouldn’t say that about any of the male athletes. How about we appreciate her athletic prowess since that’s what she’s here for?”

Simon has the good manners to look abashed. “Fair enough.”

My first reaction is to be grateful. There is so much sexist crap female athletes have to deal with, what with people commenting on whether we look feminine enough or talking about our romantic partners as often as they talk about us. It’s so godawful sweet for Zane to have called that guy on it.

As they move on to discussing other athletes, my second—and yes, very stupid—reaction is worry. Does Zane not find me attractive? Oh my god, shut it, Andrews. The guy was begging for you the other night. True. The thought still nags at the back of my brain as I watch the rest of the interview. I’m tickled when Zane finishes up by talking about how underrated curling is and how everyone should watch the mixed doubles finals tonight.

In parting, Simon asks Zane if he’ll be at the second run this afternoon, and Zane gives him that charm-laden smile again. “I don’t know, man. You and your camera crew should come by the track and find out. Also get some footage of some of the best athletes in the world doing what they do best. Sliding.”

So, okay, Zane has managed to make luge sound sexy as fuck, and god knows that isn’t easy. There’s still that nagging voice, asking why he didn’t say yes, he’s coming to see me? Oh, stuff it.

I unplug and hand Kate’s phone back to her. She’s got this wicked grin on her face I’d like to slap off, but she has another run in a few hours like I do and I don’t want to injure either one of us, so I just grit my teeth.

“Can I go back to my fortress now, please?”

Kate rolls her eyes, but doesn’t argue, merely snatches her phone back and mutters under her breath as she turns on her heel and walks away. “Of course, because you only have two hours left to obsessively listen to your boyfriend’s band.”