“Sorry,” he said. But instead of moving, he slipped two fingers into the front pocket of my jeans. A moment later, he had my key in his hand. “You mean this?”
The feeling of his fingers against my thigh, with nothing but the inner part of my pocket between us, had made my chest constrict and sent a pool of warmth through me. It was a similar place to where he touched for one of our skating moves, but it hit differently here. There was no workout gear, no thick skating tights, no coaches and choreographers watching our every move carefully. And usually there wasn’t a never-ending thumping that was hard to locate but ever present.
Dom wet his lips with the tip of his tongue without breaking eye contact. A slow smile spread over his lips, and he raised his eyebrows ever so slightly. Dammit, I thought. He knew exactly what he was doing to me. He knew and he was enjoying it. Well, two could play at that game. I knew his weak points. If he wanted to tempt me, I could do the same thing right back to him.
I kept my chin tilted down slightly so I was looking through my eyelashes when I made eye contact. "Unlock the door," I instructed.
He looked surprised as his Adam's apple bobbed, but he quickly recovered. A moment later, he had the door to my room open. He put his arm against the door to hold it open for me.
I immediately went to wash my hands. The stickiness of the melted ice cream was getting on my nerves. As the water ran over them, he asked, "Do you want me to stick around? Or to go?"
"You can stay if you want to," I called back. I turned off the faucet and walked over so I could see him while I dried my handson a thin white towel. The crappy hand towels didn't bother me. The bath towels, on the other hand, got on my nerves every time I used one. If my suitcase hadn’t already been packed to the brim, I should have brought my own.
When I looked back, Dom was leaning against the wall. There weren’t many places to sit in the rooms provided to athletes. The most comfortable spot was the bed, but he either didn’t want to be presumptuous or was worried about the message it would send. I didn’t have that worry, so I sat on the end of the bed with my legs crossed. It was that or the floor if I wanted to get a good look at Dom, and there was no way I could sit on the floor right now. I was fighting some level of muscle aches most of the day. Ever since Nationals, my life had included far too much exercise and not enough sleep. Sitting on the floor would wreak havoc on me.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Dom admitted. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, closing himself off. “You were jittery enough before all the sugar. It might not be the best idea to stick around. Especially since you were acting… different just now.”
“What? Was it this?” I asked, imitating the flirty look. “That was just because you shoved your hands into my pants without hesitation.”
Dom's cheeks reddened. It was unfair for him to look so good while flustered. He spluttered, “My hands weren’t in your pants. I stuck a couple of fingers in your pocket.”
“I don’t know how to break this to you, but the pockets are part of the pants,” I said. “And since they are inside the pants and your fingers are part of your hands, well…”
“Technically, but you made it sound like I had shoved my whole hand in there to grab your ass or something. I was being helpful.”
“Keeping me from having to put my sticky fingers on my key card is one thing. But it was the way you lingered, like this.” I mimed what he had done in the air, using two of my fingers like tweezers that I pulled up at a snail's pace. “You let your finger rub right on my inner thigh, close to my crotch. And you could’ve been faster if you wanted to.”
Dom shrugged noncommittally. “So tell me that you didn’t appreciate it if you didn’t like it. Tell me you want me to avoid touching you and I won’t do it again.” He straightened up and took a couple of steps towards me. “If you can honestly say that, I won’t touch you anymore.” He crouched down at the foot of my bed so his head was level with mine. “But I don’t think you can say that honestly, can you?”
I opened and closed my mouth several times, wordlessly. Great, now I looked like a fish. My first instinct was to lie my ass off, but I didn’t think he would buy it. He was too good at picking up on my nonverbal cues after all these years. He would see right through me. Then, not only would he know I had liked the feel of him touching my inner thigh, but he would know that I was a liar.
“You need to make up your mind. I thought you were trying to be professional and then you’re doing this.” I waved my hand in front of his face. “So sorry if I’m a little confused by your mixed signals.”
“Are you telling me this is unprofessional?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “I thought that this was exactly what our boss told us we had to do. We are supposed to convince the world that we have fantastic chemistry in two days. We were most effective at doing that back before we got awkward around each other. Before we slept together, you weren’t shy about a little playful teasing, and you didn’t hold yourself back from fully committing to the whole sexy hip shake thing. At least not after Brandon was out of the picture. We’ve gotten better at the elements, but wehave both been scared to fully commit to the flirty thing we had going before. I think I figured out the solution.”
I swallowed hard as he stood up just long enough to sit next to me on the end of my bed. “What’s the solution?” I couldn’t raise my voice above a whisper, even though I tried.
“I thought it was obvious. We need to stop worrying about what would be considered professional in any other situation. We need to go back to when we both really wanted to fuck each other, but didn’t know the other one wanted it, too.”
It was unfair of him to bring this up while we were alone, nevermind on my bed. Although I couldn’t think of a single person I would want to overhear this, so maybe it was the right call. “But we both know…” How should I finish that sentence? We both knew that the other one thought the sex was amazing, even if we acted like awkward fools around each other? I tried again. “We both agreed that it was fun, but a bad idea.”
“We said that because we didn’t handle the aftermath well,” Dom countered. “But what if that was a self-fulfilling prophecy? Maybe we only didn’t know how to act around each other because we started overthinking it and were scared it could end badly.”
I looked down at my hands as though there was something I needed to examine. “Do you really want to take a risk this close to our competition?” Anything that caused us to be less than perfect would derail nearly a decade of hard work and dedication. We would then have to wait four more long years for another shot at gold outside of a team event. Assuming, of course, that it didn’t negatively affect us long-term. Assuming that we were both still capable of competing at this level by then. When you pushed your body this hard every day, it was impossible to know when the damage would build up to the point you couldn’t do it anymore. Plus, twenty-five may be young in the normal world, but it was not young for figureskaters. There was a reason the people pushing the sport to new limits were on the younger end.
“You say that, but this entire thing involves some risk,” Dom said. “Going for the quad twist instead of an exceptional triple is a risk. The lifts, jumping only to land on a narrow blade, all of it is risky. The risk is what makes us great. It’s what got us here. So, can you honestly tell me that going back to a no pressure, no expectations flirting off the ice is more of a risk?”
Technically, it wasn’t. But the emotional weight made it feel like it. “I just don’t want to screw everything up,” I said vaguely. My anxiety was at an all-time high. It was taking everything in my power just to put on a brave face. At any given moment, I was silently panicking about messing up one of the skates. Any sign of trouble would be enough to turn that into a full-blown panic attack. The weight of everything was on my shoulders. The thought of trying something that had led to a few disastrous weeks would push me over the edge.
“I can’t handle more stress,” I mumbled.
Dom rested his hand just above my knee. “It’s up to you. If you don’t want to flirt, we won’t. But we did better when we weren’t enforcing such firm divisions between our off-ice and on-ice personalities.”
He was right. I hated that it was the truth, but how could it not be? It was easier to dial up the sexiness when I wasn’t overthinking my words the rest of the time. I wasn’t an actress, much to Mark and Olga’s disappointment.
“You’re right.” I finally met his eyes again. He looked surprised. “We need to get in the right headspace. It’s what everyone wants to see. We have to give it to them.”
Dom’s smile lit up his face and eased some of the tension in my chest. “No overthinking things. Just showing off why we have the best chemistry of all the pairs.”
