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“We needed this,” Dylan said quietly, a husky undertone coloring her voice. “Just a quiet night without homophobes or crashing planes.” She cocked her

head slightly, effortlessly capturing Cat’s rapturous gaze. “Unless you’d like to go somewhere else?”

“I don’t think we should risk it,” Cat reached up and unfastened the top button of Dylan’s shirt, pressing a kiss to the hollow of Dylan’s throat. “We should

just stay here.”

Another button, and another kiss. Dylan’s scent rose up to greet her, and she felt as if she were falling. “Until at least tomorrow,” she continued in a voice

she didn’t even recognize as her own.

As a third button loosened, Dylan felt herself quickly begin to lose what little control she had left. Her hand came up of its own volition, cradling the back

of Cat’s head as her fingers threaded themselves through the incredibly soft hair. The sensations rushing through her body easily melted her self-imposed

restraints and her mind, whirling with emotion and need, struggled to remind her of the promises she’d made to them both.

With a great amount of reluctance, her body screaming at her every millimeter of the way, she pulled again away from Cat. Looking into the glazed and

passion-dark eyes almost trumped her resolve. She took in a very shaky breath, and eased it out slowly, demanding her body to calm itself.

“Did…did I do something wrong?” Cat asked in a voice that almost broke Dylan’s heart.

Gathering the younger woman closely to her, Dylan strokes the fine blonde hair in a soothing manner. “God, no. No, Cat. You did everything right.

Everything, believe me.”

“Then why…?”

“We…um….” Dylan cleared her throat. “We agreed to take this slowly, remember?”

Cat blinked once, then nodded, almost timidly. “Yeah. We did.”

Closing her eyes, Dylan gathered the younger woman against her as fully and as tenderly as she could. “Cat, believe me when I tell you that there is

nothing, and I mean nothing, that I would rather do right now than to make love with you right now.”

“There’s a ‘but’ in there,” Cat mumbled against Dylan’s cloth covered chest. “I just know there is.”

“There is,” Dylan said sadly. She sighed. “Cat, the truth is, I’m so damned attracted to you that I can’t see straight some days.”

“Well, that’s a good thing. Isn’t it?”

Dylan laughed softly. “A very good thing,” she agreed.

“But….”

“But we need to take this slowly. Not just for us, but for our careers. We have a lot to focus on with the team, and to be completely honest with you, Cat, if

we make love now, here, tonight, I’m afraid that my focus on my job will suffer. And that’s not something I can afford to let happen right now.”

Cat was still for a very long time. Dylan continued softly stroking her hair, content to let the young woman process her words and draw her own

conclusions from them.

Finally, Cat sighed and pulled slightly away, tilting her head to meet Dylan’s eyes. “Even if the rest of me doesn’t agree, my head knows you’re right.”

Lifting a hand, she stroked the sharply etched planes of her coach’s beautiful face. “Since it’s our night for confessions, I’ll tell you that from the moment I

saw you in my dorm room that day, I’ve known that I could lose myself in you so very easily, Pallas Dylan Lambert.”

“You have, huh?”

“Oh yes. But I also know that you’re right. We’ve both put our life’s energies into what we do on the court, and I guess we need to make that our first

priority.” She looked up, a little guilty. “And I’m not sure I could do that once I made love to you for the first time.”

The hug she received was worth every aching hormone in her body, and she sunk blissfully into it, praying with one corner of her mind, that it would never

end.

It was well after midnight when Dylan said her goodbyes for the evening. The accompanying kiss left Cat’s entire body feeling like Jell-O, and she stood on

unsteady legs waving goodbye until Dylan’s taillights disappeared down the street.

Hamlet, sitting just inside the door, whined, then gave a soft yip to get his master’s attention. Cat turned to him, in a daze. “Oh. Sorry boy. I guess you need

to go out, huh?”

A sharper bark was her answer, and she led the dog out onto the grounds to take care of business.

When they reentered the apartment, Cat looked at the used glasses on the coffee table and shrugged. “They’ll still be there in the morning. C’mon, Hamlet.

You can wait by my bed while I take a shower.” She paused as she touched her still tingling lips. “A long, cold shower.”

“Time! Call time!!” Dylan strode down the sidelines, eyes blazing, her hands forming the universal “time out” symbol.

From the corner of her eye, Cat caught Dylan’s gesture and signaled the ref for a time out. The whistle blew, and the teams trotted to their respective

sidelines.

The trainers came immediately forward, handing the sweating women towels and bottles of water, which were quickly grabbed and put to good use.