Susanne Novan - Driven

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.

Dylan looked up at the clock, though she had the entire scoreboard printed on her retinas. Eleven point nine seconds was a veritable eternity in basketball.

Even if you were behind. Unless, of course, you didn’t have the ball.

"Stern, you’re in for King." The rangy forward nodded and headed for the scorer’s table to check in with the ref.

"Alright, the rest of you, listen up. We’re gonna be heavy handed on the inbounds. Tippens and LeRoy, I want you in on their passer like you’re glued together, understand?"

Both women, dripping with sweat, nodded.

"Alright. If you can get a five second violation, we’re good. If not, foul. I don’t care how, just foul. We still have one to give, so make it count."

"What happens if we can get a five?" Chaney asked, running a hand through her sodden dreds.

"I don’t care who in-bounds," Dylan replied. "Just get it to Hodge." She turned to Cat. "If you have an unbelievably free shot, go for it, but if not, hold it as long as you can, alright? We don’t want this backfiring on us."

"Got it."

The buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the time out.

"Alright, ladies, let’s win this."

"Goddess!"

Dylan rolled her eyes, as she did every time her team made its rallying cheer. The team grinned back at her before turning and running onto the court,

ready for action.

Blowing her whistle, the ref handed the ball to the Legend passer. Immediately, the young, rather short, woman was surrounded on two sides by the

Badgers’ forwards, doing their best to block every conceivable passing lane the young woman might think up.

Five seconds later, the whistle blew again. The guard slammed the ball down in frustration, and Chaney ran to the sideline to retrieve it, grinning like a madwoman.

Giving the Legend players no time to set up, Chaney passed the ball to King, who in turn hit Cat with a perfect bounce pass. Instead of going in for the

shot, which would have meant trying to avoid the Legend center, all six foot seven of her, Cat shot an eye toward the clock, noticed she still had over seven seconds left, and deliberately slowed her dribble, allowing her teammates time to set up.

It was then that she was hit from behind by a runaway train in the form of the same Legend guard who had failed to get her pass in-bounds. Cat flew into

Chaney, and both women fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. The ball jumped from Cat’s hands and skittered across the endline.

The whistle blew as Dylan jumped to her feet. "Flagrant foul! Two, ref!! Two!!"

As soon as the referee held up two fingers, the Legend coach, a never-was by the name of Ken Handley, rushed out onto the court, narrow chest thrust so

far out it looked like he was setting sail. "Bullshit! Bullshit!!"

"Go back to the bench, Coach Handley, or I’ll hit you with a technical."

"Go ahead! See if I give a flying fuck! You’re killin’ us out here, ref! You’re killin us!"

"Back to the bench, Coach. I’m warning you."

"Warn thisyou fucking dyke loving piece of shit!" Handley punched the ball from the referee’s hands, narrowly missing Chaney’s head.

Dylan flew onto the court just as the ref was calling a technical and an ejection. Caulley ran after Dylan and grabbed her by the arm. Dylan shook the

restraining hand off and continued forward, eyes silver and blazing in the brilliant lighting.

Ignoring the irate coach who steeled himself to go toe to toe with her, as if the event had turned from basketball to WCW wrestling, Dylan strode over to Cat and Chaney, who were on their feet and dusting themselves off.

"You alright?"

"I am," Cat replied, "but I Chane twisted her ankle pretty bad when I fell on top of her."

Chaney scowled at Cat. "I’m fine, shortchange."

"Get Tippens. She’s going in for you."

"Coach…."

"Do it."

Sighing, Chaney stalked back to the bench, trying hard not to limp. She was less than successful.

As Chaney left, Dylan turned back to Cat. "You sure you’re alright?"

"Not so much as a skinned knee," Cat replied, grinning. "Looks like I finally got a break."

"Don’t jinx it."

They both looked over at the opposition’s bench as the ejected Handley kicked a chair in true Bobby Knight fashion.