Page 30 of Play to Win
10
Yesterday had been perfect.
Portia smiled as her fingers stilled over the keys of her laptop. It was nearing noon on a dreary Sunday and she was sitting cross-legged on her childhood bed working on an outline for a book that would explore the emotional aspect of sexual attraction. The idea had come to her yesterday while she’d stood listening to Ethan talk to his friends.
He’d said he didn’t have a thing for her, that he didn’t plan to have a thing for anyone for a while. And with those words, Portia had felt like she was sixteen all over again. But this time, she’d actually heard the words. It was odd and she’d spent a good portion of the night thinking of just how weird her train of thought was, but when she’d climbed out of bed at almost nine this morning and headed for the shower, she’d had a moment of clarity. When she was in high school, she’d wanted Ethan Henley more than she’d wanted air. If Ethan had been a jerk like a good majority of the kids in Providence High, she wouldn’t have wanted him at all. If he’d come to her and asked her on a date, and if she’d gone on that date and he’d touched her in any way, kissed her or acted as if he wanted to do something intimate with her, what would she have done? Would she have frozen? Run scared? Cry? Or embarrassed herself in some other way?
Probably, she’d thought just as the warm spray of water had burst from the showerhead to pepper her face. But now, so many years after she’d been through the ringer and back, when he’d read her book and started to teach her about intimacy via the words she’d written, Portia had been ready to learn. She’d been so ready that she’d sought him out at the bar and pushed aside any misgivings or inhibitions to allow the unimaginable to happen.
Emotions had run rampant through her all yesterday as she’d tried to sort through how she was supposed to feel about their interlude at the bar. And then when she’d seen him and heard his words, she’d known how she should feel. Just as he did. Like this was just a learning experience for her. Just as the awful break-up with Bobby and her retribution against him had been.
A bowl of fruit and two cups of coffee later, Portia had outlined half the book she wanted to write next. She’d made notes on the research she would need to do, some of which she’d already done but needed to delve a little further, but mainly she relied heavily on things she’d learned via her minor in psychology. Emotion springs from a complex state of feeling resulting in physical and psychological changes that influence thought and behavior. There were three main categories of motivation: physiological, neurological and cognitive. Right now, Portia was hung up on the physiological theory, which suggested that responses within the body were responsible for emotions. If that were one hundred percent true, then with each orgasm Ethan had brought her that night on the phone and at the bar, she should be well on her way to being in love with him. Or at the very least in lust.
Considering the fact that she couldn’t stop thinking about how good the thickness of his cock felt deep inside her and how she really wanted to experience that feeling again, she would venture to say that theory was correct.
She’d told Ethan that she was game for good sex and that wasn’t a lie. Had hearing him say he didn’t have a thing for her hurt her feelings in any way? Of course it had. But Portia was no longer that girl who believed in fairy tale love and Ethan being her prince charming in a football uniform. She was an adult who had seen more and now knew more than she had back then. Her time in Providence was temporary and so was her time with Ethan. She was fine with that.
What Portia wasn’t fine with, was the call she’d received from Rod at just about three o’clock in the afternoon.
“I can come by and board up the windows if you like,” Rod said.
Portia had stopped writing when the phone rang and climbed off the bed to look out her window. The sky was a dusky gray color with clouds that looked as if they were going to explode at any moment. Tree branches bent with the wind and she could hear the screech of the swing on the porch moving back and forth.
“Storm’s expected to make landfall sometime in the middle of the night. But things are going to get pretty dicey before then. I know you’re there by yourself, so I was thinking of coming over just to help you batten down. Or maybe you’d rather head over to Clarice’s motel for the night. At least you won’t be alone there,” Rod continued.
“No, I’ll be fine,” Portia told him. “And you don’t have to come over. I’ll take care of the house.”
He’d asked about coming over again before inviting her to come over to his parents’ house where he planned to ride out the storm with them, all of which Portia declined. She did turn on the television after disconnecting the call. She’d been so wrapped up in her research and outlining all day that she hadn’t paid attention to anything that was going on around her.
She sat on the edge of the bed switching channels each time a commercial came on interrupting the news broadcasts. Hurricane Sylvie had formed near the Cape Verde Islands two weeks ago. In that time, the storm had steadily strengthened, reaching its peak as a Category 5 hurricane. The storm had reached the Outer Banks of North Carolina late last night and had now weakened to a Category 2 storm that was scheduled to hit the Virginia and D.C. area in a matter of hours.
Portia recalled the last time she’d experienced a hurricane. It had been a few years before she’d graduated from high school, when Hurricane Isabel had ravaged the East Coast. She immediately went downstairs into the kitchen to make sure she still had the bottles of water she’d purchased the day before yesterday. Her next trek was to find a flashlight and batteries, but she was stopped by her cell phone ringing again. She’d stuffed it into the pocket of the sweatpants she wore and now reached for it without looking at the screen.
“Storm’s coming,” Sunny said the moment she answered. “I heard on the radio that it’s heading right for Providence.”
“I know. I’m looking for flashlights now.”
“In the kitchen drawer by the refrigerator,” she said.
Portia sighed because she’d packed that box yesterday. “Okay. I’ll get it.”
“Stay away from the windows. The middle bedroom upstairs is the best place to get comfortable. There’s a sleeping bag and blankets in one of the closets up there. Take your flashlights, water and snacks on up there and settle in for the night. The house is sturdy. It’s been standing for almost two hundred years, it’ll keep standing.”
“Yes ma’am,” Portia said as she continued moving throughout the house collecting things.
She’d grabbed her purse and the phone charger she’d left beside it this morning. There were only six of the waters left, so she dropped them into a plastic bag and carried that with her.
“Turn off all the lights and unplug everything. The power will probably go out, but you don’t want any power surges when it clicks back on. You can keep your phone charged in the middle room until the power does go out,” Sunny continued.
“Right,” Portia said with a nod. She was just about to head upstairs again when there was a knock at the door.
She frowned because she figured it was Rod who hadn’t listened to her tell him many times that he didn’t need to come over.
“Are there batteries in the flashlight?” she asked Sunny. “Or someplace else in the house?”
“Should be in the same drawer,” Sunny said. “But the flashlight is a sturdy one, it should go all night without having to be recharged. I sure am glad you’re there in the house seeing this project through. Not tonight though, this storm seems like it’s gonna be a nasty one.”
Portia opened the door at that moment and was startled to see Ethan standing there. It must’ve started to rain because his shirt had huge wet spots on it, but that was the only thing off about his appearance. Otherwise he appeared tall, muscled and scrumptious as he stood there looking like something else that could possibly go all night. But that wasn’t all, not tonight. Seeing Ethan standing on her porch when a storm was brewing outside made her feel something else. Important, cared-for, cherished. Things she’d never expected to feel from a man again.
