Love. Set. Match. Read online

  He lifted her up and moved her center directly over him. With a self-satisfied grin, she slid onto him, taking every inch of him deep inside her. Almost immediately, his hips started to move, thrusting him even deeper, rolling against her, driving her crazy. Utilizing those amazing abs of his, he levered himself up until they were face to face. Eyes locked, he thrust harder, and she matched him, developing a hard, fast rhythm that drove her higher and higher.

  She took his mouth, their tongues tangling and their teeth clashing. One of his strong arms wrapped around her, cradling her as he moved them so her back was braced against the headboard. She caught a small wince as he set her down, and if she hadn’t been on the peak of an orgasm, she would have given him a hard time for doing something that might injure his shoulder. Instead, she let him lace their fingers together and press the backs of her hands against the headboard.

  With her legs wrapped around his waist, he used his new position to increase the speed and power of his thrusts, sending her over the edge. Breaking their kiss, she cried out, letting the pleasure hit her again. So many emotions hit her, driving her to heights she’d forgotten she could reach. He didn’t stop, though; he pushed her up again, his lips kissing all the flesh he could reach.

  “More. Harder,” she moaned, her teeth sinking into the flesh of his earlobe, then her tongue darting out to soothe it.

  “Never enough. So good, Em. So, so good.”

  His words sparked something inside her, but she pushed it aside, focusing on the here and now. They moved together in a fast, hard dance as old as time. It had never been like this with anyone.

  Rob Ashton’s power over her body should terrify her, but it only intensified her pleasure. “Please. Come with me. Now.”

  With a strategic roll of her hips and then another, she sent him over the edge and joined him there, the two of them shouting their pleasure. His thrusts gradually slowed as the spasms of pleasure wracking her body subsided.

  They lay tangled together, their hands still linked, now as limp as the rest of them against the pillows. The sound of his panting breath in her ears more comforting than she cared to admit. He shifted a little so the weight of him didn’t completely crush her, but he kept every inch of his bare skin pressed to hers.

  “Dirty enough for you?” he asked after they both finally caught their breath.

  She grinned, every muscle in her body limper than they’d been after Zoe’s most grueling workouts. And yet she still wanted more. He made her crazy. She should kick him out now, before she got in too deep, but her traitorous libido stopped her from being smart. “Close, but not quite.”

  “Is that a challenge?” he asked, pushing up to look her in the eyes. Blue clashed with brown as they had a thousand times before, only it was a sparring match she couldn’t bear to walk away from yet.

  “Hell, yes.”

  Chapter 8

  Bright sunlight brought Rob back to consciousness. His limbs heavy with pleasure, he cracked one eye, and the night before came rushing back to him. He was in bed. With Emerson Grace. Who was still very, very naked and pressed against his side.

  A big-ass grin stretched across his face. When he got to the airport in Melbourne, never in a million years would he have imagined that he would end up in a hotel room with a woman, let alone Em. Last night had been seriously hot—scorching, brain-melting sex that damn near broke the scales. But even better than that, he’d fallen asleep with her next to him.

  He loved the weight of her against his side. He hadn’t expected it, but she was a cuddler. Normally, he didn’t do sleepovers with women; it was too intimate, and he didn’t usually like the after part of sex, especially the cuddling. But with Em? He enjoyed drifting off with her arms and legs wrapped around him like well-toned vines. Her soft snores and sleepy mutters were cute. He liked that, despite the years they’d been apart, those little things about her were still the same.

  Not wanting to wake her up, he ignored his growing hard-on and focused on what would happen once she did wake up. They didn’t do morning-afters well. The first one hadn’t been what he wanted for her. She’d been a virgin, and while the night itself has been off the charts, the morning after was the start of their problems in London.

  Rob looked down at the woman sleeping beside him, wishing he could go back and redo that morning. He would have done more to make it clear to his father—and to Em—how he felt about her, done more to make the morning special for her. He couldn’t change the past, but he could make this morning better.

  He eased her down on the pillow, studying her face. She looked even more peaceful now than she had when she fell asleep on the plane. The worry she’d worn since he first ran into her in Melbourne had eased. An adorable dusting of freckles covered her nose, barely visible against her golden skin. Similar freckles dotted her shoulders. Her cupid’s bow mouth still bore traces of their last round of lovemaking at three a.m., the soft, relaxed lips a little swollen, a hint of beard burn marring her otherwise perfect skin.

  Thank God she’d found a spare condom in her bag. Unlike their first two bouts, that last round had been slow and easy, both of them still half asleep. Her shoulder-length hair spread out across the white pillows in a wild, inky mass. The slight tilt to her eyes gave her an almost impish quality when she slept, a fairy in repose.

  It would be so easy to let her sleep for another few hours so he could study her, memorize every line and curve of her body for when he inevitably had to leave her. He’d never get enough of her. Even her scent intoxicated him; the sharp, flirty fragrance of lemons and rosemary drew him in. He wondered if she’d let him share the luxurious shower with her if he woke her up now.

  Knowing she had a busy schedule and no time for jet lag, he leaned down and gave her a feather-light kiss. Then another, each going a little deeper, coaxing her awake. His body leapt with anticipation when her tongue flicked out to trace his bottom lip and her arms stole around his neck.

  Unable to stop himself, he pushed the sheet down and cupped her breast, kneading it lightly, a prelude to something more.

  Only they never got to the something more.

  Em pulled back, big brown eyes blinking up at him as the fog of sleep faded into alert confusion. “Rob? What—?”

  “Morning, beautiful. Did you sleep well?” he asked, his hand still resting on her bare breast.

  She pushed at his shoulders and rolled away, wrapping the sheet around her. “What are you still doing here?”

  “What do you mean? Where else would I be?” He leaned back against the headboard. Shit. He knew that look in her eyes. No sleepy, sweet morning. Not now anyway.

  “Um. I don’t know. Your apartment? The moon? Anywhere but here,” she said as she began to pace.

  Pacing was never good. She looked ready to explode when all he wanted to do was hold her close and never let her go.

  “We slept together, Em. Why would I leave in the middle of the night?”

  He wasn’t sure what she wanted from him or what last night was, but he wasn’t going to back down now. Not after so long. This might be his only chance to solve the biggest “what if” that’d plagued him every day since his injury, hell, since he made the decision not to meet her in the airport that day. Em was the only woman to ever truly matter to him, and he desperately wanted her to understand that. This wasn’t just a one-night stand to him. She’d never been that to him.

  She glared at him. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Really, because it felt like we should have. It felt really, really good. Like the first time but without the awkward part of my dad waking us up banging on my door because I was late for practice in the middle of the Olympics,” he teased, trying to get her to lighten up, which he knew was impossible.

  For a while last night, she’d ignored that they had a past, that he’d been the world’s biggest idiot for seven years, and they’d gotten back to those two passionate kids they’d been when they first got together. But the woman before him was
n’t a kid. She wasn’t the girl who’d called him a coward when he lied and told her that he didn’t have time to see her because of their conflicting schedules, and they should break up. This Em had been through the wars, especially over the last few months, and her trust wasn’t so easily given any more than her heart was.

  Dark eyes flashed at him dangerously. “This is worse. We can’t…this is a really bad idea. You need to leave.”

  Oh, hell, no. This was not going to happen. Whatever this was between them, whatever he’d thrown away seven years ago, he wanted a chance to explore it. He couldn’t afford to blow another chance to be with her.

  “No.”

  ****

  Emerson’s world was spinning out of control again. What the hell had she been thinking? Kissing Rob Ashton—stupid enough. Sleeping with him tipped into the realm of phenomenally stupid, and letting him spend the night took that up to catastrophic. All it would take was one bell boy or hotel clerk or maid looking to make some quick cash, and it would be all over the papers that slutty Emerson Grace was at it again—this time with a member of the press who had very publicly defended her.

  And they’d be right. God. She was an idiot. A complete and total idiot.

  “You’re not an idiot,” Rob said, still sitting there all naked and godlike in the bed, his erection at half-mast under the soft white sheet.

  “Did I say that out loud?” She stopped her pacing for a moment, tugging the sheet higher. She needed to find some clothes. At least with some clothes on, she’d be less vulnerable to his…charms.

  He shrugged, all lazy male confidence. “Yes. And even if you hadn’t, it’s written all over your face, beautiful. But you’re wrong. You’re not an idiot, and this wasn’t a bad idea. It was unexpected and impulsive, but it was also inevitable.”

  “Inevitable?” She found her suitcase and dug through it. “On what planet was it inevitable? Until a week ago, I thought you hated me, and I’m still fairly certain I’m not a huge fan of you.”

  She couldn’t ever be a fan of him, not after everything that had happened between them. Except that he drove her crazy, both physically and mentally.

  “Really? Because that’s not what your body said last night, and that’s definitely not what the beard burn on your thighs says this morning.”

  A cool breeze hit the front of said thighs, warning her that she’d lost her grip on the sheet. She quickly tugged on a sweater that covered her ass, then tried to find a pair of panties. Why did he always throw her so off-kilter?

  “And I never hated you. Things between us have always been…complicated. But hate does not register on the long list of things I feel for you.”

  God, why did those words sound so good and so horrible at the same time? Him not hating her made all of this much worse than she’d first realized, and that look in his eyes amped it up five notches. There was a steadiness and a level of affection in them that made Em’s entire nervous system stand at attention.

  She wanted to believe him—that lonely, needy part of her desperately wanted to believe that there was some hope for them. But she wasn’t the naive twenty-year-old any longer. Her heart had been shattered when Rob didn’t show up back then, and she’d finally managed to put it back together when Kole left a giant bruise on it. She couldn’t let him in. She’d lost too much to open herself up for that ever again.

  “So much baggage in one small sentence,” she muttered, shimmying into a pair of bright-green lace panties. “Why couldn’t you be like a normal one-night stand and sneak out in the middle of the night? I can’t do this. We can’t do this. You need to leave. Now.”

  He caught the pair of boxer briefs she picked up off the floor and threw at him. “Not happening. Not until you tell me why we can’t do this. Because last night, it seemed we were more than capable of doing this again. And again. And again.”

  Waves of heat hit her, coming directly from his smile to between her legs. No. She had to stay strong. She couldn’t let him get to her. “Stop it with the panty-melting smile and the charm. I’m serious. We can’t do this, Rob. You’re a fucking reporter for a glorified tabloid network, and I’m a tennis player you’re expected to report on. How is that not a problem?”

  “It’s only a problem if I show bias toward you. I can be neutral and professional if it means I get to revisit last night,” he said as he pulled on the boxer briefs, the scar on his shoulder shining in the light from the window. A tattoo she’d finally noticed during their second—or was it third?—round last night climbed along his ribs. The web of wyrd, he’d said. A reminder of his Nordic heritage and a belief in shaping his own destiny. She’d briefly wondered last night if that meant he no longer believed in his father’s outdated sense of family destiny, but she’d immediately dismissed the thought. The Ashtons were raised on family expectations, and nothing could take that out of them.

  “Oh, really? And what about what I want, Rob? How do you know that I want to revisit last night?” She tried to ignore how good he looked, his blond locks all tousled from sleep and his arms and chest so muscly and tempting. That tattoo wasn’t helping his hotness quotient go down any, either.

  No. She was not going there again. The last time she let herself get drawn in by those muscles and that smile, she’d ended up a hot mess and in one of the worst slumps of her career. She couldn’t afford to go there again, not when she could almost taste her first Grand Slam win, her chance to show Papa Vic that it was all worth it, even if he couldn’t be there to see it.

  But damn Rob, he made her feel so…alive. The sex had been toe-curling, wet-dream-inducingly good. The man knew how to play a woman’s body almost better than he could read an opponent on the court, but it was more than that. For the first time since the rumors started, she’d slept through the night without anxiety dreams about more stories coming out. And this morning, before reality hit, waking up with him, to his slow kisses and that wonderful scent that was pure Rob—a mix of male and mint and eucalyptus—had been off-the-charts good. Anytime she’d smelled that scent in the last seven years, she immediately went back to their first night together. Not the sex, which had been great considering it was her first time, but the after, when he wrapped his body around her, and she felt so…safe. Safer than she’d felt in years. Except the niggling voice in the back of her head told her that wasn’t true, that he’d abandoned her before, and he’d do it again.

  “Because I wasn’t the only one in that bed last night, Em. And because we matter to each other. I don’t want to go back to the way things were. This is the first thing that’s happened to me in the last two years that’s felt right. Look me in the eye and tell me it doesn’t feel right to be here with me.”

  Right? Right? Was it right to feel torn apart? To not know where she stood or what she wanted?

  “I haven’t felt ‘right’ in so long I wouldn’t recognize it if I did feel it.” She wished she could tell him what he wanted to hear. She hadn’t seen that sort of honesty and vulnerability in his eyes in a long time. If she were to lie to him now, it would eat at her even more.

  “Rob. Last night was…hormones and lust and a healthy dose of nostalgia,” she said, keeping her gaze locked with his but her arms firmly crossed in front of her. “I can’t—what do you want from me? You want me to fall into your arms and say, ‘Oh, yes, let’s have a relationship?’ I can’t do that.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” he challenged, tugging on his jeans, leaving them partially unbuttoned, hanging low on his lean hips, the mouth-watering V of muscles sending a shot of lust straight through her.

  “What does it matter? You are a whole mess that I can’t even begin to think about. Do you have any idea the shit storm I’d be in if someone found out about tonight, let alone more nights after this? God, Rob. Think about what my poor grandma would have to go through. It’s bad enough they’ve had to spend the last few weeks avoiding all sports news and tabloids so she doesn’t accidentally see risqué pictures of me or hear awful stories about wha
t a slut her granddaughter is. The woman just had a cardiac episode, for fuck’s sake.” She wrapped her arms around herself and leaned against the dresser. “Did you know that Michael even called me after the pictures came out?”

  The words were out before she could stop them, but it was a relief at the same time. She hadn’t told anyone about that call, not Owen, not Zoe or Maren or Dera. Certainly not Gran. Besides, if anyone knew what it was like to have a complicated relationship with their dad, it was Rob. Except Bobby Ashton at least took an interest in his children.

  “Your dad called? He actually managed to find a phone in whatever hellhole he’s visiting now?” Rob sat on the edge of the bed, bracing his sexy forearms on his knees, his attention laser-focused on her.

  She snorted, pushing her hair out of her face, wishing she had a hair tie. “Yeah, amazing, right? Guess what he said. I can guarantee it wasn’t anywhere near as supportive as your little outburst.”

  Her father’s idea of parenting was…minimal, at best. She loved him, but she’d long ago stopped expecting anything from him. It was the same for Owen. Michael had left them with his parents a few weeks after Mai, Em’s mom, died. Rob only knew about her relationship with her father because he’d caught her crying after her first match when she realized that, despite being on assignment not far from London, her father wasn’t going to make it to watch her play in the Olympics. That was the last day she’d ever had any expectations of her father.

  “Fuck, Em. I’m sorry. Did he really give you a hard time about the damn pictures?”