40-Love

by Olivia Dade

  Belle’s smile was wicked. “Not yet. I’m going to help him see the light.”

  The bronze sequins of Belle’s bodycon dress sparkled, set off her pale skin, and clung to her every voluptuous curve. If Tess hadn’t been lamentably straight, she was pretty sure she’d have seen the light too, and it would have blinded her.

  “He doesn’t stand a chance.” Her last pair of clean leggings lay folded neatly in the dresser drawer. She hadn’t anticipated needing quite so much workout gear during this trip. “Just be sure to text me to let me know where you are and when you plan to be back in the room.”

  Belle executed a sharp salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

  After hiking the leggings up to her waist, Tess dropped another big tee over her head, this one plum-colored. “You’re more than capable of keeping yourself safe, and I understand that. But if I don’t hear from you, you know I’ll worry.”

  “I know. I’ll text. I promise.” Setting aside the book, Belle shifted to the edge of her bed. “That color is gorgeous on you.”

  Tess realized. She’d chosen that particular tee for a reason. Hopefully looking decent would salve the bruises her ego had received earlier that day.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Her friend looked worried. “I don’t want you getting hurt again.”

  Tess lifted a shoulder. “I shouldn’t have been hurt in the first place. I knew he was a player. Some other woman”—some other younger woman—“showing up shouldn’t have surprised me, and I shouldn’t have let myself get hurt. Of course I’m nothing special to him. He barely knows me. As far as he’s concerned, I’m just another tourist to charm for tips. Or maybe take to dinner and fuck, as long as he doesn’t have something better lined up.”

  Hearing her own words, the resentment in them, she paused and bit her lip.

  She’d just met the man two days before. What the hell was wrong with her?

  Belle’s brows had drawn together again, and she positioned herself in front of Tess. “Look at me, babe. Why don’t you just cancel the rest of the lessons?”

  Much as Tess adored Belle, she didn’t want to have this conversation. Not again. Not when Lucas hadn’t owed her anything but an hour of tennis instruction and the picnic he’d promised, both of which she’d duly received. At their first lesson, he’d even offered to stop flirting, and she’d told him he could continue. That she could handle it.

  Any pain she’d experienced—emotional or physical—was her own fault, and she knew it. She didn’t plan to take it out on Belle or Lucas or anyone, except maybe herself.

  “I’ll be fine. I just got confused during that first lesson.” She gave Belle a moment of eye contact and a smile before moving away to grab her sneakers. “We were talking as we played, and he was intelligent. Thoughtful and well-spoken. And he’s good at his job, and you know how I feel about competent men.”

  “They’re your kryptonite.” Belle heaved a wistful sigh. “Mine too, of course.”

  “So, yeah, I flirted with him a bit. And yeah, I had lunch with him today, because I kept thinking…”

  He’d seemed different in those last few minutes of their lesson. During most of their picnic, too, until she’d asked about his future at the resort. He’d seemed more sincere. Less shielded. And she’d found herself wondering whether what she’d taken as immaturity, as the aimlessness and shallowness of youth, was something else entirely.

  “I kept thinking maybe he wasn’t unformed at all, but opaque. Deliberately so.” She adjusted the backs of her shoes until they were comfortable, bending from the waist instead of her knees. “Not shallow, but guarded. And if that’s who he was, rather than a shiftless player who didn’t care much about anything, maybe I could believe his interest in me was sincere.”

  She forced her lips to stretch into a smile as she slid her keycard into her pocket. “But now I know better, so don’t worry. I won’t let myself get hurt again. Especially since I don’t have time for any complications right now, including those of the male persuasion. And that would be true even if I’d been right about Lucas.”

  “Babe…” Brown eyes troubled, Belle touched Tess’s arm. “I’m sorry. Again.”

  Number eight. This conversation needed to end, stat.

  Tess opened the heavy door to the hall. “I’m not. It’s good to know where my weaknesses lie. Self-knowledge is important, as I always tell the kids.”

  “Maybe so.” Belle didn’t appear comforted by Tess’s cheery tone. “You’re not a kid, though.”

  “No, I’m not. But Lucas is.”

  Tess let the door swing shut behind her.

  Lucas was leaning against the clubhouse wall, his eyes on his sneaker-clad feet, when Tess approached the courts. Then he glanced up and saw her, and to her shock, he actually rushed toward her without an ounce of his characteristic indolence.

  “Tess!” he called out, his gaze intent on her as he loped in her direction. “I’m glad you’re early. Let’s talk for a minute before we start the lesson.”

  On a scale from one to ten, her desire to discuss the young woman who’d visited him earlier that afternoon was negative infinity. But she supposed she couldn’t escape at least a few seconds of postmortem conversation, much as she wished she could.

  No matter. She was the adult in the room. Er, the court. She could handle this. She could handle him.

  Moments later, he’d arrived within a step of her, and she held her ground. When he reached for her arm, though, she backed up a little. Not far. Just enough to make her point clear.

  He watched her place herself out of his reach, his mouth compressed into a thin line. But he didn’t protest or close the distance between them.

  “Tess…” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I owe you an apology. I’d forgotten that my, uh”—his voice, low and quiet, faltered—“friend Karolina was arriving today. If I’d remembered, I—”

  Oh, Jesus. Time to cut this off.

  “No need to continue. I get it.” She directed a bright smile somewhere over his left shoulder. “You wouldn’t have asked me to lunch. I totally understand, and we don’t need to talk about it anymore.”

  He shook his head, dipping his chin to bring his face closer to hers. “That’s not what I was going to say. I wanted to have lunch with you. I’d still like to—”

  “You know what?” She forced herself to make full-on eye contact with him. “Remember how you offered to keep things strictly professional two nights ago? No flirting, no innuendo?”

  After a few seconds, he gave a small, slow nod.

  “Let’s do that today,” she told him.

  The shine in those olive-green eyes dulled, and his face seemed to sag.

  “I should take better advantage of your tennis expertise. While we play, why don’t you tell me more ways I can improve my game?” She gestured toward the clubhouse. “Do I need to pick out a racket again?”

  His jaw worked. “No. I set yours aside for you. I have it in my bag.”

  His cheeks and chin appeared freshly shaven. He wasn’t wearing the same clothing from their picnic, or even from his lesson before the picnic. The new outfit was dry and spotlessly clean and unwrinkled, as if he’d changed just before her arrival. The skin beneath his eyes looked bruised and baggy, though, and those crags in his face—so odd for someone so young—seemed deeper somehow, the lines across his forehead more distinct.

  Given the circumstances, what right did he have to look so…defeated? Resigned? What exactly was she seeing in his face?

  God, she didn’t even know. But she was fighting the impulse to grab his arm and apologize, even though she’d done nothing wrong and been nothing but polite to him.

  No. This was the right call. She was doing the right thing.

  “So are we ready to play?” Another moment of eye contact, and then she couldn’t take it anymore. “Because I’d really like to get on the court. As soon as this lesson is done, I need to keep working.”

  A long pause. He opened his mouth, only
to close it. Then he gave another little nod, his lips quirking into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Of course.” His back straightened, and he hoisted his bag onto his right shoulder. “Whatever our guest wants.”

  Nine

  Compared to their previous conversation-filled lesson, this one felt more like a wake. Not a fun one either, filled with remembrances and love and music amidst the grief.

  No, this was a wake attended only by quiet, emotionally constipated mourners. Possibly ones pissy about not getting more money in the will.

  That was just fine with Tess. Better an impersonal and uncomfortable lesson than one that would leave her exposed and disappointed in both him and herself. Besides, she was getting lots of handy tips for her nonexistent future tennis matches back in Virginia. Those were certainly worth the stunningly large amount of money Belle had spent on the appointments.

  She wasn’t running for the ball, given the current state of her knee, so some of his shots whizzed past her, just out of reach. He didn’t utter a word of complaint.

  “Good job,” he said whenever she hit the ball anywhere near him.

  When she hit it into the net or to the side or—one memorable time—behind herself, he offered advice in a few brief words. Apparently, she should try using a two-handed grip for more power in her backhand and position herself next to the ball using smaller, more precise steps.

  After a while, even those comments stopped, and they were playing in silence.

  Compared to the other evenings she’d spent on the island, tonight seemed especially humid. Sticky and somehow electric, as if a storm were brewing. After only a few minutes, she grew uncomfortably sweaty from the heavy air and the endless rhythm of the rally, even without running.

  Finally, she stopped and leaned on her racket. “Why don’t you demonstrate some good serves while I rest for a moment?”

  “I thought you didn’t—” But he cut himself off. “Of course.”

  All the other tourists and employees had left the area for the evening, even Pat. The insects in the nearby trees were screeching and croaking, but they were the only disturbance other than a distant hum of faraway music from the shore.

  She and Lucas were alone, but it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let herself be vulnerable to him again.

  At the baseline, he positioned himself just off-center, his front foot pointed toward the court, while his back foot stayed parallel to the line. After dropping one ball in his pocket, he bounced another on the ground a few times.

  He didn’t appear to be concentrating. The entire process seemed second-nature. Mindless, as if he’d done it a million times before, and maybe he had. She had no idea how long he’d been teaching, after all. And had he played in college?

  Before he did anything else, he caught her eye as she stood at the side of the court and sipped from her water bottle. “Do you want me to do this slowly, or at full power?”

  The humidity had molded his tee to his powerful shoulders, and under the court’s lights, his thick, muscled thighs shone with sweat.

  He was watching her, his jaw firm, his stare intent.

  Oh, my. She took another gulp of water as she considered how to answer him.

  Well, who was she to hold him back? “Full power.”

  “Okay.” Another perfect bounce of the ball, without even a glance downward. “And do you want me to talk to you about what I’m doing and why, or just do it?”

  “Just do it.” God, she was thirsty. So thirsty. “No talking necessary.”

  If she’d blinked, she would have missed it. The ball tossed high in the air, his body coiled and then pouncing to strike, his racket swinging back and then smashing forward. She couldn’t separate the process into individual movements, and the fluidity of it was…

  Magnificent. Beautiful, in a way she hadn’t anticipated.

  When the strings of the racket slammed into the ball, the thwack echoed through the empty courts, and the ball flew like a missile across the net, landing just inside the service line before bouncing upward and hitting the back boards of the court with a thunderous rattle.

  Holy fuck.

  She’d never witnessed such grace and power twined and focused on a single action. Never. Not in her life, not in person.

  He was an athlete. A talented athlete.

  But it didn’t change anything. She wasn’t here to learn his story, even if he’d been willing to tell it to her—and from their previous conversations, she assumed he wasn’t.

  So she closed her open mouth and forced a casual tone. “How fast was that?”

  “I’d say…” With his typical insouciance, he wandered over to his bag and grabbed a towel. “A bit under two-ten, maybe?”

  He wiped his face and forearms, then his hands and the grip of his racket while she resumed gaping at him.

  “Two hundred and ten miles per hour? Holy shit.”

  His lips quirked. “Sorry. Metric system. Two hundred and ten kilometers per hour. That’s about one hundred and thirty miles per hour.”

  Still. That was almost inconceivably fast.

  “No wonder I could barely follow the ball.” Even though she knew—she knew—his ego didn’t require any more stroking, she had to say it. “That was the single greatest athletic feat I’ve ever seen in my entire life, Lucas. And I once saw a student do over two-thousand sit-ups in our gym. She just missed the national record.”

  For the first time that evening, his dimples popped. “Poor kid.”

  “I know. She was shaking at the end. Nearly threw up, too.” She couldn’t help a grin. “Much like me, when I realized her parents hadn’t signed a waiver beforehand. I’ll be making sure that never happens again.”

  “The sit-ups?”

  She shook her head. “The missing waiver.”

  He laughed, then leaned his head back for a sip of water, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. But he was still looking at her the whole time. And when he’d drained the bottle, he raised his thick brows. “Want me to do that again? Or break it down for you?”

  The keenness of her desire to watch him serve a second time startled her. This go-round, she wanted to be closer, to study the flex and movements of his body.

  Out of academic curiosity, naturally.

  “Again.” She cleared her throat, trying to remove the huskiness in her voice. “Please.”

  So he retrieved the ball from his pocket and demonstrated another serve. This time, she paid attention to the way the muscles in his arms and shoulders bunched and released, shifting beneath the thin fabric of his branded tee.

  She still couldn’t discern individual movements. The whole act was one complicated, twisting motion, honed and perfect and lovely. After another ringing impact, the ball landed in a skid down the center line, near the point where all the lines converged. It rocketed into the boards with a clap of sound and bounced back toward them.

  Licking her lips, she watched him amble toward his towel, his legs long and taut beneath his loose shorts. Those hard-muscled legs gleamed with a sheen of sweat, as did every other visible inch of his tall, honed body.

  For the first time in her life, she understood sports groupies.

  No wonder Lucas apparently had a coterie of young admirers. Why wouldn’t he?

  “Are you interested in learning to do that? I’d be happy to teach you, even if it makes the lesson go a little late. Consider the extra time another birthday present.”

  His voice startled her from her fugue state, and she flicked her eyes away from the tanned expanse of his bare skin. Maybe she should lean on the net for a little extra support?

  “Um…” Focus. She needed to focus. “Thank you for the offer. But from what you just showed me, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” She patted her knee and offered him a rueful smile. “Joint issues, remember?”

  “Shit.” He took a step toward her. “Did you hurt your knee climbing those steps at lunch?”

  When she held up a hand, he stopped in place. �
��No. I’m fine. Just being cautious.”

  Technically, she really hadn’t hurt her knee climbing those steps. The pain had come from the descent, as always.

  “Okay, then. I don’t expect you to hit like I do, Tess.” Another swipe of the towel over his face. “Have you felt any pain from our lessons up to this point?”

  “No.” Not physical pain, not from the lessons themselves. Or not too much, anyway, since he’d made certain she didn’t have to work very hard.

  “Good. Then tell me more about when and how your knee hurts. I’ll accommodate any limitations you have and make certain the serve won’t cause you pain. And if there’s no way to do it without hurting you, we’ll go back to an easy rally.” He dumped the towel into his bag and braced his hands on his hips. “I won’t injure you. Trust me that far, at least.”

  He expected her to trust him, of all people?

  Arrogance. Sheer arrogance.

  He had no idea. Give him another couple decades, and maybe he would. But not now.

  She huffed out an unamused-sounding laugh. “I can’t, Lucas. You’re a kid, with a young, healthy body, and you wouldn’t understand the sort of limitations I have.”

  “Then tell me, Assistant Principal Dunn.” Across the net, he stalked closer to her. One step, then two. “What are they? Because I get the feeling there’s a long, long list.”

  Thick sarcasm suffused every word from his mouth, and she almost slapped him.

  Asshole. He had absolutely no right to look at her with those thick brows drawn together and those green eyes snapping with anger. No right to imply her limitations were more than physical. No right to dismiss her pain with such evident contempt.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and let out a slow breath. “Tess, I shouldn’t have—”

  When she tossed her racket toward his bag, it clattered to the ground, and he fell silent.

  Under normal circumstances, she’d be horrified at the prospect of potential damage to borrowed property, but this time, she didn’t give a shit.