by Olivia Dade
“You want to know my limitations? Fine. I’m more than happy to tell you.” She ticked them off on her trembling fingers, rage burning in her cheeks. “Since my twenties, I’ve had arthritis in my neck from a bad car accident. Around that time, my knees began hurting too, for no specific reason. Starting in my thirties, I’ve had persistent lower back pain because my stupid breasts are too damn big.” Her eyes met his, and she didn’t flinch. “Bottom line: Most days I’m in pain somewhere. But usually my knees, especially when I have to descend a lot of stairs or run. So yes, my knee hurt some after our last lesson, and it’s killing me after the steps today.”
His expression had softened as she spoke, his shoulders dropping. “Tess—”
She didn’t want to hear it.
“And before you tell me I should lose weight—”
He jolted. “I would never—”
“—yes, I know the knee problems might be due to my size, or at least exacerbated by it. But I promised myself I’d never be ruled by the scale ever again, knee pain or no knee pain. I won’t invite that obsession back into my life, no matter what you or anyone else says.”
He was watching her carefully, his eyes on her face.
She hated it. Her chest was heaving with each half-sobbing breath, and her eyes burned. Dammit, she’d lost control. Again.
“And don’t bother telling me strength and flexibility training might help my joints, because no shit, Sherlock.” She spat out the words. “But when I exercise on my own, I always manage to injure myself, and getting a trainer costs money I don’t have. Besides that, I’d need time and energy to train, and I work all the time, Lucas. All. The. Time. And when I’m not working, I’d rather read and watch movies and hang out with my friends than go to a gym or physical therapy. Sue me.”
“Okay.” He inclined his head. “It’s okay, Tess. Let’s—”
When he reached across the net for her hand, she backed away. “So don’t tell me to entrust myself to your care, Lucas. You’re a twenty-something athlete in the prime of his body and life, and you have no clue. No fucking clue.”
At that, all the sympathy glowing warm in his eyes vanished.
Her pulse echoed in her ears, and it was the only sound on the court. At least until he spoke, his voice thick and loud.
“Well, that’s some fucking irony right there.” He bared his teeth in a faux-smile. “Since you don’t know the first thing about me either.”
And whose fault was that? The man didn’t share anything of himself. Nothing real, anyway. “I just watched that display of serving machismo, so I think I have some id—”
“See these scars?” With a jerk, he raised his wrists to eye level. “Did you wonder how I got them?”
She had, actually, but she’d thought it both impolite and unwise to ask. They were both far beyond manners and wisdom now, though, so she figured she was about to hear the answer to her unasked question, like it or not.
To be honest, in her hurt and rage, she’d kind of forgotten about the scars. Shit.
She swallowed. “I thought—”
“Three surgeries. On my left wrist alone. It’s basically held together with twine and a prayer.” He rotated it for her inspection, his nostrils flared. “My backhand used to be a weapon. Now I can barely hit a seventy-mile-per-hour slice cross-court, and it hurts like a bitch every time that ball strikes the racket. The price of generating any power at all.”
Why did a tennis instructor need to hit more than seventy miles an hour?
What was she missing here?
The other wrist began a slow spin for her perusal. “One operation on my right. After I finished rehab, that wrist didn’t bother me anymore. Except when it did.” When he’d made certain she’d seen every millimeter of that pinkish-white scar, he lowered his hands. “Maybe we should talk about my left knee. I had surgery there too. Or we could discuss the other places I hurt when I play too much or too hard. The commentators said I had joints of glass, and they weren’t wrong.”
Commentators? What the—
Oh. Oh, fuck.
He’d been a professional. A professional tennis player.
Now he was helping sunburned tourists determine the correct grip size for their borrowed rackets.
Remorse swamped her rage, drowning it in an instant. “Lucas, I’m so s—”
He was beyond her apologies. “I’m sorry the lesson and our date today hurt your knee. But don’t tell me how I don’t understand pain and how I’m in the prime of my body and life, lady. That’s some condescending, ignorant bullshit.”
Her face was burning for an entirely different reason now.
But he hadn’t told her anything about his past. Also, she’d asked him several times why he’d come to the isl—
“And while we’re having this enlightening discussion, let me add that I’m fucking over how you use your age as a weapon against me. Against us.” He was leaning over the net now, a vein throbbing at his temple. “I get it. You’re forty and have grey hairs and bad joints and grew up without the internet and probably listened to the Bee Gees or some shit on your record player. I don’t give a fuck.”
Of course it didn’t matter to him, not given how little he wanted from her.
And she didn’t want him to demand more. She didn’t.
She met him nose-to-nose, relieved as anger and hurt roared to life once more and incinerated the shame. “Maybe you don’t, since you’re bored and just want to land me in bed for a week or two. But I don’t have time for a fling.”
“I never said I only wanted you for a week or two.” He flung his hands in the air. “I wouldn’t have said that, because it wouldn’t be the truth. I don’t know what I want from you. Not yet.”
No. She wouldn’t let that feel good. “Fine. But if we were together longer, you would care about my age at some point. Trust me on that. I know from personal experience.”
His eyes narrowed on her. In curiosity? More anger?
“I see. So that experience tells you everything you need to know about me, a man you met two days ago.” He waved a hand in insolent invitation. “Go ahead then, Assistant Principal Dunn. Enlighten me.”
He was right. They were virtual strangers. Was she really going to tell him about her failed engagement?
Yes. If it helped her win this argument, which now felt like a mortal struggle for some reason, she’d do it. Happily.
“I was engaged for almost ten years to a history professor. A grown man in his mid-forties whose job included rules about ethics when it came to students. A grown man I found in our bed with a grad student.” She tipped up her chin and pointed a finger at his hard chest. “So tell me, Lucas. If I couldn’t trust my middle-aged fiancé not to fuck the nearest twenty-something, even when it might cost him his career and his wife-to-be, how can I trust an almost-stranger barely old enough to rent a goddamn car?”
When Lucas let out a slow breath, his expression softening, she thought he might…
Well, that was stupid. He wasn’t going to reach for her. Not in the middle of an argument. Not when she’d just impugned his ability to remain honest and faithful.
Still, his jaw had unclenched, and she loathed the way he’d pressed his lips together in a sympathetic grimace. “Tess…”
“It’s fine. I’m over it. I’ve learned my lesson and moved on.”
One corner of his mouth quirked. “Clearly.”
It shouldn’t bother her, not amidst so many larger issues, but… “All that said, the Bee Gees were mostly before my time.” She paused. “Although I did own the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack on vinyl, I think. Also an album of ABBA’s greatest hits.”
He blinked at her.
This wasn’t helping her cause. Back on point. “So there’s no way I’d ever—”
Shaking his head, Lucas interrupted. “I’m sorry your ex was a cheating dickwad. But he’s the one who committed himself to you and then fucked you over, not me.” He grasped the finger still pointing at his chest
. “He’s not me. I cancelled my plans with Karolina. I would never sleep with someone else if we were together. You don’t know me. You. Don’t. Know. Me.”
He gave her finger a gentle shake with every word.
Christ, she wanted to believe him. But how could she?
When she wrenched her finger free, he didn’t try to hold on. “No, I don’t. And you know why I don’t?”
He dropped his head back and glowered at the night sky. “Oh, Jesus. Here we go.”
“Because I may use my age as a weapon against you”—and damn him for noticing—“but you use your charm as a weapon against everyone. Me included.” She drew his attention back to her with a finger under his chin. “Enough flirtation, enough lazy winks, enough innuendo, and no one notices you don’t reveal anything about yourself. Ever. Not even your past as a professional tennis player, assuming people don’t already know. Am I right, Lucas?”
One near-violent flinch, and then…nothing.
His indolent façade had vanished, but he was still unreadable, his eyes hard and blank.
So he wasn’t unformed and devoid of life experience after all. But a man who wouldn’t allow his true form to be known or share that life experience wasn’t much better.
“You wouldn’t even explain why you really came here to work. The only reason you told me about your injuries is because I royally pissed you off.” She gave his chin a light pinch and backed away. “If I said yes to you, maybe we’d be compatible in bed. Maybe we’d even be compatible outside bed, despite our age difference. But I can’t make that determination if you don’t let me see who you are. So either drop that careless-beach-dude shell of yours or don’t expect me to trust you farther than I can throw you. Which, given my joint issues, isn’t far.”
No doubt he’d constructed his particular persona for a reason. She didn’t know his full story, not yet, but she suspected it was painful and ugly, and she didn’t want to hurt him. Didn’t want to belabor his past. Didn’t want to be the person who’d made him flinch like that, even for a moment.
She needed to make herself clear, though. Needed—for some unknown, no-doubt misguided reason—to give him one last chance to prove her wrong, to earn her trust by letting her peek beneath that playboy façade.
A glimpse. She just needed a glimpse, and then maybe…
Maybe she could try to believe in him. In the sincerity of his interest.
“Talk to me,” she said. It was an invitation. A plea.
But he didn’t say a word. He just stood there, gripping the net and staring at her.
His silence shouldn’t sting. Shouldn’t leave her raw and thick-throated.
“All right.” She gathered her water bottle and started for the court entrance. “Fair enough.”
“What about our next appointment? Do you plan to show?”
There was no emotion in that low voice. No indication he’d understood what she was asking of him or wanted her enough to risk it.
Just as well. She had a promotion to plan. “I don’t think I’ll have time for another lesson before I leave. Consider yourself off the hook.”
“There are no refunds,” he reminded her.
Even stone-faced, he was damn handsome. Tall and strong and magnetic. Those tired-looking olive-green eyes bored into hers, and his shaggy brown hair rippled in the rising breeze. She wanted to smooth it.
A faint crack of distant thunder dissuaded her. The storm was almost upon them, and she needed to be safe inside before it hit.
“I remember the policy.” One last good look, and then she’d go. “If I don’t see you again, take care. I wish you good health and a good time and whatever else you want.” She had to laugh, even though it hurt her throat and came out strangled and rough. “Not that I have any way of determining what that might be. God knows you won’t tell me.”
Then she walked into the roiling night, letting the wind whip away any trace of the foolish tears she refused to acknowledge. Even to herself.
Ten
Scrolling through Netflix options with fretful swipes of his thumb, Lucas attempted in vain to find a comfortable position on his couch.
It was a familiar exercise, doomed to failure. From the day he’d moved into his small, pre-furnished apartment, the generic sofa had defied his attempts at lounging. Its cushions were just a bit too hard for true relaxation, and they weren’t deep enough for someone of his height. His calves and feet hung over one of the rolled arms if he tried to lay down. The nubby upholstery abraded any bare skin every time he shifted.
He could have bought a new one months ago.
He hadn’t. Just as he hadn’t replaced his mattress, which had a noticeable dip in the center, or contacted the appropriate person at the resort to ask if they might replace it. Just as he hadn’t bothered to take any of the vacation days he’d accrued since his arrival.
The back of his neck itched, and it wasn’t from sunburn or even the upholstery.
It was shame. Anger at himself. Frustration, because he knew what he wanted. He did. The only question was whether he was willing to commit, to put in the work, to risk himself emotionally and—
With a sigh, he put the remote down on the coffee table.
He should be honest, at least with himself. His inability to settle, his shame and frustration, weren’t about a damn couch or his mattress. Inevitably, his traitorous brain had wended its way back to Tess. Again.
He knew what he wanted. Her.
But she’d made herself abundantly clear the previous night. She wouldn’t seek him out again, not without some gesture of good faith on his part. More than flowers. More than a picnic.
Sex alone—sweat and tangled sheets and orgasms—wouldn’t satisfy her either. Not unless he included a corner of his tattered soul with his body.
And over the past twenty-four hours, he’d begun to think maybe—maybe—he should give it to her.
Because yes, she was a serious pain in his ass. Yes, she was entirely too fond of hurling her age between them like an insurmountable barrier, when it was nothing of the sort. Yes, she appeared to be both a workaholic and a woman with trust issues.
But she wasn’t wrong.
She saw him.
She saw beneath the Lucas he’d constructed over the past several years: shiftless, flirty, charming, and easygoing. A European playboy in search of a good time, a warm woman, and nothing more. All to compensate for the fact that he couldn’t have more, at least not when it came to his career. All to ensure that even people who recognized him, who knew who and what he could have been without the endless parade of injuries, didn’t pity him.
They might want him. They might envy him. They might marvel at how content he seemed in such a different lifestyle. But they didn’t pity him, and they didn’t see him.
Tess did.
He saw her in return. Under all that defensiveness and ambition lay a warm, funny, perceptive woman with her own unique charm. And he wasn’t talking about her awe-inspiring breasts or her generous ass or her soft belly, although those were draws in their own right.
To be honest, he found her prickliness, that ambition, exciting too.
He was so tired of simple. He wanted complicated. He wanted a challenge. A battle, one-on-one, full of feints and openings and power moves and finesse and sheer, bloody tenacity. He’d always been able to endure pain to win a point, a game, a set, a match. Potential love, he figured, would be no different, and he didn’t want it to be.
No, he just wanted her. He wanted to know what they could have together. And if having her meant he’d need to peel some layers of protection from himself, he could try to do it. First thing in the morning, before he lost his nerve, and before he wasted more of their scant time together on the island.
And in the meantime, to calm his nerves, he could check out the couch selection on the IKEA website.
Loath to wake Tess’s neighbors, Lucas knocked softly on the door of Room 1249 the next morning.
Sure, a DO NOT DISTURB
sign was hanging from the doorknob, but he knew she was an early riser from their topless ocean encounter. Hopefully she’d forgive him the dawn visit. Among other things.
He didn’t think he’d ever knocked on a guestroom door before, not in all his months of working on the island. If he wanted to speak to a client—to confirm or change an appointment, or for personal reasons—he called the appropriate hotel extension. If a particular client wanted more than just a conversation, they met somewhere more private than the cool hallways of a luxury resort.
As always, however, Tess was an exception.
When she didn’t answer the door after a minute, he knocked again. More loudly, this time.
The door swung open a few seconds later, revealing a very rumpled, aggrieved-looking woman wearing a silky, rose-colored robe. Not Tess.
That’s when his fuzzy, sleep-deprived brain finally registered his mistake: Oh, yeah. She’d come to the island with a friend. Belle. The woman he’d met the other day under decidedly more auspicious circumstances, when she’d been smiling rather than scowling at him.
She and Tess were probably roommates. And he was guessing only one of them was an early riser.
Belle’s brown eyes, already heavy with interrupted sleep, narrowed further on him.
This encounter was not starting well. No wonder he hadn’t knocked on guestroom doors before.
“Umm…” He shifted his weight. “I’m sorry to bother you. I was hoping to speak to Tess.”
“And you thought banging on her door shortly after sunrise during her well-earned vacation was the way to do it?” Belle cinched the waist of her robe tighter. “Especially after a disastrous late-night tennis lesson?”
Both women, it appeared, harbored serious doubts about his good judgment.
Whatever. He had his mission, and he was going to complete it, even if Tess and her outraged BFF roommate fought him the entire way.
“Evidently.” He waited a moment, but she didn’t move. “May I please talk to her?”
“Why?”
Oh, Lord. “You may, uh, have heard that we—”