Opposites Attract (3 page)

“I've never known him to miss one of your major tournaments.” In an old habit he couldn't resist nor she prevent, he reached for her hair. “You were always his first order of business.”

“Things change,” she responded stiffly. “People change.”

“So it seems.” His grin was sharp and cocky. “Will your husband be here?”

“Ex-husband.” Asher tossed her head to dislodge his hand. “And no.”

“Funny, as I recall he was very fond of tennis.” Casually he set down his bag. “Has that changed too?”

“I need to shower.” Asher had drawn nearly alongside of him before Ty stopped her. His hand slipped to her waist too quickly and too easily.

“How about a quick set for old times' sake?”

His eyes were intense—that oddly compelling color that was half night and half day. Asher remembered how they seemed to darken from the pupils out when he was aroused. The hand at her waist was wide-palmed and long-fingered—a concert pianist's hand, but it was rough and worked. The strength in it would have satisfied a prizefighter.

“I don't have time.” Asher pushed to free herself and connected with the rock-hard muscles of his forearm. She pulled her fingers back as though she'd been burned.

“Afraid?” There was mockery and a light threat with the overtones of sex. Her blood heated to the force she had never been able to fully resist.

“I've never been afraid of you.” And it was true enough. She had been fascinated.

“No?” He spread his fingers, drawing her an inch closer. “Fear's one of the popular reasons for running away.”

“I didn't run,” she corrected him. “I left.” Before you did, she added silently. For once, she had outmaneuvered him.

“You still have some questions to answer, Asher.” His arm slid around her before she could step back. “I've waited a long time for the answers.”

“You'll go on waiting.”

“For some,” he murmured in agreement. “But I'll have the answer to one now.”

She saw it coming and did nothing. Later she would curse herself for her passivity. But when he lowered his mouth to hers, she met it without resistance. Time melted away.

He had kissed her like this the first time—slowly, thoroughly, gently. It was another part of the enigma that a man so full of energy and turbulence could show such sensitivity. His mouth was exactly as Asher remembered. Warm, soft, full. Perhaps she had been lost the first time he had kissed her—drawn to the fury—captured by the tenderness. Even when he brought her closer, deepening the kiss with a low-throated groan, the sweetness never diminished.

As a lover he excelled because beneath the brash exterior was an underlying and deep-rooted respect for femininity. He enjoyed the softness, tastes and textures of women, and instinctively sought to bring them pleasure in lovemaking. As an inherent loner, it was another contradiction that Ty saw a lover as a partner, never a means to an end. Asher had sensed this from the first touch so many years ago. Now she let herself drown in the kiss with one final coherent thought. It had been so long.

Her arm, which should have pushed him away, curved up his back instead until her hand reached his shoulders. Her fingers grasped at him. Unhesitatingly she pressed her body to his. He was the one man who could touch off the passion she had so carefully locked inside. The only man who had ever reached her core and gained true intimacy—the meeting of minds as well as of bodies. Starved for the glimpses of joy she remembered, Asher clung while her mouth moved avidly on his. Her greed for more drove away all her reserve, and all her promises.

Oh, to be loved again, truly loved, with none of the emptiness that had haunted her life for too long! To give herself, to take, to know the pure, searing joy of belonging! The thoughts danced in her mind like dreams suddenly remembered. With a moan, a sigh, she pressed against him, hungry for what had been.

The purpose of the kiss had been to punish, but he'd forgotten. The hot-blooded passion that could spring from the cool, contained woman had forced all else from his mind but need. He needed her, still needed her, and was infuriated. If they had been alone, he would have taken her and then faced the consequences. His impulses were still difficult to control. But they weren't alone. Some small part of his mind clung to reality even while his body pulsed. She was soft and eager. Everything he had ever wanted. All he had done without. Ty discovered he had gotten more answers than he'd bargained for.

Drawing her away, he took his time studying her face. Who could resist the dangerous power of a hurricane? The wicked, primitive rumblings of a volcano? She stared at him, teetering between sanity and desire.

Her eyes were huge and aware, her lips parted breathlessly. It was a look he remembered. Long nights in her bed, hurried afternoons or lazy mornings, she would look at him so just before loving. Hot and insistent, desire spread, then closed like a fist in his stomach. He stepped back so they were no longer touching.

“Some things change,” he remarked. “And some things don't,” he added before turning to walk away.

***

There was time for deep breathing before Asher took her position for the first serve. It wasn't the thousand pairs of eyes watching around the court that had her nerves jumping. It was one pair, dark brown and intense, seventy-eight feet away. Stacie Kingston, age twenty, hottest newcomer to the game in two years. She had energy, force and drive, along with a fierce will to win. Asher recognized her very well. The red clay spread out before her, waiting.

Because she knew the importance of mastering the skittish nerves and flood of doubts, she continued to take long, deep breaths. Squeezing the small white ball, Asher discovered the true meaning of trial by fire. If she won, here where she had never won before, three years after she had last lifted a racket professionally, she would have passed the test. Rome, it seemed, would always be her turning point.

Because it was the only way, she blocked out the past, blocked out tomorrow and focused wholly on the contest. Tossing the ball up, she watched the ascent, then struck home. Her breath came out in a hiss of effort.

Kingston played a strong, offensive game. A studied, meticulous player, she understood and used the personality of clay to her advantage, forcing Asher to the base line again and again. Asher found the dirt frustrating. It cut down on her speed. She was hurrying, defending herself. The awareness of this only made her rush more. The ball eluded her, bouncing high over her head when she raced to the net, dropping lazily into the forecourt when she hugged the base line. Unnerved by her own demons, she double-faulted. Kingston won the first game, breaking Asher's serve and allowing her only one point.

The crowd was vocal, the sun ferocious. The air was thick with humidity. From the other side of the hedge Asher could hear the games and laughter of schoolchildren. She wanted to throw aside her racket and walk off the court. It was a mistake, a mistake, her mind repeated, to have come back. Why had she subjected herself to this again? To the effort and pain and humiliation?

Her face was utterly passive, showing none of the turmoil. Gripping the racket tightly, she fought off the weakness. She had played badly, she knew, because she had permitted Kingston to set the pace. It had taken Asher less than six minutes from first service to defeat. Her skin wasn't even damp. She hadn't come back to give up after one game, nor had she come back to be humiliated. The stands were thick with people watching, waiting. She had only herself.

Flicking a hand at the short skirt of her tennis dress, she walked back to the base line. Crouched, she shifted her weight to the balls of her feet. Anger with herself was forced back. Fear was conquered. A cool head was one of her greatest weapons, and one she hadn't used in the first game. This time, she was determined. This time, the game would be played her way.

She returned the serve with a drop shot over the net that caught Kingston off balance. The crowd roared its approval as the ball boy scurried across the court to scoop up the dead ball.

Love-fifteen.
Asher translated the scoring in her head with grim satisfaction. Fear had cost her the first game. Now, in her own precise way, she was out for blood. Kingston became more symbol than opponent.

Asher continued to draw her opponent into the net, inciting fierce volleys that brought the crowd to its feet. The roar and babble of languages did not register with her. She saw only the ball, heard only the effortful breathing that was hers. She ended that volley with a neatly placed ball that smacked clean at the edge of the base line.

Something stirred in her—the hot, bubbling juice of victory. Asher tasted it, reveled in it as she walked coolly back to position. Her face was wet now, so she brushed her wristband over her brow before she cupped the two service balls in her hand. Only the beginning, she told herself. Each game was its own beginning.

By the end of the first set the court surface was zigzagged with skid marks. Red dust streaked the snowy material of her dress and marked her shoes. Sweat rolled down her sides after thirty-two minutes of ferocious play. But she'd taken the first set six-three.

Adrenaline was pumping madly, though Asher looked no more flustered than a woman about to hostess a dinner party. The competitive drives she had buried were in complete control. Part of her sensed Starbuck was watching. She no longer cared. At that moment Asher felt that if she had faced him across the net, she could have beaten him handily. When Kingston returned her serve deep, Asher met it with a topspin backhand that brushed the top of the net. Charging after the ball, she met the next return with a powerful lob.

The sportswriters would say that it was at that moment, when the two women were eye to eye, that Asher won the match. They remained that way for seconds only, without words, but communication had been made. From then Asher dominated, forcing Kingston into a defensive game. She set a merciless pace. When she lost a point she came back to take two. The aggressiveness was back, the cold-blooded warfare the sportswriters remembered with pleasure from her early years on the court.

Where Starbuck was fire and flash, she was ice and control. Never once during a professional match had Asher lost her iron grip on her temper. It had once been a game among the sportswriters—waiting for The Face to cut loose.

Only twice during the match did she come close to giving them satisfaction, once on a bad call and once on her own poor judgment of a shot. Both times she had stared down at her racket until the urge to stomp and swear passed. When she had again taken her position, there had been nothing but cool determination in her eyes.

She took the match six-one, six-two in an hour and forty-nine minutes. Twice she had held Kingston's service to love. Three times she had served aces—something Kingston with her touted superserve had been unable to accomplish. Asher Wolfe would go on to the semifinals. She had made her comeback.

Madge dropped a towel over Asher's shoulders as she collapsed on her chair. “Good God, you were terrific! You destroyed her.” Asher said nothing, covering her face with the towel a moment to absorb sweat. “I swear, you're better than you were before.”

“She wanted to win,” Asher murmured, letting the towel drop limply again. “I
had
to win.”

“It showed,” Madge agreed, giving her shoulder a quick rub. “Nobody'd believe you haven't played pro in three years. I hardly believe it myself.”

Slowly Asher lifted her face to her old partner. “I'm not in shape yet, Madge,” she said beneath the din of the still-cheering crowd. “My calves are knotted. I don't even know if I can stand up again.”

Madge skimmed a critical glance over Asher's features. She couldn't detect a flicker of pain. Bending, she scooped up Asher's warm-up jacket, then draped it over Asher's shoulders. “I'll help you to the showers. I don't play for a half hour. You just need a few minutes on the massage table.”

Exhausted, hurting, Asher started to agree, then spotted Ty watching her. His grin might have been acknowledgment of her victory. But he knew her, Asher reflected, knew her inside as no one else did.

“No thanks, I'll manage.” Effortfully she rose to zip the cover around her racket. “I'll see you after you beat Fortini.”

“Asher—”

“No, really, I'm fine now.” Head high, muscles screaming, she walked toward the tunnel that led to the locker rooms.

Alone in the steam of the showers, Asher let herself empty, weeping bitterly for no reason she could name.

Chapter 3

It was the night after her victory in the semifinals that Asher confronted Ty again. She had kept herself to a rigorous schedule of practice, exercise, press, and play. Her pacing purposely left her little time for recreation. Practice was a religion. Morning hours were spent in the peaceful tree-shaded court five, grooving in, polishing her footwork, honing her reflexes.

Exercise was a law. Push-ups and weight lifting, stretching and hardening the muscles. Good press was more than a balm for the ego. Press was important to the game as a whole as well as the individual player. And the press loved a winner.

Play was what the athlete lived for. Pure competition—the testing of the skills of the body, the use of the skills of the mind. The best played as the best dancers danced—for the love of it. During the days of her second debut, Asher rediscovered love.

In her one brief morning meeting with Ty she had rediscovered passion. Only her fierce concentration on her profession kept her from dwelling on a need that had never died. Rome was a city for lovers—it had been once for her. Asher knew that this time she must think of it only as a city for competition if she was to survive the first hurdle of regaining her identity. Lady Wickerton was a woman she hardly recognized. She had nearly lost Asher Wolfe trying to fit an image. How could she recapture herself if she once again became Starbuck's lady?

In a small club in the Via Sistina where the music was loud and the wine was abundant, Asher sat at a table crowded with bodies. Elbows nudged as glasses were reached for. Liquor spilled and was cheerfully cursed. In the second and final week of the Italian Open, the tension grew, but the pace mercifully slowed.

Rome was noise, fruit stands, traffic, outdoor cafés. Rome was serenity, cathedrals, antiquity. For the athletes it was days of grueling competition and nights of celebration or commiseration. The next match was a persistent shadow over the thoughts of the winners and the losers. As the music blared and the drinks were poured, they discussed every serve, every smash and error and every bad call. Rome was blissfully indolent over its reputation for bad calls.

“Long!” A dark, lanky Australian brooded into his wine. “That ball was inside by two inches. Two bloody inches.”

“You won the game, Michael,” Madge reminded him philosophically. “And in the second game of the fifth set, you had a wide ball that wasn't called.”

The Australian grinned and shrugged. “It was only a little wide.” He brought his thumb and forefinger close together at the good-natured razzing of his peers. “What about this one?” His gesture was necessarily shortened by the close quarters as he lifted a drink toward Asher. “She beats an Italian in the Foro Italico, and the crowd still cheers her.”

“Breeding,” Asher returned with a mild smile. “The fans always recognize good breeding.”

Michael snorted before he swallowed the heavy red wine. “Since when does a bloody steamroller need breeding?” he countered. “You flattened her.” To emphasize his point he slammed a palm down on the table and ground it in.

“Yeah.” Her smile widened in reminiscent pleasure. “I did, didn't I?” She sipped her dry, cool wine. The match had been longer and more demanding than her first with Kingston, but her body had rebelled a bit less afterward. Asher considered it a double victory.

“Tia Conway will go for your jugular,” he said pleasantly, then called to his countrywoman at a nearby table. “Hey, Tia, you gonna beat this nasty American?”

A dark, compact woman with striking black eyes glanced over. The two women measured each other slowly before Tia lifted her glass in salute. Asher responded in kind before the group fell back to its individual conversations. With the music at high volume, they shouted to be heard, but words carried only a foot.

“A nice woman,” Michael began, “off the court. On it, she's a devil. Off, she grows petunias and rosemary. Her husband sells swimming pools.”

Madge chuckled. “You make that sound like a misdemeanor.”

“I bought one,” he said ruefully, then looked back at Asher. She was listening with half an ear to the differing opinions on either side of her of a match by two players. “Still, if I played mixed doubles, I'd want Face for a partner.” Asher acknowledged this with a curious lift of a brow. “Tia plays like a demon, but you have better court sense. And,” he added as he downed more wine, “better legs.”

For this Madge punched him in the shoulder. “What about me?”

“You have perhaps the best court sense of any female world-class player,” Michael decided slowly. “But,” he continued as Madge accepted her due with a regal nod, “you have legs like a shot-putter.”

A roar of laughter rose up over Madge's indignation. Asher leaned back in her chair, enjoying the loosening freedom of mirth as Madge challenged Michael to show his own and be judged. At that moment Asher's eyes locked with Ty's. Her laughter died unnoticed by her companions.

He'd come in late and alone. His hair was unruly, as though he had ridden in a fast car with the top down. Even completely relaxed, dressed in jeans, his hands in his pockets, some aura of excitement swirled around him. In the dim light his face was shadowed, all hollows and planes, with his eyes dark and knowing. No woman could be immune to him. A former lover was helpless not to remember what magic his mouth could perform.

Asher sat still as a stone—marble, pale and elegant in the rowdy, smoke-curtained bar. She couldn't forget any more than she could stop wanting. All she could do was refuse, as she had three years before.

Without taking his eyes from hers Ty crossed the room, skirted crowded tables. He had Asher by the arm, drawing her to her feet before the rest of the group had greeted him.

“We'll dance.” It was a command formed in the most casual tones. As on court, Asher's decision had to be made in a tenth of a second. To refuse would have incited speculative gossip. To agree meant she had her own demons to deal with.

“I'd love to,” she said coolly, and went with him.

The band played a slow ballad at ear-splitting volume. The vocalist was flat, and tried to make up for it by being loud. Someone knocked a glass off a table with a splintering crash. There was a pungent scent of spilled wine. A bricklayer argued with a Mexican tennis champion on the proper way to handle a topspin lob. Someone was smoking a pipe filled with richly sweet cherry tobacco. The floorboards were slightly warped.

Ty gathered her into his arms as though she had never been away. “The last time we were here,” he murmured in her ear, “we sat at that corner table and drank a bottle of Valpolicella.”

“I remember.”

“You wore the same perfume you're wearing now.” His lips grazed her temple as he drew her closer. Asher felt the bones in her legs liquefy, the muscles in her thighs loosen. “Like sun-warmed petals.” Her heartbeat was a light, uncertain flutter against his. “Do you remember what we did afterward?”

“We walked.”

The two hoarsely spoken words seemed to shiver along his skin. It was impossible to keep his mouth from seeking small tastes of her. “Until sunrise.” His breath feathered intimately at her ear. “The city was all rose and gold, and I wanted you so badly, I nearly exploded. You wouldn't let me love you then.”

“I don't want to go back.” Asher tried to push away, but his arms kept her pressed tight against him. It seemed every line of his body knew every curve of hers.

“Why? Because you might remember how good we were together?”

“Ty, stop it.” She jerked her head back—a mistake as his lips cruised lazily over hers.

“We'll be together again, Asher.” He spoke quietly. The words seemed to sear into the tender flesh of her lips. “Even if it's only once . . . for old times' sake.”

“It's over, Ty.” The claim was a whisper, the whisper unsteady.

“Is it?” His eyes darkened as he pressed her against him almost painfully. “Remember, Asher, I know you, inside out. Did your husband ever find out who you really are? Did he know how to make you laugh? How,” he added in a low murmur, “to make you moan?”

She stiffened. The music whirled around them, fast now with an insistent bass beat. Ty held her firmly against him, barely swaying at all. “I won't discuss my marriage with you.”

“I damn well don't want to know about your
marriage.
” He said the word as if it were an obscenity as his fingers dug into the small of her back. Fury was taking over though he'd sworn he wouldn't let it. He could still get to her. Yes, yes, that was a fact, he knew, but no more than she could still get to him. “Why did you come back?” he demanded. “Why the hell did you come back?”

“To play tennis.” Her fingers tightened on his shoulder. “To win.” Anger was growing in her as well. It appeared he was the only man who could make her forget herself enough to relinquish control. “I have every right to be here, every right to do what I was trained to do. I don't owe you explanations.”

“You owe me a hell of a lot more.” It gave him a certain grim satisfaction to see the fury in her eyes. He wanted to push. Wanted to see her anger. “You're going to pay for the three years you played lady of the manor.”

“You don't know anything about it.” Her breath came short and fast. Her eyes were nearly cobalt. “I paid, Starbuck, I paid more than you can imagine. Now I've finished, do you understand?” To his surprise, her voice broke on a sob. Quickly she shook her head and fought back tears. “I've finished paying for my mistakes.”

“What mistakes?” he demanded. Frustrated, he took her by the shoulders. “What mistakes, Asher?”

“You.” She drew in her breath sharply, as if stepping back from a steep edge. “Oh, God, you.”

Turning, she fought her way through the swarm of enthusiastic dancers. Even as she sprang out into the sultry night Ty whirled her around. “Let me go!” She struck out blindly, but he grabbed her wrist.

“You're not going to walk out on me again.” His voice was dangerously low. “Not ever again.”

“Did it hurt your pride, Ty?” Emotion erupted from her, blazing as it could only from one who constantly denied it. “Did it hurt your ego that a woman could turn her back on you and choose someone else?”

Pain ripped through him and took over. “I never had your kind of pride, Asher.” He dragged her against him, needing to prove he had some kind of power over her, even if it was only physical. “The kind you wear so that no one can see you're human. Did you run because I knew you? Because in bed I could make you forget to be the perfect lady?”

“I left because I didn't want you!” Completely unstrung, she shouted, pounding with her free hand. “I didn't want—”

He cut her off with a furious kiss. Their tempers soared with vivid passion. Anger sizzled in two pairs of lips that clung because they were helpless to do otherwise. There was never any choice when they were together. It had been so almost from the first, and the years had changed nothing. She could resist him, resist herself, for only so long. The outcome was inevitable.

Suddenly greedy, Asher pressed against him. Here was the sound and the speed. Here was the storm. Here was home. His hair was thick and soft between her questing fingers, his body rock-hard against the firmness of hers. His scent was his “off-court” fragrance—something sharp and bracing that she'd always liked.

The first taste was never enough to satisfy her, so she probed deeper into his mouth, tongue demanding, teeth nipping in the way he himself had taught her. A loud crash of brass from the band rattled the windows behind them. Asher heard only Ty's moan of desperation. Between the shadows and the moonlight they clung, passion building, old needs merging with new.

Her breath trembled into the night as he took a crazed journey of her face. His hands slid up until his thumbs hooked gently under her chin. It was a familiar habit, one of his more disarming. Asher whispered his name half in plea, half in acceptance before his mouth found hers again. He drew her into him, slowly, inevitably, while his fingers skimmed along her cheekbones. The more tempestuous the kiss, the more tender his touch. Asher fretted for the strong, sure stroke of his hands on her body.

Full circle, she thought dizzily. She had come full circle. But if once before in Rome she had been frightened when his kisses had drained and exhilarated her, now she was terrified.

“Please, Ty.” Asher turned her head until her brow rested on his shoulder. “Please, don't do this.”

“I didn't do it alone,” he muttered.

Slowly she lifted her head. “I know.”

It was the vulnerability in her eyes that kept him from dragging her back to him. Just as it had been her vulnerability all those years before that had prevented him taking her. He had waited for her to come to him. The same would hold true this time, he realized. Cursing potently under his breath, Ty released her.

“You've always known how to hold me off, haven't you, Asher?”

Knowing the danger had passed, she let out an unsteady breath. “Self-preservation.”

Ty gave an unexpected laugh as his hands dove for his pockets. “It might have been easier if you'd managed to get fat and ugly over the last three years. I wanted to think you had.”

A hint of a smile played on her mouth. So his moods could change, she thought, just as quickly as ever. “Should I apologize for not accommodating you?”

“Probably wouldn't have made any difference if you had.” His eyes met hers again, then roamed her face. “Just looking at you—it still takes my breath away.” His hands itched to touch. He balled them into fists inside his pockets. “You haven't even changed your hair.”

This time the smile bloomed. “Neither have you. You still need a trim.”

He grinned. “You were always conservative.”

“You were always unconventional.”