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