his promise. What could have been, if he hadn’t injured himself so many times. If only he didn’t have wrists of glass. Inevitably, they’d show footage of his lone Grand Slam win during interviews, and he’d watch himself on the monitor as he collapsed onto the coated asphalt, sobbing in thanks at his good fortune.
He’d grown so fucking sick of the same questions, the same pitying looks, he’d wanted to scream at them. To rage. Him, of all people.
But how many times could he reiterate how it felt not to have his backhand as a weapon anymore? How it felt to enter majors as a wild card, solely because of his previous win? How it felt to watch the other guys in his generation, men whom he’d left in his wake once upon a time, reach semi-finals and finals while he languished in the early rounds?
And how long could he keep pretending he still had any glimmer of a real career? A plausible shot at another title?
“I’m sorry, Lucas.” Tess lifted their entwined hands, rubbing her cheek against the backs of his knuckles. She dropped a soft kiss on his scar, and then let their hands fall into the water once more. “I know this must be hard to talk about.”
He took a deep breath and finished the story. “There was no point anymore. So I left.”
Late last year, he’d retired from professional tennis. Quietly, without some grandiose fucking announcement, because if he had to hear about his vanished potential again, he didn’t know what he might do, to himself and to everyone around him.
“You’ve asked me several times why I chose to work here, and the answer isn’t especially impressive. I accepted the first job offer with decent pay and benefits.” He shrugged. “The island isn’t far from where I used to live, and this position lets me make a living from tennis. The only thing I do well.”
But not well enough. Not anymore.
He gestured at the endless ocean and sand surrounding them. “It’s a private island. Not much media finds its way here, so I don’t have to answer pointless questions all the time.”
She raised that skeptical brow of hers. “Not even from tourists?”
“It happens. But I can usually distract them.”
One side of her generous mouth quirked. “With flirting.”
He’d picked a sharp one, all right. Good thing he found intelligence sexy in a woman. “Or by playing dumb and changing the subject.”
She exhaled slowly. “So that’s your story.”
“Yeah. That’s my story.”
The bare outlines of it, anyway. Again, if she wanted to know, if their relationship went somewhere, he’d tell her the rest someday. The details. But right now, neither of them had time for it, and he didn’t have the wherewithal.
Still, he’d told her more than he’d told anyone in the past six months. Maybe longer.
It felt…exposed.
But Tess was still holding his hand tight in hers and watching him with such softness in those hazel eyes. Not pity, but sympathy. Affection.
“Thank you for telling me.” Her voice was as sweet as a strawberry lemonade cupcake, as certain as the sunrise. “Sometime soon, we’ll have to discuss how you could possibly think tennis is the only thing you do well, because that’s just stunningly inaccurate. Not now, though. Your lessons must be starting soon.”
Then she leaned over, gently cupped his cheek with her free hand, and kissed him.
Such warmth. Her lips courted his with a sweet nuzzle, and even that light pressure jolted him like a clap of thunder. Her fruity scent, something like apricots or peaches, filled his lungs, and he was dizzy with the promise of her.
She pulled back for a moment. “Is this okay?”
In answer, he let go of her hand and slid both arms around her. She filled them. She filled him, when he’d been empty for what seemed like years.
When he lowered his mouth to hers, he supported her neck with one hand. The other he slid around to her back, smoothing it up her spine while he teased her lips open with his tongue.
God, she was minty and sweet, and she pressed close to him with a low murmur in her throat as the tip of her tongue touched his. Her fingers traced the line of his collarbone, the swell of his shoulder, and every spot she touched bloomed with heat.
The kiss grew hotter. Wetter. And when he worked his way beneath that floating hem and found her bare back, stroking the soft flesh there, she clutched at his arm and gasped into