Opposites Attract

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