Opposites Attract

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