“Hello,” she said after racing to the phone.
“Hi, this is Sloan. Are you all right? We’re having a storm here.”
“I’m okay, Sloan. Thanks for thinking about me. The storm hasn’t hit here yet, although I hear it coming.”
“How are you?”
“I’m a little tired, because I’m preparing for my next tournament.”
“When is it and where?” She told him. “I’ll be with you in spirit.” They talked for a few minutes about nothing in particular.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, “and you can call me, too.”
For the next two weeks, he called her every evening, and they talked like good friends, neither saying what the other wanted to hear and both of them making the calls because they had to hear the other’s voice.
One night, she said to him, “I’m leaving tomorrow morning for the Rogers Cup Tournament in Toronto. The top players will be there, and I’m going to give it my all. Wish me luck.”
“You know I do, Lynne. I want the tournament for you more than you want it for yourself.”
* * *
Sloan sat glued to his television set as Lynne walked out on the tennis court followed by her opponent. “Here she comes,” the announcer said of Lynne. “She’s recovered her old form, and if she plays this match as she’s played the previous matches in this tournament, never dropping a set, she’s a shoo-in to win the championship, her first since returning to the game.”
He got up and made a pot of coffee. Not even when he put his last penny down on his first service center had he been as nervous as he was then. But with her first serve, Lynne gave notice that she planned to win and she wasn’t going to take long to do it. For fifty-eight minutes, Sloan paced the floor, sat down, got up and paced again, punished his left palm with the brunt of his right fist and rubbed his chin until it burned.
With two points away from the championship, she hit the ball into the net, and his groans echoed through the house, but on the next point, she sent the ball to the corner out of her opponent’s reach.
“Match point,” the referee said, and Lynne tossed the ball up and hit it down the middle for an untouchable ace.
He jumped up and pounded his right fist into his left palm. She won. She had won her first tournament. He wiped the dampness from beneath his eyes. Thank God! She won! Now, if she could do the same at the US Open that began in two weeks, he could begin to deal seriously with their future and whether they would live it together or separately.
The next evening at eight o’clock, he stood at the gate as she disembarked from the American Airlines flight. Her face bloomed when she saw him, and he rushed forward and opened his arms to her.
“I was so happy,” she said, “and you weren’t there. Oh, Sloan, I missed you so.”
He didn’t need words. The feel of her, soft and responsive in his arms, told him that she still belonged to him. He brushed his lips over hers, and the sweetness of it tantalized him. He wanted and needed more, but he couldn’t have it in that public place, so he merely squeezed her to him.
“I was with you every time you struck a ball,” he told her. “I may have worn out the carpet in my den where I paced from the TV to the window and back. When you hit that last ace, I jumped straight up. Sweetheart, I’m tired of being away from you. I’ve hated every minute of it.”
“Me, too. Are you going home with me?”
“Of course. If you’ll let me.”
She reached for his hand and walked with him to the luggage carousel where he retrieved her bags. “Stay here with the bags,” he told her, “while I get my car.”
With great difficulty, he controlled the urge to surpass the speed limit in order to get to her house where he could be alone with her at last. As he drove, he thought back to the last time he was in her house and to the blistering sex that passed for lovemaking between them. As good as it was, he meant to erase it from her memory with the sweetest loving they had experienced.
“It seems as if decades passed since I was last here,” he said later as he sat on the stool in her kitchen drinking lemonade, “and I want to make you forget that night. I’m sorry that I didn’t accept your kindness, but we’ll have to talk about that at another time. Not taking from women is deeply ingrained in me. I hope you can forgive me.”
“I have.” With a hand on each of his knees, she leaned forward and kissed him.
* * *
She wanted them to make up, and she was stubborn enough to want it on her terms, but she knew he was not going to allow it, that he wanted them to make love as equals, not as one dominating the other.
“Have you forgiven me?” she asked him, although she still didn’t think she’d done anything wrong.
“It’ll be out of my system as soon as I have a chance to tell you why I was upset, but I’m no longer hurt or angry. If you need the words, yes, I forgive you.”
She had to put an end to the awkwardness, so she put an arm around his shoulder, sat on his lap and pressed her lips to his. Anxious for all that he could give her, she parted her lips above his, placed his hand inside her blouse and gave herself up to his ministrations. His fingers toyed with her nipple, teasing and exciting her while she twisted and turned on his lap. Finally, desperate for the feel of his warm, moist mouth on her breast, she straddled him and rose on her knees to give him easy access. She felt him then, as he rose hard and heavy between her legs, and she would have lowered herself on him, but he lifted her away from him.
“I want more for you and for me,” he said as he lifted her and carried her to her room. She understood that he wouldn’t be satisfied by physical release alone when he began to kiss her eyes and her cheeks while he unbuttoned her blouse. At a slow and maddening pace he undressed her, kissing the places where his fingers trailed.
“I love your beautiful body,” he murmured as he slowly slid her panties from her hips and replaced the garment with his tongue, trailing it over her flesh until he reached the place where she was most sensitive to him, twirled his tongue around it and then sucked it until she screamed. She didn’t see how she could stand it any longer, and her hips began to sway uncontrollably. He put her on the bed then, knowing that she was going mad for him, and stared down at her while he took his time stripping off his clothes.
“Now. I want you now,” she said, turning her head from side to side, embroiled in the heat of desire. But he let her know that he was charting their course when he thrust his tongue into her mouth, slid his hand slowly down her body until he reached his goal, parted her folds and let his talented fingers work their magic.
“I feel so full,” she moaned. “Sweetheart, please, I’ll die if I don’t burst wide-open. Now. I need it.”
“As soon as you’re ready. Do you love me?”
“Yes. Yes. I love you. I’m crazy for you.”
“Who do you want?”
“You. I want you. Honey, I’m...I need relief. I want you to get inside of me.”
He moved from her, and she held her breath for his thrust. “I want this, too,” he said as he spread her legs and let her feel the tip of his tongue. As he moved up her body, she felt the liquid flowing from her, grasped his penis and, as he mounted her, she thrust it into her as a scream of pleasure tore from her. She thought a volcano had erupted inside of her as he stroked her.
“We belong together,” he murmured, “and don’t you forget it.” Then, he increased the power of his thrusts.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes!
“I’m going to... Oh Lord,” she yelled. She felt his power then as he drove within her. Heaven and hell must have broken loose inside her as she trembled uncontrollably from head to foot. “I’m dying,” she moaned, just before he plunged them both into ecstasy.
She thrust her arms wide and gave herself to him completely and without re
servation. Almost immediately, he braced himself on his elbows and looked down into her face.
“I love you, and don’t you think for a moment that I’m going to let you out of my life. I won’t ask if you were satisfied, because it was like spontaneous combustion, and believe me, I felt it. I could stay this way with you forever, but I want us to talk.” He separated them and rolled off the bed.
They dressed and walked down the stairs holding hands. “My father taught me that I am responsible for my woman and my family, that I take care of them and that, unless I am ill or badly disabled, I should never let a woman take care of me, that I should solve my own problems. You got me out of a terrible bind. One of Gary’s friends got a local journalist to write a favorable story about me for the Sentinel. My business is better than ever, but I couldn’t take credit for it.
“I appreciate your concern, your caring and, yes, your help. But if there’s a next time, please talk with me about it first. I promise not to be pigheaded, which is what Thelma and my parents have accused me of in this instance. That’s all I have to say. What about you?”
“All right. Next time I will discuss it, and I hope you’ll remember that just as you need to help me when I’m down, I have the same need where you’re concerned.” She nodded. “Is this behind us now?”
His smile nearly unglued her. “Yeah. Want to finish what we started an hour ago?” She kissed him, reached for his hand and started toward the stairs.
* * *
Two weeks passed swiftly, for they spent every evening together. On Saturday, September 6, at eight o’clock in the evening, Lynne Thurston walked into Arthur Ashe Stadium carrying a bouquet of red and yellow roses, symbolic of her status as a finalist at the US Open. She hadn’t had an easy time getting to the finals, because she had faced three top-ten players and played two tough three-set matches, including the semifinal that she won the previous morning. And her opponent in the final was the world’s number one player, the woman who’d beat her in the Australian Open in January.
As she entered the brightly lit court to the roar of the crowd and shouts of “Lynne, Lynne,” she looked up at the star-filled, moonlit sky and then glanced toward her box and waved to Sloan, Brad, Gary, Clive, Thelma and Sloan’s parents. “Lord, if I can just win, I’ll be able to have peace and happiness in my life at last. But my game is on,” she reminded herself, “so Maria will not beat me tonight.”
After Lynne won the first set in a grueling, half-hour tiebreaker, she looked at her box and pumped her right fist when she saw Sloan jump up and shake both fists. The flow of adrenaline accelerated, and she could hardly wait out the five-minute rest period when it would be her turn to serve.
“I know she’s not going to give me a single point,” Lynne told herself, “so it’s up to me to win.” Tied at four games each, she finally broke Maria’s serve, led five to four and began to serve for the match. Twice, she tossed up the ball for her serve and twice she let it fall to the ground.
“Steady, girl,” she said aloud, and the crowd in the stadium echoed, “Steady, Lynne.”
She took a deep breath and served the ball down the middle for an ace with a speed clocked at one hundred and twenty-six miles an hour. Maria sent her next serve into the corner for a point, and they were even. “I’m going for broke,” she said to herself. “She can’t hit ’em if she can’t reach ’em.” Ten minutes later, she sent an ace to Maria’s left, tossed her racket, spread her arms and jumped for joy. She’d done it. She had won the US Open.
With tears streaming down her face, she raced to the net, shook her opponent’s hand as gracefully as she could, turned and raced into the stands, jumping over knees and stepping on bottles of cola and beer as she headed for her box. Sloan met her halfway, picked her up and kissed her.
“I’ll be waiting for you at the clubhouse door,” he said. “You were unbelievable out there.” She blew kisses to the other occupants of her box and raced back to the court. Minutes later, she held the coveted trophy in her hands once more.
“You’re world number one now,” the tour president told her, “and we’ve never had a finer champion.”
“Maria pushed me to my limit,” she told the crowd. “I gave myself two seasons in which to climb to where I am now and win this tournament, and I’m satisfied. Thank you for your support.” She held up the trophy for the benefit of the photographers, grabbed her duffel bag and raced to the dressing room.
After showering and dressing in record time, she stuffed her belongings into the duffel bag and raced to the entrance where she knew Sloan waited for her. As she stepped through the door, his arms went around her.
“I’ve never been so happy,” he told her. “I sweated every bead of sweat right along with you.”
“And you’re here,” she said, as if in wonder. “You’re here to share this with me.”
He tightened his arms around her, bent to her lips and savored them. “I’m having a party for you at 21 Club just as I promised last year when you played here. I hope you feel up to it.”
“Absolutely,” she said with a vigorous nod of her head.
“Good. If you’d like, I’ll take you to your hotel so you can change, and—”
“And I’ll check out and spend the night at your...uh...where are your parents staying?”
“Two floors above me at the Willard, and Thelma’s in the room next to them. I want you to stay with me.”
At the Mayflower, she changed, packed and was leaving the room to check out when he knocked on the door. She looked through the peephole, saw him and flung open the door. “Come in.”
She thought she detected diffidence in his manner as he stood before her holding a bouquet of pink, purple and lavender calla lilies. Her fingers shook, but she managed to take them and hold them. But when he knelt before her, she nearly swallowed her tongue, and her heart lunged in her chest.
“I’ve waited almost two years for this minute, Lynne. I love you, and I want you to be my wife. Will you do me the honor of marrying me? I’ll be a good husband to you and a good father to our children. My family will come first in my life, and I’ll always be there for you and for our children as long as I live.”
So shaken that she couldn’t speak, she knelt with him as tears of joy cascaded from her eyes. When at last she could force out the words, she said, “Oh, yes. I’ll be honored to be your wife, Sloan. This is why I wanted so badly to reach my goal tonight. I love you. I’ve never loved anyone else.”
He rose with her in his arms and brushed her lips with his own. “I can hardly believe this is happening to me. To us. Can we tell them tonight at the party?” he asked her.
Laughter poured out of her. “Sweetheart, I’d like to phone the Associated Press with the news,” she told him. “I want to tell the world. I want everybody to know that you belong to me.”
An hour and a half later, she followed the maître d’ to a private dining room at the 21 Club, conscious of Sloan just behind her. When they entered the candlelit room, his arm clasped her close to him, and she looked up to see his face wreathed in smiles and joy sparkling in his eyes.
“Let me introduce the world’s number one tennis player and the woman who has just honored me by agreeing to be my wife.” He kissed her then, blotting out the sound of applause. Then, as she looked into his eyes, she told him, their families and their friends, “This is the happiest day of my life.”
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460338520
MCNEIL’S MATCH
Copyright © 2006 by Gwendolyn Johnson-Acsadi
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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