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Ainsley smiled at her. She was feeling better, as she knew she would among this group of women.

“Just let Rachel handle Casey,” Krissy said. “Right, Rach?”

Rachel nodded.

“That’s right,” she said. “I do not share and if I see her again, I will fucking let her know that.”

All the women laughed. Ainsley thought it was hot as fuck.

“Come on,” Wendy said with a clap of her hands. “Let’s get out there and play! I have some frustrations I want to work out on that ball!”

***

An hour later, Ainsley was keeping herself balanced on the balls of her feet and keeping her arms loose, ready to react, watching Becca on the other side of the net very closely.

Becca had been on fire today. She’d been hitting ace after ace when serving and had also been doing some amazing blocking, thwarting several of Ainsley’s spike attempts. Maybe what Charlotte had said was true. Maybe everybody does try a bit harder when Rachel was around.

This time, it was her team’s serve and Lucinda doing the serving.

Ainsley, playing middle blocker, but standing next to Lucinda because of the rotation, turned her head to Lucinda and whispered, “Away from Becca; away from Becca.”

“What about Rachel?” Lucinda whispered back.

It was a fair point. Serving away from Becca meant hitting the ball into a zone where Rachel could get to it and do God knows what with it.

“Keep it away from Rachel too!” she stated. “Hit it to Tamsin’s left,” she suggested.

Lucinda shrugged, took a deep breath and extended her arm out, holding the volleyball in her palm. A moment later she tossed the ball up and delivered the serve exactly where Ainsley suggested.

Tamsin, though, despite having to go to her left, managed to receive the serve easily and pass it to Rachel.

Shit!

Ainsley, reading the play—or so she thought—got herself in position to block a hit by Wendy, who she assumed Rachel was going to set to and who was jumping up as if she was going to hit the ball. But then Rachel did an amazing back set to Becca who was running up from behind Rachel to attack. The set was so perfectly timed and delivered that Becca, jumping so high one would have thought she was on a trampoline, easily spiked it over the net, the point made easier by the fact that Ainsley’s team had been fooled and caught off guard.

That was the set.

“New girl sucks!” Krissy, on Ainsley’s team this time, muttered.

All the women met on one side of the net to exchange good games, hand-slaps and even a few hugs. Again, Rachel was the difference-maker: whichever team she happened to be on—and luckily, it had been Ainsley’s team the previous contest—won the game.

As they all started heading back to the locker room, Ainsley put her arm around Rachel’s shoulder.

“Every time you touch the ball, I get this overwhelming sense of doom,” Ainsley told her.

Rachel laughed.

“Even when I’m on your team?” she teased.

“When you’re on my team and you touch the ball, I have a teeny-tiny orgasm.”

In the locker room, Ainsley and Rachel were the last to head toward the showers and because of that, Ainsley had a great idea.

Taking hold of Rachel’s arm and holding a finger up to her lips, Ainsley pulled Rachel into the nearest empty shower stall.

“What are you doing?” Rachel whispered with a suppressed giggle.

“Sh!”