Page 15

Doubles

M

idway through a filling breakfast—ordered and delivered fifteen minutes after Liam had finished making Victoria climax for a third time—Anna arrived at their deck. She was here to talk strategy, which Victoria immediately understood. Waving her up to join them, the younger woman smiled and kissed Liam good morning. Wonderfully, when he pulled her onto his lap for a little more than just a good morning kiss, Anna allowed it.

That boded well for his future plans.

“You mentioned being unfamiliar with tennis,” Anna said, looking over her shoulder at him. “But do you know the basic rules?”

“I think so,” said the man with a hand up her shirt, fondling one of her wonderful breasts. “I mean, the big thing I need to make calls on is if the ball lands outside the line, right?”

Anna and Victoria shared a look.

“Mostly, yes,” Victoria said, barely blinking at the fact that he was fondling her partner. She had warned him about being too distracting when he’d started, but that had been it. God, Liam loved Fiji. These women, too.

“We’ll want you to keep score too,” Anna said. Likewise, other than a slight blush when he’d first slipped his hand under her shirt and bra, his gorgeous, talented girlfriend seemed unbothered by his public display of affection. “And try to track if the server steps over the baseline before they’ve served. We’ll help with any other rulings. I don’t think anyone here would cheat; we want to have a good match.”

Well… Liam thought, glancing at Victoria, who didn’t even blink as she met his stare.

“We haven’t discussed how many sets the game will go,” Victoria noted. “That was something we forgot to do last night.”

“Maybe just one?” Anna said. “I don’t know how long we’ll want to be out there.”

“Whatever we go for, bring along a cooler too,” Victoria advised him. “Hydration, so your bouncing sights aren’t cut short due to dry throats.”

Liam rolled his eyes but agreed to do so. Not too long later, Anna and Victoria headed to the resort to get some rackets and balls, and headed over to practice a little on the court. Liam didn’t know it, but Avril and Tess did the same thing at pretty much the same time. Therefore, when he arrived with a cooler stuffed with ice and chilled beverages, he found four beautiful women sharing the green clay court.

Not even Anna had come to Fiji expecting a tennis match, so there was a notable lack of tennis skirts worn by the four stunning women. Instead, as had been the fashion since they’d arrived, shorts replaced them. Anna and Tess both had ballcaps on, and ponytails were in vogue. Today’s looks resembled yesterday’s looks because of it. Another day of long legs and beautiful smiles—probably with a few more grunts and moments of intense focus coming up shortly.

Carrying the cooler, which would also be his seat while officiating, over to his designated area, Liam spent some time readying his phone via an app he’d found to track points and game wins. Once that was done, he meandered around the court like a leaf caught up in the wind, chatting with the four competitors about a few more things he should know before the match started.

“You won’t have to judge every out,” Tess said. “This isn’t going to be that competitive.” She glanced intentionally at Avril, who merely shrugged.

“There’s a reward and all, so it should be a little competitive.”

“A little,” Victoria agreed, the vivid blue of her eyes sparkling competitively.

“A little,” Anna reminded, eyeing both women.

“More than anything,” Tess continued, “we’ll point or ask for your ruling when it looks close or one side wants a second opinion. You’ll be as much of a spectator as an official.”

“I’m certain I’ll enjoy that,” Liam said, smiling at the beautiful woman. “May the better team win.”

Once they were all ready, Avril and Tess received the right to serve first. Collecting a pair of tennis balls from him, as one of his other duties involved babysitting the small pile of fuzzy, yellow spheres sitting beside the cooler, Avril and Tess headed to their side of the court. Anna and Victoria, whispering quietly and strategizing all the way to the final moment, did the same.

Though it wasn’t supposed to be that competitive of a game, Liam could see it in every set of eyes, the quick discussions taking place as the match inched closer to its beginning, and the posture of the four women on the court. They all wanted to win. Four competitive women had gathered here today, and none wished to taste defeat.

And just maybe, the prize Liam had promised also helped incentivize things.

Standing behind the baseline, Avril leaned forward, eyeing her opposition across the net. Victoria was up closer to the net, leaving Anna as the one who’d receive the opening serve of the match. The best friends stared at one another, then Anna smiled and readied herself.

Yep. Four competitive women.

After bouncing the tennis ball she’d selected—the other bulged within one of her pockets—Avril tossed the ball, following its high climb with her eyes and posture, and kicked things off.

The racket met the ball, and after a moment of slicing through the air, the ball met the net.

The first fault of the match. Only somewhat aware of how tennis matches went, Liam didn’t yet understand how many of them he was due to see over the next seventy-five minutes.

“Fuck,” Avril hissed, clicking her tongue in annoyance.

Tess approached the net, collected the ball, then bounced it back to her. Eyebrow raised, as if she’d noticed something about the serve that Liam couldn’t perceive, Tess made a calming gesture with one hand. Avril grunted as the ball returned to her but nodded.

Her next serve, which appeared a bit more controlled and less violent, went over the net. And Anna was there to receive it.

She made it look effortless, black ponytail whipping about as she positioned herself for a forehand riposte. Her arm flowed like a jet of water, and the tennis court exploded with sound as her racket sent the ball zooming back over the court. Rushing forward, Avril got the ball back up but had little control over its destination.

And Victoria, tall, gorgeous, and already close to the net, was there for it.

Within a second of the ball meeting Avril’s racket, Victoria’s changed its mind about where it should be heading. Slashing the ball away from Avril, instead delivering it toward Tess’s feet, the older professor grimaced as she turned her body to the side, also barely getting her racket in the way.

The tennis ball hovered above the net, unintentionally lobbed high. But unlike the fiercer yellow sphere in the sky, it came back down in a matter of seconds.

“Mine!” Anna shouted, rushing forward as if planning to put every ounce of her strength into slamming the ball into the clay on the other side of the net.

Avril and Tess threw themselves backward, trying to get away from the net in a mad scramble. They weren’t fast enough.

Anna delivered a crushing strike on the ball, sending it thudding into the clay in the center of the court. A moment of hesitation delayed both her opponents, with neither of them certain who should make the defense. Avril ended up going for it, but she arrived too late. Her swing chased the ball's shadow, which bounced a second time a good ten feet past the baseline.

About seven seconds had gone by.

Liam blinked and refocused as the four women took a few moments to catch their breath. Tess went after the ball, passing it back to Avril, who’d be the only player who served during this first game. Even more woefully unaccustomed to tennis than baseball, he still knew enough to know what tennis matches usually resembled.

Explosive flashes of frenetic movement and overexertion. There was a calm, and then a storm. The first one had passed, and Liam recognized that all four competitors seemed to have already forgotten that this match was only supposed to be a little competitive.

That became even more obvious in the second rally. Avril’s first serve blitzed over the net, met by Anna’s two-handed backhand. Tess lurched into motion, trying to target Victoria’s feet, but the self-proclaimed worst player of the four didn’t falter. The ball traded sides a good half-dozen times before Tess finally worked in a high volley that made it over the taller woman. Twisting around as she tried to get around the ball, Victoria managed to get her racket under it before its second bounce, but the return hit went wide, landing outside the court near where Liam sat.

“Sir, are you forgetting your main job?” Avril asked as she collected the ball, breathing slightly heavily. They all were. This was a game of motion, where everyone gave it their all during the five to ten seconds they were all part of the play.

Liam tilted his head, then started. “Oh, my bad.”

He quickly rectified the issue of his dark phone screen, then updated the scorecard app that he’d found.

“Enjoying the show?” Avril asked, lingering by him with a playful smile. “Is it bouncy enough for you?”

“Almost,” Liam said. “If you get hot and sweaty, feel free to take your shirt off.”

“I just might,” Avril said, stealing a kiss from him before heading back to the baseline for her third—well, fourth—attempt at a vicious serve.

It was a bit too vicious, impacting the net yet again. As her next attempt went over the net, Liam started to understand a little better. The first serve could have all the juice. A fault didn’t lose you anything. However, if you faulted, the second attempt needed to get over that net, so it received finer control, less power. And Avril, as she showed through her next few serves, wanted power.

She earned them the lead by doing so. Her next serve forced Anna to deliver a weak return, which Tess scooped up immediately. Victoria grunted and pursued the ball her fellow professor sent her way, but only managed to bring the ball right back to her, which allowed Tess to redirect the ball toward a spot neither of her opponents could defend.

There was another tactic Liam was beginning to learn. After serve and return, both younger women wanted to rapidly approach the net and join their partners there. After each of Avril’s serves, she’d practically launched herself forward following striking the ball. He’d see that again in the next rally, which ended once Anna deftly tied things up with a solid cross-court shot. All four players came closer to the net, as if drawn to it by gravity.

So long as it was possible to do so, of course. Sometimes, one of the backline players didn’t approach, usually because they couldn’t. Those were the times when one side clearly appeared to be on the defensive. Liam was sure there was more to it than that, but his layman's understanding of tennis didn’t let him comprehend the finer details.

He knew the scoring system, at least, though the app on his phone also handled everything about deuces and advantages. Which was how the first game ended. On the back of an impressive serve, which again allowed Tess to poach a ball and target Victoria, Avril and Tess pushed ahead by two points, claiming the first game. The two women celebrated, Avril grinning particularly fiercely.

“It’s completely all right,” Anna said to Victoria, who’d given a rare apology as they came together to discuss the next game. “I didn’t play well against Avril’s serves this game.”

The older woman had been pretty plainly targeted throughout the match. The last thing they wanted to do was give Anna time with the ball. It wasn’t that Victoria was fumbling about like a novice, but Liam was beginning to understand why she’d declared herself the least skilled out of the four. The other three were definitely competent enough to call themselves good players. As Anna soon proved again.

During the second game, Anna’s serves were downright vicious. She didn’t have quite the same oomph as Avril’s serves, but the precision on display was pinpoint. The ball went where she wanted it to go, and she faulted only once. As if she were transporting the ball to the spot on the clay where she wanted it to end up, then dropping it there by hand, Anna put Avril through a hell of a time trying to get a decent return. Based on the exasperated way she rolled her eyes after the game ended with an ace, Liam got the sense that Avril was used to such results when going up against her best friend.

“Someone really wants that prize,” Avril remarked in the short interim before the next game.

Anna finished drinking from her water bottle, then shrugged. “Actually, I don’t think I did all that well. I’m still warming up.”

“Cocky girl,” Avril said, grinning.

Tess’s offense wasn’t quite on par with the younger women, though she consistently got the ball over the net on her first serve. Anna and Victoria had elected to stay in the same positions they had during the first game, allowing the former to keep playing the role of returner. With the score at one to one, Liam got the sense that these next two games, where the best servers would be out of contention, were the ones where a team might manage to pull away some.

Anna and Victoria had the first opportunity to win a game for the defending side, and they fought bitterly to make it theirs. All across the court, everyone seemed to have shaken off any rust that might have affected them in the first two games. The rallies were harder fights, the tactics and teamwork improved, and Victoria especially showed a stiffer defense than she had in the first game.

Thanks to that and Anna’s continued status as the best player on the court, they seized a lead that brought them to the final needed point to claim the game—and a lead. Unfortunately for Liam, the first time he’d come under actual scrutiny arrived at that potentially final point.

Racing after a high lob sent sailing over her shoulder, Avril just managed to get behind the ball and swing at it. Twisting as she slashed at the ball, it zoomed back over the net at a cutting angle. The ball impacted the clay right within Liam’s line of sight, only about four or five feet away from him.

“Out!” Anna shouted, the next closest individual to the ball.

Avril pinched her face together, clearly wanting the amount of effort she’d just put in to be rewarded with a point for her team—and a way to even things up and keep from losing the game. But Tess didn’t immediately contest Anna’s call, and Avril had been about as far as one could be from the ball’s impact.

“Official, your call,” Avril said.

He met the fierce gaze of the redheaded competitor. So far, he’d only been called to weigh in one other time, in a situation like this one, but not as meaningful. That one had gone in Avril and Tess’s favor. This one, however…

“It looked out to me,” Liam said. “A few inches past the white line. Didn’t touch it.”

Avril pursed her lips, and for a moment, Liam wondered if she would argue further. Just how heated was this game, with pride and prize on the line, going to get?

“Okay,” Avril said, tapping her shoulder with her racket. She sighed as Anna and Victoria both shared a high five. The lead was theirs.

A brief water break shoved itself between the end of the third game and the start of the fourth. At a minimum, there’d be four more games before a winner could be declared, and only if Anna and Victoria shut things down from here on out. Based on how tight things had been in the previous three games, Liam doubted that would happen.

“It’s getting hot out,” Avril remarked as she withdrew her lips from her water bottle.

“Yeah,” Liam said. “Might end up being the hottest day of our trip.”

Avril nodded in agreement, picking up a towel from the selection and using it to dab at some sweat on her forehead. She wasn’t alone in perspiring some, further proving how seriously everyone was taking the match.

“Good point.” Avril handed him her towel and water, then reached down and tugged off her shirt.

The overt activity drew the attention of the other three women. Liam was already focused on her, and as Avril stripped down to her sports bra, he maneuvered that focus along her attractive curves.

“Just like you wanted?” Avril asked, smirking.

“Yes,” Liam admitted. “But it won’t get you any preferences on my rulings.”

“How about a kiss for good luck?”

Liam smiled back at the beautiful woman. She just couldn’t help but turn every opportunity into a provocative moment.

“Yeah, I’ve been wanting that too,” Liam said.

He kissed her in front of the others, aware via his peripheral vision that Victoria and Anna rolled their eyes. Avril grinned, pressed her breasts against him, and wrapped her arms around his neck, adding several seconds to the show.

“There,” Avril said, continuing to smile once she pulled her lips back, though she kept her body pinned against his. “Now, I feel a little better about having lost the last game.”

“We’re sure you do,” Victoria said dryly. “Now, can we move on? I’m ready to serve finally.”

“Cheer me on,” Avril said with a wink, decoupling her lithe, voluptuous figure from him.

Everyone returned to their usual spots on the court—sans one professor, who looked amused.

“Tess?” Liam asked.

In a show of solidarity, the gorgeous woman gripped her shirt and repeated what Avril had just done a minute before. Liam’s eyes lit up with glee, though he still raised an eyebrow.

“A team should look the same,” she said, moving in to claim her own kiss. “We don’t have uniforms, so this is the best we can do.”

Anna and Victoria looked less than amused when Tess finally joined her equally undressed teammate on the court. Some of that annoyance looked internal, as though they realized they’d lost the chance to become the first “skins” team, leaving them as the “shirts” for at least one more game.

That sliver of anger might have spurred Victoria on, because her serves during the game were the strongest so far. Tossing high, icy eyes focused intently on the ball, the contact between racket and ball was booming. Her first serve went a little long, which Avril gleefully pointed out as she danced out of the way, but the second, even with its power reduced in favor of control, still stung the clay with a vicious crack on impact.

Humorously, Liam also got to hear the loudest sound from Victoria that he’d ever heard. The moans he’d caused her to make had been throaty, sultry, and some of them had been pretty loud, but in putting all her force behind these serves, Victoria wasn’t quiet. The stoic professor stopped being stoic when she needed to slam a racket into something. Her ferocity echoed across the court as she forced Avril to work incredibly hard to defend against her serves.

She earned another ace for the team, and Avril scrunched her face in annoyance. However, she also double-faulted once, which brought the game to a thirty-all. Right after, an exceptionally long rally followed.

With Avril getting her best return yet, she could move up a few steps—and after Tess adroitly defended against Victoria’s follow-up attack, the younger woman made it all the way to the service line. Anna got involved next, putting her opponents on the back foot. But not quite enough to steal the point.

All four women darted around the court, doing everything they could to seize the point. More movement than the previous two rallies, more exertions, more effort. Avril scooped up a ball at the last second, and then Victoria was able to smash the ball back over the net. However, Tess saved it with a burst of effort, and Anna couldn’t make her return with as much precision as she might have liked.

Twelve times the ball crossed over the net. It was almost thirteen.

After Avril got under a ball and managed a smash of her own, Victoria extended her arm and just barely kept the ball in play. Slapping at it in a heroic attempt to save the point, the ball didn’t find enough rise to make it over the net. Instead, it struck it, hitting the white covering at its lip. If it’d been just a few inches higher, it very well could have bumped over the net, landed on Tess and Avril’s side, and taken the point.

But this time, it didn’t.

“Yes!” Avril and Tess shouted, smacking their hands together with glee as the ball pattered onto the clay on their opposition’s side.

Like always, Anna and Victoria soothed one another after losing a point. Collecting themselves, knowing that tennis was never a game of a single point, they caught their breath and stayed cool-headed. But Liam knew it still had to hurt, especially after such a long, arduous rally.

They’d even things back up off a vicious serve, but the game, unfortunately, would go to their opposition. The set evened itself back up.

Two games later, that would still be the case. To get them there, Avril and Anna each won their respective serving games. With the seventh game about to begin after one more quick break for hydration, Anna and Victoria both still wore their shirts.

“It’s a matter of principle, at this point,” Victoria said when he questioned her. “We won’t try and suck up to the official during the match.”

But before said match, it was fine, Liam thought, meeting Victoria’s stare, but wisely keeping that thought to himself.

“Wow, what a powerful stance to take,” Avril said drolly. “But it makes sense, I guess. We are teamed up in a way where the fun side is showing off skin, while the boring, stuffy side wants to keep their shirts on.”

Neither Anna nor Victoria took the bait. Whether that proved Avril’s point or not, Liam wasn’t sure.

“We are the fun group, aren’t we?” Tess said, smiling lightly. Her colleague, whom she’d been looking right at when speaking, rolled her eyes.

“No question about it,” Avril grinned. “If we didn’t have an uninvited audience, Liam, I’m sure Tess and I would have flashed you already.”

“I could run them off, if that would guarantee it,” Liam said, glancing at the fence on the other side of the court from them.

There, two gawkers—well, one gawker—had shown up midway through the previous game. They were a couple in their late twenties or early thirties, and Liam had seen them around a couple of times during their stay at the resort. Given where they were, Liam assumed this was either a honeymoon or something, which caused him to feel bad for the woman. She looked interested in the match. Her partner looked interested in ogling the four players. Even from his position, Liam could see the haze of desire clouding his expression.

“If they’re still here after the next game, maybe,” Avril said, chuckling. “We can’t all make out with you either. Well, one of us can, I suppose. That wouldn’t raise any alarm bells.”

“Like you care about that,” Victoria sniped.

Avril grinned.

So far, neither she nor Tess had appeared bothered enough to want to put their shirts back on. Used to being looked at in such a way, neither had so much as given the guy a second glance. Still, this guy wasn’t making a good impression, especially if that was his fiancée or wife standing there beside him.

“If it were just him, I’d make a scene,” Avril said, tossing her mostly depleted water bottle back to Liam. “Feel bad for his partner, though. But, hey, maybe they’ve got an arrangement like what we’ve got going on.”

“That seems rather unlikely,” Anna noted.

“True. If not, let’s hope she wises up quickly, right? It’d suck if she wasted years of her prime with someone like that.”

The two women who’d experienced such poor relationships, one as a fiancée, one as a wife, agreed with a nod.

Fortunately, the couple did move on. Following the end of the seventh game, which put Tess and Avril within striking distance of winning the set, the woman finally seemed to notice that her partner wasn’t all that interested in the match itself. Rather, his interest only spiked when a pair of breasts bounced.

Upon realizing this, the woman’s expression soured—so, they probably didn’t have an arrangement like their group did. Snapping at him in an irate hiss, she stormed away. Making matters worse, the guy looked over his shoulder—and was seen doing it—when chasing after her.

“Hope he gets everything he deserves,” Victoria remarked, staring after him with an unforgivingly sharp look. A sharper look than usual, anyway.

“They always do,” Avril said, laying a hand on the arm of the woman who’d once almost become her in-law.

Liam pondered that gesture, suspecting that his opinion of Casey Knight should probably drop even lower. Victoria’s expression remained unusually clouded, which further cemented his suspicion.

“So, no one’s around,” Avril said, spearing Anna and Victoria with a look. “Will you two finally join us? It’s freaking hot out.”

Anna and Victoria shared a look, and then the former shook her head.

“It’s a matter of principle, at this point,” the younger woman reiterated.

Avril rolled her eyes but let the issue die. And yes, before returning to the court, she flashed him. Other than a flat stare or two, no one even chastised her for it. How could they? Strip poker, yesterday’s topless pictures, they were well past something as unprovocative as that being shocking or worth admonishment.

Still, having another reminder that Liam was part of something fantastic hardly upset him. Something that that ogling, disloyal guy would never get to experience.

Possibly extra motivated by some of the less pleasant memories of her past relationship with a man with a wandering eye, Victoria stormed herself and Anna to an early lead off the back of a vicious group of serves. As they’d also swapped balls before this game, at Anna’s recommendation, maybe there was also a little fresh juice to draw out of them. Whatever it was, in this game, they held their lead. The most lopsided game score followed, with Avril and Tess only earning a single point.

It was over so quickly that they didn’t come back over to get a break and some more water. After a bit of strategizing on their respective sides of the court, they moved right into the ninth game. It was Avril’s third and final chance to serve, assuming no tiebreakers, which had rules that Liam hadn’t fully wrapped his head around.

This deep into the set, Liam would have expected things to taper off a bit. But no, everyone performed at as high a level as before, still showing they had stamina to burn. Avril brought the game to thirty-all with a sizzling service ace, but Anna’s defensive play shone through from then on.

Because of her efforts, she stifled Avril and Tess, thwarting their attempts to be the first to reach setpoint. Closing things out by basically bouncing the ball into Liam’s lap, diverting it beyond where Avril could defend, the chance for victory arrived.

Liam didn’t get any more fun opportunities during the break between the ninth and tenth games. The focus shared between the four women was palpable. There’d been a lightness during their other breaks, but now, finally, one team could bring this match to an end.

Going even further, the pairs stayed away from one another, heads bowed as they quietly strategized amongst themselves. Other than passing out waters and towels, Liam stayed away, not wanting to disrupt their focus. After a few minutes, the break concluded. He took back those waters and towels, stowing them all back in the refrigerated pit of the cooler, but otherwise stayed quiet.

In this tenth set, her final serving opportunity, Anna’s sharpened precision met a hard wall to overcome. Serving well, her opponents, especially Avril, buckled but didn’t break. Her focused efforts to pull at the seams of Avril’s defenses forced Avril to dig deep into her reserves. But at least in this game, they were enough. With her face a mask of concentration, Avril stymied her best friend, and through a combination of tactics and a little luck, she and Tess claimed another win.

Five-all. The match was going to last at least two more games. Even though six was usually how many games a team needed to win a set, you had to win by two. So, someone needed to now reach at least seven. However, if things tied up at six-all, a tiebreaker would occur. And so, with exhaustion finally chipping away at the women’s posture, speed, and control, they came back over for another drink.

They would again after the following game, in which Anna and Victoria shoved themselves back within striking distance of a win without tiebreakers. And as if aware of how much it shared of its name with her, victory gave Victoria the chance to seize it.

She’d struggled a bit in the past few sets, overworking herself to try and overcome the gap in experience and skill she had with the others. Unfortunately, this gambit had finally caught up to her. After a solid game of serving, she’d gotten battered by several of Avril’s attacks since then. She’d breathed hard during the breaks between the past couple of games, and a cloudiness had settled into her gaze—one Liam recognized as a mix of frustration and exhaustion.

Now, she had one more chance—one final game in which she held the pace and control of the match—to put her powerful serves to work. If she still had anything left in the tank, that was.

“Time to take us to tiebreakers,” Avril said, high-fiving Tess as they returned to the court. Wearing a slightly lighter degree of fatigue, both women trotted to their side and set themselves up. It wasn’t just Victoria. Even Anna, the one with the most practice at moving in the high-intensity way that tennis required, wasn’t unscathed. They’d all thrown their bodies to their limits.

Very competitive. That was the only way to describe the match that Liam had watched.

Nearby, Anna and Victoria finished their clandestine strategizing. Both downed the remaining contents of their water bottles. Anna set hers down on the clay and moved back to the court.

Victoria didn’t.

Instead, a pair of piercing blue eyes turned toward Liam. Approaching him, Victoria handed him her water. And then, as if claiming victory in another way, she seized him by the shirt and yanked him into a deep kiss.

Wow. It was the only thought his mind could form.

The cloudiness in Victoria’s eyes cleared up. In their stead, their blue depths crackled like azure bolts of lightning. After ending the kiss, her lips parted as if she intended to speak, but she ended up not uttering a word. Instead, she kissed him again, practically drawing out his very essence with how passionate it was.

“Hey, Make Out Professor, we’re waiting!” Avril shouted from her spot on the court.

Victoria ignored her and kept kissing Liam until she’d had her fill. The ferocity in her eyes stayed strong as she finally jogged back onto the court, ready to claim ultimate victory.

Each one of her serves was a detonation. In fact, each of her serves provided two detonations.

There was the one where her racket smashed into the ball, and there was the one where the ball tried its best to dig a furrow into the clay.

Avril hissed a swear under her breath as the opening serve of what might be the final game of the set—and the match—blitzed toward her. That was the one benefit she could cling to. Victoria had all the power, but she didn’t have Anna’s precision.

Still, Avril barely managed to keep the ball in play, returning an easily poached ball over the net. And when anything on the court was easy, Anna made her opponents suffer. Stepping into the return path, she deftly snapped the ball away from Tess’s defensive range. Avril wasn’t anywhere near where she would have wanted to be, still back at the baseline. And so, in one of the quickest non-ace serves of the match, Victoria and Anna took the lead.

Much as Avril and Tess would have liked, Victoria’s ferocity wasn’t a one-off. She hadn’t flooded all her energy into that first serve. She had at least a little more to spare. Because, perhaps for the first time that Liam had seen, Victoria was angry. Maybe over her past performances, maybe over that gawker, and whatever bitter memories it had dredged up within her about Casey Knight. Wherever it came from, she channeled that anger throughout the match.

At this very moment, she channeled that anger into a second booming serve.

“Fuck,” Avril hissed, sending back a ball that sailed past the line.

Ice in her veins, Victoria turned aside, letting it do so.

Avril frowned and glared at the woman who’d nearly married into her family. “ Now, you decide to go all femme fatale on us? That’s messed up, Auntie.”

“You’re not helping yourself,” Victoria said, retrieving the ball that she’d let bounce by.

“I mean, at least it’s kind of hot. I haven’t seen you look so stewed up in a while.”

Victoria didn’t even roll her eyes. She simply set herself up behind the baseline, tossed, and gave Avril’s arms another reason to ache after the match was over.

And it might just be coming up quickly. Avril and Tess fought hard, but Victoria and Anna hurled themselves to a forty-fifteen lead just a minute later. A double fault brought them back within striking distance of a deuce, but Anna delayed Victoria’s next serve, speaking quietly with her teammate. Not wanting to waste the chance, their opposition did the same thing.

From the spot he’d hung out at for the past hour, Liam watched. He still wanted Anna and Victoria to win, especially after the display the buxom professor had just put on. Yet, they’d all put in so much effort, so much of themselves, so he’d commiserate with whichever team ultimately came up short. So far as he could tell, they’d left everything they had on the court. Hopefully, that would rub away some of the bitterness of losing.

But right now, the only focus on the court revolved around winning. As both pairs broke apart, returning to their places on their respective sides of the court, Liam saw it in them all. Victoria wasn’t the only one who’d ignited her final reserves of stamina and focus.

She put the ball into the air. Her racket put it on the other side of the court. Clenching her teeth in concentration, Avril returned the ball with a backhand. And there Anna was again, ready to poach things. This time, however, Tess was ready to keep the point in contention—and the match alive.

She swung her racket, returning the ball to Anna, who bounced it away from the professor. Avril hurtled in, sprinting outside the court for a save that nearly sent her barreling into Liam. As he tried to get up and pull himself and the cooler back, Avril’s right shoe shrieked on the clay as she overextended a leg, scuffed her knee on the clay, and just barely got her racket between the ball and the final thump it needed to make to seal her opponents’ victory.

Whoa.

Liam’s eyes widened as Avril sent the ball around the net post next to her, which was apparently a legal option, for Anna responded.

Contorting at the hips, Anna grunted and answered one heroic play with another. If the ball had made it by her, moving at its speed, low as it already was, there was no way Victoria would have made it in time. It would have bounced on their side of the court twice, bringing things back to parity.

The best player on the court didn’t intend to let that happen. Her racket scraped the ball up, hitting it from near her calf. It looped over in a lazy arc to Tess, who leaped and swung. The ball just couldn’t decide on a side of the court to stay on, even for a second. The ball hit near the service line, then bounced toward the final player looking to get involved in the play.

Breathing out, Victora was the first person in four attempts capable of setting her feet before making her swing. That meant power. That meant control. Bringing her racket back, hair whipping about behind her, Victoria drew her arm back, staring directly at the enemy she wanted to obliterate. With a forehand that made the court explode with sound, she sliced the ball toward a corner of the court that Tess simply couldn’t reach.

The ball hit the outermost white line—the one that counted as in during doubles. No one stopped it from hitting the clay again far outside the court.

Game point. Set point. Match point. Seven-five.