“Yes! I saw your e-reader. Romances. Imagine my utter lack of surprise.”
Miles gave one of his half shrugs, and turned back to his plants. “It’s your fault. When you left London, you took your reader and Ihadn’t finished that book yet.” With his back to me, he added, “I needed the happy ending.”
His words caught in my chest as he went on tending his plants. Had he glanced over for a reaction, this might have been the moment, but there was something protective about the way he kept working, turned away like he didn’t want me to answer. So I sipped my smoothie and let it go, the need to speak knotting tighter in my chest.
AFTER BREAKFAST, WE went out for a hit on his private court. We spent half the time seriously training, the other half challenging each other to ridiculous shots because for once we had all the time in the world. No one was waiting to use the court and no one was watching.
“Have you decided what to do about your coaching situation?” I asked when we were packing away the balls, both of us having developed a healthy sheen of sweat in the Californian sunshine.
“Decided is a strong word, but I have thoughts,” Miles replied. “Mostly about what I need. Someone like Tomas perhaps, who wants to keep my head in the game. You really landed on your feet there.”
“Yeah, I was lucky. Danny introduced us because he thought we’d suit and he turned out to be right.”
“For once.” Before I could think to defend my old coach, Miles had grimaced. “That’s not really fair of me, is it?” he said. “I guess I’m just surprised. It’s a decent thing to do – doing yourself out of a job like that.”
I shrugged, drying myself with a towel he’d pinched from that year’s Australian Open. “I don’t think Danny thought of it like that. He’s in no position to travel so I would have needed an assistant coach at the very least. But no changing the subject bygetting me to talk instead. I’m getting wise to your tricks, remember?”
With a wry smile, he regarded me steadily for a time, while from away beyond the tall, green thickets that fenced us in came the distant sound of morning beachgoers. “I guess you are,” he said eventually. “I don’t know how I feel about that. But to answer your question, I don’t want to rush any decisions, so I’m taking my time figuring out what suits me.”
I liked the words ‘decision’ and ‘suit me’, suggesting he intended to choose his own team. He didn’t say so and I didn’t ask, because the longer I was silent the more acutely aware I became that we still hadn’t talked about what this was, and without it, inviting me to stay for a week wasn’t the same as inviting me into his life. A conversation we could return to later, I hoped, though as I once again didn’t speak, I realised it was because part of me was desperately, horribly afraid. Afraid that somehow I had misunderstood and misread and mis-everything-ed the entire situation, as stupid as that sounded after all we’d said and done and become. I needed a plan, needed the right moment, and this one here, covered in sweat, wasn’t it.
We moved to the shower next, and cleaning off sweat soon became pushing each other up against the tiles to hunt out sensitive places on neck and collarbone and jaw. Water rained into every kiss, and having captured Miles in the corner, I took us both in hand and started stroking. I kissed him and jerked us both off until we were moaning into each other’s mouths – the speed with which we came proof of just how desperately we’d been wanting all morning.
“We should have a swim after lunch,” Miles said as he dripped dry onto the bathroom floor, the towel in his hands busy with his hair instead. “You being here is a good excuse to actuallyuse the pool. Usually, my housekeeper’s kids are the only ones who use it.”
The discovery that he let his housekeeper’s kids use his pool whenever they liked might have been surprising a few months ago, now it was just another thing that was entirely Miles. “Is that just because you’re not often here?” I asked.
“No, I like sand between my toes so I generally go to the beach. Although, I can’t swim naked out there. The pool is useful when I’m in the mood for that.”
“Naked swimming sounds good,” I said, and pressed against him to capture his lower lip and suck it. Earning a soft moan, I slowly let it go and murmured, “We could sneak out at night to go skinny-dipping though. Surely, no one would see us.”
Keeping me against his wet skin with an arm around my waist, he said, “Sadly, the beaches here are never that empty. I think you once promised to fuck me in my pool though.” His hands slid down to my arse and he kissed me, playful and light yet full of future promise. We hadn’t long finished, but I could already feel myself getting hard again and Miles groaned, glancing down. “It hasn’t even been ten minutes! How can you do this?”
A little sheepish, I shrugged and stepped back to towel myself down again. “You’re hot and I—” I swallowed the words that so nearly leapt from my tongue, this moment too charged with heat to profess feelings I wanted him to believe had nothing to do with my dick. “—clearly have a problem.”
“Hmm, well, I’m glad you make it my problem too, but fuck you need to give me more time.”
“I’m patient,” I said. “Pool can wait. What else do you do on lazy days at home?”
He ran his towel down his body, and there was something delightfully intimate about watching him dry not just the parts heregularly towelled on court. “Watch movies,” he said, rubbing the towel between his legs, around his balls and his soft cock. “See friends. Buy plants. Walk to the café down the road. They have cakey brownies.”
“We can walk—” I stopped, because no, we couldn’t. I wasn’t supposed to be here, and while we could get away with spending time together around tournaments, at Miles’s house was something else entirely. “You could go buy some while I wait naked beside the pool.”
“I am not going for a walk on my own, especially not if you’re doing that. Brownies can wait.”
I hung up my towel, enjoying the comfort of not caring that I was walking around naked in his house. “Depending on what you have in your cupboards, I could probably bake brownies for you.”
“Excuse me?”
He’d paused with his towel halfway down his butt crack to stare at me, and I grinned at both his adorable confusion and just how comfortable all this was. “Bake?” I repeated. “You don’t do that?”
“No. Do you?”
“Not often, but Dad bakes and I used to help him when I was younger. I think I picked up enough that I won’t set your kitchen on fire.”
Miles shook his head, a little bewildered. “The only necessary qualification?”
It turned out his kitchen was rather better stocked than I’d expected, his housekeeper having taken to heart the information that he would be home for a whole week. Soon, I was combing through the pantry, pulling out flour and chocolate and butter and sugar and lining them up on the bench.
