Scrunchie
hey, the draw starts in half an hour, will you be back in time?
Yeah, on my way now
Some of these fluffy TV spots are truly ridiculous though
welcome to the traveling circus!
They asked about our friendship/rivalry after the US Open
No doubt hoping to have something ready to go if the draw shakes out that way again
yeah, they asked me too. vultures gonna vult
That’s not a word
it is now
WHEN I ARRIVED back at our hotel room, he was alone with the draw announcement running on his laptop. They were still just killing time in preparation, and Miles barely let the door close before sweeping me up in his arms. “Hello, rival,” he purred and kissed me, sliding his hands up the back of my shirt.
“Rival?” I asked against his lips. “Is that what we are now?”
“Haven’t we always been?” he returned between kisses. “At least a little bit. Besides, the last rivals-to-lovers book I read was hot. Maybe you should growl at me more.”
“Growl? You know I can do better than that.” I slid a hand up his chest to grip both his necklaces, tightening the chains around his throat. “I will hold you down and tease your hole until you’re begging to be wrecked.”
Miles groaned and rolled his eyes back into his skull.
“But first,” I said, turning toward the laptop. “Tournament draw.”
“What? You can’t promise me that and then expect me to pay attention to thedraw! Tennis is dead to me right now.”
Gripping the hem of my shirt, he tore it up over my head and tossed it away across the room, before lowering his lips to my collarbone. While the draw announcer called out the top women’s seeds,he gently sucked a line of kisses along my sensitive skin as he had after our match in New York. But this was a different us, and I let myself melt against him, delighting in the way his tongue trailed toward my throat.
I backed up slowly under his onslaught and my heels hit the end of the couch, only for him to push me off balance. I fell over the arm and he followed, climbing atop me so heavily that he momentarily crushed the air from my lungs. When I could breathe again, I turned to look at the laptop, only for him to press a hand to my cheek and force my gaze back to him.
“Maybe you should just focus on kissing me instead of looking at the draw,” he said. “It’s not going anywhere.”
“Neither are you!”
“Well, no,” he admitted. “But why don’t we say fuck you to that fear too for just a little while longer. So you can fuck me instead.”
I glanced over at the draw announcement, then back to find those dark eyes watching me. He wouldn’t be insulted if I said I wanted to see the draw, and it would only take a few minutes, yet I wanted so much for it not to matter that I reached out and closed the laptop with a snap.
Twenty-Nine
WE WERE, TO our relief and the media’s disappointment, in opposite halves of the draw. That meant not only escaping a repeat of New York unless we both made it to the final, but also getting to play alternate days like we had at Wimbledon.
As always, I could have watched his matches from his player’s box, and as always, I didn’t because it was too risky to draw that kind of attention. I sat in our hotel room instead, watching on TV. Macca brought popcorn, Tomas brought his notes on my first-round match, and the three of us sat in appreciative silence during some astounding points as Miles utterly decimated his opponent in straight sets, hardly letting the guy win a game.
His second-round match was a rematch against Piotr Kozel, but Miles showed no sign he remembered under what circumstances they had last met. He just kissed me deeply when he left, flicked my cheek, and went out there to beat Kozel in another straight sets win that had the commentators talking about the new fire he’d brought to his game this season.
I got through my first two matches without much trouble and went out to play my third-round match inspired, but it wasn’t to be. Ryo Uchimura was just too good, I hadn’t played my best, and my Australian Open was over.
And that was just tennis.
Scrunchie
