Chapter 23
JASMINE WOKE BEFORE HER ALARM.
Today was the day.
Today she and Indy would stand across the court from each other, just like they had back home in the OBX Classic, but today there was so much more on the line.
Glancing over to the other side of the room, she saw that the bed Indy had occupied when they’d first arrived was empty.
She was staying with Jack, obviously, and Jasmine imagined her agent had shelled out a lot of his hard-earned commission to bribe Teddy into finding somewhere else to sleep for the rest of their stay as well.
Though he’d been making himself scarce in general the last few days.
She wasn’t sure if he was spending his time at Wimbledon or exploring London, but either way, aside from the occasional sighting in the mornings, he just wasn’t around.
Honestly, she was grateful for it. Things were confusing enough right now without Teddy adding another layer of complication.
Letting out a heavy sigh, she sat up, but then turned when she heard a knock at the bedroom door, light but firm.
“Come in,” she said, rising from the bed and lifting her arms, stretching up and wide, feeling her muscles start to loosen.
“Buongiorno, amore,” Paolo said from the door, paper coffee cups from the café down the street in hand.
His skin glistened with a fine sheen of sweat, his dark hair held back with a band of twisted prewrap.
“I just got back from a run, but I wanted to see you before I went in for my hitting session. I hope to make it to the match this afternoon.”
He looked good. So, so good.
With a bright smile spreading across her face, she bounced across the room and took the cups from him, setting them aside on the nightstand.
Before he could say anything, she had her arms around him, pulling him in for a kiss.
She had to stand on the very tips of her toes to reach, but he obliged, bending into her and drawing her against him.
Vaguely, she heard the sound of his foot kicking the door shut behind him.
Privacy.
She drew him farther into the room, and he smiled against her mouth as her hands pulled at the bottom of his T-shirt.
“No coffee?” he asked, laughing as he helped her get it over his head before he tossed it aside and stepped into her, hands sliding under the silk of her pajama top, calloused fingertips warm against her skin.
“Coffee later,” she insisted as his mouth descended again, and she was able to taste the coffee he’d already sipped on his tongue.
Every time he kissed her, it felt completely new.
She’d never explicitly outlined for him just how inexperienced she was, but she suspected he could tell.
Instead of it freaking him out or turning him off, he seemed to take it as his personal mission to show her just what she’d been missing.
His lips, his tongue, and his teeth sending a frisson of pure want through her.
He pulled back, his hair a riot, a victim of her hands sifting up into it. Raising an eyebrow and nodding back over his shoulder, he asked, “Facciamo una doccia?”
She translated slowly in her head, from Italian to Spanish to English. Doccia, ducha, shower.
Jasmine bit her lip and nodded. His answer was a simple kiss to her forehead and a promise to meet her in the bathroom in a minute.
Ignoring the saccharine voice in the back of her mind, one that sounded a lot like Amy, that insisted she had absolutely no business showering with a gorgeous Italian man the morning before a match, she gathered her things, and when she arrived, Paolo was already kneeling, turning on the shower, licks of steam rising up against the classic white tile.
He smiled at her over his shoulder and she fought down the nerves. Pulling the band from her ponytail, she let her hair fall down around her shoulders before she lifted her thin-strapped silk pajama top over her head and tossed it aside.
Paolo stood so quickly he nearly bashed his head against the shower doorframe.
Jasmine laughed. He shook his head as he approached her, his smile slipping into a studied solemnity as his eyes trailed a long, lingering path from the top of her head, over her face, hesitating at her mouth and licking his own lips before finally dipping lower.
Her body responded to it, skin tingling and tightening under his intense study.
He was mere inches from her now, his hands flexing at his sides, so she reached out and took one into hers, lifting it to her breast. A soft exhale escaped her lips at the contact, and then her eyes slipped shut as his thumb caressed up over the tip.
She pulled in a sharp breath as he weighed it in his palm, tiny flames of sensation licking through every nerve ending.
“Mi togli il respiro,” he whispered as he bent for another kiss, his grasp firmer now, massaging, the calluses on his palm creating a gorgeous friction as her breath caught on a gasp.
She took in the warm tan of his olive skin, the depth of his hazel eyes, the long leanness of his body, the sharp cut of abdominal muscles, the curly sprigs of dark hair spread generously across his chest, the firm outline of her effect on him pressing against the cotton of his running shorts.
“Okay?” he asked, hooking a finger into the top of her matching silk pajama shorts. At her nod, he pulled gently at the tie holding the silk at her hips, and it slipped to the floor. “Bellissima.”
He said it so matter-of-factly she didn’t have even a moment to be self-conscious.
“Come,” he said as he took her hand and guided her toward the shower. “We will explore.”
She stepped under the hot water and turned just in time to see him stepping out of his shorts, the heat of the water disguising the warmth that flooded her cheeks.
He had to know that he was the first man she’d ever seen this way.
A dozen different thoughts spun in her mind, instantly warring with each other.
She wanted to touch him, wanted him to touch her, wanted to feel his mouth at her neck, on her breasts, wanted to drop to her knees in front of him, wanted him on his knees, wanted him to take her up against the tile, wanted to lean her hands against it with him behind her.
As her mind spiraled at the possibilities, he moved in behind her and drew her back against his chest. Her head fell to his shoulder as he whispered in Italian softly against her hair, too quickly for her to translate but his meaning so very clear that she nodded her consent.
One hand lifted to her breast again and the other gently slid between her legs.
The sweet shock of it was glorious, fingers so much larger than hers, the pounding of the hot water, his mouth finding a sensitive spot at her neck.
It was so much sensation, so suddenly, it didn’t take long before she was arching her back, earning a ragged groan from his throat and more lovely, encouraging Italian nothings.
“Paolo,” she gasped, teetering on the edge, something she’d only ever managed the faintest flickering of on her own.
“Sei molto sensibile,” he murmured, awe in his voice. “Let go, gattina. Let go.”
The high of it was like nothing she’d ever felt before, racing currents over every inch of her skin, her blood roaring at the peak and then, with an expert twist of his fingers, somehow an even higher precipice to fall from.
“I had no idea,” she admitted without thinking. His arm held her close, the water still cascading around them, the hard press of him sliding against her backside.
“I am happy to show you,” he confessed. “I will show you everything.”
She turned in his arms, pressing fully against him as she did and wrapping her hand around his length, letting her fingertips travel down to the tip. “Will you show me how you like to be touched?”
“Sì,” he agreed in a low, rasping voice, “lo farò.”
Minutes later, he was the one shuddering against her, one hand braced on the tile, the other clutching desperately at her hip.
He was gorgeous, head thrown back, the cords of his neck straining against the pleasure.
When he looked down at her at last, eyes liquid heat, burning just for her, his hands came up to cup her face and he leaned in, kissing her softly.
“Come ti senti?” he asked.
She reached up to grasp his forearms. “I feel like I’m going to win today.”
Throwing his head back, he laughed. “Good.”
His laughter was cut off by a pounding on the door. “If you two are almost done, there’s a delivery for Jasmine downstairs,” Alex’s voice called.
“A delivery?” she wondered, trying desperately to ignore the fact that Alex clearly knew what they were doing as Paolo reached for the soap. The actual showering part of their bathroom adventure was finally beginning.
Maybe it was new rackets from Dom? It was the only thing she could imagine. After mostly washing with a few slippery detours along the lines of each other’s bodies, they emerged not long after.
Dressed in her workout clothes for the pre-match hitting session she had with Natalie, she practically skipped down the stairs, Paolo right behind her. There was no package in the foyer, but then she heard voices just beyond the arch that led to the library.
Very familiar voices.
Her heart soared.
“Mom? Dad?” she asked, moving into the room and then stopping short when she spotted them on the sofa, chatting with Dom and Jack and… Teddy. Paolo bumped into her back, clearly not expecting her to freeze. “What are you guys doing here?”
She looked to Dom, expecting to see some smug satisfaction that, despite the little speed bump in their relationship since she’d changed up her backhand, he still knew what she needed. But he just shook his head and flicked his eyes to Teddy, who was very deliberately not looking at her.
Her parents leapt from their seats and embraced her tightly, and she hugged back just as hard. Relief spread through her as she let herself be held by them for a long moment. She hated fighting with them, and now everything felt right again.