Chapter Twenty-One #3
I bit my lip, not liking him so close to me and wanting him even closer all at the same time.
‘Did you speak to your mum after the match?’
He nodded. ‘Seeing her threw me off for a second there.’
‘Did you know she was coming?’ I asked, still feeling guilty for the part I must have somehow played in it.
‘Not really. After you showed me that article you’d found, I called her to ask her if it was true. If she’d stopped coming to matches because she knew the story was about to break and didn’t want to embarrass me.’
‘And?’
‘You were right,’ he said softly. ‘She wanted me to be able to focus on my career without worrying about which story about her was going to surface next. I told her I wouldn’t have cared, that she was my mother and that I couldn’t care less what people said about us.
That she should have spoken to me about it instead of pretty much disappearing and making me feel like she’d . . .’
‘Abandoned you?’
He shrugged.
I touched his arm. ‘So she came to support you today.’ I looked around. ‘Is she here now?’
‘I invited her, but she wanted to take it one step at a time. We’ve still got a lot more talking to do. But it’s a start. And it’s mainly thanks to you. I told her about you, and she said she’d seen pictures of us together and felt like she’d never seen me look so happy.’
I smiled.
‘Ava, do you think we should talk? About what happened at Claridge’s?’
‘Nothing did happen.’
‘But we both wanted it to. Didn’t we?’
I didn’t want to look directly at him, because when I did I couldn’t be rational.
‘It was best that it didn’t.’
‘Was it, though? Because I like you, Ava,’ he said, taking my hands in his and pulling me off balance so that I had no choice but to fall into him.
It was like warm caramel was flooding through my body, sweet and comforting and delicious. I’d dreamed about him having feelings for me in the way I did for him and now here he was, actually telling me he had them.
‘Get you, expressing an actual emotion about something other than tennis,’ I said.
‘Well, that would very much be down to you, Ava,’ he said.
‘You seem to have brought out a whole new side to me. And now it seems I can’t stop thinking about you, which is strange because usually I’m very good at compartmentalising, and of course everything takes a back seat to the tennis.
And yet, when it comes to you, I find myself giving you – us – an equal importance in my mind. ’
Was I hearing this correctly? He’d been thinking about me? As much as he did about tennis? In pre-Wimbledon week?
‘It’s because we’ve spent so much time together,’ I reasoned. ‘It feels more intense than it might do otherwise. We’ve got carried away, that’s all.’
The words felt empty as I said them, but I was no longer talking from my heart, I was trying to protect it.
Maybe Mum had been right, because how could it ever work when he travelled so much and lived this glamorous lifestyle that was so different to mine?
I’d be perennially anxious and full of self-doubt about whether or not I was enough for him and whether he’d still want me when he got back from whichever far-flung tournament he was competing in.
And it wouldn’t be fair of me to expect more from him than he could give, not with a career as pressured as his.
‘I think we should see each other properly,’ he said. ‘After Wimbledon. Once our arrangement is done. Because whatever this is – and I really don’t know, either, before you ask – it feels like something worth . . . exploring?’
My stomach flipped. If I said no, would I be missing out on something special because I was worried that one day it might go wrong?
Wasn’t that life for you, a sort of trial and error where some things worked out and others didn’t, and this could be either one of those, so shouldn’t I put myself out there and try?
‘Do you think we should just be friends?’ I suggested.
I’d have to stop feeling like I turned to hot liquid on the spot every time I set eyes on him, but it was better than nothing.
At least I could still have him in my life in some capacity.
It would be safer. Less margin for error.
I could watch him play now and again. Perhaps the odd coffee if he was in London.
I couldn’t imagine going for dinner with him without doing the hot liquid thing, but perhaps it would be possible in time.
‘The problem is, Ava, I don’t want to be just friends with you,’ he said, kissing me tentatively at first, as though he wanted to be one hundred per cent sure that this was what I wanted, and then more urgently, our hands tangled in each other’s hair, my breath coming in short, ragged bursts of pleasure.
It had taken minutes for Marcus to say a few goodbyes, particularly to his team who he hugged tightly, the genuine love between them all shining through.
Then he ordered us a car on the way down in the lift and we waited outside in the dark.
It was raining a little, and perhaps because of that Marcus pulled me to one side, pressing me up against a brick wall.
I could feel its dampness seeping through my dress and I didn’t care – all I cared about was being here with him, and the promise of what was to come once we were finally alone together again.
‘It was very distracting having you in my players’ box today,’ he said, putting his mouth on mine before I could answer.
This time, there were no thoughts of cameras, or if I should or shouldn’t.
I just opened myself up to him, to the sensations coursing through my body, to his hot breath on my neck, the absolute deliciousness of sliding my hands under his shirt, gasping as I ran my hands over his taut body and the muscles I’d spent weeks pretending not to notice.
When the taxi dropped us off at mine, he closed the door of my flat behind him and before I could even slip off my shoes he was kissing me, his hands underneath the hem of my dress.
‘We’re finally doing this, then,’ he said, his voice filling the narrow space.
My mind flashed back to a few months before, when I’d first heard him speak on TV. How had we gone from that to this?
I ran my hands through his hair because I’d always wanted to, and he seemed to like it because I felt him smile as he slipped his warm tongue inside my mouth.
I tried to ignore the voice in my head, which had irritatingly appeared at the worst possible time.
Would he find my naked body attractive? I wasn’t like the women he usually dated, I wasn’t taut and muscular, or skinny and flat-chested. Would he be disappointed?
‘Do you have a bedroom?’ he asked.
‘I tend to prefer the sofa, but come,’ I teased, taking his hand, leading him into the room with the bed I’d only ever slept on with Charlie.
I lay down, letting myself relax, watching as he slipped off his trousers.
‘I really think you should take off that dress. You wouldn’t want to get it creased,’ he said.
I reached for the buttons that ran down the front of it – whenever I wore it, it crossed my mind that they might pop open at an inopportune moment, exposing me to everyone on the Tube, or whatever.
Except that right at this second I wanted them to burst open.
Every single one of them. I began fumbling with the buttons so that eventually Marcus had to help, impatiently popping them open from the bottom up.
I slipped it off my shoulders. And then he crawled slowly on top of me, taking most of his body weight on his arms, his lips hovering tantalisingly over mine.
‘I’ve wanted you since you sat next to me on the plane with that photo of me on your laptop screen,’ he said, slowly unclipping my bra with one hand.
‘And I’ve wanted you since I saw you smashing racquets on Deuce,’ I replied.
‘Have you, now?’ he said, kissing my neck.
I half laughed, half gasped, letting the delicious sensations run over me as his tongue ran across my skin, feeling him dip lower and lower and . . . oh, God, lower.