On her way home from her own practice court, Ashley watched them. More accurately, she watched Spencer. While she remained unaware of her, she could take in every detail. The morning sun glinted down on her hair. Her shoulders were strong and slender, her gait long, leggy and confident. She was grateful she could study her now with some dispassion.

When she looked out and had seen her in the stands two weeks before, it had been like catching a fast ball with her stomach. Shimmering waves of pain, shock, anger, one sensation had raced after the other. She had blown the first set.

Then she had done more than pull herself together. She had used the emotions against her opponent. The Frenchwoman hadn’t had a chance against Ashley’s skill combined with three years of pent-up fury. Always, she played her best under pressure and stress. It fed her. With Spencer in the audience the match had become a matter of life and death. When she had left her, she’d stolen something from her. Somehow, the victory had helped her regain a portion of it.

Damn her that she could still get to her. Ashley’s thoughts darkened as the distance between them decreased. Just looking at Spencer made her want.

She had wanted her when she had been seventeen. The sharp, sudden desire for the aloof, innocent and seemingly cold girl had astonished the then eighteen-year-old Ashley. She was not used to it. At eighteen, having men and women throw themselves at her, nothing was supposed to get to her like that. She had kept a careful distance from Spencer all that season. But she hadn’t stopped wanting her. She had done her best to burn the desire out by romancing women and sometimes men she considered more her style – flamboyant, reckless, knowledgeable.

When Spencer had turned twenty, Ashley had abandoned common sense and had begun a determined, almost obsessive pursuit. The more Spencer evaded her and the firmer Spencer refused, the stronger her desire had grown. Even the victory, tasted first in Rome, hadn’t lessened the need.

Her life, which previously had one focus, then had realigned with two dominating forces. Tennis and Spencer. At the time she wouldn’t have said she loved tennis, but simply it was what and who she is. She wouldn’t have said she loved Spencer, but merely that she couldn’t live without her.