Love Match

Love Match

Regina
Carlysle

Attending her college reunion is just the tonic Chloe Wells needs
to bring a little spark to her life, but she never anticipated the pure,
unadulterated, panty-drenching lust she experiences when bumping into the man
she loved back in the day. Talk about fireworks! Talk about sizzle! She loved
him once and he walked away. Her analytical mind says no to taking another
chance, but her sex-starved body says yes, yes, yes!

The moment former tennis star Michael “Ace” Banner sees
sweet, sexy Chloe again, he’s ready to serve up a weekend of hot sex and wicked
seduction. His greatest regret was leaving her all those years ago, but now he’s
ready to play for keeps. A rematch? Hell yeah. Winning is within reach—and the
trophy is Chloe’s heart.

A
Romantica®
contemporary erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Love Match

Regina Carlysle

Chapter One

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

I can’t tell you how excited I am to see you’ve signed up
for our class reunion at good old Western Indiana U! It’s hard to believe that
it has been ten years since graduation and I hate that I’ve lost track of my
roomies from those days. That big old rambling Victorian next to ‘hottie house’
is still standing and I’m happy to say, I bought it. It’s been so much fun
fixing it up! Expensive but FUN. LOL. Anyway, with the reunion and all, I’ve
been wondering if you’d like to stay here with me. I’ve invited the others too
so it could be a blast to hang out and catch up. Texas seems so far away from
here, Chloe, and I’ve missed your smiling face! Please say you’ll bunk here.
Pretty please?

Love,

Lindy

* * * * *

Chloe shifted the strap of her purse more firmly on her
shoulder as she pushed the blue plastic cart across the supermarket parking
lot. She hadn’t shopped here since her college years and that was a long time
ago. Still, some things never changed. People were warm and friendly here, even
though she was a stranger in these parts now. Such was small-town life and,
considering she still lived in a fairly small town, she understood the dynamic.
She’d just driven into town in her compact rental car and was on her way to
Lindy’s house to get the party started when she decided to stop here. Showing
up empty-handed wasn’t her style. It wasn’t fair for her hostess to have to
furnish snacks, so Chloe stocked up on chips, dips, peanuts and plenty of soft
drinks.

She’d snapped up a couple of nice bottles of wine too. What
the hell. How often did the group of them get together anyhow?

Smiling, she rolled the basket up to the trunk and popped
the lid. She’d just reached for a couple of sacks when a large, warm hand
settled on her elbow.

“Hey, sweetheart. Let me help.”

Gasping, she jerked upright and found herself staring into a
pair of sexy, chocolate-brown, very familiar eyes. The paper sack dropped from
nerveless fingers and her hands flew over her mouth. Delight sped through her
system, heating her blood and making her heart race in a frantic pitter-pat.

Michael “Ace” Banner stood grinning oh so seductively, his
white teeth flashing as the sunlight caught and held in his dark, closely
cropped hair.

“Ace! Oh my God. Oh honey.” Unable to stop the forward
motion, she launched herself into his big, strong arms and squealed like a
middle schooler when he swung her up high against his chest and buried his face
in her hair. Lord have mercy. They’d been such an item throughout college.
“It’s been ten years. Can you believe it?”

Ace laughed and set her back on her feet. Standing there
looking like sex on a stick with those long, strong legs encased in worn denim,
he sent sparks of memory zipping through her head…and elsewhere. Tall,
broad-shouldered and strong with lean muscle, he’d been her ideal of
hotness
,
and when he wasn’t traveling with WIU’s tennis team, they’d been together both
on campus and off. In bed and out. In those days, love had held her in its soft
grip and Ace had been the center of her world.

Yep. A long time ago.

He settled his hand on her shoulder and negligently massaged
the spot, sending the other hand into the hair at his temple. Chloe noticed it
was lightly flecked with gray.

Ace shook his head. “Hell yeah, I can believe it’s ten
years. Lately I’ve been feeling every one of those years too.”

She sent her gaze over him and tried not to drool. Oh yes,
the years had been more than kind to Ace Banner. The worn black Grateful Dead
tee shirt he wore molded to the muscular mounds of his chest, and his jeans
were faded in the front, cupping his cock like a pair of loving hands.

Um. Yum.

“Doesn’t look like it to me,” she managed as the wind caught
her hair and whipped it into her eyes. Shoving it back with restless fingers,
she wondered what this man she’d once adored thought of the way she looked now.
The years definitely hadn’t been quite so kind to her.

But then, as if he’d seen her fears or read her thoughts,
his smile faded a little and he reached out and settled his broad palm on her
cheek. His eyes softened before his thumb traced the faint circles she wore
beneath her eyes as a constant reminder of what she’d been through. She carried
a few extra pounds, the remnants of motherhood and birth and, along with those
damn circles, her reminder of death.

“Are you tired, honey?” he asked. “I read in the newsletter
that you lost your husband a few years ago.”

It had been two years but her eyes burned. “Um. Yeah. Car
wreck.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. Scott was a great guy. I miss him.”

Ace went very still, studying her intently. “Are you doing
okay?”

Summoning her brightest smile, she drew a breath and nodded.
“Yeah. Gotta tell you though, being a single mother is hard. Never realized
until I had to do it myself.”

He smiled slowly then kicked it up a notch. “No shit? A kid?”

“Alyssa. She’s four.”

“Bet she’s as gorgeous as her mom. Please tell me she got
your sunny blonde hair and blue eyes.”

“We’re a team.”

Ace laughed. “Bet you are.” Finally he reached into her
basket and began settling the sacks inside her trunk. “Are you planning to feed
an army here?”

“Just about. The girls are getting together at the house and
hanging out for the next few days. Didn’t want to arrive empty-handed.”

“You going to be at the welcome cocktail party tonight?”

“The one at the Ambassador? Yes, a bunch of us are going
together. You?”

“Yeah, some of the guys and I planned to meet up there.”

Hmm. The guys from Hottie House? Back in the day, she and
her roommates had loved watching the comings and goings next door. And what
red-blooded young woman with a fully functioning, beating heart wouldn’t drool
over the beefcake they served up over there?

Of course, she’d had eyes only for Ace.

Despite how desperately she’d loved him, right after he’d
graduated they’d had a nasty fight. It was so long ago she didn’t recall the
details and they’d both been so young, but it had been enough to end things
abruptly. Chloe had always regretted they’d ended things so inauspiciously.

That was then and this was now.

Her insides fluttered as if a million butterflies had set up
residence. Oh yeah. She wasn’t dumb. She totally
got
that Ace wanted
more time with her while both of them were attending the reunion. All those
fluttery, bubbly feelings just served as a brutal reminder that her current
life was a series of one grueling day after another, with no time for anything
that smacked of romance or passion. The notion of hooking up with Ace had her
pussy practically twitching with expectation. Her panties dampened and, damn
it, she wanted to whimper.

Her life was currently a sexual wasteland and here stood
Ace, looking like a tall drink of water to her poor thirsty self.

Lame. Okay, she had to say something. “Sounds like fun. Um,
maybe I’ll see you there.”

Ace moved in, caging her against the open trunk of the car.
His sexy smile was so hot she almost melted into a puddle at his feet. He
stretched one arm high, settling his hand on the open door of the trunk, and
wrapped the other arm around her waist to pull her close. Her nipples pearled
and tightened the instant they connected with the front of his tee shirt. His
belly rubbed hers and she felt his erection press insistently against the
juncture of her thighs. Ace’s gaze settled on her lips and focused. “You can
count on it. You know, I don’t think there’s been a day in the past ten years
that I haven’t thought of you at least once.”

“Just once?” She’d wanted to joke and lighten the mood but
her question just sounded all whispery and faint. She cleared her throat.
“Sorry. Dumb.”

“I’ll tell you what’s dumb.” Ace moved his face close enough
that she could feel his breath slide warmly across her cheek. “What’s dumb is
that I took off the way I did, thinking that somewhere along the way I’d find
home. I went on the pro tennis tour thinking I’d travel the world and maybe
somewhere I’d find my place and someone who gave a shit about me. Talk about
dumb. I’d been holding home in my arms for the past four years and never
realized it until I looked up one day and you were married to someone else.”

Chloe lost her ability to breathe. Lust and love and a crazy
kind of terror caught her up.

His eyes went soft and heavy lidded as he lowered his head
and took her lips, softly at first, and then with a hunger she hadn’t
experienced in years. His tongue swept along her bottom lip then sank deep into
the depths of her mouth for a full tasting, and God help her, she returned his
kiss with unexpected fervor that had her practically panting. His hand
tightened and she drank in the rough sound he made. Finally he pulled back. His
breathing was sharp and ragged. “There’s not a dumb bone in your body,
sweetheart. Matter of fact, right now I believe we’re thinking very much
alike.”

He stepped back and closed the lid on the trunk with a snap
of finality before dragging his thumb along the length of her tingling, swollen
bottom lip. “See you tonight, Chloe.”

* * * * *

The din of voices in the main ballroom of the Ambassador the
crowd, the music—none of it prevented her from feeling Ace’s gaze on her. For
roughly the past hour, he’d stood across the room nursing a beer as he talked
to a couple of guys whom she vaguely recognized from their college days.

Nervously she smoothed her hands down the sides of her
midnight-blue cocktail dress and tried not to feel out of place. Crowds weren’t
her thing and that was a fact. Perhaps it had been this bit of insecurity that
had prompted her to splurge on the hot little number she wore. Before heading
out tonight, Lindy and the other girls had assured her that she looked good
enough to eat. Hm. Considering the way Ace kissed her in the parking lot, she
didn’t think that was a problem.

But was she ready for a steamy little fling?

Was she ready for a man like Ace?

A shiver of awareness shook her as she recalled the way he’d
brought her poor, tired body to screaming, aching life in the parking lot hours
earlier.

The boy she’d known ten years ago was a man now, and one who
knew what he wanted. Looked as though he wanted her. But why? Ace Banner had
traveled the world, first as a tennis player and then as a photographer
well-known for his dazzling sports photos. All the major magazines and news
service agencies used his work. How was a small-town nobody like her supposed
to compete with the glamorous, exotic women he’d surely had spread out beneath
him in bed?

With hands that shook, Chloe grabbed a cocktail napkin and a
small plate and picked around the festive finger foods. It was a heck of a
spread for sure, but she had no clue why she was there. Nerves had descended
and any bit of earlier hunger evaporated as she felt Ace watching her. Then
suddenly he was there. His hand settled at the dip of her lower back. A pair of
warm lips settled near her ear for a soft kiss. Sensation raced over her neck
and breasts at the feel of his breath on her skin.

“Ace.”

“Hey, beautiful.” He flashed her a wicked grin. His hand
stroked her gently before he stepped back to look at her. “Been waiting all
night for a chance to talk to you. Figured I’d better make my move before these
other single guys get any ideas.”

He handed his empty bottle to a passing waiter, grabbed
another long-necked beer for himself and a glass of sparkling white wine for
her.

“This okay?” he asked, holding the flute up for her
inspection. “I assume you still don’t like beer much.”

She smiled. “The wine is fine. Thanks. Are you hungry?”

Next to her, he went quiet and she glanced up to see he’d
gone perfectly still as his gaze took her in from top to toe. “You might say
that.”

Chloe’s mouth went dry as she busied herself filling a small
plate with shrimp and other goodies from the buffet, then she followed his lead
as they wound their way through the crowd of partiers to a small, unoccupied
corner table. Anxiety skipped through her belly and she struggled mightily to
hide it. She was a woman who’d faced down bickering four-year-olds and
distraught clients with the ease of a Zen Master. She was tough.

Yeah, right.

With a mental eye roll, she set down the plate and allowed
Ace to pull out her chair. Rather than take a place across the small table from
her, he sat next to her, so close she could feel the warmth of his rock-hard
thigh pressing against hers. He leaned close and settled his arm along the back
of her chair.

Another song began to play and Chloe nervously glanced
toward the dance floor, instantly spotting a number of her friends dancing. No
one seemed at all uncomfortable meeting up with people they hadn’t seen in
years. Maybe it was just her. The last time she’d danced had been when she and
Scott had celebrated her birthday just before the accident. A long time ago.

“What are you thinking?” Ace leaned close and whispered the
words against her ear, sending a rush of pleasure over her skin.

She shook her head and sighed, unprepared to share her
memories of Scott. That had been
their
time. What she might share with
Ace over the next few days would be something entirely new. With sudden
insight, she realized that things were unresolved with this man who sat
watching her as if he wanted to eat her with a spoon. If he wanted to dig into
this a little deeper, then so be it. She was sick to death of being lonely and
having nothing but her daughter to claim as her own. She was tired of finding
satisfaction in memories and a little motivation from her handy bedside helper.