I’d lost to Sloane three times this season. Three times I’d walked off this court with my pride in pieces, my ranking dropping, my coach giving me that look that said “maybe tennis isn’t your thing after all.”
But it wasn’t the losses that kept me awake at night. It was her.
Sloane Voss. Twenty-four years old. Red hair that she wore in a braid during matches and a mess afterward. A forehand that could crack concrete and a backhand that seemed to find every corner of the court I wasn’t occupying. She was everything I hated in an opponent and everything I couldn’t stop thinking about when I was alone.
We’d been rivals since junior circuit. Twelve years of facing each other across nets in cities I’d forgotten, in tournaments that didn’t matter, in parking lots where our parents would glare at each other while we pretended not to notice how close we stood during the coin toss.
But something had shifted this season. The matches had gotten tighter. The tension had gotten thicker. And three weeks ago, after she’d beaten me in the semifinals of the Miami Open, she’d lingered at the net too long during the handshake. Her fingers had traced my palm. Her thumb had pressed into my wrist. And she’d whispered, “You played well,” in a tone that had nothing to do with tennis.
Today was the fourth meeting. The clay court at Roland Garros, practice courts, empty stadium baking in the late afternoon sun. I’d trained for this. Changed my serve. Worked on my footwork. Told myself that today would be different.
It wasn’t.
6-4, 7-5. The same score as last time. The same result. The same humiliation.
She leaned against the net, breathing hard, her white dress clinging to her sweat-soaked body. Her strap had slipped off her shoulder, revealing the tan line where her practice top ended and her skin began. She made no move to fix it. Just watched me with those green eyes that seemed to see everything I was trying to hide.
“You beat me,” I said, my voice rough from screaming during the tiebreak, from the effort of trying to outrun a forehand that was simply better than mine. “Again. Third time this month.”
She didn’t speak. Sloane rarely spoke during matches, and she spoke even less after them. She just smirked—that same infuriating expression that had been taunting me since we were twelve—and adjusted her strap with a slowness that made my grip tighten on the racket until my knuckles went white.
I dropped it.
The racket hit the clay with a soft thud. I walked to the net, each step feeling like I was crossing a line I’d been toeing for months. I stopped close enough to smell her—sweat and sunscreen and something darker, something that smelled like victory and want. Close enough to see the clay dust on her collarbone, the way her chest was still rising and falling from the match, the way her eyes tracked my mouth.
“I think you win because you know what it does to me,” I whispered.
She didn’t deny it. She just leaned over the net, her hand shooting out to grab my collar, and pulled me into a kiss that tasted like competition and copper and the exact moment when hate becomes something that can’t be named.
It wasn’t gentle. It was teeth and tongue and the violence of every point we’d ever played against each other. Her other hand found my waist, pulling me forward, and I climbed over the net—actually climbed, one leg swinging over, my dress riding up, my body tumbling into hers.
She caught me. Of course she did. She’d been catching me for twelve years, in every match, every rally, every moment when I thought I was falling.
She pushed me down onto the clay.
My white dress was instantly ruined—red dust staining the fabric, marking me in a way that felt permanent. She climbed over me, her knees on either side of my hips, her hands pinning my wrists above my head. The clay was warm from the sun, rough against my back, and she was everywhere—her mouth on my throat, her teeth grazing my pulse, her hips grinding against mine with a rhythm that matched our last rally.
“I don’t just want to beat you,” she whispered against my ear. Her breath was hot, her voice rough, completely unlike the polite competitor the press loved. “I want to own you. Every point. Every game. Every set. I want you to know that you belong to me, on this court and off it.”
The stadium lights flickered on. Evening practice. The groundskeeper pushing his broom across the far court, his back to us, his presence a reminder that we weren’t alone, that this was public, that anyone could walk by and see the tournament’s second seed straddling the eighth seed on the practice clay.
I didn’t care. I arched into her, my legs wrapping around her waist, my hands finding her braid and pulling it loose. Her hair fell around us like a curtain, red and wild and completely untamed.
“Show me,” I whispered. “Own me. Right here. Right now.”
She did.
Her hand slid under my dress, finding me wet and ready and completely undone. She used two fingers, pressing inside me with a confidence that spoke of every match we’d ever played—she knew my weaknesses, knew my tells, knew exactly where to touch me to make me fall apart. The clay crunched beneath us as I moved against her hand, as she found a rhythm that was faster than any rally, more devastating than any ace.
When I came, it was with her name breaking from my lips and echoing in the empty stadium, my body shaking, my dress completely ruined, my ranking completely irrelevant.
After, we lay tangled on the clay, the lights buzzing above us, the groundskeeper still sweeping in the distance.
“Match point,” she whispered, her finger tracing patterns in the dust on my stomach.
“What’s the score?” I asked, my voice barely audible.
“Love-all,” she said. “We’re just beginning.”
We’re still rivals. Still competitors. Still facing each other across nets in cities I can’t remember. But now, after every match—win or lose—we meet on the practice courts. The clay is always warm. The lights are always on. And Sloane always shows me exactly what it means to be owned.
I lose more often now. But I’ve never felt more victorious.
