Bonus: The Private Lesson

An exclusive bonus scene from The Straight Girl Bet
by Blair Lennox

⚠️ This bonus scene takes place six months after the events of The Straight Girl Bet. Contains spoilers and explicit sexual content. Intended for readers 18+.

The Private Lesson (Part 1)

Six months after Morgan moved the last of her tournament shirts into Ashley’s closet — their closet, technically, in the house they now shared in New Jersey — Ashley came home from the office and found a note on the kitchen counter.

Court 7. 8 PM. Wear whites.

Below the note, Morgan had drawn a small tennis ball. Below the tennis ball, she’d added: Rally is at Emily’s. He will survive.

Ashley picked up the note and read it twice because the first time her brain shorted out somewhere around “Court 7” and the second time her body caught up to what her brain already understood.

Court 7 was where they’d first played each other, six years ago. Court 7 was where Ashley had hit a forehand so hard it left the court because Morgan had smiled at her across the net and her entire nervous system had staged a coup. Court 7 was where Ashley had lost a bet and gained a life and kissed the woman she loved for the first time in daylight without looking over her shoulder.

Morgan wanted her on Court 7. At 8 PM. In whites. With Rally safely deposited at Emily’s, which meant Emily had been recruited into whatever this was, which meant Morgan had been planning it, which meant Ashley was in trouble.

The good kind.

She checked the clock. 6:45. She showered. Shaved her legs with the particular thoroughness of a woman who suspected those legs would be receiving significant attention later. She dried her hair, considered makeup, and decided against it because Morgan preferred her face bare — “I spent six years trying to see you without the armor,” Morgan had told her once. “Don’t put it back on for me.”

She pulled out the white tennis dress. The one from the Ardmore — the same dress she’d been wearing the day everything started. She put it on. Looked at herself in the mirror. No lip balm. She hadn’t worn the forty-five-dollar lip balm to a match in six months.

She drove to the club with the windows down and her heart doing things that had nothing to do with cardiovascular fitness and everything to do with the woman who was waiting for her on a tennis court with café lights and a plan.

Court 7 was dark.

Not closed-dark — lit-dark. Morgan had turned off the overhead floods and strung café lights along the fence line, the kind that threw warm amber light across the clay and turned the court from an athletic facility into something that belonged in a film about two people who couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

The lights were wound through the chain-link, draping in soft arcs that caught the evening breeze. The net was up. The court was groomed. Two rackets lay crossed on the bench beside a bottle of water and a small speaker playing something low and percussive that felt like a heartbeat.

Morgan was standing at the far baseline. Black athletic shorts. Fitted tank top. Hair down — not pulled back for play, just loose around her shoulders, catching the amber light in a way that made Ashley forget she was holding car keys.

“You’re late,” Morgan said.

“I’m four minutes early.”

“For you, that’s late.”

“What is this?”

“A private lesson.” Morgan bounced a ball on her strings. “I seem to remember you booked one of these once. You said it was about your backhand.”

“It was about my backhand.”

“Ashley.”

“It was mostly about my backhand.”

“You wore a skirt that barely covered your ass and ‘accidentally’ bent over in front of me seventeen times.”

“I have a thorough warm-up routine.”

“Your warm-up routine gave me a heart condition.” Morgan walked to the net. “Same rules as last time. One set. Winner’s choice of prize.”

They played. The café lights turned the court into a private theater. They played the way they always played — hard, physical, competitive — but the darkness and the lights and the empty clubhouse added a quality Ashley could only describe as foreplay with a scoreboard.

Morgan served first. Ashley stepped inside the baseline and took it early, the way Morgan had taught her, and drove it back crosscourt. Morgan was already there. Ashley loaded her backhand — Morgan’s backhand, the corrected one, hip rotation through the ball — and painted the line.

They traded games. The score climbed — 2-1, 3-2, 4-3 — and with every point Ashley felt the tension building. The specific, accumulating awareness of Morgan’s body in motion — the way her shoulders moved when she served, the way her thighs flexed when she lunged for a wide ball, the way sweat darkened her tank top between her shoulder blades.

At 4-4, they played a game that lasted twelve minutes. Deuce after deuce. Rallies that went twenty shots, both women grunting with effort, the crack of the ball echoing off the empty clubhouse.

Morgan won the game on a drop shot so delicate it died on the clay like a secret whispered into an empty room. She held serve. Ashley held serve to force the tiebreaker. The tiebreaker lasted eleven points. Ashley had set point at 6-5, and Morgan hit a serve that kicked wide and Ashley lunged and got her racket on it but the return sat up, and Morgan put it away with a forehand that made the café lights rattle on the fence.

“Seven-six,” Morgan said. “My set.”

“That serve was on the line.”

“On the line is in.”

“Is that why you set up mood lighting? So you could stare at my legs in flattering conditions?”

“I set up mood lighting because I planned to fuck you on this court after the match and I wanted the ambiance to be appropriate.”

Ashley’s entire body went liquid. She stood on the baseline of Court 7, in her white tennis dress, and felt the arousal hit her so hard her knees softened.

“We’re at the Ardmore.”

“It’s 9 PM. The club is closed. The gate is locked. I have the only key because the tournament director trusts me, which is a mistake he’ll never know about.” Morgan stepped closer. Her hand traced the strap of Ashley’s dress — one finger, featherlight. “I’ve been thinking about this since the third game. When you bent down for that low return and your dress rode up and I double-faulted because my brain stopped working.”

“Put your racket down, Ashley.”

Ashley’s racket was already down.

“Then stop talking and let me collect.”

Morgan kissed her. Not gently. The hungry, open-mouthed, teeth-grazing kiss she deployed when she’d been thinking about sex for an hour and had run out of patience. Her hands went to Ashley’s hips and pulled her flush and Ashley grabbed the back of Morgan’s neck and kissed her back with every ounce of competitive energy the match had built.

Morgan’s thigh pressed between Ashley’s legs and Ashley ground against it involuntarily, gasping into Morgan’s mouth, because the friction through her underwear was exactly enough to make her want more and exactly not enough to give her what she needed.

“You’re already wet,” Morgan murmured against her mouth.

“I’ve been wet since the second set. You did that thing with your serve where you toss the ball and your whole body extends and your tank top lifts and I can see your stomach. It’s been a problem for approximately six years.”

Morgan spun her around. Ashley’s breath caught — not from fear, from the sudden shift and the immediate awareness of Morgan behind her. Morgan’s hands on her hips. Morgan’s chest against her back. Morgan’s mouth at her ear.

“Hold the net post,” Morgan said.

Ashley reached forward and gripped the metal post with both hands. The steel was cool against her palms. She stood there — legs apart, arms extended, gripping the post — and felt Morgan’s hands slide up the backs of her thighs, pushing the tennis dress with them.

“Six years,” Morgan murmured against the back of her neck. “Six years of watching you play in this skirt. Watching you bend for low balls and stretch for overheads. Watching this dress cling to your body after a match while you stood at the bar drinking champagne and pretending you didn’t know I was staring.”

“I knew. I was hoping you’d eventually do something about it.”

“I’m doing something about it.”

She pulled Ashley’s underwear down — slowly, deliberately, dragging them past her thighs, her knees, her ankles. Ashley stepped out of them and stood at the net post in her tennis dress and nothing else, the night air cool between her legs, Morgan’s body warm against her back.

Morgan’s hand slid between Ashley’s thighs from behind and Ashley’s grip on the post tightened hard enough to whiten her knuckles. Morgan’s fingers traced through the slick heat of her, exploring with the same patient attention she brought to reading a serve.

“You’re soaked,” Morgan said. Her voice was rough now, the composure fraying. “Absolutely drenched.”

“You just beat me in a tiebreaker and told me you’ve been thinking about fucking me since the third game. What did you expect?”

“Exactly this.”

Morgan stroked Ashley with maddening patience — slow circles, long sweeps, the occasional press directly against her clit that made her jerk and gasp — while her other hand held Ashley’s hip and her mouth worked the back of her neck, biting hard enough that Ashley would have a mark tomorrow and did not care even slightly.

“Inside me,” Ashley managed. “Please. I need—”

Morgan slid two fingers inside her from behind and Ashley’s legs nearly gave out. The angle was deep and Morgan’s palm ground against her clit with every thrust. Ashley braced against the net post and pushed her hips back and felt the orgasm begin to build from the base of her spine.

Morgan fucked her steadily. Not gently — there was nothing gentle about it. The wet sound of her fingers, the grip of her hand on Ashley’s hip hard enough to leave fingerprints. She was relentless and precise and she knew Ashley’s body well enough to adjust in real time — faster when Ashley’s breathing hitched, slower when she got close, holding her at the edge with the specific cruelty of a woman who wanted the fall to be spectacular.

“Let me come,” Ashley gasped. “Morgan — fuck — let me—”

“Tell me who you belong to.”

“You. I belong to you. I’ve belonged to you since the bet. Please—”

Morgan pressed her thumb directly against Ashley’s clit and curled her fingers inside her and Ashley came with a sound that echoed off the empty clubhouse and carried into the night — a raw, full-throated cry that she didn’t try to muffle because there was no one to hear except the woman who was holding her upright while her body shook and clenched and released.

Morgan held her through it. One arm around her waist, hand still between her legs, mouth pressed to the back of her neck, whispering: “That’s it. I’ve got you. Let go. I’ve got you.”

Ashley let go. Completely. She sagged against the net post and let Morgan hold her weight and felt the last tremors roll through her body like aftershocks from something seismic.

When she could breathe again, she turned around in Morgan’s arms and looked at her. Morgan’s face was flushed. Her pupils were blown dark. Her chest was heaving. She looked like a woman who had been in complete control and was now paying the price for it.

“Your turn,” Ashley said.

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