Qualified: A Sports Romance Read online

  Allie needed to get ahold of herself. Since the start of last autumn, she had been submerged in a constant stream of fit bodies and justified confidence. Now was no time to start feeling lightheaded around one of the gold medal hopefuls. Maybe she had spent too much time with Marc’s file in the last week. It was the clinical study that was important to her, she reminded herself, not him. Surely he was no different from any other athlete, and Allie’s plans didn’t involve time wasted on players.

  Resolved to be more sensible, Allie slammed the back of the van shut and went around the front to climb into the driver’s seat. She noticed that Marc had fitted earbuds into his ears. She waved her hand to get his attention and pointed towards the stereo. “There’s a cord, if you wanted to plug into the speakers,” she offered.

  Marc shook his head and relaxed back into his chair with his arms crossed. “This is fine.”

  “Fine.” Allie stabbed the key at the ignition. Apparently he was an asshole. Good. It was better that way. She could look forward to poking him with needles.

  The van coughed to a start. Allie hadn’t finished taking it out of reverse to start the drive back to the training center when her phone blinked to life. Its accompanying buzz reverberated through the dash’s plastic from where she’d dropped it into the front cup holder. She glanced at the screen in case the message was urgent:

  Lycra. Balls.

  Get it, girl

  She was going to kill Violet.

  03

  It seemed to take half the drive for the color to cool from her cheeks. Allie had refused to look towards Marc after stuffing her traitorous phone into purse-contained banishment. She mostly managed to convince herself that he was too self-absorbed to notice. It still made for a miserable trip back to the training center. Clouds socked in the sky and obscured the grand mountains rising to the west, making everything feel too close and quiet.

  Some rock song that Allie barely remembered leaked free from Marc’s headphones. It crawled along her skin, making her hyper-aware of the man beside her. There were all types that came to train at the Colorado facility, but he didn’t quite fit the molds to which she had become most accustomed. She’d worked with kids from junior national team training camps, and she had been assigned a few projects that put her in close proximity with whippet-like endurance athletes. There were the resident gymnasts, of course, but with them she felt a collegiate sort of casualness that made it easy for her to act like the adult in the room.

  With Marc beside her, Allie felt dangerously close to losing control. More than his sheer size lurked in the seat. There was a sense of utter maleness that seemed to tingle at the edge of her senses. The belligerent cut of his jaw was part of it, while he stared out the window at the passing world like a challenge, as was the masculine musk that settled naturally on him after hours on an airplane away from laundry lint and over-perfumed soap. But there was something else, something that reminded her of dusty drives in a rattly old truck, that didn’t make her feel very adult at all.

  Marc caught her looking at him when one of her glances lingered too long after checking her mirrors. His head turned, his short hair whispering against the upholstery. A sweep of his finger pulled one of his earbuds free by its cord.

  It wasn’t just avoidance that kept Allie staring out the front window a moment. The giant metal globe that fronted the training center was coming into view as they rolled towards the front gate. Allie wetted her lips, dodging another quick look at her passenger. Her breath started and stalled in her chest as she struggled for something to say. “Are you looking forward to seeing everyone?”

  Apparently that wasn’t the right thing. Marc didn’t bother to answer.

  “I think most of your teammates are coming in tomorrow,” Allie forged on. “It should be quiet in your hall tonight.”

  She could feel his eyes studying her and Allie tried not to fidget. “I’ll show you to your room and give you your schedule for tomorrow.” She could hear the certainty draining from her voice. Allie deliberately flicked a more solid glance to meet his gaze. “I’m assisting Doctor Kaitech so I’ll also be working with you in the clinic.”

  That got Marc to walk his shoulders up out of their slouch. From its more encompassing scan, his attention sharpened its focus to return her glance. “Yeah?”

  Allie nodded. “It’s great that you’ve agreed to participate.” She reluctantly turned her gaze from him to steer into the van’s parking spot.

  After a brief delay, Marc also turned to look out the window. They were nearly pulled up to the building that housed the transportation office. “Tell that to my coach.”

  Maybe it was the way he muttered it. Whatever it was, it made Allie’s brow crease in vague worry. She sat with the key clutched into her hand and studied his profile a moment after switching off the car. When he started to look towards her, she folded over to release her seatbelt and gather her purse. “I have to return the key, it’ll just take a second.”

  “I’ll get my bag from the back.” Marc got his door open first, letting winter spill in to sting at her cheeks.

  “Right,” Allie mumbled to herself as she jammed her gloves on and hustled to get the car squared away with the office attendant.

  If she hadn’t seen his file, Allie would have thought Marc had been at the training center recently. After grabbing his bag he started off alone along the correct path for the residential buildings. She had to jog to catch up with him.

  “We’re in eighty-five?” Marc barely flicked a glance towards her when Allie fell into step with a crystallizing huff of breath.

  “Eighty-seven. Actually. The last one.” Allie gestured towards the dorm, though it didn’t do much good seeing how the three buildings they walked towards were lined up in a row. “I have your key card.” She patted at her pocket, keeping it hostage in case he and his longer legs thought about taking off without her.

  “I didn’t know I signed up for bed inspections.”

  Allie almost tripped over her own feet. She shouldn’t have been able to blush with the cold draining her cheeks. “It’s just the one card.” She didn’t know who she was trying to reassure. “I’ll be giving it to you.”

  She didn’t hear his laugh, but she saw it puffing out into the freezing air. “Okay.” Marc tilted a fractional glance towards her. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Allie.”

  She held the doors for him once they got into the building. After they’d climbed to the second floor she had to squeeze past Marc in order to beat him to his room. “It’s this one.” Allie didn’t complete the look over her shoulder, too busy with fishing out his key card and using it on the lock. She walked in with the surety of habit, her instincts only faltering when the desk wasn’t in the right place for her to toss the card. One floor up and two doors down in her near-identical room, her desk had a basket to catch her key.

  What her room didn’t have was a large body that crowded in behind her. The fine hairs at the back of Allie’s neck started to prickle. Her breath caught as she heard the door settle shut in its frame. A quick spin found Marc near enough to touch. She gripped at the key card and lifted her startled eyes.

  Marc didn’t flinch from her. He just unslung his duffle from his shoulder and tossed it to the nearest bed as if it were a thing far lighter than the thump it made.

  Allie could feel her breath quickening. Marc was reaching towards her.

  He was reaching for his key card.

  Of course. Allie ducked her head to hide her embarrassment once he plucked it from her fingers. She shifted her arms to clutch her purse to her side.

  “Are you going to take off your jacket?”

  “What?” Allie snapped her glance upward again.

  Her motions were jerky, but Marc was casually smooth. He brushed against her, careless in his path as he let his backpack slide from his other shoulder and swung it to rest in the desk’s chair. “Were you going to explain all this stuff?” He dropped his key to the
desk and nudged a knuckle at the small box sitting in its center.

  “Oh.” As she swiveled to continue facing him, Allie rubbed at her elbow where he had touched her. Like doing so would lock in the sense of him. Static still crawled up her spine. “Yeah, sure.” She stepped tentatively to the other corner of the desk and set her purse down on the surface. Allie was too aware of the man beside her as she worked her jacket loose and shrugged it off so she wasn’t overheating. Although maybe if she left it on, it could have served as an excuse for the red in her cheeks.

  He was taking his parka off, too. Allie frowned down at the desk, trying desperately to concentrate. She knew everything that was there. She’d gone by Violet’s office to collect the standard orientation packet herself. Doctor Kaitech had tasked her with making sure that the additional materials related to the study were delivered to Marc so that he’d have them before his appointment the next day.

  Allie should have known it all backwards and forwards, but her mind kept slipping to the man beside her. Marc didn’t stop undressing at his outermost layer. The sound of his team jacket’s zipper sung in her ear and he tossed that aside onto one of the three beds as well.

  “I’ve put your schedule here on top.” Allie patted at it with her palm to keep herself oriented. The henley that Marc wore was made of a thin material that seemed to hug every bulge of bicep and ridge of abdomen. In peeling off his jacket he had snagged the shirt’s hem into a high hitch at one side. Her peripheral vision noticed a tantalizing sliver of bare flesh above the brand-stitched waistband of his undershorts.

  Her fingertip stroked over the stapled corners of the documents but she still managed to lose her place. “Uhm.” Allie put her palm over the box he had asked about. “This is your wearable. Its instructions are in the packet with the study’s FAQ. There’s also the dorm guidelines, and …” She trailed off when his hand overlapped hers, claiming the box from her fingers.

  “So this is how you keep track of me?”

  “Sort of.” Allie skewed a weak smile as she watched Marc crack open the packaging.

  “You’re not injecting a chip behind my ear?”

  “That will be phase two of the trial.”

  Perhaps her joke didn’t go over so well. Marc merely settled his intensely dark gaze on her for a moment before continuing to pick the wristband out of the box. “This is going to get torn off the second we start to scrimmage.”

  Finally a burst of her academic instincts kicked in. Allie nodded agreement, shifting forward to take the rubber strip from his hand. “We know that devices can screw up fine-tuned performance, and we certainly wouldn’t want to do anything to inhibit our athletes’ training. These are designed to withstand submersion.”

  She plucked out the computer element as well, slipping it into the casing to show him how it all went together.

  “So if you’re able to wear it for any part of your workout, that would be excellent, but mostly we ask that you remember to put it back on when you’re not in your main practice.” Allie didn’t notice that she had put her hands around Marc’s wrist until she was done fastening the band. His skin was hot beneath her fingers.

  “See?” Allie didn’t dare look up at him for more than a peek. “Easy.” The sight of his hand resting in the hold of hers wasn’t much better. Her touch grazed over the faint tracery of his veins. “And … and, the cool part is.” She was having trouble remembering. “It’ll connect to an app that you can download to your phone. The tech team has been integrating the dining hall, so it can do a lot of the dietary tracking for you. You can just …” She tilted his wrist into a swiping motion towards the desk.

  She started to, anyway, until the slack weight of Marc’s arm turned into active intention. “I guess it’s better than an ankle band.”

  Allie didn’t know if she was supposed to laugh. She didn’t know how he’d twisted in her grasp so fast, so that now he held her wrist. With his other hand Marc was setting the packaging aside on the desk.

  “It’s a full service operation you have going here, isn’t it?”

  “I guess?” Beyond the ridiculous nerves Allie was trying to deny, something discordant started to lace tension across her forehead. Her eyes were fixed to Marc’s, so she wasn’t exactly surprised when his weight shifted. He took a step away from the desk and tugged her along by her wrist. It seemed calibrated to pull her off balance.

  Allie tripped forward on her toes and caught herself with her free palm flattened against his chest.

  “What are you doing?” She wasn’t really worried, not yet. Bewilderment puckered between her eyebrows when she looked down and found Marc’s other hand curving to fit at her hip.

  “What you want me to,” Marc said placidly.

  “I …” Allie bent her shoulders away from him, but she remained transfixed by the wicked promise of his stare. She shook her head weakly. “What?”

  “You keep looking at me like you want me to fuck you.”

  What? Allie’s heart raced and her body froze. Her lips parted. She couldn’t quite convince them to shape a protest.

  Marc shifted, leaning closer.

  A strangled noise cracked free from the tightness of her throat. The sound of it startled Allie back to what she should do.

  “No.” She ducked her chin away from him. “I didn’t.” She wasn’t here to fraternize with the athletes. She’d never had problems with putting her work first. Why was she having so much trouble sounding sure, now? “I mean, I don’t … I don’t want you to … to … do that.” Allie pressed her hand harder against his chest and felt the firm flex of muscle beneath her palm.

  Even in periphery, she could tell that Marc didn’t look convinced. For a second Allie was achingly aware of how little she was able to budge him. Then it was like a string snapped. He was gone, a gap of distance widened between them, and she was left with the tingling absence of his touch.

  “My bad.” The words may have been ones of apology, and Marc did turn his palms up like surrender, but there was nothing guilty or contrite in his unwavering gaze.

  “Must have been a misunderstanding.” One corner of his mouth twitched. “Culture shock.”

  The electricity of his misunderstanding thudded wild in her chest. “Yeah.” Allie curled her arms in close and pressed her palm over her heart like she needed to muffle its betrayal. “Just, don’t. Don’t let it …” Happen again. That’s what she should say. Allie wasn’t sure if she ought to insist he be more apologetic, or …

  “If that’s what you want.”

  Or if she wanted him to come back.

  Marc didn’t give her time to decide. He kept moving, brushing roughly past her again to get at his bag. With him behind her, Allie tried to force herself to composure by scrunching her eyes closed and rolling her lips into the pinning bite of her teeth. She heard the zipper of his bag singing open and the muted rustle of him pulling things out of it.

  “The bathroom’s down the hall?”

  “Yeah.” Allie took a shaky breath. She turned her chin to find her purse and her jacket where she’d laid them on his desk. In the corner of her vision she could see his shirt peeling away from the upward stretch of his elbows. She needed to get out of there. She snatched her things up and retreated towards the door while he was still getting his shoes off. “If you have any more questions, you can ask at your appointment tomorrow.” With that said, she fled.

  04

  The next morning was crazy. One of the resident gymnasts came in from their practice with a gushing nosebleed that left a messy trail. Allie called building maintenance to have a steam cleaner brought around for the hall. Time slipped past her while she was busy squatting over the spots on the patterned indoor-outdoor carpet with a bottle of disinfectant spray. She had left her phone by her computer so she didn’t realize she was late until the receptionist peeked out of the clinic to look for her.

  Her hurry to get back to her desk pulled up short when Allie found it occupied. Marc had helped himself to
her chair. He was wearing his earbuds again, the cords trailing into the collar of his jacket as he sat kicked-back and reading. She recognized the Study Goals information sheet from the papers she had left in his room.

  Allie awkwardly came to stand at the front edge of the long counter beside him. “Hi.”

  Those dark eyes lifted to fix upon her. “Hello.”

  Allie’s hands floated over the surface of her desk. It seemed impossibly messy. “I’m sorry I’m …” This was not how it was supposed to go. This was not her. She was organized, she was professional, she could do this. Marc Belmont wasn’t going to make her flounder.

  She’d put the sheet right … there. There it was. Tugging it out from beneath a stack of files, she fastened it to a handy clipboard and plucked a pen up from the collection within the alumni mug on her desk. “I’ll try to get you out of here quick.” Allie looked up with a small smile from the entries she began to fill in.

  She dropped her gaze back to her datasheet to keep from staring as Marc rose from her chair. He seemed different this morning. Scented of soap, or perhaps it was his aftershave she noticed. He was wearing a v-neck shirt beneath his jacket and she could see the whirls of his tattoo peeking out beyond the collar once he unzipped his warmup jacket.

  “I’m going to get you set up in one of the appointment rooms,” Allie indicated with a gesture of her pen’s tip towards the hall. “I’ll, uhm, get your vitals and paperwork in order, and then Doctor Kaitech will be in to speak with you afterwards.”

  “All right.” Marc towered over her, waiting.

  It took Allie a second to remember this was her cue to lead. “This way, please.” There. That sounded better. She led the way to get Marc tucked into an examination room so she could update the database with his current measurements.

  “Looks like you got your wristband figured out,” Allie noted when she slid it out of the way to get at his pulse.