Qualified: A Sports Romance (19 page)

Allie’s skin prickled with giddy
anticipation. He went for her shirt first, bunching the fabric carelessly for a
peeling pull up her torso and over her head. One of her blouse’s lower buttons
popped off with the roughness of his tugging. She reeled at the feel of air
against her naked skin. Her forearms fell to an instinctive fold over her
breasts as she dodged a look back towards the road. “Marc.” A lifetime of
modesty added to her breathlessness. “What if someone comes.”

“I’m counting on it.” Marc tossed her shirt into
the backseat and leaned forward again, nipping quick at her mouth before his
kisses started to trace down the line of her throat.

Allie swayed as he coaxed her wrists away. She set
her hands onto his shoulders and gripped tight. “Is this how you cheer a girl
up?” Her joking smile was corroded by nerves but he wasn’t looking anyway. His
tongue was slipping down the quick heave of her chest.

“Is it working?” Marc used his thumb to liberate
her nipple from beneath her bra’s hem of lace.

Her answer was a cry and an arch of her back as the
heat of his mouth latched on in rough suck. Her hands rose to twist and tangle
in his hair. His tongue flicked electric at the tips of her breasts. “Marc,”
she pleaded and pulled him up.

His lips were wet and his dark eyes were so
close—she fell in forever. She could feel his hands at her thighs again, so
broad and big. “That’s right.” Marc wore an insufferable smirk. “The only
crying you should be doing is my name while I take every inch of you.” The
flutter of his tongue at the edge of her mouth made her hips squirm. A helpless
moan escaped from deep in her core. “That
is
what you want. Isn’t it,
Allie?”

“I want …” Allie pitched forward and kissed him
with the unshaping hunger of her mouth. His hands were cupping at her backside
and she arched into him, filling his palms with her curves and pressing her
chest to his as their tongues tangled. His hips were tilted against the car’s
edge and she could feel the bulge of him through his jeans where her legs
hugged around him.

“Marc.” She exhaled. “I want you. I want you so
bad. Please.”

Marc responded with a fiercer kiss. Allie had to
shove the prop of a hand backwards so that she didn’t topple over the dent-flexing
trunk of the car. His hand dropped between her legs, the rub of his fingers
finding her wetness through cotton and lace.

The press of his body lessened and Allie was left
tipped open to the sky, the hard jut of her nipples escaped from her bra and
her skirt bunching to uselessness around her waist. Against her hips Allie
could feel his thumbs hook beneath the band of her underwear. Marc slid her
panties from her legs and dropped to a crouch before her. Her ankles slid over
the muscled slopes of his shoulders as he pushed her skirt up her belly and
dragged his fingertips back to where her flesh burned for him.

Allie tried to hold herself up while Marc went down
on her but her hands slipped along the car’s glossy surface. Every touch of his
tongue was a brand that seared along the length of her spine and set her eyes
to overwhelmed roll. In that moment she knew how the ocean must feel when the
fireheart sun dove beneath its surface, setting glorious spark to each wave
crest. She was at once more than her skin could contain and no more than the
knot of nerves inflamed by Marc’s mouth to climax. Her head dropped back and
her spine arched and his name choked in her throat.

From her bliss Allie was called back by the pinch
of his knuckle pushing into her. Her belly remained clenched and her thighs
quivered. “Marc.” Her voice was weak.

Rare pleasure brightened from the smile-crinkled
corners of Marc’s eyes. He was sitting back, licking those lips made messy by
her lust and watching her body accept the shove of his finger. “Such a tight
little pussy.”

Each stroke resonated along every still-quaking
inch of her. Allie whimpered.

Marc looked up at the sound. “Are you going to come
for me again?” His touch remained between her legs but he started to get to his
feet so he could lean nearer.

She writhed and dropped the cuff of one hand to his
forearm.

“No?” Marc asked as she pushed weakly. It was a
short-lived notion of resistance. When his departing fingers stroked across her
slicking folds her grip turned into a greedy pull. Allie fought to keep her
eyelashes from dipping, refusing to be lost.
She
wanted
him
. It
was a choice she needed to confirm by meeting his eyes when his knuckles
slipped back inside of her. Her voice mewled through the clench of her teeth and
she could hardly recognize herself. She kept her hand on his forearm, feeling
his strength as he twisted in her hold and delved between her legs.

She came again, calling his name and shattering
back across the car’s trunk.

It took her a minute to realize afterwards that he
was shifting between the weak splay of her legs. “Wait,” Allie barely breathed.
Marc was standing straight and working at the button of his fly. She fumbled
her legs back to action, bending her knees up to press against his chest, but he
just used the pressure to tip her across the car’s trunk.

“Marc, wait,” Allie said a little more strongly,
reaching to push at his shoulder. “I can’t. I can’t. Not like this.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Marc huffed distractedly and leaned
over her to reach for the back seat. “Do you have something in your purse?”

“What?” Allie’s vision was still sparking and she
couldn’t quite put her thoughts together after what he’d done to her.

“Do you have condoms?”

Allie’s breath caught. “No.” It was like the night
at the club. That note of mundane practicality in his voice that said:
he’s
done this before
. Even worse—
he’s done this a lot
.

“Maybe there are some in the glove box.”

She caught a panicked fist in his shirt before he
could go. “Marc, it’s not just that.”

He stopped, turning a look behind his shoulder
towards the road to see if she meant they were being interrupted. There was
frustrated confusion in his eyes when he looked back to Allie.

A noise cracked in her throat as she delayed her
confession a final moment. “I’m a virgin.” Allie couldn’t hold his gaze to find
out what his frustration turned into. She fussed her skirt back into place and
looked around. At the open sky and the far off ocean and the smudged car—anything
but his eyes. “I can’t just … I can’t. Not like this.”

“You’re a virgin.” Marc still had his hands down
his pants.

The heat in her cheeks was not just from her
arousal. Allie gulped a breath and nodded, her chin ducked low.

Marc’s sigh turned into a laugh. “You’ve got to be
fucking kidding me.”

It wasn’t news that Marc was ready
to accept instantly. Breaking free from her hold on his shirt he stalked around
to the front of the convertible. He flicked open the glove box but didn’t seem
to search very hard. Like he was expecting to come away empty handed. His
circuit around the car brought him right back to where Allie had hastily
smoothed the cups of her bra and straightened her seat on the fender.

“I’m clean.” Frustration lingered in the sharp
motions of his gesture-spread arms. “You’ve taken my fucking blood. You know
I’m clean.”

“I …” Allie was staring at him.

“I haven’t fucked anyone since I’ve gotten back to
the States.”

Could Allie believe him? Maybe it didn’t really
matter. “Marc.” She was desperate for him to understand. “I’m not on birth control.”
Plus, she might not have expected a blanket of rose petals, but
this 
…

He’d stepped forward and her legs were pinned
against the car. The curve of his arms around her waist might have been
picture-perfect, but in that moment it didn’t keep her from noticing the
frightening strength of him. “I’ll pull out.”

“Marc,” Allie insisted, pushing at his chest with
both her hands. “No.”

He growled like he was angry. He didn’t let her go.
His arms were a knot of steel cable around her. But Marc’s forehead dropped to
her shoulder like a child seeking comfort. “Allie. You are driving me fucking
crazy.”

Allie held her breath, not daring to move. Her
fingers were splayed over his pulse where the stretch of his neck leaned close
to her chin. “I’m … sorry?”

“I’ve never worked harder for anything in my life.”

From the tremble of her nerves, Allie found a
smile. She pressed the shaky curve of it into his skin. “Not even the summer
games?”

“Not even the summer games.”

Twining her fingers more securely in his hair,
Allie peeled back and dared to look at him. “This is sounding like a poor
setting of priorities, Mr. Belmont.” She was too uncertain to really sell her
scolding schoolteacher’s frown. “Maybe you should adjust your thinking and
apply yourself harder.”

“I’m trying to apply myself hard.” Marc shoved
pointedly against her, but the constriction of his arms was loosening.

It was enough of a reassuring sign for Allie to
allow a playful squeal to escape her lips. She aimed a harmless smack at his
shoulder.

“Fucking
priorities
,” Marc grumbled as he
settled back on his heels and looked down to fasten his pants. “You sound like
Everett. Way to discourage my dick.”

Allie bit her lip, still obsessed with taking in
his every detail. Her knees squirmed against the insatiable ache that continued
to glow low in her belly. She didn’t want to discourage him. She just …
wanted more than a dirt lot and a semi-stolen vehicle. “I bet he’s wondering
where his car is.”

“You might as well text him now.” It was hard to
tell from his blandly clipped statement whether Marc was angry. He seemed
resigned, at least, rolling out his shoulders and stretching his arms up to
lace his fingers behind his head.

Allie couldn’t shake the sense she’d done something
wrong. She slid from the fender to her feet, walking the few steps so she could
reach to straighten his collar. “Did I get you in trouble? With Everett.” She
flicked a brief glance up. He was looking down at her from the upward tilt of
his chin caused by his lean into his linked hands. “He was worried about me
driving you today.”

She thought Marc’s chuckle sounded a little bitter.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been out of trouble. What did you tell him, anyway?”

Her hand looked small laid against the solid plane
of his chest. She stared at the stretching spread of her fingers. “That I was
worried about you. I said—” Allie frowned, trying to remember. “I told him that
things got a little out of control, and you and Blake got into a fight. I said
I was worried you might be hurt, and I thought maybe someone should check up on
you. Who wasn’t me.” She nibbled her lip and lifted an apologetic look. “I
never wanted to get in the way of your playing. And you did say Everett was
your emergency contact.”

Her reasoning won a conceding grunt from Marc. His
hands ruffled through his hair as he dragged them forward over the crown of his
head. “You know I got kicked off the team in twenty-eleven for fighting.”

“I didn’t know that.” Allie had a disconcerting
feeling, like her fingers were near the trigger of a loaded gun and she didn’t
know where it was pointed. She kept them frozen over his heartbeat. “Is that
why you had to leave college, too?”

Marc laughed, which at least was better than
exploding. His fingers scrubbed over his face as his arms dropped down to his
sides. “No, that was mostly due to being an idiotic twenty-year-old.”

Allie frowned at him. “I don’t understand.”

“Look,” Marc sighed through his exhale. He gripped
her hips and she swayed closer to him without thinking. “I went to my first
summer games and it didn’t fucking matter. You think you do something big
enough and it will fix everything, but …” He shook his head and his voice
dropped to a low rasp. “My family was still gone. I didn’t have anyone. There
was nothing …” He clenched his teeth closed on a frown.

His eyes averted to follow the lift of his hand.
Marc caught a lock of her hair in a twist around his finger so he could tuck it
more neatly behind her ear. “I couldn’t focus on my classes.” With a
surprisingly delicate touch he re-set the strap of her bra so that it was
better centered over her shoulder. “I was partying instead of studying. My GPA
was dropping below threshold. I was starting to fuck up my training. Everett
got to me before … anything official. Said I should find something that
worked for me, because school wasn’t it.”

The drift of his fingertips fell along the line of
her spine to settle at the small of her back. Marc’s eyes ticked a steady watch
between hers. “You asked me once, if it was hard to leave everything. I didn’t
think I had anything to stay for.”

“But you still came back?”

“I guess I was homesick.” Marc glanced towards the
ocean. “I didn’t think that this could ever feel like home. Not a place with
too many bad memories. But I’ve been all over the world, and I didn’t find it
there either. And now …”

In trying to be quiet, Allie’s breath had gone
quick and shallow through her parted lips. She licked at them, trying to get
the race of her nerves under control. “And now?”

Marc looked at her a silent moment. His only answer
was a nearing lean that claimed her mouth in a slow-savored kiss.

The flutters in her stomach must have been from
fireflies, because she felt like she was glowing. Allie reached her fingertips
to carefully map the shape of his softened expression. Like she needed all her
senses to be sure. “Come home.” She rocked up on her toes to better fit against
his tall frame. “Come home with me.”

He was searching her eyes. “What are you saying?”

Shifting her knees to set a roll to her hips, Allie
let the grinding obviousness of her body do most of the talking. “If we stop to
get … If we stop by a store.” She still couldn’t quite bring herself to
say the things that experience made easy for him. “I want to be with you.”

“Are you sure?” Outside the heat of the moment,
Marc seemed wary. “You’re not waiting for marriage or any shit like that?”

Allie almost laughed. She almost lost her nerve.
Instead she risked the bloom of her smile and traced her thumb along his jaw.
“I think I’ve been waiting for you.”

That made him smile, too. He was only a little
smug-looking. “Well I’m not going to say no.”

It might have sounded like carelessness, but the
cup of his palm at her back was tender when she stretched up to kiss him. She
had never imagined that Marc could be so gentle. The scratch of his bristled
cheek beneath her fingertips was a reminder of his roughness, the strength with
which he held her was undeniable, and yet for her lips he was warmly welcoming.
She felt like she was floating—not captured, but cherished.

Allie didn’t want to pull away, not ever, but she
did want to get going. “You left the keys on the seat?”

“Yeah.” He caught the curious pause of her gaze on
him. “It’s a little late to be worrying whether I have an outstanding felony.”

“Do you?” She tried to make it sound like a joke as
she opened her door and watched him saunter over to the far side of the car.

“Not outstanding.” Marc dropped into the passenger
seat and busied himself with re-adjusting it for the longer stretch of his
legs. He was smirking when he looked up to where Allie was still hovering in
her open door. “I might have gotten a few too many speeding tickets,” he
relented by telling her. “I told you I was dumb in my twenties. But it was more
than a decade ago. Now it’s just that I’m allergic to bureaucratic paperwork.”

“Maybe someone in the office could help you with
that.” Allie slipped into the car. “I shouldn’t have let you drive,” she
murmured as she worked her seatbelt, guilty even though everything had turned
out okay.

“You were so upset I’m sure you couldn’t see
straight.” Marc sounded factual as he relaxed back and slipped on his
sunglasses. “There was no way I was letting you get behind the wheel.”

“Well I’m better now.” Allie studied his profile a
minute. Her smile couldn’t quite settle on one shape as she considered how he
was trying to look out for her, and why. It was complicated, but maybe that’s
what made it all the more important. “Thank you.”