Qualified: A Sports Romance (15 page)

Allie didn’t really know where she
was going, but it couldn’t have mattered less as long as Marc was with her. She
saw a group of people departing from a space beside one of the booths and
veered to take their place. Allie pulled Marc into the out-of-traffic spot
before it could fill in from the constant stream of bodies moving around the
club.

If Marc originally had anything more specific in
mind, it seemed he could make do with this. He let Allie turn in his arms, his
grip sliding over her ass from one hip to the other as she spun to throw her
hand up over his shoulder. It was strange that it didn’t feel wrong at all, as
if he were made to hold her.

Allie didn’t even care if he danced, but she had
to. The champagne had electrified her nerves and the swallows of beer she added
sent her blood thudding through her veins in time to the beat. She had to move.
A siren’s song slipped velvet from the DJ’s speakers like a disembodied
confession of how badly she wanted Marc. She claimed the words with each latch
of her eyes to his and rocked her body into slinking contact as she let the
music sway her.

But he did dance.

Maybe Allie should have realized that a man
comfortable being internationally broadcast in a speedo would know how to dance
like nobody was watching. She should have known that a body fit for the highest
level of competition and attuned to the moves of competitors and compatriots
alike could easily keep up with her amateur gyrations. She was drunk on Marc,
lured by the scent of his unfamiliar cologne and the deeply familiar trace of
chlorine, addicted to the flexing strength which somehow she’d captured into
her hands.

She didn’t want her drink anymore. She didn’t need
it. Her pulse already sang and she found her courage in the perfect fit of his
familiar solidity beneath her greedy hands.

She held her bottle out unthinkingly to him,
trusting Marc would know what to do with it. He downed what was left of his beer
and discarded the bottle on the top of the nearby bench so he could take over
drinking hers.

Allie laughed, her gaze running over him and her
freed hand eagerly joining in a doubled hook around his neck. “Don’t drink
yourself under the table,” she shouted. The coy tease barely sounded like her
at all, but instead of feeling the grip of nervous regret her pulse thrilled
giddily.

Marc shook his head, easily keeping hold of her
with the wrap of one forearm. He leaned over her and Allie held on to the
coiled power of his back as he grazed the heat of his mouth up her neck,
nipping at her ear before answering. “You’re the only thing I’m looking to get
under.”

Allie’s breath collapsed out all at once. Static
raced up her spine. “Marc.” She wasn’t sure if she were protesting or begging.
Her fingers knotted in his shirt. She wouldn’t let him straighten to his
distantly full height.

For a heartbeat, the tilt of his chin matched their
want-hazed gazes. Like Marc wasn’t sure, either, but that he needed her to be.

A needy sound escaped Allie’s lips before she
kissed him wantonly, tasting beer from the hollows of his mouth.

The music had become an afterthought. Allie let him
set the sway of their feet into an absent rotation until her back was against
the booth. All she could think about was the startling slip of his tongue and
the lush fullness of his lips caught in the experimental suck of hers.

Allie gasped as his free hand roamed her thigh. His
demanding touch swept down to her knee and yanked her leg up into a high hitch
over his. The reversed caress of his palm ran beneath her leg to where her
dress was riding up indecently high. Her worried moan cracked between them in
shared breath. He felt so good, but she’d hardly ever been touched like this
and they were in
public
. Her fingers dropped to ride the shifting
muscles of his arm but she didn’t quite get around to pushing him away.

Her head rolled back, letting Marc at her throat
while her heavily lidded eyes peered out over his shoulder. A flutter of fear
stirred in her belly while a fraction of her consciousness fretted over the
scene they were making. But no one seemed to send more than the most cursory of
glances towards the dark nook they had found. The broad of Marc’s back was
blocking out the club. His hand, though …

Allie nearly jumped over the back of the booth when
the roving brush of his fingertips found the searing dampness soaked through
the laced fabric between her legs.

“You’re ready for me to fuck you right here,” his
voice grit into her ear.

“Marc,” Allie exhaled desperately. Her hand closed
more firmly over his wrist, the monitoring band he dutifully wore cutting into
her palm, and she pressed down as if she were any match to his strength. “Not
here,” she begged quickly, her temple rolling against his. Her hips bucked
involuntarily for how his touch had teased across where she wanted him most.
“Please,” she panted. “Someone will see.”

Marc’s hand moved back to her waist but he kept a
tight grip on her. “You want to fuck me.” He said it more like a command than
question, the words hot where her pulse raced shallow along her throat.

The hand she still had at his nape twined a tighter
grip into his hair. He played dirty, and she was naïvely unprepared for it, but
neither could she let him go. Allie wanted all of him. She wanted his
confidence and his trust. And yes, she
did
want his body in a way she
had never wanted before. The way he touched her, the way he felt under her
fingertips, made her feel vibrantly alive and she was hungry for more. After a
sluggish delay where she lost hold of her well-practiced
shoulds
, Allie
nodded.

“Say it.”

Her chest heaved with the breath she couldn’t seem
to catch.
She couldn’t
. “I want to.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to f—f … Marc.” Her voice sounded like
a sob. Allie clung to him. “I want you to fuck me,” she made her confession
against the bristle-rough heat of his skin. “I want you.” Her fingers clutched.
She needed him to understand. Her heart sped so fast from both terror and hope.
“So bad.”

It must have been what he wanted to hear. “Let’s
go.”

Allie reeled as she was left to stand again on her
own two feet when Marc reset his grip on her arm. Her wrist twisted, her
fingers fumbling to twine with his, refusing the mute inertia of being grabbed
like he would his gym bag. She sucked in air like she’d abruptly been left out
in the open, even though he’d barely shifted a step away in order to toss back
the last of the beer.

With her free hand she fussed her dress back down
her thighs and flicked her hair over her neck where her skin still stung from
the hunger of his mouth. She started to follow as he led her towards the
entrance, only to collide with his shoulder when Marc abruptly changed course.
“I have to close out my tab,” he said in explanation before diving them towards
the crush at the bar.

Allie nodded and let herself be tugged along. The
song of alcohol in her veins sped her from undeniable lust towards a darker,
creeping uncertainty. She started to question what she had just agreed to.
Everything was moving so fast. It was a minute before her fingers clenched into
a tighter grip to catch his attention. She pointed upward. “My purse.”

Marc was leaning again on the bar, waiting for the
bartender to bring over his card and receipt. “Tell Kelsey to get it.” The way
he looked at her set Allie on fire, an insistent ache clawing low in her belly.

Maybe she was overthinking. “It has my phone,”
Allie replied with crumbling insistence. She gestured a palm at the skin tight
hug of her dress which left no opportunity for her to hide anything. It might
not have been the best way to persuade Marc to make a detour, given the way his
tongue tasted at the edge of his mouth. Allie felt a flush rising from her
tight neckline to the thudding pulse of her throat. “And my key,” perhaps was a
more convincing argument.

“Do you need your key?” The way Marc said it, the
way his dark eyes bored into her for a second before he turned to sign his
receipt and tuck away his credit card, suggested that she did not.

Doubt was crawling over her. He seemed to have all
the answers while she had none. Allie shifted her hand in his, hazily aware of
how composed he was and how naked she felt. She had never really expected a
first-time fairytale, but this felt rushed. “I’d like to get it.”

He bit into a frown so hard that she could see the
bunching of muscle along his cheek even in the shadowy swirl of the club’s
lighting. She thought he might argue. Or perhaps drop her hand and leave her
right there. Instead, Marc said: “Okay.”

When they climbed the stairs, rising
up from the churning mass of humanity, Allie felt more and more uncertain. The
way she held Marc’s hand, necessary below, started to feel like a statement she
wasn’t sure she was ready for as she ascended in his wake. Everyone would see
her, everyone would know. Once they hit the balcony and she didn’t have the
challenge of balancing her high-heeled steps on the stairs, she tugged her
fingers away. When Marc looked back, Allie pulled on a smile to apologize for
her need of her hands in adjusting at her dress and arranging her hair into a
combed-back flip instead of a sweaty hang.

“There you are!” Kelsey spotted her first. “I
thought we lost you. We were going to send out a rescue party.” She pranced
over to smother Allie in a hug.

“I couldn’t find you,” Allie said as she returned
the squeeze. “And I got a bit lost when I tried to find the way back.”  Her
eyes flicked to Marc over her roommate’s shoulder.

“You look like you’ve been having fun.” Kelsey put
her out at arm’s length to observe Allie’s sweaty glow.

Allie tried not to squirm or palm guiltily at the
side of her neck where she suspected hickies were blooming.

“I guess you were checking out the main floor.”
Kelsey gathered Allie into an elbow link so that she could lean quieter words
into her ear. “And Marc.”

Glancing aside, Allie could see her roommate
looking over the tall water polo player thoughtfully. She wondered if Kelsey
saw anything different about the man rumored to hold the Hat Trick title, or if
this was merely an oft-repeated image of Marc taking a girl home from a club
and Allie just happened to be standing in those changeable shoes for the night.

Marc returned Kelsey’s look flatly. “Do you know
where Allie’s purse is?”

Kelsey’s smile widened. It took her a second to
nod. “I was calling you, and we heard it vibrating,” she said to Allie.

“Oh my god!” The indignant voice rose up to
interrupt them from the thick of the crowd around the bottle service table.

Allie looked towards the motion of people standing.
In her periphery Marc was stiffening his shoulders and rolling out a pop of his
knuckles.

“Isn’t this fucking rich.” It was Natalie stalking
towards them from the knot of older players. They must have all come back while
Allie was downstairs. “You do have fucking balls, Marc. No one can deny
that
.”

“We’re leaving as soon as Allie has her purse.”
Marc hardly granted Natalie a glance. Instead he focused on Allie’s roommate.
“Where is it, Kelsey?”

Allie had her attention stolen from Natalie, too,
but it was because Blake was standing. How many times had she told him she
wouldn’t risk her job for a player? His eyebrows had risen to a high loft at
Marc’s words. She felt revealed as a liar. And an idiot. If all these people
who had known Marc for longer thought he was bad news, why should she believe
anything different?

“Let’s get you your purse, Allie,” Kelsey murmured
as she tried to lead the way while giving wide berth to Natalie’s path.

It didn’t work. “Sweetheart, you don’t want to go
anywhere with him.” Natalie spat the words towards Marc but her steps swerved
so she could grab at Allie’s arm.

Allie tried to twist her wrist free but she was no
match for the athlete’s strength. If this was supposed to be for her own good,
she didn’t know why the other girl’s grip was so cruel.
It’s really the
girls’ teams that are the worst
, she remembered Adam telling her. Natalie’s
nails dug into her flesh. Allie let out a pained noise.

Marc moved so fast that she could hardly put cause
and effect together. “Nat, let her go.” He dug his thumb along the water polo
girl’s forearm in a way that popped her fingers loose from Allie.

It also yielded an angry screech from Natalie’s
lips. “Don’t you tell me what to do, Marc Belmont.” She fought him with a
furious push against his chest. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

Marc’s step back seemed calculated to lead Natalie
away from Allie. It also left his ex off balance as she hurled her weight at
him with one shove after another. “They should have never let you back on the
team.” Her hands struck in concert with her words. “Everett is fucking soft in
the head. You should be sanctioned. And benched. And fucking … thrown out
of the
country
. No one wants you here.
No one!
”

Blake was trying to help Kelsey collect Allie and
usher her towards the couches. “Come on, I’ll have the bouncers deal with it.”
He must have meant it to reassure Allie.

Allie was too horrified to look away. “Where is my
purse?” Some other girl could have whispered the question because Allie
couldn’t break her stare from Natalie’s attack.

“We all know it’s just a matter of time,” the older
girl was railing onward. “I don’t care how many fucking shots you score,
because you’re fucking selfish and you’re going to drag this team down because
you can’t keep your fucking dick in your pants or you goddamn nose out of
trouble and everyone else is going to be stuck cleaning up your fucking messes
and they don’t deserve it.
Look at you
.” She shoved so hard Marc was
actually pushed back a step. “You’re fucking drunk right now, aren’t you?
Running your game on some college-girl med staffer. Maybe you
have
found
another brain cell to rub together with that lonely scrap of grey matter
echoing around in your thick skull. Are you betting that she can help you cheat
past your drug tests? How do you think she’s going to do it, if she’s stupid
enough to fall for
you
?”

Marc shifted from deflecting Natalie’s arms to
grabbing at them, a growl clenched between his teeth. His eyes darkened. He
caught hold of both of her forearms and hauled her around so he could shove her
down to a seat on the nearest couch.

Natalie yelped, startled to silence when Marc
loomed over her.

There was another high pitched sound. Allie didn’t
realize that it was coming from her until after her hands had already lifted to
cover her mouth. Somewhere, a fallen glass crunched under someone’s shoe.
Everything was going terribly wrong, faster than she could register what was
happening. It was worse than one of the presses in front of the cage.

Blake got to Marc first, stepping between his
teammate and Natalie to break the hold Marc had on her arms. “What the hell do
you think you’re doing, man?” He shoved Marc back with a stiff bridging of his
fingertips.

The other guys were pouring around the couch. A
swarm of muscle in dress shirts. Allie saw Ivan headed to Blake’s side while
Troy aimed for Marc. Chad and Vince seemed preoccupied with keeping the man
Natalie had been sitting with from joining the fray, but Austin the goalie was
leaping right into the middle of everything.

They weren’t fast enough to stop Marc from grabbing
fistfuls of Blake’s shirt. He took a quarter turn with enough strength to pull
the younger player off his feet and slam his back into the nearby wall. “You
keep asking for a piece of me. Well here it is, Blake. Welcome to my fucking business.”
Marc punctuated his words by rattling the wall with his teammate.

For a second, those impossibly blue eyes went wide
and Blake did nothing more than drag at Marc’s wrists. Then something changed,
resolve tightening across his brow. He threw his shoulders to weigh the drop of
one of his folded elbows at the stretch of Marc’s, bringing the taller man in
closer. With his other arm Blake swung a punch at Marc’s face.

He missed.

Marc didn’t.

With his dropped hand, Marc slammed a fist into the
soft beneath the float of Blake’s ribs.

Blake coughed out in pain, sagging against Marc as
he doubled over. Marc may have been winding an arm back again, but it was hard
to say. By then the rest of the team was piling onto them.

“You’re a fucking animal, Marc.” Natalie was back
up from the couch and screaming.

“Easy, cool it.” Austin looked like a traffic cop
inserting himself between Blake and Marc, helping peel everyone apart by
spreading his arms in a push against their chests.

“His hand.” Allie’s words were muffled by her
still-lifted palms as she sagged in the catch of Kelsey’s hold.

Marc seemed mostly subdued by Troy hanging off of
his shoulders like a toddler refusing to walk.

It proved to be just a lull until Blake got enough
breath back to snarl at the older player. “I’ll fucking end you, Belmont.”

“Oh yeah.” Marc dragged Troy a few feet across the
floor. “What’re you gonna do, Blake? Good luck buying my fist out of your
face.”

Ivan had a struggle on his hands as he tried to
keep Blake corralled against the back wall.

“I’ll have you dragged out of here by the police on
an assault charge, that’s what I’ll fucking do,” Blake sneered. Already the
bouncers were starting to converge. The man from the stairs added his strength
to Troy’s as they pinned Marc’s arms and dragged him back. “Good luck keeping
your contract with a fresh criminal record.”

The threat seemed to register more clearly with the
other members of the team than with Marc. Allie’s throat was choked shut,
holding back cries she had no business spilling.

“Shit.” Austin looked between his two teammates,
stepping over to Marc and grabbing a hand in his collar like possession could
trump the law. “Come on, Blake, let me put him in a cab home. Let’s not do this
tonight.”

“You swung first,” Marc continued to argue. He was
still glowering darkly at Blake.

“You fucking threw me!” Natalie chimed in shrilly.

Marc turned the weight of his gaze onto his ex. He
wasn’t struggling, but the angered lock of his muscles seemed to anchor him in
place against the efforts of the men restraining him. His teeth were tight with
loathing and his words growled out deliberately. “You were hurting Allie.”

Allie didn’t know she could feel worse until all
the attention slid her way.  She was frowning so hard it hurt between her eyes.
Her mouth worked without making sound as she rubbed reflexively at her
claw-marked forearm.

“Right,” Austin called everyone back to order.
“It’s a clusterfuck, and it’s ending. We’re going home.” He said the last with
a stare into Marc’s eyes.

The bigger man bristled a moment, straining against
the constriction at his arms, but then relented with a curt nod.

“All right, Blake?” Austin glanced across to where
Ivan had let go of his friend. Blake was straightening out his shirt with angry
jerks. The blond jumped his narrowed look from Marc to Allie and then turned
away with a dismissive flick of his hand. “Just get him the fuck out of here.”

That almost set Marc off again, but he now had four
times his mass circled around him to assure he didn’t get loose.

Natalie didn’t want to let things go so easily.
“You’re just going to let him walk away?”

“Shut up, Natalie.” Austin wasn’t having any more
arguments.

“Candace, will you get my coat and meet us
downstairs?” Troy yelled over the music as he shuffled with Marc’s detention
unit towards the stairs. “We’ll need to call a car.”

“I’m on it, babe,” Candace chirped from where she’d
been hiding out behind the other couches.

Allie stared dumbly after the knot of men leading
Marc away, the eager butterflies in her stomach transmuted to a sickened roil.
She’d seen the guys be rough in the pool before, but that was the closest she’d
ever been to an actual fight. It was scary to think she’d been willing to
surrender herself into arms capable of such violence. Even if it was done in
her service.

“Did you want to go too?” Kelsey asked just for her
ears while she pet Allie’s hair comfortingly.

Allie still couldn’t make her voice work. She
turned her gaze to find Blake. He was standing over one of the tables, pitching
back his drink and talking to Ivan. His eyes met hers for a moment but didn’t
hold.

“M—maybe.” The word stuck on her lips. Allie was
still trying to blink away her shock.

Allie’s purse must have been near Troy’s coat,
because Candace walked over to offer it as she made her way out to the stairs.
“Here you go, hon. Exciting night, huh?” Ruefulness made her smile wan. “Sorry
you got caught up in that. And they’re supposed to select for sportsman-like
behavior.” She glanced a moment in the direction the guys had departed.

“Yeah.” Allie’s voice was still blanched. Her gaze
went to Natalie. The older girl was making absolutely no move to apologize to
her. “I think I should probably go,” she said to Kelsey.

“Okay.” Kelsey finished neatening Allie’s hair
behind her ear and linked arms with her. “We’ll walk out with you, Candi.”