Qualified: A Sports Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

timing. We’re just about to
run some plays. It won’t really be a game, but it should give you an idea.”
    It was a little difficult to match all that naked
flesh to the guys she’d met yesterday, particularly with the funny hats that
they either wore or were putting on. There were three colors—two red and the
rest evenly split between blue and yellow.
    Some of the younger guys were horsing around. “Get
in the pool,” the coach yelled, unamused. The last of them were already falling
with ungainly shove-propelled steps into the field that had been defined by the
floating dividers in the water.
    Black hair … Allie didn’t see it, but then her
gaze latched to familiar eyes looking out from across the water while Marc
secured his cap’s bow beneath his stubbled jaw. She didn’t quite stop herself
from licking at her lips as her attention dropped down the lightly fuzzed
ridges of his torso, the pop of his lats as his fingers worked, and the
shockingly small stretch of red-white-and-blue that banded the clean-cut v
below his hips.
    His feet-first jump into the pool was as neat as a
diver’s.
    “See Belmont?” Adam asked with a bump into Allie’s
shoulder. “Wearing yellow cap seven?”
    Feeling caught red handed, Allie darted a look to
Adam while she nodded her head.
    He was focused on the guys setting up within the
pool, pointing out the arrangements at either end where nets like miniature
soccer goals floated. “See how he’s in the middle? That’s hole position. You’ll
see Marc stay there, while the others switch up and down on their sides looking
for an opening. Except for the goalie—the red cap stays in the cage like hockey
or soccer. Our goalie on the left is Austin, he’s one of the veterans of the
team too.”
    “Blake, I want to see you take the ball from Chad,”
the coach was yelling as he leaned out over the center of the pool with one of
the yellow balls extended in his hand. The sharp tweet of his whistle sent
everyone but the goalies into a whitewater sprint towards the field’s midline.
    “Chad’s our team captain, that guy out front in the
blue cap.” Adam leaned in again to narrate. “And I’ve played against Blake.” He
pointed to the yellow cap narrowly winning the race to corral the bobbing ball.
“He’s in his final year down in Southern California. They were both on the team
for the summer games in London.”
    Allie nodded her head vaguely, but she was too busy
watching.
    Blake scooped up the ball in one smooth motion,
drawing it up with a back-cast hand to cock for the throw. It was an impressive
show of strength, the force that rippled through muscle as he reared himself so
high out of the water that his waistband showed.
    As the field coalesced, all those wetslick bodies
started to collide in thrashing, roiling whitewater. “Oh my,” Allie flinched
towards Adam. “Is it always like that?”
    “Pretty much.”
    There were obviously some rules about contact going
on, especially around the ball. The defensive player in blue who was guarding
the teammate Blake had passed to seemed to be careful about keeping the flat of
his hands out of the water even while he loomed over the other player’s
shoulder. But away from the ball, instead of less contact there seemed to be more .
    In the center of the pool, the smaller-built
defender guarding Marc seemed to have him in a headlock. Violet had teased
Allie about the file containing pictures of wrestlers in Jello, but maybe her
friend hadn’t been so far off. And to be fair, it wasn’t that the guy was
small. It was just that Marc was a titan. With a sweep of his arm and a pitch
of those broad shoulders, the other guy disappeared under the water and Allie’s
study subject threw a hand up into the air to neatly palm the ball that his
teammate snapped to him.
    Marc didn’t hold onto it long. He twisted and
whipped his arm into a throw around his surfacing opponent, giving the younger
guy a faceful of tattooed shoulder to