Qualified: A Sports Romance (24 page)

It didn’t seem possible that the
team could train harder, but with the spot for the summer games secured things
shifted into even higher gear. At the same time, Allie’s internship term was
nearing completion. Once Violet returned to Colorado she was able to help Allie
look at her options, pulling up the policies and clarifying what Allie’s
obligations were. With a better idea of her status in regards to the central
office, Allie sat down with Everett to determine how to transition her role
working with the water polo team’s staff.

Marc laughed at her when Allie was surprised that
Lindsey offered her a position working directly out of her clinic. She thanked
the physical trainer profusely, but asked if she could consider the offer for a
few days. She had another lead to follow up on.

With Marc’s help, Allie had been in contact with
Doctor Seinder. She put together her CV and emailed it to him. After looking it
over, the associate professor invited her to come up to campus to speak with
him one afternoon.

Allie squirmed under the look Everett gave her
while he handed over the keys of his car. “I expect that Marc will be in practice
tomorrow, and is not planning on going with you.”

“I’m going on my own,” Allie confirmed with a
definite nod. She hoped that her blush wasn’t too obvious.

From visitor parking, Allie had to walk through two
different buildings before she finally found the directory with Doctor
Seinder’s lab listed. Luckily she had left herself plenty of time. Marc’s old
teammate was welcoming, getting up from his desk to give her a tour of the lab
and introduce her to the current students working there. Afterwards a number of
them joined in for a small walk through campus to grab lunch in the northern
quarter and talk further about the projects going on in the lab.

They finished up back in Doctor Seinder’s office.
Allie noticed a water polo ball on his shelf near the copies of scientific
journals and his graduate dissertation. “Do you still play?”

“There’s a pick-up game here on campus that I make
on occasion,” Doctor Seinder said with a grin. “Mostly it makes me feel rusty.
Though I was never as good as Marc.”

“No one really is,” Allie said without thinking.

Luckily it just made the professor chuckle. “Yeah,
he was always good in the water. It was the rest that seemed a problem for him.
Maybe I got a different view than most, being in the same major.” He must have
noticed the startled widening of Allie’s eyes. “You didn’t know that? I guess
he doesn’t seem like your typical bio major.”

“He’s never mentioned it.”

“I’m sure it was hard for him, realizing that he
couldn’t hack it. He never would ask for help. Didn’t want to depend on anyone,
I guess. He was a pretty messed up kid.” Doctor Seinder took a moment’s pause
to consider Allie. It returned a smile to his face. “Anyway, I’m glad that he
seems to have sorted that out. He seems happy.”

“Yes.” Allie couldn’t keep hold of Doctor Seinder’s
eyes. She looked down at the fiddle of her fingers in her lap, her smile
flickering. “He does like to rely on himself. But I don’t think that’s any way
to get through life. We have so much to offer each other.”

“Indeed.” The professor shifted in his chair. “And
speaking of offers. One of my staff is leaving for a postdoc this summer. I
will need someone to pick up those projects and carry them forward.”

Her chest tightened with nervous anticipation. The
invitation to tour his lab had seemed like a good sign, but she hadn’t been
expecting Doctor Seinder to make a job offer that afternoon. Allie nodded. “My
internship is ending next month so I’ll be looking for at least a summer
position, if not into next year.”

“Great. If you’re interested, I’ll keep your CV and
will speak with the department office. I have funds on one of my grants for a
research assistant. It’s part-time work, but if it sounds like something you
would consider I can get you some hard numbers of what the arrangement would
look like. Of course, many of our research assistants go on to apply
successfully for graduate programs here and elsewhere.”

Allie was more than interested. It was exactly the
kind of experience she hoped to get, and a chance to directly prove herself to
a member of the faculty at one of her dream institutions. Most importantly, he
seemed like a good teammate to have on her side. “I would appreciate that,
Doctor Seinder.” She started to collect her things and held out her hand to
shake. She’d spent so long trying to be professional, perhaps she’d forgotten
that it was the people who made everything worthwhile.

Instead of muffling her smile she let her joy
spread full wide. “I’ll look forward to talking to you soon.”

That night, after having a promised
dinner with Kelsey, Allie slunk over to the guys’ apartment and knocked on the
door. Adam answered in a towel. His blond hair was a partially-dried chaotic
crown. “Hey, Allie.”

“Evening.” Allie didn’t bother suppressing her
grin. “Is Marc in?”

“Pretty sure the old man went to bed already. But I
don’t think he’d mind you visiting.” Adam stepped back to hold the door farther
open and welcome her entry with a flourish. “I’ll turn up my movie so we can
pretend I don’t know you’re doing it.”

Allie wasn’t sure whether to be mortified or laugh.
She leaned towards the latter. “You’re such a gentleman, Adam.”

She wasted no time in heading down the hall to
crack the door to Marc’s room. In the spill of light she could see the bulk of
him beneath the blankets. “It’s me,” Allie called in a soft voice as she
slipped in. After only a moment’s indecision she stepped out of her shoes and
stripped naked. Scampering across the floor on tiptoe, she grabbed the edge of
the sheet and wriggled beneath it to curl up against the warmth of Marc’s bare
skin.

He shifted when her arms reached around him,
twisting to face her. His ankle slid between hers to lock her close in a latch
of knees. “Did you have a good day?” His voice was a low rumble cottoned with
sleep.

Allie nodded her head against his shoulder. “I had
a nice visit with Doctor Seinder.” Her fingertips mapped their way along his
side, finding their place fitted against his ribs. “I think he’s going to offer
me a job.”

Marc hummed into her hair. “If you accept a
position in Chip’s lab, would you move closer to the campus?”

She hadn’t really thought it through that far.
Holding on to Marc a considering moment, Allie felt the deep waves of his
breath and inhaled the cherished familiarity of his scent. She burrowed more
tightly against him, knowing her answer. “I want to stay with you.”

The shape of his smile kissed against her temple.
“Maybe you and Candi can carpool.”

“Maybe,” Allie agreed. She fell silent awhile to
listen to the lulling cadence of his heartbeat. “Marc? He said … I didn’t
know that you were a bio major.”

There was a brief well of quiet. “Yeah. I had some
idea I was going to revolutionize the transplant world.” The shape of his mouth
twitched rueful against her hair. “Except it turns out that fucking around all
through high school doesn’t set you up so well to ace competitive classes.”

“Transplants?” Allie frowned. She nudged her chin
upwards so she could try to find his gaze. It wasn’t hard to guess that it
might be difficult for him to talk about. And yet he could have deflected the
conversation with a simple ‘yes’
.
The fact that Marc had given her any
details at all was enough to prickle her fine hairs to stand in awareness of
his uncommonly-granted trust.

Reluctance still ticked through the strong line of
his jaw. “They said my parents died instantly, but my little sister was in the
hospital after the crash. They said they did everything they could. But. It
wasn’t enough.”

“Oh, Marc,” Allie breathed. She touched his face
with tender fingertips and then fiercely clutched him into the tightest of
hugs.

“It was a long time ago.” He’d said that before.
There wasn’t much more inflection this time. Like the words were worn thin. “I
told you I wanted to do your inflammation study.” That sounded more honest.

“I didn’t know,” was all that Allie could think to
say. It was all muffled anyhow since she was leaving no space between them for
so much as breath. He was tired, she could tell, because his arms weighed
heavily where they wrapped her waist.

That was okay. It didn’t matter that his frame was
much larger than hers—Allie promised through the straining embrace of her arms
and the tight twine of her legs that when he needed her, she could be strong
enough for the both of them.

Marc exhaled a hollow chuckle. “I know you just
thought I was being altruistic. Considering how I’m a model teammate and all.”
His fingertips grazed sleepy whorls over the dips of her lower back. “I talked
to Blake about doing a water polo clinic with a foundation he’s part of,” he
said after a minute.

Allie blinked in surprise and craned her neck to
look at him.

The opening of his eyes was slowed by the effects
of his long days of practice. In the dim lighting Marc studied the shape of her
features. “If I can get sponsors, it will be easier for me to stay stateside.”

“I don’t expect you to do that.” Allie’s reflexive
response was a little breathless.

“This is where I want to be.” Marc swept the warmth
of his palm over her curves. “Near you. You’re who I want to come home to.”

Allie was totally lost in his dark eyes. “I want
that, too.” She wanted it so much that it hovered like something huge had
entered the room, made real by their paired confessions. It was a dream turned
substantial—suddenly all those things once hazily out of reach were now waiting
to be explored and experienced in all their daunting complexity. The both of
them, together.

The weight of it caused Allie to duck her head in a
shy nuzzle against his shoulder. The promise of all their tomorrows was
overwhelming when even a moment with Marc could make her feel more than she’d
ever dreamed possible. Her hand stroked from the solid spring of his ribs, over
his hip, to the meat of his thigh. She squeezed in an attempt to achieve a more
playful grip on the conversation. “I want you to come to me.”

“Oh yeah?” There was a curl of something brighter
in the chest-caught echo of his voice.

Allie hummed affirmative. With a further twist of
her shoulder she took him in hand, her fingers teasing along his length. She
wondered if she would ever get used to having so much brute power twitching
captive beneath her touch.

With a rustle of blankets Marc tipped open to her
efforts. Allie pursued him, arching into the grab of his fingertips at her
rear. She caught his lip in her teeth before delving in for a savored kiss. The
way he hardened within the cuff of her palm twitched her into a needy grind
where the tangle of their legs left her straddled at his hip.

His shoulders began to rise beneath her, tipping
towards the nightstand. Lost in the pleasure of what she was doing, it took
Allie a second to replace her hand to his chest and shove counter to his
motion. She was licking at her kiss-plump lips when Marc met her eyes from
beneath the faint knit of his brow.

“I’m on the pill.” Allie held his gaze and watched
as Marc’s confusion melted into a desire-sullied grin.

“Well what are you waiting for?” Marc dropped his
shoulders flat to the mattress and whipped the blankets away with a toss of his
forearm. He tugged at her knee to pull her into a proper straddle. “Get on up
here.”

The press of her palms stabilized against the firm
planes of his chest and Allie swayed to a high balance on her knees.  Her smile
flared wide as she looked down at him from beneath the loose tumble of her
hair. “Just up here?” Her innocence was starting to ring false.

“If that’s what you came over here to do.” The
placidity of his comment was a lie. Marc grabbed her hips and shoved her
counter to the rising flex of his belly so that her budding wetness dragged
against his hardened length.

Allie gasped as the feel of him kindled greedy fire
beneath her skin and spread her own slickness between her thighs. “I did,” she
admitted with hardly any voice. Marc didn’t need to push her hips. She kept up
the rocking glide on her own.

“I came here for …” Allie was trembling on the
edge of incoherence while she encouraged his hands in their roam over her body.
The steady grind of her heated flesh kissed dampness along his length. His
pinch at the hardened bud of her breast seared new ecstasy across her senses.
She collapsed forward with a cry.

The reach of her fingers stroked reverently across
Marc’s cheek and then gripped fiercely at his nape. “I want it all,” Allie
panted into his smile-curled mouth between hungry kisses. Her other hand
fumbled back, steadying his length as she tilted to make the next rock of her
hips aim true. “I want all of …”

Allie’s voice cracked into a moan. It was so hard
and so much. The slamming slink of her spine embedded him to her core and it
dazzled behind her eyes. Her stomach quivered and her thighs spasmed, her toes
losing their grip on the sheets while her knees hugged tight to his flanks. The
overcome shapelessness of her mouth spilled hot breath against his cheek and
for a moment there was nothing else in the world but the feel of him bare
inside her.

Marc wasn’t about to let her catch her breath. “All
of my cock?” Her trembling weight laid over him was no challenge to his
strength. His returned grip on her backside slung around her thighs so he could
bounce her against his pitching thrusts.

Her control was lost. The loose curl of her fingers
scraped ineffectually at his skin and Allie whimpered over the first slow drags
that teased every inch of him against her heat-laced edges. The stretch of her
fingertips found the line of his jaw. “All,” she managed to whisper. 

He must have taken it to mean harder. At first it
was all Allie could do to fist her hands into the sheet beyond his shoulders
and brace herself against the resounding smack of his body. Her breath was shaken
out like sobs by the impacts, but between her sipped inhales she hissed:
yes,
yes
.

The scrabble of Allie’s toes found purchase and she
forced her elbows to straighten so she could look deep into the liquid dark of
his eyes. The fall of her hair curtained about them and exquisite winces knit
across her brow. She rallied her meager strength to kick her hips against his,
claiming Marc more deeply.

“I want.” Allie was shredded by her wanting, but
she was nevertheless determined. She fought for balance on one propped arm so
she could reach a clumsy trace of Marc’s eyebrow and then his lips. “I want
you.” Her fingers cradled delicately into the dark licks of his hair. “I want
all of you.”

“Allie.” There was no resisting the crush of his
embrace. Marc curled upward and wrapped her tight to his chest. He kissed her
between the desperate gasping of their breaths. Their rhythm fell briefly to
pieces but they found it again. Together, clutched close, they chased each
other to the final free-fall edge.

When Allie collapsed limply on top of him his
breath panted a devoted song at her ear and his heart beat on-and-on beneath
hers. In the darkness it seemed as timeless as the ocean. And yet, when her
arms would listen again, this was a vastness she was capable of holding. Her
shins hugged gentle to his sides and her elbows cradled around his shoulders.
The stroke of her fingertips played soft into his hair.

The rise and fall of his chest slowed. The song may
have quieted, but instead Marc spoke. “I love you, Allie.” The thrum of his
certainty vibrated between them. The solid weight of his arms wrapped in sure
hold around her waist. “I love you, and you’re the only thing in this whole
world I couldn’t bear to lose.”

A turn of her cheek let her see him. “You have me,
Marc.” She looked into the eyes she couldn’t escape and caressed the jaw that
relaxed into her touch. “I love you. I love you so very much.” Allie kissed it
to his lips and knew she’d never let him go.