Deep End: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (6 page)

Shit, I think to myself. This isn’t a good start.

People are staring. I completely forgot to change out of my
swim briefs
. I’m basically naked, lying on th
e grass on the quad, surrounded
by some girl’s textbooks. I’m still we
t, and the water is dripping from
my hair into my eyes. The chlorine stings them a little, even though my body should be plenty used to chlorine by now.

Finally, the girl looks at me.

“Oh, it’s you,” she says, practically spitting the words. She’s
obviously
disgusted
with me, and doesn’t make any effort
to
hide it.
“Look what you’ve done to my books, you
asshole.
”

“Sorry,” I manage to say.

She goes about gathering her books.

I try to get up to help her, but there’s something wrong with my back. I’ve never had back pain before. I’m not an old man. But shit, it’s burning, the pain radiating out from my lower back.

“Aw
,
shit,” I say, as I try to rol
l over onto my side unsuccessfully
.

“Stop faking,” she says, without a trace of sympathy.

“Hey, it’s Anchor!” shouts someone nearby.

“Way to go
,
Anchor,” shouts someone else.

“He really knows how to get the ladies, doesn’t he?
Runs right at them in his swim briefs
.”

They are
n’t laughing. They’re legitimately
impressed. But I’m used to fans. I have quite the reputation around campus, after all. Not only am I the biggest sports star on campus, since swimming is the biggest sport, but I’m also know
n
to have a way with the women, as Coach suggested.

As she’s bending down to pick up her last book, I can’t help but take a peak at her breasts. Even t
hough she’s dressed conservatively
by today’s college student standards, her shirt falls away a little
bit
to reveal her
magnificent
, beautiful breasts.

I look away before she can catch me.

Her last book gathere
d up and put back into her bag,
sh
e turns on her heel to leave. But
she gives me one last mean look, opening her mouth to throw another insult at me.

Her face softens. A look of actual concern runs across her face.

“Shit,” she says. “You’re actually hurt, aren’t you?”

“I was just trying to help with your bag,” I say, as
a way of apologizing
.

She bends down. I can’t help but take another quick look at her breasts, as
she leans over me. “Where does
it hurt?” Her voice is soft, amazingly soft and sexy.

“My back,” I say. “I don’t think it’s too bad. I’ll be fine.”

“Can you move?”

“I don’t
think so.”

“Let me help you.” She puts her bag down, and
grabs me under my armpits
and pulls me up. Shit, she is really strong. But this
fact makes me more worried than impressed. She’s acting swee
t now, but she seems like the type who’s not going to put up with my shit.

“I think I’m OK,” I say, standing up now, reaching around and feeling my back.

She’s
still
holding me though, her body pressed tightly against mine. It feels wonderful. My chest is naked, and pressed right into her breasts.

“I’m gla
d you’re OK,” she says. “Don’t worry
about the books. Not many people realize just how heavy this bag is, and to what lengths I’m willing
to
go to protect my
precious
books.”

“Yeah, I can see that…”

“What the hell?”
she says, interrupting me in a loud voice. “You’re getting an erection?”

She pulls away from me in disgust.

I look down, and sure enough, I
have a massive erection pointing
straight up,
obviously
visible in my skin-tight swim briefs
.

“
You’re
an animal,” she says, fury coming over her face again. She looks down at herself. “And you’ve gotten me all wet. Disgusting jock sweat, mixed with chlorine.”

“It’s just pool water,” I say. “Look, I’m sorry. You’re just
so
sexy, I can’t help it.”

I give her a look to gauge her response. She’s still standing there. That’s a good sign.

“Look,” I say. “Maybe you don’t like me at all, but
that’s
OK. I know you want
to
do this story on the swim
team
, and coach wants me to show you the ropes. He wants me to give you a personal tour, essentially. I’ll help you with all the terms. I may not know as much as you,” gesturing to her bag of
books, “but I do know a lot
about swimming that you probably don’t. If you’re going to write this article, then you’re going to need me.”

“Fine,” she says, curtly, turning and beginning to walk
away
.

Fine? That’s it?

“Come to the pool tonight at 5 pm, before the evening practice. I can give you some things to look for during practice.” I call this out to her, as she’s already ten feet away from me.

She raises her hand above her head, giving me a
noncommittal
gesture that I can’t quite read. But I’m pretty sure she’s going
to
come. After all, how can she resist the famous Anchor?

What a jerk! What a creep. How c
an he live with himself
? Does he really think that woman like that sort of thing? Does think I didn’t notice him taking sneaks at my breasts?

I pull up my
shirt
a little bit, getting
self-conscious
just thinking about my breasts.

Finally, I get to my dorm room, and flop myself down on my bed.

But I’m still wet.

Cursing Anchor (what a ridiculous name!)
,
I make myself get up again and change my shirt.

I look at myself in the mirror, analyzing my body. I pull in my stomach and
stick
out my breasts a little, trying to see if I can change my profile.

I’ve never been ha
ppy
with the way I look. I certainly don’t look like the other campus girls that flock to Anchor and the rest of the swim team.

There’s something going on inside me, though, something that I don’t want
to
admit to myself.

It’s that same feeling that I felt up in the pool balcony, when I saw Anchor.

I can almost feel his naked chest still pressed against me. I have to admit, he’s certainly hot, at
least
physically.

His body is stuck in my mind. After all, I got a pretty
close
up view of it when I helped him up from the ground. I wonder if he was actually hurt, or just wanted me to help him up. If so, that’s
completely
pathetic, the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard of.

I close my eyes, and try to think about something else, but his sinewy muscles are practically etched in my mind. He’s just so ripped. It seems like every fiber of his body has been
perfectly
placed, his
muscles
perfectly
sculpted to fit some ideal idea of a male body. He reminds me of the statue of David, in a way, but an updated, far sexier
statue
of David.

I reach for a book on journalism,
a
thick tomb of a
textbook
, to try to take my mind off Anchor. After all, I’m going to be seeing plenty of him, if he’s going
to
be my inside source to swim team
activities
.

I come across a
passage
I must have read a hundred times already. I’ve got it highlighted, with a little footnoted I added myself in my neatest handwriting, which looks practically like it was printed it
self. “Sometimes, the adventurous
journalist
needs to take advantage of an inside source’s more obvious
vulnerability
, to ensure that the full story is told, and told to the greatest detail possible…”

That was it!

I could tell Anchor liked me somewhat. He liked something about my body. Surely, it was only a passing thing. He just wanted to fuck me and add another notch to his
bedpost
or belt, or whatever those swimming creeps used… they probably notched their goggles for all I know.

But as this textbook was saying, I could play Anchor’s weakness to my advantage. I can pretend I’ll give him what he w
ants, my body, and without ever
delivering the goods, I can extract all the juiciest details
about the swim team. He doesn’t
seem t
o
o bright, and he’ll surely tell me all the dirt on
who
everyone’s slept with, and all the details of their most outrageous parties.

If I can manipulate Anchor as my inside source, I can write not only the best article I’ve ever written, but the best article the campus paper has ever published. And not only wil
l I ensure my place at The Journal
next year as a regular staffer, I’ll basically destroy the swim team in one fell swoop.
Beaumont
said he has my back, and there’s nothing the campus administration can do to touch me, no matter how mad they are about their precious little swim team
being insulted and raked through the proverbial mud.

My mind is racing
with the
possibilities
. I’m firing on all mental
cylinders
.

But despite my mental excitement, I manage to get distracted again.

I can’t get that image of Anchor’s body out of my head. Maybe this is
understandable
. After all, it’s been a long time since I’ve been with a man. I think the last time was a year ago, at one of the campus n
ewspaper parties, and he wasn’t
half as good looking as Anchor.

Despite myself, I find my hand sliding down under my belt,
reaching the edge of my
underwear
.

No!

I stop myself just in time.

I don’t
want to just be like Anchor and his
swim
buddies, letting desire of the flesh
overtake
rational thinking. After all, Anchor disgusts me.
Everything
about him
disgusts
me!

I pull my hand up, and go back to reading my
journalism
book.

I
take
out my
journalist
pad that I always carry around and begin taking notes. I need to plan out my attack on Anchor and his swim team. I need to do this thing right.

Suddenly, the phone rings.

It’s
Beaumont
.

“Hey, Allison, just wanted to see how the swimming story is going,” says
Beaumont
.

I know I’m one of the very f
ew students, perhaps the only o
ne, who has regular telephone contact with one of the professors.
The rest of the
students don’t
even
visit professors in the
ir office hours
, at least not the majority of them.
And most students limit their contact with professors to sending a couple last
minute
frantic emails a semester, desperately begging for an extension on a paper due the next day.

“I think I’m making some real progress,” I say. “I’ve got an inside source.”

“An inside source?” says
Beaumont
, sounding a little worried, which surprises me.

I go
on
to explain the plan I just cooked up. I read
Beaumont
the
quote from the textbook. I’m practically ca
ckling as I tell him my deviou
s plan.

“Look,
Alison, this is pretty advanced
stuff. I mean
,
that’s not a bad idea in some ways… But… Look, I just don’t want you to get hurt. I’ve heard a little bit about this Anchor character that you’re talking about, and I know what an effect he can have on women.”

I’m annoyed at his tone of voice, and it sounds like he’s giving me a lecture like I’m his daughter.

“Look, Professor
Beaumont
, with all due respect, I’m not one
these idiotic college girls who falls for the jock. Don’t worry. I’m not the typical story.”