Tuesday Update:  Finally in the queue!  Look for it tonight.

It’s late Friday night and I still have a bit to do on A For Effort – it’s looking like it’ll be up Sunday rather than Saturday.  Close!

Here’s an excerpt and blurb, as promised, to tide you over. 🙂

All’s fair in love and water sports!

Coach Josie Malloy is furious when new Head Swim Coach Adam Dupree starts messing with her plans to take her synchronized swimming team to greatness.  It’s bad enough that the college barely considers her discipline a sport, but now he’s encroaching on her funding and forcing her to share the pool!  To make matters worse, Josie can’t help the white hot attraction that steams up the room whenever they get close, but is she willing to risk her heart for a man who might mean the end of her career?

Adam Dupree knows that everyone is watching him – the pressure to turn the aquatics department into a world class program is immense, but he’d have no trouble handling it if weren’t for those pesky synchronized swimmers who insist on considering their activity a “sport,” and their maddeningly sexy coach.  Adam  is determined not to let them get in the way, a feat which seems impossible as the beautiful swim coach distracts him at every turn with her gorgeous body and fierce determination.  As their conflict escalates, Adam and Josie have to come to terms with their sizzling connection or risk losing their chance at love in the pursuit of aquatic gold.

EXCERPT:

“LOOK AT THAT ASS.”

“You can’t see his ass, it’s underwater.”

“I can imagine the tight ass that goes with those yummy shoulders.’’

“Does anybody care that that objectification of manhood is taking up our pool time?  Move over, I can’t see!”

Josie Malloy frowned at the ten teenage girls in matching swimsuits huddled behind the diving platform, their gazes trained on the lone swimmer in the Olympic-sized pool of the Malvern College sports complex.

“Ahem,” she said, and the girls jumped guiltily.

“Hi, Coach,” said Kate, brightly, though her eyes strayed back to the pool.

“Warming up means actually getting in the water, ladies.  You were supposed to start half an hour ago.”

Josie infused as much sternness as she could into her tone, and the girls shuffled uneasily.  She knew she was tough on them, but the synchronized swim team – eight regulars, two alternates – had real potential this year.  Josie had her hopes set on taking her team to the Olympic trials, and if that meant being a little stricter than usual, well…

“What about him?” asked Marisol, and Josie finally turned to look at the interloper in their pool.

He was at the far end, finishing a lap, and she couldn’t see much, but got the impression of dark hair and a toned physique.

Good form, too.

Josie shrugged.

“It’s our time.  He’ll just have to move.”

Everyone knew that the regular swim team had the morning slot, the synchronized swimmers got the afternoon, and Josie had hopes of putting together an official diving team for night practice.  Malvern was on the brink of becoming a major name in aquatic sports, and Josie wanted to be right there at the top.  It still rankled that she’d been passed over for the regular swim team coaching spot when Coach Schwinn had retired last June, but she was a damned good coach, and she was going to make sure her kids went all the way, whether it was synchronized swimming or dog paddling.

Win or die trying.

Her old diving coach’s morbid mantra came back to her, and she shook it off.  She was nothing like the egotistical old taskmaster who had taken her to the World Championship and then abandoned her after an injury cut short her athletic career.

So maybe Josie went a little overboard trying to prove herself.  So what?  She was giving it her best, even if that meant dealing with sexist council members, a lack of funding, and a depressing absence of a social life.  Josie couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a date that was a date rather than a desperate attempt to charm money out of some school benefactor over bad wine and snacks at one of Malvern’s regular benefits.

“Oh, baby,” groaned one of the girls behind her, followed by a collective sigh from the other nine, and Josie snapped out of her musings to watch the swimmer climb out of the pool.

Oh, baby is right, thought Josie, feeling a surprising clench of feminine muscles that hadn’t clenched for anyone in a long, long time.

He was gorgeous, a male specimen in his absolute prime, with longish dark hair slicked back from a face that could have graced a magazine cover, and piercing eyes that were either blue or black from this distance.  Water streamed down broad shoulders, strong pecs, and a chiseled torso, all smooth, golden skin.  Josie noticed there was no hair on his legs, either.

He’s too old to be a pro, she thought, puzzled.

“He’s like a merman rising from the deep,” sighed Audra, a sophomore poetry major.

“Yeah, if the merman was hung like a horse,” snorted Mei Lin, twisting her long black hair up under her swim cap as the girls giggled.

Involuntarily, Josie’s eyes wandered to the tight black fabric that cupped the stranger’s generous assets.  Even at rest, he filled out the skimpy suit in a way that was…impressive.

God, I wonder what he looks like hard.

The image hit her like a ton of bricks – his mouth curved in a wicked grin, his body tight with sexual tension and slick with sweat as he worked thick inches of cock into her hungry pussy, his muscles firm and hot as she dug her fingers into his biceps…

Josie shivered in arousal, and quickly covered it with a cough, horrified with herself.

“That’s enough.  Tick-tock, girls.  I’m going to have a word with our unwelcome guest.”

Her attempt to get things back on track was derailed as the stranger turned and bent to grab a towel, prompting a chorus of groans from the team.

“I told you.  Look at that ass!”

Rolling her eyes, Josie glared at them and started along the pool, relieved to hear the familiar splashing behind her.  She was around nearly naked swimmers all the time, but unaccountably every step she took toward this one had her clutching her clipboard tighter.

What is wrong with me? Josie scolded herself.

She had always been tomboyish and athletic by nature.  Most of her friends were men, though by now, most of them were married or in significant relationships.  Josie never knew what to do with herself when confronted with a single, handsome member of the opposite sex.  By the pool, she was in control and completely sure of herself.  At a bar or on a date, she worried about tripping in heels and not being “girly” enough to compete.  She had managed to sabotage more perfectly nice potential relationships than she cared to admit.  Bland potential relationships, but still.  It was stupid and all in her head.

But insecurities generally are, she thought, steeling herself.

“Excuse me,” she said, trying to ignore the play of smooth muscle under his skin as he toweled off and the fact that his six-foot-plus frame meant that she only came up to his very lickable damp chest.

He looked up, and Josie instantly forgot what she was going to say.

Blue, she thought, His eyes are a dark, beautiful, drowning blue.

HELL,  THOUGHT ADAM DUPREE, I’M too old to be fending off co-eds.

Ten years ago, he had to admit, the raven-haired beauty clutching the clipboard like her life depended on it would have been right up his alley.  The long braid reached the small of her back and the gray tracksuit couldn’t hide sweet, feminine curves.  Her eyes were a warm hazel, with a sprinkling of freckles over her pert nose, and a beautifully elven face.  And she had the most delicate, elegant hands he’d ever seen.

A sudden vision of tasting the pads of her fingers before wrapping them around his aching cock and showing her how to pleasure him had Adam bunching the towel in front of him, desperately hoping the move was smooth enough that she wouldn’t notice the sudden proof of his arousal.

You’re not a horny teenager anymore, he reminded himself, and this is essentially your office.

“Swim team tryouts start in September, the schedule will be up in a couple of weeks.  Anything else, you’ll have to find me during my regular office hours.”

The pretty little co-ed frowned.

“I’m not a student,” she growled.

Uh-oh.