by Paula Mabbel
© Copyright 2016 by Paula Mabbel - All rights reserved.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.
First Down:
First Time Romance
By: Paula Mabbel
Includes Bonus First Time, College, and Sports Romance Box Sets for your enjoyment!
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Table of Contents
First Down
NAVY SEAL ROMANCE
The Billionaire SEAL’s Secret Baby
My Forbidden Navy SEAL Cowboy
The Navy SEAL’s Secret Lady
The Navy SEAL Cowboy’s Baby
The Navy SEAL Cowboy
BWWM ROMANCE
The Brooklyn Billionaire’s Jewels
Knocked Up By The Russian Mafia Billionaire
SEALing The Victory
The Russian Billionaire’s Baby
My Secret Italian Billionaire
Ball So Hard: A Baltimore Love Story
HIGHLANDER ROMANCE
Child Of Two Clans
Warrior Of The Highland
CLEAN MAIL ORDER BRIDE ROMANCE
Sisters Of Faith
Rumspringa Break
The Crippled Cowboy
The Texas Billionaire’s Bride
Faith in A Cowboy
The Cowgirl’s Child
The Barren Bride
Murder In Montana
A Baby For The Bride
REGENCY ROMANCE
Two Dukes One Scandal
Only Way To Tame A Rake
The Duke’s Pregnant Maid
The Duke of London’s Baby
To Marry The Prince Or Love The Duke
The Rogue Duke: Scandalous Nobility
BAD BOY ROMANCE
First Time With A Cowboy
The British Biker’s Baby
LGBT ROMANCE
The Prince of Flames
His Very Own Omega
The Fire Within
Finding My Cowboy
Studying Her Body
Her Roommate’s Little Secret
First Time’s A Charm
The Protégé
SHIFTER ROMANCE
Taming The Alpha Wolf
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First Down
Chapter 1
Cassie
St. Bernard’s was a private school for exclusive people. It was so exclusionary that they didn’t even advertise. You either knew about it or you didn’t. They didn’t offer scholarships. If you wanted to attend to St. Bernard’s, you had to have the money in the bank. Cassie was lucky. Her father had created a new type of super strength glass. It was being used to make phone screens all over the world. They were loaded. It was new money, but it was money just the same and that opened doors.
St. Bernard’s accepted Cassie’s application on the spot. She’d spent her life believing that she’d need a scholarship to get into college, so her grades were above average. It wasn’t just her above average grades and new money that got her into the place though. It was the samples of her writing that she’d brought to show them. They knew that she was exactly what they needed to for the school paper. they offered her a position on it, before she’d even set foot on campus.
She started on the first of September. She drove up the curvy driveway, which led to the impressive, stately looking main building. Honeydew sweetened the air from the sprawling meadows that kept St. Bernard’s separated from the rest of the world. It was like nothing Cassie had ever seen before. She stepped out of her sky blue Bentley Continental and felt like she was going back in time.
It was so quiet. A huge contrast to the city living that she’d become used to. Her parents owed several different pieces of real estate throughout the states, but most often, Cassie had stayed at their Manhattan apartment. She’d liked being able to look out over the busy city streets that never slowed or darkened. The loose gravel in the parking lot crunched under her feet, as she walked over to the main building that had aged ivy growing up its walls.
Cassie spent the rest of her morning filling out forms. It wasn’t until lunchtime that she got her dorm room key and was able to leave reception. She looked down at the basic looking map the receptionist had given her. There were seven buildings on the campus. She was looking for her dorm room, which was behind the building marked down as dining.
Cassie was eager to get to her room, but she didn’t rush. She was too busy taking in the trees and perfectly kept gardens, which sat between her and her room. Before Cassie had come to St. Bernard’s she’d been in public school. Public school was good. It had given her the grades she’d needed to get into St. Bernard’s. It wasn’t the same though. Everything at St. Bernard’s was perfect. The trees were pruned; the grass cut even, there’s wasn’t a leaf out of place. Cassie could almost see the money that had been spent to keep the gardens looking so pristine--like something out of a glossy magazine.
She found her dorm room without a problem. It was three floors and all girls. The guys had their dorm at the other side of campus. Cassie was on the second floor. Her room was right at the end and had been built into a corner. It gave the room a slightly off L shape, which blocked the view of the door from her bed. She liked it. She walked over to the bed and threw down the rucksack she’d been carrying on her back.
“Um, what do you think you’re doing?” an accusing voice asked behind her.
Cassie turned and found herself facing a tall, blonde girl with huge boobs and a flat stomach. “Can I help you?” Cassie asked her a little apprehensively. Who was that girl? Why had she come into Cassie’s room without even knocking?
“Can you help me?” the girl smirked. “Look, you’re clearly new here, so I’m going to give you a pass,” the girl inspected Cassie quickly and then smiled with a false sweetness that gave Cassie toothache just from looking at it. “But, here’s the thing. This is my room, so you’re going to need to get out of it.” She walked over to the window and pushed it open, before pulling out a pack of smokes and lighting one.
“No, this is my room,” Cassie shook her head. “I’ve just unlocked the door with the key that the reception gave me.”
The girl laughed. “You’re going to need to go back down there then, because this room is taken.”
Cassie stared at the girl. Even though she’d opened a window, the room was still filling up with smoke. Cassie could feel it starting to cling to the inside of her lungs, as she tried to breathe. “Look, if you’ve got a problem then you can go down,” she said firmly, because she wasn’t going to get pushed around by smoky girl. “I got here first.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed and she stubbed her smoke out on the windowsill. She breathed out the last of the smoke in her lungs slowly. “Look, I know you’re new here, so I guess you don’t know who I am yet,” the girl said with an icy tone that was poorly disguised with a friendly smile. “But, I
’m not moving out of my room because of a new girl who thinks she’s going to call the shots.”
“I guess you better go tell reception that,” Cassie smiled sweetly. “If you don’t mind, I’ve had a super long drive, so I wouldn’t mind catching some shut eye.”
The girl’s perfectly tanned cheeks burned red. She looked like she was about to throw a full blown toddler tantrum. Cassie wondered when the girl had last heard the word no. It didn’t seem like something she was used to. She opened her mouth as though she going to speak, but then she closed it again and walked over to the door. “Don’t get comfy,” she turned back to Cassie, before she’d pulled the door open. “You won’t be staying here.”
********
Chapter 2
Liam
“Liam, what in the hell are you doing?” his coach screamed at him. The smell of damp earth and torn grass was all around him. He could hear his teammates yelling at him to pass the ball over, but he knew what he had to do.
His legs were on fire. Every rushed step forward pulled at already aching muscles. He was so close though. He could see the white line. There was only one guy standing between him and the win. The shrill speakers sounded like they were a million miles away. The commentator’s voice was almost indistinguishable from the roars that were coming from the crowd watching. He could feel the atmosphere around him starting to change. The uniformed sound of every butt in the stadium pushing forward on their seats seemed to fill the silence that had fallen from people holding their breath.
He was going to make it. He was going to make it. The white line was practically under his foot. He could already feel his fingers getting ready to drop the ball. He was there. The ball dropped. A millisecond of stunned silence followed that felt like an hour. He’d just won the game. The crowd broke into cheers. His team mate’s yells changed to celebration roars. They’d done it. They were going to finals.
“What you just did,” his coach dipped his head and slapped his hand against Liam’s shoulder. “It was risky.”
“I know coach, but we did it. We’re going to finals.”
“Yes, well,” his coach said with a frown that didn’t match the celebrations that were happening around him. “Don’t forget that you’ve got other people on the team.”
Liam wasn’t sure what to say. He’d won the game. He couldn’t understand what the coach’s problem was. It wasn’t like any of the other guys on the team could run that kind of distance. What did the coach want? Did he want the ball passed at the cost of the game and the championship? That was ridiculous.
“Oh my god, baby,” Lucy’s voice cut through the manly rumble in the room. Liam sighed. He’d been hoping that she’d wait outside the changing room. “You did so well,” her arms wrapped around his waist from behind.
“Oh, hey Lucy,” he turned, so that he could see the top of her blonde head. She turned her face up and her bright blue eyes met his.
“I can’t believe you’re going to the finals,” she smiled brightly at him. Her arms loosened and she pulled away from the embrace. “I’m so happy for you baby,” she purred, her hands still on his chest.
“Thanks,” Liam shifted, so her hands fell away. “Listen, I’ve got to um, shower and stuff. Do you want me to come find you later?”
She nodded. “Okay baby, I just wanted to tell you how great you were.”
“You’ve got a right cheerleader there,” Greg one of his teammates said, when Lucy had left the changing room. “I wouldn’t be sending her away, before a shower. If you know what I mean?” he elbowed the guy next to him and they both started laughing.
Liam shook his head softly and walked off for his shower. Lucy was hot. He knew it and every other guy on campus knew it. She was the one girl on campus that every guy wanted a go with. She was like the definition of a guy’s wet dream. She knew it though. She knew how she could make a man’s mind wander. She knew how a flutter of her eyelashes could get her almost anything she wanted. If someone drew a comic about her then her power would be beauty, but she wouldn’t be using it for good.
The hot water felt good on his tired and sweaty body. It was relaxing. Most of the guys had already left the shower, so the room was quiet except for the sound of falling water. It wouldn’t have been like that if Lucy was there. She would have talked, and talked, and talked. That was Liam’s problem with her. Some people might have thought that it was her flirtation with other guys, but it wasn’t. It was the fact that she never shut up.
She was hot though, so he dealt with it. He knew that if she was with him, then every other guy on campus wanted to be with him. That was kind of worth the headaches. Liam wasn’t stupid though. He knew that he was playing a dangerous game. He knew that like a bug attracted to a zapper that his attraction to her, would eventually end up destroying him. But, he was already in too deep; her light had already caught his eyes and there was no escape.
It had taken Liam a while to work out that there was no escaping Lucy. It wasn’t until they’d had an argument, and he’d tried to get with another girl that he’d realized no other girl would go near him. To them, he was Lucy’s. To them, Lucy owned him and she owned them. She was the queen bee and her things were left alone.
Liam reluctantly got out of the shower. His body was still aching, but he knew that the water couldn’t aid it anymore. He took his time getting dressed. The hot, sticky air hit him, as soon, as he’d walked out of the changing room. He felt instant sweat creep to the surface of his skin, so that the shower he’d just had could be deemed as pointless.
“Babe,” Lucy called from a stadium bench.
“Oh, you waited for me outside?” Liam tried to look happy about the fact.
“Sure,” she bounced to her feet and walked over to him. “I wanted to tell you about my day. It’s been awful,” her little ski jump nose wrinkled.
“We’re only on the second day of term, how can you be getting into trouble already?”
“I didn’t get into trouble,” Lucy scowled at him. “The school fucked up the room lists. They’ve put some new girl in my room and they’re refusing to move her.”
“There’s a new girl?” Liam asked curiously. It wasn’t often that St. Bernard’s took in new students. “What year is she in?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Lucy snapped at him. “Why is that even important? Aren’t you listening to me?”
“I’m obviously listening to you,” Liam sighed. “There’s a new girl, she’s been put in your room, and you’re being forced to share with her.”
“Exactly,” Lucy pouted. “I called my dad to see whether he could do something, but he just laughed and said sharing a room would do me good. What is that supposed to even mean?”
“I guess that sucks,” Liam shrugged, because the issue was such a non- issue, that he couldn’t take it seriously, even if she was.
*********
Chapter 3
Cassie
“So you’re the girl who’s taken over Lucy’s room and the school paper?” a brown haired girl glared at Cassie. They were standing in the small office that the paper was run from. She’d gone in to collect her first assignment. She hadn’t been expecting to get a load of crap with it too.
“I’m sorry?” Cassie asked.
The brown haired girl reached over her desk and pulled out a brown paper file. “Your assignment,” she said roughly shoving it in Cassie’s direction.
“Have I done something to offend you?” Cassie asked, because she didn’t want the girl’s attitude to carry over to the next time they saw each other.
The girl sniggered. “Look, you walk into our school. You take over Lucy’s room. You get a job on the paper without even an interview? What did you think was going to happen?”
“Right,” Cassie took the file from the girl’s hands. “I’ll get back to you when it’s finished.”
“Whatever,” the girl turned away from her.
Cassie was pretty sure that she was entitled to one of the desks in the
room. She didn’t ask for one though. She just took her file and left the office. The atmosphere had been cold. Clearly the room issue was more of an issue than she’d initially thought it would be. She hadn’t realized that the whole school was in love with Lucy.
The school had brought up an extra bed for the room. It made the small room feel even smaller. All of Cassie’s things had been forced under her bed, because Lucy had dominated the closet with her extensive collection of clothes, before Cassie had had the chance to unpack.
She got back to her room and sat down. Lucy had forced her to take the new bed. The one that was directly under the window, even though Lucy spent most of her time sitting there anyway. Cassie was glad to see that Lucy was out. She had the quiet little room to herself to examine the assignment she’d been given for the newspaper.
She pulled out the few loose pages. It was a sports piece. Cassie sighed. She’d told the school board, when they’d offered her the position that she hadn’t wanted to write anything sports related. Cassie thought back to the brown haired girl. Was this down to her? Had she deliberately picked something that she knew Cassie would hate?
Cassie sighed. They wanted an interview with the captain of the football team. He’d just won the game, which would take the team to finals. Lucy put the papers down and looked out of the small open window.. The day was hot and bright. She was glad that her classes wouldn’t start for another week, so that weather had a chance to cool. It would have been impossible for her to concentrate in a stuffy classroom on a day like that.
The door opened and slammed into wall behind it without any warning. Cassie jumped at the sudden interruption to her thoughts. Lucy was standing in the doorway. Her eyes were fixed on Cassie and focused with a deep disliking. “I’m throwing a room party tonight,” she said without any consideration over asking.
“Great,” Cassie sighed.
“You’re not invited,” Lucy told her firmly. “It’s going to be a few of my friends and I don’t want you here.”
