RELAY
Series: Changing Lanes #1
Genre: M/M Contemporary Sports Romance
Author: Layla Reyne
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Release Date (Print & Ebook): January 8th, 2018
Length (Print & Ebook): ~ 63,000 words
Captain is not a title Alejandro “Alex” Cantu takes lightly. Elected by his teammates to helm the US Men’s Swim Team, he proudly accepts the role, despite juggling endless training, team administrative work, and helping out on the family farm. And despite his ex-lover, Dane Ellis—swimming’s biggest star—also making the Olympic Team.
Dane has been a pawn in his celebrity parents’ empire from crib to pool, flashing his camera-ready smile on demand and staying deeply in the closet. Only once did he drop the act—the summer he fell in love with Alex. Ten years later, Dane longs to cut his parents’ strings, drop his too-bright smile, and beg Alex for another chance.
Alex, though, isn’t ready to forgive and forget, and Dane is a distraction he doesn’t need on his team, until an injury forces Alex to accept Dane as his medley relay anchor. Working together, their passion reignites. When Dane’s parents threaten reprisal and Alex is accused of doping, the two must risk everything to prove Alex’s innocence, to love one another, and to win back their spots on the team, together.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Dane turned and tried his hardest to ignore the fact that Alex was dripping wet from a shower and dressed only in damp boxer briefs. “Celebrating.”
“By getting drunk? Aren’t you having enough trouble with the altitude?”
“You worry about you. I’ll worry about me.”
“And you just offered booze to Jacob, who’s underage and barely recovered from the last round of hazing. So yes, I’m going to worry about my team, which you are also on.”
Simmer heated to boiling again—anger, resentment, jealousy, and desire blazing—and Dane leaned into his captain’s face, inciting him. “Bet you wish I wasn’t.”
Showing more restraint than he had the other day, Alex pressed his lips together and clenched his jaw, holding in whatever he wanted to say.
Dane bent to pick up his bag. “Ever the self-sacrificing diplomat.”
A strong hand gripped his arm and hauled him back up. “You’re right,” Alex spat. “I wish you weren’t on my team. You might be the fastest, but you’re a privileged ass who thinks he owns this place when all you do is cause trouble. Between the press in our locker room, the sponsors telling us how to do our jobs, and you hazing other teammates, you are not worth it.”
“What’d you say?”
“You. Are. Not. Worth. It.” Alex punctuated each word with a shove to his chest, harder than before, backing Dane into the corner of the lockers.
Dane seethed and a rare curse rolled off his tongue. “Fuck you, Cantu.”
Alex wore a grin smug enough to match Dane’s earlier one. “You wish.”
Truer words had never been spoken. And Dane reacted to erase them.
With a fist to Alex’s face.
Author Layla Reyne was raised in North Carolina and now calls San Francisco home. She enjoys weaving her bi-coastal experiences into her stories, along with adrenaline-fueled suspense and heart pounding romance. When she’s not writing stories to excite her readers, she downloads too many books, watches too much television, and cooks too much food with her scientist husband, much to the delight of their smushed-face, leftover-loving dogs.
Author Tagline: Adrenaline-Fueled Romance
WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | FACEBOOK GROUP | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | INSTAGRAM | GOODREADS | NEWSLETTER